pushed forward, making for the Pergamos, the old citadel with its temples and palaces. Even away from the procession route the city was crowded — it was always crowded these days. As the drought had worsened and banditry went on the increase, more people from the countryside had got into the habit of coming into the city’s safekeeping at night. So the marketplaces had been built over, and even some of the great temple places were crowded with huts and shacks, with fires burning on the marble pavements and children chasing around the pillars.
When Kassu reached the King’s Gate in the wall around the Pergamos he was surprised to find the King himself was already out of his chambers, before the open gate. Shielded by a fine curtain and sitting under a huge parasol to keep off the snow, Hattusili the Sixteenth was a small man, portly despite the years of famine and drought that had plagued his empire — but then he was the King, and kings did not obey normal rules. He was muttering to a chamberlain, a flabby man in a purple robe who had the look of a eunuch to Kassu; the chamberlain was going through a scroll, densely printed.
The King was surrounded on three sides by guards in suits of mail so complete that even their faces were covered, but with ornate embroidered tunics, and elaborately painted almond-shaped shields. And before the King stood the supplicants, ordinary folk of the city in a long line, carefully shepherded by more guards with swords and stabbing spears. They all wore hooded cloaks so they could not look at the King, and he did not have to look at them; they were like mounds of grimy laundry Kassu thought. At the head of the line they were addressed by more chamberlains with wax tablets for note-taking. On festival days like this you could approach the King in person, and in his presence you would speak to one of his close advisers — never to the King himself, who stayed back from the unwashed, discreetly shielded by a veil of near-transparent linen. The Hatti kings had always had a deep fear of contamination, of filth and dirt and corruption.
To one side of this small piece of theatre stood a group of men, some in mail, some in elaborately embroidered courtiers’ robes. Earnest, evidently powerful, they spoke gravely and quietly. Kassu recognised Himuili, his own commander, as well as the Hazannu, the mayor, and Angulli Father of the Churches, the empire’s high priest — and Prince Arnuwanda, nephew of the King and cousin to Uhhaziti, the
Then a rough hand shoved him in the back and he fell heavily to the cobbled ground.
With a scrape of armour, heavy steel plates stitched into leather, Himuili Chief of the Chariot Warriors of the Left, came and stood over Kassu and kicked him in the ribs, as it happened just where Zida had got him that morning. ‘Get up, idiot.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Kassu scrambled to his feet.
Himuili was half a head taller than Kassu, maybe forty years old, with a face like a clenched fist. ‘Kassu, is it?’
‘Yes, sir. Of the Fourth Infantry-’
‘Shut up.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I told that idiot Zida to take somebody and go scout out whatever’s going on at the Simoeis. He said he’d take you, Kassu. He said you’re an idiot.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘But he didn’t say you’re an idiot that deserves to get his head stuck on a pike for failing to prostate himself before My Sun,’ and they both nodded their heads at the King’s title. ‘A dozen lashes. Report to the wall barracks later.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Shut up.’ Himuili beckoned, and led Kassu back to the group of high-ups.
Father of the Churches Angulli regarded Kassu with curiosity, Prince Arnuwanda with a kind of grim readiness despite his youth, and the Hazannu stared with contempt. They were all tall, well-fed men, like great trees standing around Kassu, and he prayed that his tongue wouldn’t tie itself up.
‘Well?’ Himuili snapped. ‘Good news from the Simoeis, or not?’
Kassu briskly described what he had seen on the far bank of the river, the fires he had counted, his own rough estimate of the force that was approaching the city.
Arnuwanda spoke now. ‘The question is who they are. The Franks rarely come so close to the city and we can usually buy them off anyhow. .’ The prince was no more than twenty years old. He wore his hair long but loose, his upper lip was clean-shaven, his beard carefully shaped, and his young skin shone with expensive oils. He had a new tattoo on his cheek, a circles-and-bar design that looked like a souvenir of his long summer visit to Northland. His accent was smooth, Kassu thought, but oddly spiced, probably thanks to the Greek and Northlander tutors who had been imported to educate him. But he held himself like a warrior, having been educated in those arts by men like Himuili, and having ridden out in battle at the age of fifteen, or, some said, even younger. The Hatti had always needed their princes to be generals. ‘If it’s nomads,’ the prince went on, ‘we might have more trouble. Difficult wretches who don’t know when they’re defeated. They just scatter on their ponies hoping to lure you into traps-’
‘If they haven’t eaten their ponies already,’ Angulli said, and he giggled. This was the Father of the Churches, Brother of Jesus; he sounded slightly drunk to Kassu.
Himuili rolled his eyes. ‘We’ve ways of dealing with nomads, sir. The Turks are more persistent nuisances, especially now they’ve captured so much territory in eastern Anatolia. Gives them a base to fight from, you see.’
Arnuwanda nodded. ‘But at least, again, we know what we’re dealing with. The problem will be, as always, raising the manpower. And feeding the men.’ Another swirl of snow came down, thicker than before. Arnuwanda pulled his expensive-looking purple cloak tight around him.
‘Not the Turks,’ came a booming voice, immediately recognised by Kassu. ‘And not the Franks either.’
There was a commotion among the outer layers of the guard. Zida, for it was he, strode boldly towards the group of dignitaries. He had taken off his cloak and had wrapped it around some kind of trophy that dripped deep- red blood as he walked.
‘Let him through,’ Himuili snapped. ‘Let him through, I say!’
Zida, standing before his general, panted hard. Even the King, Kassu noticed, peered out of his linen tent to see what the fuss was about.
‘You’ve been running,’ Kassu murmured.
‘Faster than you, farm boy.’
‘A dozen lashes for your failure to prostrate,’ Himuili snapped.
‘Of course, sir.’
‘Tell me what you have.’
‘The identity of our attackers.’ Zida held up his bloody bundle and pulled away the cloak — to reveal a human head, roughly severed at a neck from which blood still dripped, a face pale with a heavy moustache. Zida held it up by a hank of red hair. There was a collective gasp, a wave of shock that spread out through the crowd of onlookers. Even the hooded supplicants were distracted, even the King. Reflexively the guards clustered closer around their master.
Kassu spotted his wife Henti, on the edge of the crowd, dressed in her
Himuili stepped forward. With his thumb, he opened one of the relic’s closed eyelids, to reveal an eye as blue as the sea in summer.
‘In fact he found me before I found him,’ Zida admitted. ‘He crept up behind me. Lucky I got him first. Otherwise-’
‘Otherwise you would have died uselessly,’ Himuili murmured, gazing at the head. ‘And all that expensive training wasted. Careless, that. Make that two dozen lashes.’
‘Thank you, sir.’