‘So that’s it,’ she breathed. ‘And yet you stayed with him?’
‘He was ashamed, I think. Well, he was once he’d slept off the drink. He said I could go with him. I didn’t have to go back to the brothel. I could stay beside him, learn to fight. I think he meant this as a gesture of pity, he thought I wouldn’t last. But I learned fast, and bulked up, and we were soon an effective team. Then we rowed our first ship together.’
‘And that’s the hold he has over you.’
‘No. He has no hold! I told you, as we grew older, and it became clear I was the smart one-’
She was whispering now, into his ear, intense. ‘I know how it feels, Qirum, believe me. I was used by Hatti soldiers. I remember their faces, every one. I remember their filth. I learned their names when I could. When I return to Hattusa in my pomp I will seek them out, and their families.’ She smiled. ‘You, though. You are the victim who kept his rapist close, haven’t you?’ And she walked ahead of him, cutting off the conversation.
Qirum strode on, angry, humiliated, as he had not felt for many years. Up ahead he heard Praxo’s voice, telling some joke to the men, his booming laughter, his gusty singing resuming once more.
15
The Year of the Fire Mountain: Late Spring
The elders of Etxelur gathered for their convocation: the process of selecting the new Annid of Annids in succession to Kuma. It was almost a month before midsummer and the Giving, when the new appointment would be announced to the world and celebrated.
They had come to the central mound of the great earthwork called the Door to the Mothers’ House. The Door, a very ancient complex of earthworks, was the navel of Northland history. In this age a ring of lodges had been built atop the central mound, one for each of the great Houses of Northland. And today, in the space encircled by the lodges, the House leaders, the Annids themselves, and the Jackdaws, Beavers, Voles, Swallows and the rest, with the priests mediating and counselling, were arguing in the open air, in tight, bickering groups, or sitting on pallets stuffed with dried reeds. In among the Annids were representatives of Districts far from Great Etxelur itself, the Markets to east and west, austere librarians from the Archive, engineers and craftsmen from the Manufactory, even a few cheerful-looking innkeeper types from the Scambles.
The leaders of the Houses wore their ceremonial robes, and fur, feathers, polished leather gleamed. They looked like a flock of birds, Milaqa thought idly. Big fat exotic birds. As one of a loose band of advisers and supporters, she sat on the grassy sward with Teel and Riban and others outside the central circle. She had been here for three days already, the proceedings had gone on all day, it was mid-afternoon, and it was insufferably tedious.
At least the setting was magnificent. The sun, still high in a clear southern sky, bathed the face of the Wall with light, the sweeping surface with its galleries and ledges, the climbing nets and ladders dangling from the roof, the huge scaffolding structures of the Beavers. It looked like something natural, she thought idly, like a great hive, rather than something made by people.
But the talking went on and on. The core of the confrontation seemed to be between Bren, leader of the Jackdaw traders, and a group of Annids. His principal opponent was a severe older Annid, a woman called Noli. Bren was pushing his own candidate for the office of Annid of Annids, a young, slightly confused-looking woman called Raka. The debate was passionately argued, but it was all very formal. The participants always spoke to each other via a neutral speaker, one of the priests, they used an archaic form of the Northland tongue, and every word they spoke was transcribed on a linen roll by a Wolf scribe. In his late thirties, Jackdaw Bren’s face was handsome, but it was oddly too symmetrical — too perfect — and it was severe, Milaqa thought, with deep-grooved lines around his mouth and on his forehead. He was the sort of man it was impossible to believe had ever been a child. Somehow it didn’t surprise Milaqa to find out that Raka, his candidate, was actually Bren’s niece.
Milaqa glanced at the sky, where gulls wheeled so high they were almost out of sight, and she smelled the sea on a soft breeze from the north. She imagined she wasn’t stuck in this dull session of talk, talk, talk but swimming in the cold sea, or flying up in the air as free as the gulls…
An elbow poked her ribs. She jolted upright.
The elbow had been Riban’s. Her cousin, a young acolyte in the House of the Wolves, was grinning at her. He was taller than she was, even sitting cross-legged on the grass; he had a dark, open face whose good humour was not ruined by his mouthful of wooden teeth. ‘You were snoring.’
‘I wasn’t.’
‘You were about to. Mind you, you wouldn’t be the only one. Half these fat old fools have spent the whole day dozing away, dreaming of their evening feast.’
Milaqa snorted a laugh.
There was a rustle around her, of swallow feathers and stitched vole hide, as the elders reacted.
‘Hush, you two. You’re showing the family up.’ Teel sat with them on the grass, but bolt upright, almost like a hare, Milaqa thought, a bald fat hare, totally intent on what the elders were saying.
At long last the day’s sessions ended. Bren and his opponent bowed to each other, and to the Wolf speaker. The scribe scattered sand over her parchments to dry them, and stowed away her ink and her bone pens. Servants emerged from the lodges bearing plates of snacks, eel and oyster and clam and snail, and flagons of water, juice and tea, no doubt some of it laced with the mead that was so popular throughout Northland, even if it did come from the despised farmers. The elders, gobbling food and drink, loosened heavy robes that must have been ferociously hot at the peak of the day, and they stretched and walked.
Milaqa and Riban stood easily, but they had to help Teel up. ‘My leg is fast asleep,’ he complained. He walked in a little circle, pressing his foot to the ground.
‘Your leg is as bored as I am,’ said Milaqa, and Riban guffawed.
‘Oh, how can you be bored? By the mothers’ tears, the tension out there is agonising. Can’t you feel it? Bren is taking on the Annids — he’s trying to force his own candidate on them as next Annid of Annids, even though she’s from outside the House of the Owl, which is rare enough but not unprecedented. He’s locked horns with Noli for nearly a whole day now. Like two rutting stags! And you have to remember this isn’t just a domestic battle being played out, for many of the great Houses have allies in the world beyond. If it’s drama you want, never mind the hunt, never mind the spear-chucking at the Giving — this is where the excitement is, with the whole future of Northland itself at stake.’
But Milaqa could only yawn. ‘I suppose it’s a matter of taste.’
He glared at her. ‘You do disappoint me sometimes, Milaqa. You should listen. Think. Make connections…’
A serving girl came by, no more than twelve years old, barefoot but wearing a tunic adorned with jackdaw feathers. She bore a tray of treats, and Riban picked off goodies. ‘Look, why don’t you just leave me the tray?’ He smiled, showing his wooden priest’s teeth. The girl blushed, gave him the tray, and hurried off.
Teel disdained the treats. Milaqa, though, pecked like a bird. ‘Mmm, burned sheep.’
‘Lamb, actually.’ Riban chewed a mouthful of meat. ‘Flash-roasted and flavoured with something — pepper certainly — and another spice?’
Milaqa picked up a slab of bread, thinly cut, lightly toasted, and smeared with a bit of honeycomb. When she bit into it the honey dribbled down her chin. ‘I didn’t know I was so hungry.’
‘You’re not,’ Teel said sourly. ‘You shouldn’t be eating that rubbish. It’s unnatural. And all part of the wily traders’ long-term game to seduce us into the farming business. No!’ He strode over to another servant, and grabbed a handful of raw eel flesh. ‘This is good enough for me. Good old-fashioned Northland catch.’ He crammed it in his mouth and began chewing assiduously.