Bronze Summer

by Stephen Baxter

  The man brought the animal over. Hunda snapped a finger and beckoned to another of his men, who tossed over a bronze dagger, which Hunda stabbed down through the rope and into the earth, tethering the pig. The piglet walked around, snuffling at the ground around the dagger. It did not seem to be frightened; like most young animals it was too busy being curious about the newness of the world.

  The boy struggled to his feet.

  ‘Kill it,’ Hunda said.

  ‘What?’ Tibo looked at the piglet, his own empty hands.

  ‘Kill it. Right now. Prove to me that you can. Or you’ll drink nothing for the next day but your own piss. Now!’

  Tibo gathered both fists into a club. Staggering slightly, he stood over the pig, legs splayed, and flexed his body, preparing to use all his core strength, Milaqa saw. The piglet looked up, still apparently unafraid. Tibo hesitated, for one more heartbeat.

  Then he swung his fists down, smashing the animal’s skull with a crunch like a walnut under a heel. The men whooped and applauded, catcalling in a dozen tongues. Tibo struck again. There was a stickier impact as his fists drove into the grey mass within the skull, and blood fountained and splashed. The piglet’s body twitched, its legs scrabbling as if it was trying to run. Tibo brought down his fists over and over, reducing the animal’s head to a bloody pulp of flesh and splintered bone.

  Voro looked as if he might vomit. Hunda grinned, arms folded.

  44

  The war trumpets pierced the Gairan night air. Urhi knew what that meant. At last, the Spartans were coming, to join Qirum’s ragged army.

  Urhi couldn’t sleep after that.

  The snores of his whore irritated him. He was a scribe, and scribes got whores who snored. He slapped her rump until she stopped. But still sleep didn’t return. Spartans! The very name terrified him. Urhi rolled off his bed, pulled on his clothes and boots, shook out a cloak.

  He emerged from his house into pre-dawn gloom. This was late spring, but this far west, much closer to the Western Ocean than the dry Anatolian plain where Urhi had been born, there was damp in the gusty wind, and you could feel the chill even on a good spring day, even at noon. Everyone feared a second year without a summer, and it was looking as if it would turn out that way.

  The men on guard were dozing, sitting cross-legged by the big common fire, huddled in their cloaks. But Urhi was not surprised to see Erishum awake, squatting on his haunches, idly polishing the blade of a spear. The sergeant looked east, where the Spartans were coming from. He glanced at Urhi. ‘You heard the trumpets too.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Are you up for a little expedition, scribe? I would prefer to meet the Spartans before they come to us.’ Erishum stood and brushed back loose hair with his hands. He wore his hair in the Hatti style, thick at the back of his neck, and as he tied it up he murmured commands to his men in the Trojan that was the common language of Qirum’s camp. One man brought him cloak, boots, conical felt helmet, and others prepared to form up a party to travel.

  Erishum had once been part of the palace guard in Hattusa. He had been among a handful of Hatti soldiers who had no liking for Kilushepa for one reason or another, and had thrown in their lot with the Trojan. He had quickly grown to be one of Qirum’s most trusted men. Urhi despised Erishum as a traitor to his king, while Erishum despised Urhi as a weak-wristed scratcher of clay. But they each recognised a certain strength in the other, Urhi thought. Or a sanity, perhaps. They were uncertain allies in the dangerous instability of Qirum’s household.

  A groom brought them horses. The animals stamped and snuffled in the dark, confused to be awake and moving so early. Urhi refused a mount; he hated horses, and they hated him. But soldiers rode whenever they could.

  Erishum mounted, wrapped his fist around his horse’s mane, kicked its sides gently, and led the way. Urhi walked after the party, which maintained a slow and steady pace. By the light of torches, they followed a trail through scrubby dune grass beaten flat by the passage of Qirum’s army. They passed a couple of sentries, and Erishum exchanged murmured words.

  They came to higher ground, a bluff. From here the ocean opened up to the south, and Urhi heard waves softly breaking. This was the southern coast of Gaira, and the Middle Sea stretched to the horizon. But Urhi knew that not very far west of here the land closed in from north and south to form the strait beyond which extended the Western Ocean, which, it was said, could swallow up the whole of this inner sea like a raindrop in a wine cup. Even so, for Urhi who had been born and raised in the heart of the Anatolian plain, to be so close to this huge, restless body of water was deeply disturbing. But Qirum was making plans on a scale that matched the grandeur of this panorama. Through the winter he had brought this force – his army now, not the Spider’s, though that was the core on which he had built – all the way from Anatolia, the length of the Middle Sea, to this western country. And he intended to go much further. With this army he intended to mount the Trojan invasion of Northland.

  Urhi heard that trumpet call again, and a wider noise, a murmur like the growl of the sea itself, ragged, chaotic. He had been around armies long enough now to recognise the sound. It was the merged din of thousands of voices, of boots tramping the earth, of the rattle of wheels, of the crying of women and the laughing of men: the sound of an army on the march. Urhi walked further up the bluff, pulling his cloak around him. Erishum walked beside him, silent, strong. And in the pre-dawn light they saw the torches of the approaching army, sparkling in a line along the coast, the men marching, the wagons, a few horses being ridden alongside the column.

  Erishum pointed. ‘The elite warriors in front, the officers and the fore-fighters. Then the specialists, the archers and the charioteers and the slingers, and the common men – barefoot half of them, probably, judging by the volume of their complaints. Then at the rear there is the train, with an escort to fend off raids. Scouts riding out around the column – see them? Competently commanded, and a formidable force.’ Erishum’s eyes were sharper than Urhi’s; he was more than a decade younger than the scribe, a mere twenty-five, though battle had left him looking older.

  Urhi said, ‘And there. Between the common soldiers and the train, that mass of people shuffling along – booty people?’

  ‘Yes. The hobbles slow them down.’

  Urhi had once been lost in such a crowd. He suppressed a shudder.

  Erishum said, ‘Come then, scribe, let’s face the Spartan, and hope we survive the encounter.’

  Erishum ordered one of his men to dismount and run back to the camp to rouse Qirum. He held onto the mane of the man’s abandoned horse, and looked meaningfully at Urhi. The scribe sighed. You had to ride to meet a warlord, of course. Of all the symbols of status and power a horse was the ultimate; you were half a man without one. So he found a boulder to stand on and briskly mounted the nag. Luckily for him it seemed docile enough, and responded to his nervous prompting.

  The party rode down a shallow bank towards the Spartans.

  They soon encountered scouts. Erishum and his men kept their swords in their scabbards. Erishum murmured greetings in Greek, Trojan and Hatti; there was a good chance in these fragmented times, with ancient states collapsing like puffball mushrooms, that this so-called Spartan army, led by a Spartan prince, would be a coalition every bit as polyglot as the ragtag force Qirum had assembled around the Spider’s original pack of murderers, thieves and rapists.

  The scouts let them pass, and Erishum led the way boldly towards the elite cohorts at the head of the army. It wasn’t hard to distinguish the best soldiers. They were taller than the mass of men following them, thanks to a decent diet, and they wore good-quality armour and weaponry. They were clean too, or comparatively, and their skin glowed with oils. Their hair was prepared in a variety of styles, some long and loose like a Greek’s, some even plaited at their necks like a Hatti’s. As they marched they were trailed by a gaggle of servants and by lavish-looking carriages, from some of which the nervous, painted f
aces of women and boys looked out. Some of Erishum’s men bristled at the glares they got from these hard men, their wordless challenges. But Erishum was calm, even smiling.

  Urhi kept his head down and avoided looking any of the Spartans in the eye. Urhi had met their sort before, too many times. These heroes from the citadel-nations of the east had been born into wealth and power, bred with war in their hearts, trained for it from boyhood. They were men who knew how to fight, how to storm cities and raid beaches – how to kill men like Urhi with bare hands, snuffing out a man’s life and mind and essence for the sake of a momentary advantage, or a bit of treasure.

  At length they were brought before Protis himself. They dismounted, wordless.

  Protis walked among the visitors, peering closely into their faces. He was a prince of Sparta, driven off when that city was sacked and burned by raiders, and now seeking fresh opportunities. He wore a linen tunic, fringed kilt and boots with turned-up toes in the Anatolian style, and a cloak of wool pinned by silver brooches the size of Urhi’s fists. His black hair was cut short at his forehead but was long at the back, and his upper lip was clean shaven, but he wore a neatly cut beard. He was not as bulky as some of those who surrounded him, though Urhi had a sense of a kind of lean strength, like a whip. He looked young, surprisingly so, perhaps even as young as twenty, his features soft and symmetrical – almost like a woman’s, Urhi thought, fascinated. He had none of the battle scars that so disfigured men like the one-eyed Spider. He was almost pretty. Yet this man was reputed to be one of the most savage killers roaming this fallen world.

  When it was Urhi’s turn, the scribe forced himself not to flinch from his gaze. The man’s eyes were a pale, washed-out blue, as beautiful as the rest of his face. There was a scent of perfumed water and oils. And as the Spartan leaned close to him Urhi saw those fine nostrils flare. The man was smelling him.

  The Spartan stepped back. Urhi bent forward, his arms spread, all but prostrating himself, and spoke in clear Greek. ‘Lord Protis, your fame echoes around the known world. My name is Urhi. I am a clerk, a scribe. I serve the great Qirum. I am unimportant, only a mouthpiece. My lord Qirum awaits eagerly in his tent. He has gifts, and has prepared a feast which—’

  ‘Oh, straighten up,’ the Spartan snapped. ‘I prefer to look at a man’s face, not his shoulder blades. I know nothing of this Qirum. I had heard nothing of him before rumours of the force he was gathering – and his invitation to me to fight alongside him. A nobody from Troy, who dared summon a prince of Sparta!’ He won a rumbling laugh from his men.

  ‘An invitation, Lord,’ Urhi stammered, ‘not a summons—’

  Protis said softly, ‘Tell him that if he keeps his promises, all will be well. By which I mean, he will continue to live. If not …’ From a fold in his cloak he produced a dagger of bronze, and in a single fluid movement had the point at Erishum’s throat.

  Erishum did not so much as flinch. He spread his empty hands, a wordless command to his men not to react.

  Urhi bowed again. ‘I will take the lord Qirum your message at once.’

  The Spartan laughed. Then he removed the blade and walked away.

  Erishum touched Urhi’s arm. ‘Straighten up and walk. Better he gets this posturing out of his system before he meets Qirum himself. Walk, scribe! The blade was at my throat, not yours.’

  Urhi forced himself to walk away, to take one step after another back to his horse, surrounded by the grins of Protis’s huge warriors.

  45

  Qirum clambered down from his high throne and hauled back the layers of rugs that covered the bare earth floor of his house, sending servants and slaves hurrying out of his way. Then he took a dagger and began to scratch a map in the dirt with the blade’s tip.

  Protis and Telipinu, the Spider, watched from their couches of stuffed sheep hide, while they consumed the feast Qirum had prepared for them, of honey and lamb, kid and boar. Protis looked faintly amused at Qirum’s antics. The Spider just looked on, cold, scarred, as ever emotionless. Urhi wondered if Qirum would have been better advised to have somebody else shift his rugs for him. The Hatti kings were remote figures, whom only the most senior ever even saw, let alone touched. Even a king’s shoes would be made only from the hide of cattle slaughtered in the palace precinct. Qirum, in his ignorance, had none of that aloofness, and in the eyes of the Hatti at least was much less impressive for it.

  Qirum pointed at his scrawled map. ‘Here, you see. The Middle Sea, that stretches from Gaira in the west to Greece and Anatolia in the east.’ He stabbed the dirt with his blade. ‘We are here. Far to the west, on the southern coast of Gaira. My plan is that we will strike north-west over this great neck of land. I have made this journey myself before. You see there are two rivers here, whose courses all but meet at their headwaters, here.’ Another stab. ‘On the other side of the watershed we’ll need to find ships. We will sail down the course of this great river, which the people call the God’s Dream. We will reach this tremendous estuary, called the Cut, and travel north and east to its far shore, which is the southern coast of Northland itself.’

  The house, a tent of canvas draped on poles, was crowded, right to the billowing walls. Behind the three principals gathered advisers, guards and warriors, including Urhi and Erishum for Qirum, men sitting or standing, watching each other with a hostility barely sublimated into rivalry. There was a stink from these men of sweat, of blood, of stale wine, of horses. And they were all men, though in a Hatti gathering, even a Trojan one, a few women would likely have been present: royalty like the Tawananna, a few priestesses. Since his catastrophic clash with Kilushepa, Qirum would allow no woman near him, save for whores ordered not to speak when he tupped them, on pain of death.

  A disparate bunch they might be, but they seemed eager enough to follow Qirum’s plan, Urhi thought. The Hatti and other Anatolians were comfortable with the overland sections of the journey. And the Greeks, used to their own island-strewn seas, would not baulk at journeys by ocean or river. If these warriors could work together Qirum would find himself at the head of a formidable force indeed.

  ‘We will land with much of the campaigning season left.’ Qirum swept his knife again, sketching arrows and advances. ‘The country is big, perhaps fifty days’ march north to south from the Northern Ocean to the Cut, and as much east to west, from the estuary country here to the forested peninsula of Albia here. But the people are few …’

  Protis leaned forward. ‘And what of this Northland? What treasures are there? Are there great cities? Masses of people to slaughter and enslave?’

  ‘No,’ Qirum said bluntly. ‘Northland is not like any land you’ve seen before, Prince. Not a land of farms and cities, not like Greece or Anatolia or Egypt. There are great works there, canals and dykes and tremendous walls that span the horizon. But not cities. The people are wily, but there are not great swarms of them. They do not farm. They have a patina of civilisation, but in truth they are like the savages of the northern forests, or even the beasts that prey on them, for they live solely by what they can gather and hunt. And they are not experienced fighters, for they do not engage in war, as we do.’

  The Spider nodded. When he spoke his speech was slurred from the heroic quantity he had already drunk. ‘I have heard your arguments before, Trojan. Yet I am still not sure I understand. If there are no slaves to take, no cities to sack—’

  ‘Not even goats to screw,’ a man called coarsely, and there was laughter.

  ‘Then what am I fighting for?’

  ‘For a kingdom,’ Qirum said, and he fixed his gaze on Protis and the Spider and the senior men, his expression intent. ‘A new kingdom. The land is the thing. The people are worthless. But we can bring in our own slaves, like your booty people, Protis, gathered from the collapsing polities of the east. The Hatti have always done this. With our slaves we will farm the rich land until we are fat on wheat and grain, and our cattle run as numberless as raindrops. And we will build our own cities, where none have sp
routed before. Northland is an empty space, a hole in the world. We will fill it with a new realm not seen in the world before.’

  The Spider grinned, showing his sharpened teeth. ‘New cities! I like that. Let mine be called Telipinu City.’

  ‘Yes!’ Qirum stood and paced. ‘You!’ He pointed at Urhi, who scrambled for a slate and stylus. ‘Write this down. Telipinu City. Protis City. Qirum City! New Troy, New Mycenae, New Hattusa! Write it down lest we forget.’

  Protis watched Urhi, amused. ‘You are not yet a king, but you have a king’s scribe.’

  ‘I found him in Abydos, a city in the Troad, near Troy itself, which I besieged with the Spider at my side. I say I found Urhi. We burned his city, and he watched his family die, and as he was marched away with chains around his neck with a thousand others he loudly begged to be allowed to use his skills. My soft heart let him live a while longer. But he knows that I could cast him down once more in a moment, don’t you, good Urhi? Make sure you write that down too. Go on! Write it down!’

  Urhi forced himself to smile as, with laughter raining around him, he worked his clay slate, his stylus pecking like a bird’s beak as he made the wedge-shaped characters.

  Protis laughed. ‘A new kingdom, then. With you installed as king, and us as your companions, I suppose.’

  He used a Greek word, basileis, which Urhi understood as meaning more than companions – it meant lords, with power and holdings of their own. And Protis and the Spider exchanged a glance which every man in the room could read, a glance that said that in the end these two would not be content to remain basileis of any man.

  But Qirum said only, ‘You know my circumstances, Prince. I have lifted myself up from the ruin of my home city as a heavy stone is lifted from a pool of water, and now I address you as an equal.’ Qirum waved a hand. ‘Look at us, all survivors of the great smash-up of the states to the east – you Greeks, you Anatolians. You men of the Troad, my own country, from Troy and Abydos and Zeleia, and from the wider Anatolia, from Phrygia to Lycia. Even you Hatti, like the Spider here, who knew when to run from a burning house!’