Did she love him? Did she lust for him? She could not tell. You might as well lust after the sun. She had always sensed that if she got too close to him she would be burned up. Yet he shone so much more brightly than other men! Maybe that was why, at the comparatively elderly age of eighteen, though she was no virgin and had had a string of brief, furtive relationships, most of them forged and finished in the Scambles, she was still effectively alone, still had no children — unlike cousin Hadhe, say, with her new husband and growing children, and pregnant again too. Qirum was distorting Milaqa’s life with his powerful enigmatic fascination, just as he was distorting everything about the way life was lived in Northland. But his actions had already caused people to die — including a member of her own family, Nago. And now Milaqa had to deal with him again.
After a couple of days they started to see evidence of Qirum’s presence. The country looked abandoned. The ancient track ran through empty settlements, past broken houses and cold hearths, empty fish racks, eel traps left unset. The managed country itself showed signs of a lack of maintenance, reeds clogging weirs, dykes choked by weeds. In one settlement they disturbed deer grazing on wild flowers that carpeted a hearthspace evidently untrodden by human feet for months.
‘This can’t go on,’ Noli muttered. ‘Leave it too long and things will start to break down, and once that starts it will be difficult to recover. Northland needs constant tending.’
A half-day further on they came to a wall. It was just a low rampart crudely dug out of the ground, backed up by the ditch from which the dirt had been taken. But it cut right across the venerable Northland track.
Noli paced before the barrier, fuming at this latest insult to her land’s tradition. Speaking through Milaqa she challenged Erishum. ‘I suppose this land is now “owned” by Qirum.’
Erishum grinned easily. ‘Oh, no. This is one of the estates the King has granted to the Lord Protis. We’ve yet to come to the King’s own lands.’
He led them west, following a rough track along the line of the rampart. Beyond the rampart, looking south, Milaqa glimpsed horses, cattle, sheep: farmers’ livestock brought to Northland. They soon came to a gate, and a track that led south into the estate, running off to the flat horizon. Like the rampart itself, the track had nothing to do with the older layout of Northland. Two warriors waited by the gate, huddled in cloaks against the cold, a small fire burning before a crude shelter of poles and deerskin. They were wary as the party approached, but relaxed when they recognised Erishum. The Hatti spoke to them softly in an Anatolian language Milaqa did not recognise. In response, one of them took to his horse and galloped off south.
‘We can wait here in the warm,’ Erishum said, indicating the shelter, the fire. ‘Qirum will send a chariot-’
‘We will walk,’ Noli said through Milaqa.
Erishum shrugged. He said something in his own tongue to the remaining soldier, who looked Noli up and down and laughed.
The party walked on through the scruffy gate, and Milaqa felt an odd shiver that she had suddenly walked into a land where, perhaps, the will of the little mothers of sky, sea and land no longer held sway. They came to more ramparts and low walls, some little more than scratches in the ground. These were not defensive but markers, field boundaries. People were working with spades and picks, and oxen dragged ards to turn the soil. In some places, crops were already growing.
‘Farmers in Northland,’ Teel said. ‘We’re seeing history, Milaqa. And all because of Qirum, the waif from the ruins of Troy — a king!’
‘A king,’ Deri said drily, ‘who approaches even as you speak, brother.’
Milaqa turned to see, her heart pounding. Noli stood firm and tall, an Annid of Etxelur, her travelling cloak drawn around her, her face expressionless.
The party came along the rough track through the farmland, a handful of men riding horses, an empty chariot, a few troopers jogging alongside. Qirum jumped extravagantly from his horse before it had even pulled up. His warriors, in the garb of Hatti soldiers, watched the Northlanders more warily.
Qirum made straight for Noli and bowed deeply. ‘Annid! I was happy when the runner brought news of your coming. You honour me by accepting my invitation.’ He spoke in the Etxelur tongue, better than he had been able to manage last time Milaqa had seen him, though it was still heavily accented. He moved among the group. He nodded to Teel and Deri, stiffly. Deri just glared back. The Trojan clapped Erishum on the shoulder, a gesture of easy friendship.
Then he stood before Milaqa. ‘We meet again,’ he said in his own tongue.
‘The mothers draw us together.’
‘Who? Oh, those goddesses of yours? I think they have very little to do with any of this.’ He indicated the wide farmland. ‘You grow more beautiful.’
‘Liar.’
He laughed out loud. ‘You speak this way to a king? Well. You are evidently still a truth-teller, Milaqa. I remember that about you above all — that and the fact that you once saved my life. And what of me — am I unchanged?’
She considered him. He was dressed simply, at first glance, in a tunic and kilt of some white, woven cloth. His head was bare and he was clean-shaven, but his hair was worn longer than she remembered, and it was plaited, a little like a Hatti queue. But that tunic cloth looked very fine quality, with gold thread sewn into the hem. Over the tunic he wore a single piece of armour, his familiar chestplate of shining bronze, and in the hilt of the sword in its scabbard she saw a jewel gleam. She could smell the oils on his hair and skin.
‘Why,’ she said, ‘I think you’re wearing kohl around your eyes.’
He laughed again. ‘You have to put on a show. But it makes me value those who knew me before, Milaqa — like you. For who else would have the courage to tell me the truth? And I need that, you know. I always will. Come.’ He took her arm, and led her and the rest of the party back to the horses and the chariot. The chariot was a big machine with six-spoked wheels, a Hatti design. ‘Speak for me, Milaqa. Annid Noli, please ride with me. I will drive the chariot myself.’
‘Tell him I prefer to walk on the honest earth.’
Teel stepped up to Noli urgently. ‘He does you a great honour, to come out to meet you like this. Remember, in his eyes, he is a king. We are here to negotiate — to blend our spirits with his. We must respect his gesture. I urge you, Annid…’
As Noli hesitated, Milaqa said in the Trojan tongue, ‘The Annid is honoured and is delighted to accept.’
Qirum held out his hand to Noli, and the Annid had no choice. She stepped forward stiffly, and let Qirum help her up onto the platform of the chariot. Qirum winked broadly at Milaqa. Deri and Teel, looking even more uncomfortable, were loaded onto horses behind their Trojan riders’ backs.
The little party rattled off to the south, following a rutted track.
‘Look around.’ Qirum waved at the fields, the crops that grew around abandoned Northlander flood mounds. ‘Only months since we first set foot here. Already this empty, barren land is bearing fruit.’
‘Stop being so provocative,’ said Milaqa. ‘The land was neither empty nor barren before you came. And slow down. I think the Annid might throw up.’
Qirum laughed. But he dragged at the stallions’ harness until the chariot slowed a little. ‘But still, see how much we’ve done. We have brought wheat and barley, as well as sheep and goats and cattle. The crops are not native to this land, and the colder air, the heavier soils, inhibit their growth. But we have been joined by others from the Continent, from Gaira and beyond, who have brought the crops they grow there. Lentils. Peas. Beans. Flax. Poppies. Even the poorer soils can be made to bear a crop, millet or rye if you handle them right.. ’