The talk of war chilled the room. But Noli kept her composure. ‘Words? These little blocks of clay?’
‘The block in your left hand, Milaqa, is a tablet of peace. The one in your right, a tablet of war.’
‘Peace? On what terms?’
‘There will be no more Northland,’ Qirum said simply. ‘Well, this is already true. All of Northland is now the Kingdom of New Troy — my kingdom. Mine to use as I please. In fact I have already parcelled up much of it; I will show you the maps, if you like. All that remains is to mark the boundaries. But you of Etxelur can live in peace. Your Annid of Annids will serve as one of my basileis if she likes, but I, and my heirs, will remain the overking. You can even keep your Wall; you can live as you like, in the strip of land bordering it. After all there are few enough of you. The tribute I will exact will be modest. Food, wealth, a levy of soldiers-’
‘A tribute that will pay for what, exactly?’
‘For protection,’ he said smoothly.
Noli smiled thinly. ‘Let me be clear. Perhaps you should translate for me, Milaqa, to be sure he understands. This is what you call a settlement. This is our reward for peace.’
‘It is.’
‘And you see it as just? Very well. And the terms of your tablet of war-’
‘When your resistance is crushed, you, your children, and your grandchildren unto eternity, will work on the farms of my estate. The Spartans have this system. They call the owned ones helots.’ He said this as if imparting an interesting fact, rather than making brutal threats. Not for the first time Milaqa wondered how much she really understood this man.
Noli was expressionless. ‘And what of the canals, the dykes — what of the Wall? What will become of the works of Northland?’
He laughed. ‘Oh, I care nothing for your Wall! Let it fall or stand, I don’t care. No, wait — I always rather liked those big stone heads that adorn it. What was the name of your Jaguar-girl sculptor, Milaqa? Perhaps I will have her chip off the old faces and replace them with my own handsome smile — looking down on Northland, for ever!’
Noli seemed to consider. Then she took back the tablets from Milaqa and raised them both, as if she was going to smash them to the floor.
‘Annid — wait.’ Teel took her arm, and guided her a few paces away. Deri joined them, and Milaqa. They spoke softly, but Milaqa was sure that there were ears to hear every word. Teel said, ‘We must consider his offer.’
‘What offer? To be a vassal or a slave?’
‘You see how strong he is already. At least we can buy time, find ways to deal with this threat-’
‘No,’ Deri said sternly. ‘This place, this ‘‘kingdom’’ of warriors and farmers, is like a growth in the body that kills you if you don’t cut it out.’
‘Sometimes such a thing will kill you because you cut it out,’ Teel replied.
Noli shook her head. ‘In another generation it will be impossible to shift them, and all will be lost. You heard how he spoke of the Wall. This fool understands nothing of how Northland is maintained, how we have preserved it in the hundreds of generations since the days of Ana and Prokyid. This is a day that has long been threatened. The records of the Annids show how we have kept the cattle-folk at bay, and their warriors and weapons and war-making, through ingenuity and determination. But a final conflict was inevitable, I suppose. Has it has fallen to our generation to face that conflict? Then face it we will. We must resist this man, this monster. And if we fail — well, at least our children would not have long to suffer servitude, for soon the sea will rise up and drown all of us, warriors, slaves and all.’
‘All right,’ Teel said hastily, hushing her. ‘Save the speeches for the Water Council. But do we have to tell him we will resist? As I said, if we can only buy some time-’
‘By lying?’ Noli looked at him with utter contempt. Teel rolled his eyes.
Qirum faced them, hands on hips, growing impatient. ‘Well?’
Noli looked down on him, stern, rather magnificent, Milaqa thought. She quietly handed the tablets back to him. ‘We reject your terms, Trojan. We will not rest until we have driven you from this land, and burned down this palace of shit you have built. Is that reply clear enough for you?’
Qirum was ominously still. For all his promises of safe conduct Milaqa felt their peril building with each heartbeat. At length he said, ‘I bring civilisation to this place. Civilisation, to replace your antique savagery. Do you think I grab power for its own sake? And your tone — do you Annids imagine you are superior to the cultures I represent? You may have no armies, but do you not control the water that feeds this land? Is it not just as the way the kings of Egypt and Hattusa control their great irrigation networks, and so control the people? Are we not images of each other?’ He was smouldering now. ‘Do you imagine you are superior to me, woman? Do you imagine you are better?’ And Milaqa knew the deepest levels of his personality were being exposed, the shameful memory of his boyhood.
‘This conversation serves no purpose.’ Noli turned on her heel and stalked from the room.
Qirum, furious now, lunged after her. But Milaqa grabbed his arm, despite the glares she got from Erishum and the guards. ‘Don’t, Qirum. She’s going to have to convince the Annids to fight you. If you send back her head in a basket you’ll make the argument for her.’ She tried not to flinch from the anger that burned in his eyes.
Then he calmed, apparently through sheer effort of will. ‘You’re right. Of course. You always were a wise one, as well as a truth-teller. I must be patient. After all, the next time I meet that woman she will be dancing on the end of my cock.’
She pulled away from him, repelled. ‘Is this why we must fight, Qirum? Because yet another woman has wronged you?’
He looked her full in the face, and she felt that strange, liquid, hot-metal sensation inside. ‘Milaqa — come to me. Fight by my side.’
‘You ask me such a thing, at a moment like this? Why?’
‘Because we must stand together, the likes of you and me. We who are outside. We who have no place. We have more in common with each other than with those who’ — he waved a hand at the others — ‘weigh us down.’
‘You’d have me fight my people, my family?’
He smiled. ‘I listened to you complain about them long enough in the Wall taverns.’
‘Perhaps. But I could not betray them.’
‘No.’ He sighed. ‘I suppose I would expect nothing less. Ah, Milaqa — even though the world has separated us, I pledge that I will never harm you.’
Teel plucked at her sleeve. ‘We must go. I think Noli is out of the building already. It would not do to become separated.’
Milaqa let herself be led away. Qirum stood alone, briefly, in this great room, in his palace of wood and mud and stone. He smiled at her, then turned away.
52
The Second Year After the Fire Mountain: Late Autumn
Mi came running into the hearthspace of My Sun, her big Kirike’s Land bow slung over her shoulder. She was breathing hard, sweating despite the chill of the day. ‘They are coming,’ she said. ‘The Trojans! They are coming!’
Hadhe and Vala were sitting with the other women at the open-air fire in the hearthspace. They were working on the fruits of the autumn forests: acorns from the oaks being readied for the winter storage pit, and leaves, bark, flowers from the horse chestnuts, all of which could be used in cooking and in medicine.
For a heartbeat nobody moved. Somehow Hadhe couldn’t hear what Mi was saying, couldn’t take it in. Here was her village, her home, the neat houses around the central hearthplace, the big communal house standing proud on its flood mound, the hopeful symbols carved by Caxa into the high hillside that had become so popular that everybody called this place ‘My Sun’ now, rather than its old name of Sunflower. Even the bare earth of the new defensive rampart they had had to build did not spoil the beauty of the prospect. She took a deep breath, of air that was tinged with the smoke of the quietly crackling fire, and with a deeper, burning scent of the turning leaves. And the child inside her, five months into its term, turned in its contented sleep.