“Those men are going to do you little good, swathed in wool. Call them out.”
Smiling humorlessly, he snapped two commands, and then we really were alone.
“By the Dragon who spawned you,” he hissed, spurning pretense, and casting the pouch to the floor, “I should have dispatched you years ago.”
“But you did not, and now I am too big for you to strap. And I am telling you, if one more of my men dies by violence, I will take you out and put your neck to the plow and drive you like the ox you are through the city streets until your heart bursts.”
“Try it now, fool. I invite you.” His eyes gleamed. “Let me assure you of one thing,” he added, when I only stared at him, “you will never sit on the seat of kingship. And of another: you and your blood will be wiped from the land; none will survive; and none will recollect you, even your name, when I am done. But first, you will bow at my feet. Now! Do it! Or in the king’s name I will separate your head from your body this very night! I am Great King, while my brother is ill.” His face was as red as blood.
Making as if to obey him, I wondered if I could do what I had come here to do. As I knelt there, he murmured, “Good, good,” and leaned forward to run his fingers through my hair
By that hand I jerked him from his seat, my palm stopping his mouth. Then, my heart pounding like the ground under an approaching army, I pulled up his long woolen dress and knotted it over his head, wrapping the thick shawl around him, imprisoning his arms and muffling his voice. My knees on his back, I took the broad chariot belt from my own waist and with it gave him back what he had given me, while his legs kicked and his buttocks welted red and began to bleed.
Hardest was to walk out of there through his guards, closing the doors behind me dejectedly, seeming to endure their whispered taunts with bowed head.
When I had almost reached the court, I saw a flicker from the corners of my eyes (which were trying to crawl around to the back of my head) and in that flicker was a lord – blue-cloaked, with a long, black braid.
At the steps, my back muscles ticcing, I broke into a jog, and my men into a low cheer. Zida had been true to his oath, if belatedly.
“Lupakki, get us out of here!”
The clatter of the horses through the gatepost guard was to me a most welcome music.
When we had gained my wife’s estate, I forsook joining the men in their celebration; instead, I went out into the gardens and retched. When I had sat out my fear, I made a heartfelt offering to the Storm God, my lord. Then only did I remember my little concubine, and headed for the house.
Within it, the men waxed triumphant. I was fatigued beyond belief: I had been near sleepless for four days, trying to outrun my qualms. Passing through them, I murmured congratulations, and when I entered my wife’s room (which I had appropriated), I dismissed the guard.
Titai stripped me without a word and spent a time fastidiously putting my gear away. I lay stretched out, my whole body one vociferous complaint. When she came to me, solemn-eyed, I fended off her attempts to distract me, holding her wrists in one hand and her body against mine with the other. “Are you going to tell me about the Sutu, or am I going to beat it out of you?” I growled, though I never would have hurt her.
She shivered and whispered into my armpit, “My lord, please do not give me to them.”
“What? Where did you get that idea?” Then came her long discourse: how she had failed me; how she knew when a man had tired of her. Finally, in a little choked voice she pleaded that I must not sell her back to the Sutu – for this boon, she would love me always in her heart.
When I gathered my wits, I assured her I entertained no such designs, and demanded to know how many times she had been sold before (thinking to myself that she had been no virgin when I found her, though her breasts were only budding then). So I heard from her what I might have guessed if only I had thought about it: how she fell into bandits’ hands when her parents’ entourage was waylaid; how she’d been sold, and traded ever eastward, away from that land where she was born. She retained few words in her native tongue – none of which were familiar to me – and recollected, of her family, only her father’s appearance. As she recounted to me her various masters and her sojourn on an island which must have been Alashiya and her eventual disposition to the northeast where I had found her, I was sorry I had asked, and vowed to myself that not again would she be traded off like a dray-horse. But I only said to her that she would have to get used to my Sutu, and soothed her to sleep.
The next day, no Meshedi put us under siege. But not until the moon waxed full did I begin to breath easier, and to believe what I had told myself: Kantuzilis would not spread word of his ignominy at my hands.
When the moon had turned around twice more again, the weather broke, and since Tuthaliyas was still sick he called the generals, the commanders, and the chiefs-of-a-thousand together to begin to offer up postings for spring.
He had had news from the frontier west of Gasga: a certain Piyapili, a martial governor of ours, was accused of letting the Gasgaeans into the country, and even into the houses of the gods. When he asked “Who will go?” I said that I would, and there he agreed to send me.
Himuili was at that meeting, and Kuwatna-ziti also, and despite myself, I sought the Shepherd out. “Tasmi,” he smiled, and embraced me. He had shaved off his beard. We were on the purple marble path leading from the residence to the audience hall. “Himuili told me of your decision, and I think it realistic.” Himuili, with a wry shake of his head, made a show of searching for spies behind bushes.
“Let us go to my house, my lord Shepherd,” I suggested.
His eyes clouded. “To your fortress, you mean. I would, if not for reasons you well know – I am assuming you still have her?”
“I do.”
“Then I cannot.”
“Thank you for setting men to watch over my wife.”
“Thank the Arinnian lords. They have not forgotten you.”
“This is no place for this,” Himuili hissed, offering his own house as an alternative. We went there, and talked long into the night about whose support could be counted upon, and whose not.
“Tasmi, your mother is in a very difficult position in this.
I… do not know quite how to say this without offending you…”
“Say it and take the risk, then.”
“Her loyalty is not sure.” The Shepherd received a bitumen cup from Himuili’s deaf-mute slave.
“I know that. She knows she can control Zida, and that she cannot control me. When last I wrote to her, she recommended that I supplicate my god, so that he would purify my heart and bring peace to it.” Zida, from his titulary in the Meshedi, could accede to the kingship as easily as I; even then, he resided in the house of the Gal Meshedi, taking Kantuzilis’ orders and attentions and doing scribe’s work.
That long night’s conference ended only when we ran headfirst into the wall Titai had built between us: divesting myself of her was the price of their aid; I could not pay it.
With a bitter heart I left them, going to inform my men that we went out on the morrow at the head of the Great King’s force, taking half our own Sutu with us, to see what might be seen in the matter of Piyapili and his town on the Gasgaean frontier.
It was a job for a magistrate, not a general, and when Piyapili stood exonerated and his defamers were separated from their tongues, the Great King still lay abed in Hattusas. So he sent me further orders, and I proceeded with the army into the Lower Country, where the Gasgaean enemy had been burning towns. And the Gasgaeans who were inside the Hattian border had treated the land very badly. So we met them, all twelve tribes who were in the country; we slew the tribal troops wherever we caught them. With the gods’ aid, we took from the Gasgaean warlord all that he held and gave it back to the Hittites.
By that time my “father” Tuthaliyas was well enough to come down from the Upper Country, and met the army in the town of Zithara, where we were campaigning. From
there we went on a tour of the Lower Country towns, reclaiming some who had gone over in fear to the Gasgaean enemy, and some who had joined the Arzawaean enemy. Tuthaliyas drank his way from one town to another, and the men slept uneasily.
At length – after three months of indecisive battles and needless coercion of loyal towns, and after such mismanagement of a major engagement with the Arzawaeans that my Sutu began looking longingly south, toward the distant Niblani Mountains – my patience grew frayed. But just when I was about to confront him, he once again became sick and prepared to return to the Upper Country.
So I went to him and pleaded the men’s case: “We are much demeaned, filled with wrath. O, my lord, send me against the Arzawaean enemy, and we will return triumphant to Hattusas, bearing Anna’s head.” Now, this “Anna” was an ally of the Arzawaeans, who in my father’s time had come up from the Lower Country and taken Hittite towns, making Tuwanuwa and Uda their frontier. Uda, especially, was a loss to the land, and my palms itched to reclaim it.
He was very drunk, that day, calling me demon’s bastard and cursing me for my youth and my strength. But he sent me against the enemy, and if he sent me short-manned, I did not mind.
As soon as Tuthaliyas and half the army had departed northward, I took what remained to me – ten units of thirty, a hundred chariots and the difference in foot – and set out against the Arzawaeans. When I had marched for the first day, I came upon the enemy barricaded in a town. And the gods helped my army: the Sun Goddess of Arinna, the Storm God of Hatti, the Storm God of the Army, and Istar of the Battlefield, so that as we were slaying the Arzawaean enemy, their lords came out to treat with me personally, and thus I triumphed over them.
But I had not met Anna; I did not have his head. I did not turn around. I went onward, and met three more tribes and slew them. Since my men were still willing, we strode through the country occupied by the Arzawaean enemy, striking fear into them, so that they massed their forces and came against us near Uda in a multitude. And we slew that multitude in a battle so fierce blood coursed in the gutters and entrails clogged the streets. Then two princes of the Arzawaeans sent word: since a whole tribe was slain, they would withdraw from certain towns. Thus I wrote my first real treaties, though only with princes. But seven times those princes bowed down before me; seven times they praised my men, and the gifts that they brought us were rich indeed, so that when we turned around in the browning grass to return to Hattusas, we were loaded with booty, though we still did not have Anna’s head.
It seemed to all of us that Tuthaliyas would rather possess living towns than dead princes; we had done valiantly in Hatti’s behalf; we felt ourselves heroes and entered the city accordingly.
CHAPTER 9
A man has certain moments in his experience, days that he will recollect unhazed by time throughout his life – and beyond, if there is truly kingship in heaven:
We drove triumphant through the lower city while the people threw flowers at us and stones at the captives; young girls danced in the streets and boys ran with the processional. I snatched up a curly-haired girl and perched her for a moment on my car, kissed her, then let her down. The crowd roared. To my right drove Lupakki, whose grim smile showed the shadows of strain; I caught his eye and made a, sign with my hand that put real humor there. His helmet gleamed, its plume swaying. All of us gleamed; I had made sure of it.
As I had made sure that my wife was safe in Arinna, and that Titai was hidden safely where none would think to look for her (done by messenger before we even saw the citadel rising up from the plain), I had also sent word to Himuili and Kuwatna-ziti of what I was about; they were due that courtesy. Though the price of their aid was too high, I owed them each time to think of their own futures.
At the end of such a parade, the procession stops at the pedestrian gate leading into the palace citadel. There heroes and their honor guard mount the stair, in full war regalia: bronze axes, bows, spears as well as swords. My honor guard that day numbered fifty, and the heroes I had put upon my list fifty more. Among the guard, under a helm here and there, a Sutu’s pigtail jutted, a toothed necklace gleamed.
I had a braid myself by then, dangling down my back drawn under my helmet. Customs in Hatti are diverse; none questioned my inclusion of Sutu in my honor guard, although several marked it.
The men were passed through the small citadel gatehouse atop the stairs and up the ramp to southeast ascent, the only one suitable for the ornate ceremonial chariots waiting to meet us.
After being driven by chariot between the colonnades into the lower court, we were lauded to the people. When the sun stood high and that was finished, we were admitted through the inner gate building to the middle court, and eventually through the double guard of Men of the Golden Lance and pages lining the pillared way into the halentuwa-house court itself, where lords and high officials and representatives of the gods of war awaited us.
I picked out my brother Zida upon the stairs by the right doorpost. He was pale as Kantuzilis, but not because he knew anything from me.
“Lupakki, something is amiss. Give the caution signal.” And he did, so that silence overtook my ranks.
I saw my mother, clutched among the Great Ones, with Kantuzilis not far off; the Pale One was smiling.
My men positioned next to the other Hattian soldiers to be honored for their good works, I took my place next to Himuili who, along with Kuwatna-ziti, had again made it to the heroes’ role. Beside them one other hero waited, and of him I knew very little.
Himuili looked straight ahead. We three and this other commander, one Takkuri, were the ranking officers in the ceremony. The chiefs of 1,000 (robed in long woolen dresses, man-length shawls folded diagonally over their shoulders) wore only huge ceremonial swords – curled clumsy things – at their hips. The palace officials and the Great Ones sported nothing better than fashionable, bejeweled stickers over their finery.
“Nice day for it,” I muttered to Himuili.
Only his lips twitched; the huge, green-flecked eyes stared straight ahead. Mine followed, to behold the Great King stumbling down the steps on Kantuzilis’ arm. Weaving, pushing Kantuzilis away, snarling, his eyes looked as if they would pop from his head as he glared at us, one section at a time.
The clergy, attempting to preserve normalcy, began the incantations, offering loaves and oil and honey to the gods. Only a moment had they been droning when Tuthaliyas, arms swinging, stomped over to the priestess of the Sun Goddess, stuck his face close to hers, and screamed at the top of his lungs for silence. Having got it, he peered around him, jaw outthrust, swaying. Then, suddenly, the king faltered, lurched forward, and the offering table careened, tottered, crashed to the stone.
There came a murmur from the crowd. Tuthaliyas again screamed for silence. In it, I heard men shifting, the clink of gear.
“You!” roared the Great King, his pointing hand wavering wildly, so that no one knew who was meant. “Heroes! I spit upon you! You are not heroes! You come thieves, come to steal away the people’s love! I will not allow it!” Then, as he turned to me, I saw Kantuzilis slip through the crowd, his brow furrowed. “You, you little bastard. You have deceived me. Where is Anna’s head?”
Behind my back I made a certain sign with my fingers, one I could only hope Lupakki saw – this had been no part of our plan. Stepping forward, I heard Himuili’s mutter, but not what he said. To Tuthaliyas, I replied, “Anna’s head,” – slowly approaching the three stairs I would have to climb to get to him – “is yet on his body, but the frontiers of the land are enlarged.” The crowd was shifting. I chanced a glance at Zida, whose hand was perpendicular to the ground in the Meshedi holding signal.
“You liar. I am –” Then, as Kantuzilis’ white claws came down on Tuthaliyas’ shoulder, I shouted: “You are nothing. You have made a mockery of this kingship before the people. Let the Oath Gods decide between us, or cede me the seat you cannot hold!” I whirled around, checking to be sure that my men awaited me, that their
resolve was strong, that their courage would hold. Then I faced the Great Ones, the Chiefs, and the lords, saying, “I give you each warning! Make your decisions!”
Even as I spoke, Kantuzilis screamed “Take them!” springing on Zida a moment before I loosed my men and, with bare sword and ax, waded into the battle suddenly boiling around the Great King. To get there, I hacked my way through a Meshedi’s neck with my ax, tore another off my back – too late to avoid a long slash on my chest. Then I could see no king, no brother, no allies, just the enemy: the Meshedi, the hostile lords. Never have I laid about me with more satisfaction. An uncle went down under me and a chief took my ax in his mouth. Long did we fight there, until a hoarse voice calling repeatedly for a halt to the carnage could be heard, and heeded.
When I had wiped the last blood and sweat from my eyes, I was standing calf-deep in Hittite high-born. Shaking gore from my ax, toeing away corpses, I peered around me: most of the men left standing were mine. Far from the fighting ground, my mother, two Arinnian lords and a few palace officials huddled; from behind the halentuwa-house, the clergy peeped, lamenting.
The hoarse voice had been Kuwatna-ziti’s; in it he now proclaimed the day ours. I turned corpses until I found Tuthaliyas. Digging down to him, I found Kantuzilis, his fat body split like a slug’s; it looked as if they had died in each other’s arms.
Then only did I take thought to whom I had lost, and whom I had not. My brother Zida limped toward me – a sign that he had fought for me in the fray; I had put Hatib to watch him closely, with orders that he should not survive if he raised hand against us. Hatib, unscathed, was bending over a richly-clad body, drawing a jeweled girdle from its hips. As I counted heads, I found that I had lost two of my Sutu and five Hittites. Kuwatna-ziti, too, had lost a few men. But the Meshedi and the foul officials we slew were uncountable.
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