‘Just one of these beauties in the robes,’ Praxo said in his own rough Hatti, and he licked his lips. ‘One for me and my buddy to share.’
The soldier looked faintly disgusted. ‘Not this lot. Temple maidens. Or court servants. Something like that. Should fetch a high price.’
Qirum grinned easily. ‘Your sergeant will get the profit, not you. You’ve come all this way, you’re at the gates of Troy itself, the city of traders. Why not make it worth your while? I know it’s against the rules. But look along the line.’ The soldier turned his head. All along the column the traders from Troy were doing bits of business with the soldiers. ‘Everybody’s at it. Nobody’s watching. Nobody’s going to miss one.’
‘These girls are special. They’ll have been counted.’
‘Then say she fell to a scorpion bite in the night. Oh, come on.’ Qirum dug into Praxo’s pouch and dug out a broken silver necklace. ‘Look at that. Egyptian. Made for the wife of a pharaoh.’ In fact, that was true. ‘You and your pal could have a fine night in Troy for that. Believe me, it’s not a pricey town.’
The soldier’s comrade saw the necklace, and murmured something.
The soldier laughed. ‘All right. Just get her out of here quick before the officers notice.’
Qirum handed over the silver chain.
The soldier reached back for the girl with the bag over her head, grabbed the bonds of thick rope that tied her wrists together, and pulled her away from the others. One of her companions called out. Maybe this was a sister, Qirum thought, or a friend, about to lose a companion she would never see again, but the soldier glared, and she shrank back. Praxo grabbed the girl’s bound wrists in one huge fist, and squeezed her rump with the other hand. The girl stumbled, instinctively trying to pull away. She turned her bagged head fitfully, this way and that.
Qirum frowned. He had caught a whiff of corruption. ‘There’s something wrong.’ He had been sold sick slaves and whores before, or insane ones; you had to be careful.
‘Yes. There is something wrong with her.’ The voice, speaking Nesili, was commanding, clear — and a woman’s.
Qirum turned. It was the older woman who had been walking behind the girls, her hands tied as theirs were. Now she shook back her hood to reveal a face of fine command, despite streaks of dirt and blood and a shaven scalp. Like an eagle, Qirum immediately thought. A downed eagle.
The soldier who had spoken to Qirum strode over and aimed a punch at her.
Qirum called impulsively, ‘No. Let her speak.’
Praxo was holding the girl by her wrists at arm’s length. ‘What’s wrong with this one?’
‘See for yourself,’ the woman said. ‘Pull back that bag.’
The soldiers looked at each other, and shrugged.
Praxo pulled the bag from the girl’s head. Flies swarmed out, buzzing, and Praxo flinched, gagging.
Qirum put his fingers under the girl’s chin and raised her face. Her eye sockets were pits of black corruption; he saw maggots squirm.
‘This is what we do,’ the older woman said.
‘ ‘‘We’’?’
‘She tried to escape. She flirted with the guard in the night. He loosened her bonds and she ran. Every night, some run — sometimes hundreds. Better the parched land than slavery, I suppose. Most are caught. They are punished like this — with blinding. It does not harm their capacity to walk, you see. Or to work, in some circumstances. In a mill, chained to a wheel. Or pulling an oar on a ship like yours, trader. Or a brothel. But it is a punishment that makes further escape impossible, and deters the rest, of course.’
‘You said, ‘‘we’’. What did you mean?’
‘Take me and I will tell you.’
Now Qirum laughed. ‘A wizened old stick like you?’
‘I am thirty-two years old. Take me — buy me, not one of these girls.’
‘Why would I do that?’
‘I am not like these others.’ She broke out of the line and pushed past the soldiers. The one negotiating with Qirum went to grab her, but she shook him off. She stood before Qirum, filthy, hands bound, head held high. ‘I am not Arzawan. I am Hatti. I am of the royal family, of the family of the first Great King Hattusili, who reigned five centuries ago having descended from the Annita kings before him.’
Praxo snorted. ‘Everybody in Hattusa is related to a king.’
She ignored him and kept her gaze on Qirum. Her eyes were an extraordinary pale brown, almost yellow. ‘My name is Kilushepa. I am Tawananna.’
Praxo frowned. ‘What does that mean? Tawananna?’
‘Queen,’ Qirum said. His heart was pounding at this utterly unexpected turn of events. ‘It means queen.’
‘I was delivered into this bondage by my enemies. You can free me from it.’
‘Why should I?’
‘I have a plan. I will return to Hattusa. I will save it, with your help — and you will be rewarded.’
Qirum felt he ought to be laughing at these grandiose claims from a woman in a queue of booty people. ‘Why me?’
‘Because I see something in you, trader, sailor. Pirate, are you? Raider? Well, such are the times we live in. I see a spark. A potential. Something I can work with. And because-’ with an extraordinary flash of humour, ‘-I don’t have much choice, do I?’
Praxo shook his head. ‘Even if this woman’s telling the truth, you’re a trader, brother. You’re not a king, or a kingmaker.’
Qirum snarled, ‘You don’t know what I am, or could be. You don’t know anything about me.’
‘You’re a street kid from the ruins of Troy!’
‘Shut up.’ He met the woman’s steady gaze.
Bound as she was, helpless before the men who surrounded her, she seemed utterly fearless. ‘What is your name?’
‘Qirum. I am Qirum.’
‘You have dreams, don’t you, Qirum? Dreams that burn you up at night — or nightmares-’
‘That’s the future. What can you promise me now?’
She stepped closer, and he could smell the dust of the arid plain on her breath. ‘I was a queen. For a decade I entranced a king, until his enemies, and mine, struck him down. Tonight I will entrance you.’
‘No,’ Praxo called. ‘This isn’t good. This isn’t right. I can feel it. No good will come of you coupling with this witch. Qirum, there are any number of girls here, some of them tupped only once or twice, probably. Pick another. Not her!’
But Qirum could not draw his gaze from her pale brown eyes, windows to the future.
6
Teel met Milaqa as she entered the Vestibule. He wore his ceremonial robe of leather stitched with owl feathers, and cap adorned with the beak and talons of the bird, the Other of his House, the Annids. The ground-length robe hid his excess bulk and made him look imposing rather than fat. ‘You’re late,’ he said. He wrinkled his nose. ‘And you smell of sweat. You’ve been running, I suppose. Well, you’re here now…’
He led her to the stone table on which her mother’s remains lay, a jumble of bones under the bronze breastplate.
The dignitaries solemnly gathered around, lit by lamps of whale oil that flickered in alcoves cut into walls rubbed smooth by generations of passage. All the great and ancient Houses were represented here. The Annids, of course, in their cloaks of owl feathers like Teel’s — all women save for Teel, for few men would pay the price of joining the Order of those who governed Northland. Then there were the priests with their mouths made grotesque by the teeth of their own Other, the Wolf, and the Beavers and the Voles, workers of Wall and land, and Jackdaws, the traders — even a few representatives of the lowly but essential House of the Beetle, who cleaned drains and dredged canals and shipped waste, resplendent today in their carapaces of polished black leather. Most exotic of all to Milaqa’s eyes were the Swallows, the wayfinders, the sailors and navigators and surveyors, men and women who mapped the world in their heads and knew the shape of it. Her own uncle Deri, Teel’s brother, was a Swallow, but today he was out on the ocean. Of all the Orders, Milaqa longed most of all to be a Swallow, to be standing there in one of those black shaped capes, so like graceful swallows’ wings. But her strength was languages, speech, not numbers and maps.