by David Bell
“I am relieved she did not invite us too close to her residence. Here is close enough.”
“The swell is too high here for us to unship the rudder safely.”
“Along the coast is a very sheltered inlet where it could be done; a half day’s sail, no more.”
“The current will be against us and the wind is light, but it will help us stand off: this coast has its reefs, so we shall need oars all the way. We must hope the crew still has some strength.” Potyr paused for a moment, looking at Kanesh. “What did you say to them?”
Kanesh looked back steadily. “I said nothing to them. It was what they thought I said that persuaded them. This inlet: can we take her there?”
“We must.”
Although the sky was clear, Potyr waited until the sun was above the horizon before he gave orders to raise anchors and bring the ship’s bow round to face the open sea. The extra rest was welcome but there were still stiff backs, cramped calves and blistered palms that made the waking moments agonising. Namun went round dabbing hands with the carpenters rag soaked in flax seed oil to ease cracked and roughened skin and Sharesh followed him handing out fish and dried figs which soon disappeared into empty stomachs. To Potyr, hunger was a good sign: the men could still row, although one or two still drooped with tiredness. Potyr ordered them to stand down and the archers took their places on the thwarts. Again the ship had to be steered by her oars and getting clear of the point was painfully slow but, once Potyr judged they stood far enough out and the bow had been turned towards the sun, he ordered the sail hoist, half furled to lessen heeling in the sudden offshore gusts of wind he knew could rush down the seaward slopes of the mountains so close to this coast. With the sail up, the ship seemed eager to be away and the day was very different from the one before. A little after noon, Kanesh, on the bow, waved to Potyr and pointed towards the shore; port oars backed, starboard oars drew, and the ship turned on a heading towards a round, wooded promontory at the near end of a long straight stretch of hilly coastline. Kanesh’s inlet was completely sheltered from the wind, with a sandy beach on one side and a deep water mooring on the other against a smooth rock wall where the ship could be held steady with bow and stern lines lashed tightly round trees.
Above water, the upper fittings of the rudder looked sound enough but, when the carpenter’s mate had got his breath back after diving below the ship, he reported that the lowest bronze ring projecting from the sternpost had sheared off. The centre fitting, if anything, was worse: the ring showed cracks and the rudder pin that seated in it was nowhere to be seen. The carpenter shook his head and said it was a wonder the whole thing hadn’t gone by the board in that squall. Typhis said violent and threatening things about Keftiu smiths’ workmanship. Four men were told off to help Typhis and the carpenters who had already thrown a rope over an overhanging branch for a hoist and Potyr and Kanesh left them to their work, stepped off the ship onto a ledge in the rock wall and made their way through the trees towards the other side of the inlet. Most of the crew, excused duties for the rest of the day, were there, sitting in the warm shallow water or lying asleep, curled up on the sand. Behind the beach was a low hill and beyond that another bay with an island offshore and thick woodland fringing the far shore. The promontory itself was joined to the mainland by a narrow neck of low ground. Potyr sent the archers to stand picket on the hill and a small group of the fittest crewmen filed off into the woods to forage for birds’ eggs, wild game and anything else they could find to eat. Kanesh gave them strict orders to get straight back to the ship if they caught sight or sound of any other people.
“The Labarna sent a force all the way down to these mountains some time ago and they had a hard time of it. The people here are related to the tribes who live in the higher valleys in the mountains and near the salt lakes and speak the same language, so they join forces against invaders. The Labarna’s men had to fight their way out again and a great many did not get away. Regular troops have little idea how to fight in this sort of country; it’s no ground for chariots. The boys in these tribes are taught to fight as soon as they can walk and the women join in whenever they get the chance.”
Potyr nodded. “When they have no one to ambush on land, they sometimes take to the sea. All the coves and inlets, like this one, indeed, and all the passing ships, make it a fine coast for piracy.”
Kanesh gave him a grim smile. “Shall we take him on, if we come across one?” Potyr smiled back at him. “Running costs less than fighting. You know that.”
“Sometimes you cannot run. You know that.”
There was to be neither running nor fighting this time. When Potyr and Kanesh got back to the ship the disabled rudder had been lifted free and stowed in the hold. The steering oar was in its place on the starboard quarter.
“Just like old times,” grinned Typhis, running his hand along the dowel he had fitted at the holding end. “But a rudder is a lot less work. Will we get it back, do you think?”
“Master Helmsman,” said Kanesh, “you will steer this ship out of Gubal harbour with a working rudder; I promise you that.”
Fires of dry wood were already burning on the beach when the foraging party returned from their hunt. They carried pigeons’ eggs and a brace of pigeons themselves, caught in a net, six partridges brought down by the archers’ light arrows and, best of all, a small pig also shot by one of the archers. The eggs were boiled and the plucked birds and butchered pig were roasted on spits. To add to the feast, Leptos and Leptos swam back from the offshore island with a basket full of red-scaled fish they had netted there. With barley, lentils and sesame from the hold, boiled soft over the fire and baked into cakes on flat stones, olives and wine, the resin-flavoured kind this time, and figs dipped in honey to follow, the crew declared thay had never eaten better and even thanked the master for bringing them to this place. When all the food had disappeared and the bowls had been licked clean and scoured in the sand, Kanesh stood up and turned to Potyr.
“By your leave, Master,” he said. Potyr inclined his head. Kanesh swept the crew with his gaze as they stood or crouched round the fires, their faces lit by the glow of the flames.
“It was a hard time, lads, and you did well and now you’ve eaten well.” Several loud belches rippled among the crowd in acknowledgment and the faces grinned. “You can thank your lucky stars, or your lucky stones or whatever it is you think brings you luck, that you’re still alive and that the skipper got you here.”
“You’re not all that bad with an oar yourself, my Lord, for a beginner,” said a voice at the back of the laughing crowd.
“You can have it back and stick it where it won’t show whenever you like,” replied Kanesh and they laughed again.
“At another time we might have some fun; get the helmsman to sing for us.” Jeering laughter greeted this. “Do a bit of dancing. Drink a bit more. But not now, not here. The people living out there in those woods wouldn’t like us taking their birds and eggs and especially that pig: it was too fat to be a wild one. So, we don’t want them to know we are here and that means going about things quietly and all sleeping on board ship this night. We’ve lost time and we must not lose any more. So, we want every man awake, sober and ready for cast off before first light. Goodnight: dream the dreams you want to dream and don’t be ashamed of them in the morning.”
Potyr raised his hand before his face, to get a rough measure of the height of the risen sun: four fingers only and the ship was already abreast the long spit of sand stretching out to sea they had glimpsed in the distance the day before. The mouth of the river whose springtime floods built the spit lay just beyond. Turning to tell Typhis to steer out to sea and keep his heading towards the sun for the time being, he saw Kanesh staring towards the spit with such intensity that he thought for a moment he had seen something threatening, a suspicious ship, perhaps, putting to sea. But there was none to be seen.
“What do you see?”
Kanesh stayed silent, seemingly deaf to Poty
r’s voice. His lips moved but Potyr could hear no words, or, what was that: did he say horses?
“What is it? Do you know that place?”
MARYANNU
Oh yes, he knew the place. He remembered every step of the journey that led him there.
Some called them mercenaries, the maryannu, but they were more than that. They were a warrior brotherhood, every one the son of a noble family or one honoured for its service. They had their code, and it was a strict one: loyalty and sacrifice, above all to your comrades, and to the cause you fought for. Be ruthless in the attack and merciful to the defeated and their women and children. Swear to do this, not to a statue or a stone, but to the brotherhood and keep your word or be instantly and forever excluded.
It was said that they were from lands far away towards the rising sun, desert lands where cities lay on the banks of great rivers but they came to know the mountains and the high plains as their own. No one knew the ways of a horse better than they did, nor the use of the battle chariot. As soon as a boy took his first staggering steps, his father set him on a pony. He learned everything there was to know about a horse, from his father and the other horsemen and from the script his father read to him every day until he learned to read it himself. He worked with the grooms and trainers and the carpenters, wheelwrights and smiths who built the chariots. They told him he would be a maryannu when he knew how to live on a horse and it was true. And fight from a chariot: that was what they were, the maryannu, chariot soldiers, and proud of it.
Somehow he lived through his first skirmish, a headlong, reckless charge along the line of spearmen, saw his closest friend flung into the dust by the spear through his throat, saw the horse drag the chariot on its side along the line, and realised he was terrified only after the line broke and fled and the archers ran up to send their shafts into the fleeing backs. The next time was better because he now knew what fear was and that it came before the attack and sometimes after, with the thought that it would have to be done again, but never during the clash, because there was no time for it then.
Long afterwards, in a burning camp, after the hopelessly wounded horses thrashing on the ground had been speared to stop their pain and shrieking, and the dead had been counted, stripped, and piled up, they made him commander of the troop. No one else left, they said with bloodstained grins and with a shock he realised it was true: all those who had been with him in that first charge so long ago were now gone, stabbed, hacked, speared, crushed by wheels or a felled horse, skewered by arrows, all gone, with their bones now lying under the stones their comrades always piled over their own dead. Why did he feel guilty when he was the one left and all the others, all good maryannu, had gone? Somebody up there likes you, they said with a soldier’s grin and a jerk of the chin towards the mountains. He laughed and felt better: he knew nobody was up there because he had been and looked. Besides, it could be his turn next.
But it never was his turn next, not even in that last attack. It had been hopeless from the start. What was left of his famished troop had ridden down from the freezing mountains, as much to seize food for themselves and the horses as to throw the enemy force out of the valley. The ambush had almost worked but the starving horses were too weak to press home the charge and they were struck by a hissing swarm of arrows before they could reach the line. His horse saved him before she died, kicking the chariot to pieces as she struggled to free herself from the traces and dragging his senseless body down the valley by the reins caught round his wrist. They found him by chance after they had finished off the wounded and had struck their camp before marching off to ravage the next town. A scout saw the carcass bristling with arrows like the spines on a thistle and fancied there might be some rich harness to plunder before the others came. He kicked the body lying in the pool of blood beside the mare and it groaned. The captain came up just in time to stop the knife slitting his throat. Knew how to handle a chariot, that one, he said; throw him in the cart. If he lives, the general might find a use for him.
The winter saved him. You get cold but your wounds don’t fester as much. In any case, it wasn’t much of a wound: a flint-headed smooth shaft in the fleshy part of his thigh. He made sure the leather was between his teeth and pushed the shaft right through. The winter saved him because it meant the end of the campaign and back home for a lucky few and camp for the others. For the general and some of the officers, it was back to the city and a meeting with the Great King who wanted to know how things had gone. And that was another thing that saved him: the general wanted to show him off as the last of the maryannu who had plagued the Great King for years. Without them harrying the columns day and night, next year’s campaign might carry the Great King’s army to the sea, or Halaba, or wherever he decided to march. The general said he liked him: he was a horseman and he liked all true horsemen. With his long hooked nose the general had the look of a Hattian and when in a rare unguarded moment he responded in the old language, there could be no doubt. The Great King sought out the best soldiers for his army, never mind the tribe they came from, and Hattians were some of the best. Sometimes at the end of the day on the long journey back to the city, the general would have him brought to his quarters and talk in the old tongue well into the night, questioning him about maryannu tactics, weapons, horse breeding and training for the chariot. He gave away only enough to make sure the general wanted more. He knew where this was leading and bided his time.
After many days of marching by the river with the sun at noon on their backs but giving them no warmth, and the wind in their faces scouring them with its dust, the column turned and headed into the hills. The wretched hovels of a village whose inhabitants had wisely fled at their approach, gave some shelter to the general and his officers. They chewed the gristly meat of a skinny goat too old to escape and drank the last of the general’s wine. Tomorrow night, he said, we eat better: in the citadel. If you choose wisely, he added. The citadel with its walls and towers and gates, high on the spur, looking down on the great temple and the cluttered streets of the city: he had seen it once long ago. Long ago, when they had pushed a patrol across these very hills and down the long slopes to where the river turned back on itself and ran towards the Dark Sea, he had looked back and seen those walls and towers and wondered how they might be stormed one day. He said nothing of this. You will state your choice to the Great King himself, said the general, and you will say your name. I have no name, he said. Then you will have no choice. I will call the guard and have you killed now. Where did you take me, he said? Near the town of Kanesh, said the general. Then I am Kanesh, he said.
The Great King looked him up and down. I have seen you before, he said, but where, I cannot recall. Kanesh, you say. A great king before me ruled in Kanesh. He came here and destroyed this city. I have built what you now see: a great city fit for a great king. The Great King’s armies are feared. The Great King is feared. He destroys the cities of his enemies. The Great King has not destroyed Halaba, he said. The Great King half drew the jewelled dagger from his belt, then paused. You show no fear, he said. Halaba: take Halaba and you will have served me. The choice is yours.
The choice was simple: train the Great King’s charioteers until they matched the maryannu in skill, or feel the kiss of the double axe. Choose now, said the Great King. Who would not wish to serve the Labarna, the Great King, he said? He was handed the seal of his command and dismissed. As he left, he heard the Great King speak to one of his officers. Watch him closely; I am wary of one who uses the other hand.
He found there was much to be done. The metalwork was good, but carriage work needed some changes. The heavy body with its central axle was right for carrying a spearman or archer as well as the driver for charging along a line, but was ill-suited to country where there was little expanse of even ground to build up speed. Against an army drawn up outside the walls of Halaba, it would be a different matter so the troops of heavy assault chariots would have to remain. But for other work, raiding, pursuit, hit and run,
there must be lighter chariots with the wheels shifted towards the back and riders trained to fight as well as drive. Different chariots needed different horses: he chose new stallions and new broodmares. He spent many winter days at the forges, absorbing the mysteries of crushing, mixing, packing, firing, casting, and many more in carpenters’, wheelwrights’ and leathermakers’ sheds. There was a smith who always worked alone, a big man, like himself, who never spoke. His bronze castings seemed never to need the file. He watched the smith cast a dagger, tanged for a haft of smoothed antler and saw how he inlaid the blade with silver on which he chased script with a tiny pointed chisel and filled in the marks with black metal. The script was in the old language. He read the words aloud to the smith who looked at him for a long time, then nodded slowly and held out his blackened hand. When springtime came, there was horsemanship: to every man his own horse and both to work until they acted and thought as one. Day after day, night after night, the work went on. No one was spared. Anyone who fell short in the slightest way lined up with the footsoldiers the next day. When summer came they went to war and as always, found to their cost that there was still much more to learn.
Three years and three campaigns passed by without a single day spent in any other way. The Great King, he was told, was pleased. He asked for, and was given, freedom to go wherever he chose in the city. It was essential for planning his escape. Then, one day, everything changed.
She was a princess, they said. Driving a war chariot: how did she get into the compound, he asked? Fine ladies have their own ways of doing things; they say when she was ten, her father had her beaten for bribing a scribe to teach her how to read and write, they said. From the way she held the reins and positioned herself for the turn, he felt he knew who may have taught her how to handle a light war chariot. The general, almost a friend by now, got to hear of it and warned him not to show any interest. He was told he may have been somebody important where he came from, but here he was still a captive, and remember that. The Great King had said he was wary of him, so forget this and concentrate on the chariot corps. The princess had come to the city with all her household in preparation for her marriage to one of the Great King’s sons. She was the eldest daughter of the oldest and most noble family of his own people, said the general. This marriage was important. She must be able to speak the old language, he thought. And read it.