Kassu shrugged. As Zida seemed to be guessing in his own crudely insightful way, Palla had actually caused a lot of arguments between Kassu and his wife. Kassu resented the priest’s frequent visits, resented having to feed the man. ‘The will of Teshub Yahweh is not ours to question.’
Zida laughed again. ‘That’s for sure.’ But he spoke softly, for they were heading into empty country now, away from the city. He put his right hand on the hilt of his scabbarded sword, and Kassu found that he’d unconsciously done the same thing.
They moved without a light, but by now their eyes were fully open to the dark. The land, much of it disused farmland, was mostly empty. Once they saw an animal, like a big dog. It could have been a wolf; animals like deer and wolves had been spotted much closer to the city than they used to come. The abandoned countryside was reverting to the wild, some said, even so close to New Hattusa.
Kassu pictured the landscape. New Hattusa sat by the shore of a bay that opened up to the north; to the west a spit of land separated the bay from the Middle Sea. The city was protected by layers of defences, some inherited from the deeper past, some planned by the Hatti kings when they first moved the capital of their empire here. There were rivers to north and south, and to the east a tremendous New Wall, a mass of Northlander growstone and hard facing stone, that ran from the valley of the Scaramander in the south all the way to the Simoeis in the north. To the west, along the coast, there were sea walls and heavily defended harbours. The bay itself, where dredgers worked constantly to clear away the silt of the rivers, could be closed by the raising of a great chain across its mouth. And at the heart of all these defensive layers sat New Hattusa, Troy, within the ancient walls that had once famously failed to expel the Greeks, but had long since been rebuilt and had not been breached for a thousand years. But there were always threats, especially in these times of hunger and rootlessness. And given the way they were heading, Kassu guessed that this night the threat was approaching from the north, from the line of the Simoeis.
As they neared the river they sought out scraps of cover, staying away from the high ground, keeping to the shade of desiccated copses. Soon Kassu could smell the river itself, a stench of rot. The water was no more than a dribble through a bed of sour mud.
Then Kassu smelled woodsmoke.
He and Zida found a lying-up point in the ruins of a farmhouse, which they entered cautiously. This must once have been a favoured location, a bit of high ground close to the river, even if it was near the boundary of the city’s hinterland. Now the house was long looted, burned, looted again, and the interior was open to the sky. There was a huddle of bones lying in one corner, which Kassu didn’t look at too closely. The snow, falling heavier now, was collecting on what had once been quite a fine floor of stone tiles.
Crouching behind a broken wall the two of them peered out at the river valley. On the far side they saw a line of sparks, along the bank. Kassu tried to count the fires, but gave up when he got to thirty.
‘There they are,’ Zida muttered.
‘The river won’t be hard to cross. Not with the water as low as it is. You could just ford it.’
‘They might have started already, before it’s fully light. I would. Lucky for us a scout spotted them and came running back with the news. This is supposed to be part of the outer defence, along with the New Wall. If I were Himuili I’d build up this border. Walls and ramparts. The river isn’t enough of a barrier any more, you said it yourself.’
Kassu shrugged. ‘But Himuili can only do what the King and the Hazannu and the rest tell him to do.’ The Hazannu was the city’s top administrator, its mayor, a tough ex-soldier called Tiwatapara. ‘They haven’t got the manpower to do everything, not any more.’
‘So I’d buy some in. Rus. Scand even. Big hairy idiots the pack of them, but they can fight if you point them in the right direction.’
‘Who do you think
‘Hard to tell yet. Listen. You go back, take the bad news. I’ll wait until it’s lighter, identify them, count them, maybe spot when they cross if they haven’t started already.’
Kassu nodded. Splitting up had its obvious dangers, but the sense of it was obvious too. ‘All right. Jesus protect you.’
Zida, no theologian, laughed at the childish prayer. ‘Oh, stop off at your farm and tell that priest the Turks are on the way. Watch how fast he runs back to his church so Jesus can protect
11
By the time Kassu had got to the city, and had talked his way into the Lower Town through the Sphinx Gate in the Old Wall, the day was well advanced and the
And, as he tried to get to General Himuili at his station at the King’s Gate, Kassu got stuck behind the Procession of the Searching Jesus.
The march was a cacophony of noise, colour, dance, working its way around the circuit of the walls in search of the penitent rogue Judas-Telipinu. At the head of the crowd rode Jesus Sharruma Himself, mounted on an ornate chariot. The statue, larger than life, brought out of its church in the citadel for this special day, shone with gold plate and was adorned with precious stones. Jesus wore a Hatti soldier’s tunic with golden mail, but also the soft felt cap of a scribe; He carried a sword in one hand and a shepherd’s crook in the other, and tremendous palm leaves cast in gold crossed to make an arch over His head. And under all the grandeur, it was said, the statue’s core was a simple wooden figure carved by Jesus Himself, son of a carpenter, in His old-age exile in Old Hattusa.
The chariot itself was a grand affair, driven by two soldiers along with burly guards to keep away any overeager celebrants. The holy chariots were one responsibility of Kassu’s own general Himuili, whose formal rank was Chief of the Chariot Warriors of the Left, an archaic title with cavalry units having replaced the chariots centuries ago, but its ancient meaning lingered in ceremonials like this. The great chariot bearing the god was followed by a crowd — men, women, children — dancing, chanting prayers and singing hymns, and crying out supplications to Judas-Telipinu, the Missing God, to reveal himself. Jugglers, dancers and conjurers worked the fringes.
This ceremonial commemorated the culminating incident in the life of Jesus the Carpenter, a story familiar to every child of New Hattusa. After years of holy oratory that had infuriated the religious authority in the Hatti’s vassal territory of Judea, Jesus had been betrayed by allegations of heresy by one of His own followers, Judas. He was turned over to the Hatti governor, the Lord of the Watchtower, at his palace in Jerusalem, with a recommendation of execution. This Lord, who represented a state with an open pantheon, was repelled by these demands. And meanwhile a rumour swept the city that the rogue apostle Judas had repented, and confessed the falsity of his allegations. The Lord of the Watchtower decreed that Jesus would be spared if Judas could be found to repeat his recantation in the Lord’s own presence. So, throughout the city Jesus’ followers began a frantic search for the rogue apostle — and Jesus, some said to His own astonishment, was spared. Much later Jesus was brought to Old Hattusa in chains, but was raised up by priests and scholars, who recognised in the prophet’s message an ethical foundation for their own relatively tolerant, compensation-based system of laws.
After His peaceful death Jesus was welcomed into the Hatti pantheon. Now even a king would prostrate himself before Jesus Sharruma, son of Teshub Yahweh, the Storm God, and Mary, his Mother Goddess of Arinna. With time the incidents of Jesus’ life were incorporated into the tapestry of the Hatti religious year — and so every autumn the citizens of New Hattusa went searching for Judas, who had been identified with an older deity called Telipinu, the Missing God, who had to be brought out of hiding to bring the rains.
Usually the
