Over the meal, he came around to what troubled him: “My girl, Khinti, is not what you are expecting.”
“I have seen her; she will do.”
“It is not her face and figure – which, to her advantage, are her mother’s and not mine; but her temper and nature – what she inherited from me.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, Suppiluliumas, my lord, that she has said she will have no greasy old king if she must spend her own life to buy her freedom. Now though you are not yet greasy and by no stretch of the imagination old, I know my daughter. If she is unwilling to accept your proposal, not the whole of the Hattian army nor the will of the Thousand Gods will prevail against her.”
“I have had a surfeit of unwilling women. It is a plague upon the nobility, I fear, that we spread among ourselves by so elevating the Great Queen… all women feel themselves queens at heart. When one of their number is so privileged, all crave similar power.”
My prospective father-in-law put down the silver goblet from which he had been sipping. “How old are you?”
I told him I thought about twenty-five, adding: “I seek a mate who can rule in my stead, not just warm me of an evening. I have three princes to raise and empire to secure so they may have something to inherit. If I cannot interest your daughter, then she is useless to me. But if I can, and she has your…” I sought a delicate phrase, “…canny grasp of realities –”
His laugh boomed loudly. “That she has. And she speaks, shall we say, all the requisite languages. Nor are her blood ties in the islands unwelcome to you.” He was nodding. “Well then, speak to her, my friend, and good fortune to you. But I warn you, she is a daughter of the Sun Goddess of Arinna. Hebat-Tasimis the Bloody is her Lady. She is more full of wiles than a panther with an empty belly.”
I raised an eyebrow at that, and inclined my head politely, saying only that I would see what could be seen, calling him “friend” as he had me. I did not quite believe that the man I saw before me had so little control of his daughter.
As he walked me to the doors of his study, he put a hand on my arm: “If all comes to naught, my lord king, I have three younger girls who are yet malleable. I would be amenable to a similar bargain over any one of them, and more sure of a satisfactory outcome.”
“My father, have no fear. It is a matter of principle with me now. Three years I have been wooing this child of yours and all my court knows it. I will take her back in the very chariot I drove down here, and she will not be unwilling. I have had a little experience –”
At that moment my host pulled the doors inward and a girl, hardly more than twelve or thirteen, jumped up from her crouch and dashed down the hall. With a shout, her father leaped after her and there ensued a brief struggle, at the end of which the girl was banished to her rooms in tears, and I found my own eyes wet with mirth.
All the way to my accommodations my prospective father-in-law held forth on the tribulations of rearing girl children, to which I could only say that I had been favored with no princesses thus far.
“I will send her to you, my friend,” he promised at last, and took his leave.
My apartment had two rooms, lavish enough in a manly way, its walls covered with sere hunting scenes and floors strewn with trophy pelts, horned and fanged. Outside at each end of the corridor were posted armed guards, to whom my host had introduced me as he commended them into my service for the evening. I paced the quarters, feeling as if I had made camp between the jaws of the dragon, Illuyankas, and thought pernicious thoughts. After a time I fed the hearth, opening the shutters to roll up the curtains for the night.
Sampling his wine, I wondered once more as to the wisdom of this undertaking. When at last the double doors rattled, then cracked open, I was brooding over my drink, sprawled on a settee strewn with a foxtail rug, and half expecting to see the pikes of the guards, for I had nearly decided I had made a mistake. It would not have been the first time a king’s pride had been his undoing.
Thus I was up on my feet with dirk in hand, spilled wine dripping between my toes when she stepped through the doors and closed them behind her.
“Truce, my lord Suppiluliumas? Surely what my father has told you of me has not made you fear for your life?” Her eyes were the colors of her father’s, but thrice as wide. Her hair, black as my own, tumbled unfettered over bare pale shoulders, wide and proud.
Flushed, I mumbled that one might expect she would come announced, accompanied by handmaidens, or at least a chaperon, while hastily sheathing my blade I stooped down to retrieve the fallen goblet.
Our hands reached it at the same time, touched. She drew hers back; the bracelets she wore tinkled. Crouching there, I cast aside pretense, rendering her the complete and admiring scrutiny her dress – or rather the lack of it – demanded. The girl who knelt at arm’s length opposite me wore a pleated length of sheer stuff wrapped once around her, and bracelets on wrists and ankles – that was all. “I had thought, from what your sire said, that you would come to me swaddled like a priestess or bearing arms like your goddess. If I stare, then I can do no different. The three years since I last saw you have only exalted your beauty.”
On the lids of her downcast eyes, gilding caught the light as the fire flared up. “My lord, you have me at a disadvantage – I had not ever seen you until you arrived this day.” Raising her head, she touched her proud throat with her hand, running spread fingers down her breast to smooth the softly shining gown which concealed nothing. “And as for my attire, this garb is appropriate for greeting royalty in the palace, on Alashiya, so I thought I would accord you the honor your title demands, and dress as well for you. Do you not approve?”
“I approve most heartily; it is only that the memory I have carried is pale before the reality.”
“Dear suitor, you are pleasing in my sight also,” she sighed, “but I fear this affair can never reach a satisfactory conclusion.” As she spoke she rose and, in three long strides that belied the delicacy of the primped lady before me, sat abruptly on the couch. Her adult manners regained, she stretched languorously and with a feline smile gestured that I do likewise.
I pulled up a chair carved with stags and straddled it. She was fair enough to warrant all that had been risked; indeed, I no longer wondered what had driven me to seek her so ardently. Between certain women and men passion explodes like the stars that fall from heaven, bright and awe-inspiring and god-given – and brief. One woman in a thousand has had that affect on me. It is not love, but some affinity of flesh to flesh, yet, this obviously intelligent girl, who sat before me in as studied and alluring a fashion as might a temple prostitute, could not be taken merely to quench the fire she lit. And she knew it. Remembering all her father had said of her, I no longer discounted his cautions. I had a stock of well-turned phrases from my days as a young and eligible hero; I spent some of them in amenities, allowing her to serve me wine, letting her take her time coming around to it.
“Suppiluliumas, My Sun, Great King,” she spoke some of my titles with obvious relish, “I have said that this marriage cannot be, and yet you have not asked me why. Are you content merely to look at me, to talk awhile and depart to your citadel and your wars? Or do you see something, now that I am in your presence, that has inclined you not to press your suit?”
By then, I had been through countless negotiations with my own nobility. I said nothing at all, only drank my wine, watching her nipples harden as they felt my scrutiny. Among the armies, it is said that this is the best indication of a woman’s heart: if you can raise their nipples with a glance, then they are yours already.
My silence did what I hoped: it shook her calm. She sought the open window. “My lord, my family’s business will stand no close examination. It is as simple as that.” She did not turn; her voice was thick, her words unclear. When I came up behind her and put my hand on her bare shoulders, they trembled. When I turned her and saw her countenance, it was tight with restraint, and in her eyes tears glistened.
“What is this? Trembling lips and sorrowful eyes before I have even kissed you?” I did that, and the body I held against mine was more than willing.
Released, she sank back against the window frame and put the back of her hand to her mouth. I drew it away. “Your father and I have no secrets, little Khinti. But if we did, his burdens are too heavy for your bare shoulders. I came down here to make a queen. I need a wife for my bed and a mother for my brats. It is said that the Lady Khinti has vowed to die rather than give herself to some greasy old king. At least I can offer you immunity from that fate.”
She did not thrust herself against me, as some lesser woman might have. She took a deep breath that reminded me of how long it had been since I had lain with such as she; pushing back an obsidian curl from her brow, she said, “Then, my lord, let us discuss the details,” and offered out an only slightly trembling hand.
When all her astute questions were answered and her objections overruled, I found that I had been wrong in thinking myself to be experienced, wise in the ways of love: I knew nothing about it; only lust had I mastered. Though she was strange to the touch of a man (I took blood from her that proved it), she had made, I must suppose, a study of the subject, for she was anxious as a young mare and as wondrous to watch.
She wanted, so she affirmed in little gasping breaths, a teacher, and though almost all women will ask a man that, few mean it. I have never had a more willing or talented pupil. On her own initiative she bent her lips to the close exploration of my manhood, a thing I would not have suggested so soon to an unlearned girl I had in mind to treat with utmost gentleness; but she crouched down between my legs, saying softly: “May I? Is this right?” and I helped her discover what it was her mouth sought there. She stiffened upon the revelation that all things have an end, but after a moment of choking surprise during which I twisted my hand in her hair and softly urged her to accept the gift she had earned, the stiffness left her and all things were as a man most hopes they may be. Khinti’s valorous attempt to swallow her surprise endeared her to me as nothing else might have, and when afterward she buried her head in my armpit and commenced sobbing, I found myself regretful and even saying so to her.
To stop her from burrowing, I sat her up, holding her at arm’s length, and when I had her calmed she assured me it was not the taste of my seed that had brought her to tears.
“What then, is it?” I growled, holding tight to my patience and reminding myself that she had just this night passed from girlish fantasy into the truth of womanhood.
“I must make a sacrifice to the goddess,” she sniffed, and rubbed her eyes with her fists, smearing her makeup so that she hiccoughed an unladylike oath and wiped the remains of the gilding away with the remnants of her gown.
“And is that a cause for tears?”
“No! Yes… My Sun, it is joy that makes me weep. You cannot know the mind of a woman. You have not lived with the constant threat of being sold off to some influential lord who has a score of others and a fat belly – and something which your father wants badly enough to be willing to throw you into the bargain.” Her red-rimmed eyes, peering intently at me, seemed no less beautiful than they had when the evening began. I touched the regal line of her cheek, for a moment struck wordless. We do these things to the daughters of our seed and have done them for countless years, with little regard to how such a prospect must cloud their days and turn their dreams to nightmares.
“A barbarian girl, a peasant’s child, a slave or a namra in the pens has a better chance of wedding a man she loves than a noble’s daughter. They tell us it is the price we pay and call us ungrateful if we bewail our fate. Do you blame me if I shed tears of joy, that the man whom my father has chosen for me is a man I can serve in love, rather than fear, and bear children born of passion rather than duty?”
For that I had no answer but to further embrace her, assuring her meanwhile that she would always find welcome in my arms and in my heart.
CHAPTER 15
Khinti’s father’s unprepossessing practicality was a sweet loaf upon the table of my aspirations: two men of pragmatic disposition sat down to discuss bride-price and dowry and in a morning we had worked out the details of courtesy and appearance and I left there with the mistress of my heart and a small swift retinue of chariots and horses, but without the canopied wagons of fine wood inlaid with ivory and gold and laden with sisters of the seed and handmaidens which must inevitably follow.
As to the retinue, they also were inevitable, but though the ten teams were mine to keep along with the woman who rode within the shelter of my arms, her hands upon the reins and her laughter upon the wind, I was not easy about the men who had been charged with our protection.
But Khinti’s father would not hear of us taking the trail alone, and I had to agree that it would look ill to the people. Though in my heart I wondered if perhaps he had not rethought the matter and chosen to dispatch me neatly somewhere along the trail, I could make no objection which would not be an admission of distrust.
So I drove up country with the skin on the back of my neck trying to crawl off my head and my in-law’s liege-men spread out behind, and bided my time.
When from out of the forest shoring the Salt Lake fifteen chariots thundered, surrounding us from before, from either side, and from behind, I had only time enough to shout to my escort an order:
“Halt! Keep your hands away from your weapons.”
There was a long moment in which I wondered if my father-in-law’s men would obey me, then their commander echoed my words and the world drowned in dust as the charioteers jerked up their horses in compliance.
When the dust had settled, we were encircled by a perimeter of charioteers bristling with drawn bows and spears. Khinti said my name, nothing else. She squared back her shoulders and slipped from before me that my sword arm might be unencumbered, and would have freed my shield from the straps binding it to the chariot’s side, had I not stopped her.
The foremost of the dark-clad warriors removed his helmet and wiped his brow and let his long, narrow eyes roam slowly over the encircled drivers, then made a hand-signal to his men and snapped the reins on his horses’ rumps. In a wood gone silent all that could be heard were the footfalls of his team and an occasional stone dislodged by the low, lean war-chariot’s wheels.
When he had his car abreast of mine he pulled his horses up short and squinted around, at his troops, whose bronze glistened unwavering in the sunlight, an unspoken promise trained on those he had entrapped.
I had not moved at all until then. Khinti, wide-eyed, only watched. I took a long slow backward glance at those warriors of my wife’s retinue, and turned back to the black-haired charioteer whose braid hung near to his waist and who leaned on one hip against his car’s curved wall, his plumed helmet under his arm.
“Lupakki, meet your new Tawananna. Khinti, Lupakki, commander of ten of the armies.”
“My lady,” said Lupakki faintly, and lowered his eyes. When he raised them disappointment and reluctance mixed therein as his suspicion that all was well with me became certainty. He raised his fist and lowered it, and every Hattian soldier sheathed blade and lowered bow and a low murmuring filled the clearing wherein men once more breathed deeply.
“Gentle lords, let us all become acquainted. It is a long way to Hattusas,” I suggested, and as ranks broke I introduced my personal thirty to my wife, whose laughter pealed out across the gathering and infected both her father’s troops and my own.
We spent that night in Tuwanuwa, for I had it in my mind to perform the festivals which had not been undertaken by a Hittite king in all the years since the Arzawaeans took the lands and made Tuwanuwa and lido their frontiers. Though the people of those lands love the Storm God and his consort, the Sun Goddess of Arinna, and had been celebrating the holy days on their own, I was of the opinion that a resumption of royal interest therein would do more than ten garrisons to remind the citizens of those towns of their heritage.
&nb
sp; Since there was still no sleeping in the half-refurbished estate which I had chosen and then forgotten three years past, we spent that night in a roadside inn just outside of the town proper.
“Why not the garrison?” queried Lupakki of me.
“It is no place for a woman of noble birth.” I did not say that I did not want her to see what use my garrison soldiers were doubtless making of local namra who had chosen the wrong side in the fighting. I did say: “And in the taverns, we can learn more of the mood of the folk than from a score of officials trying to guess what we want to hear. Spread word among the men that they listen well about them.”
And thus it was done, and we heard what was being said about us in the lower lands that evening before we went into the town.
The talk was surly, of the armies and the levies we had put upon the people, and as Khinti and I and Lupakki and a girl he had met sat in the tavern I found that there was no way to keep, even briefly, news of the coming campaigns from my wife, though I tried to steer the conversation to the upcoming tour of the towns the King and his Queen must perform; and then to a side trip to the summer-palace we were building in a nearby town, a journey I would have gladly made to keep from her even one night longer the news that she and I had little time together before I would take up my helmet for the season.
As suspicion became certainty on her face her bright chatter slowed, turned pensive, finally stopped altogether.
I, the Sun Page 21