The guards ran to Qirum’s side, their own blades drawn. He could smell their fear at this failure to protect him.
The Spider stood before the King. ‘Fetch the surgeon,’ he snapped, and a guard ran.
Qirum lifted his tunic and inspected his belly. ‘She only scraped me… Not much in exchange for her life. Well, she was no soldier.’
The Spider looked down on Hadhe’s corpse. ‘Why did she do it? You were good to her. You protected her from me only a heartbeat ago.’
Qirum breathed hard, his heart pumping, his body belatedly reacting to the sudden threat. ‘But she lost one child and saw the banishment of others, and the death of her husband, and the rape, murder or enslavement of everybody she knew. She did have a grudge to bear, I suppose. Though it was not me who wielded the sword.’ He looked down on the knife, which was on the floor. ‘That looks like an Etxelur blade. I wonder if it was smuggled in by Milaqa and that uncle of hers. Or maybe Hadhe just swiped it.’
The surgeon came bustling in, looking anxious, as well he might, for if he failed to treat the King properly the cost would likely be his own life.
The Spider pointed his dagger at the child on the floor. ‘Shall I finish off that thing?’
‘What? No, no. Surgeon, find it a wet nurse when you’re done here.’ He considered. ‘Ensure that it grows up never knowing who it is, where it is from, who its mother was. That’s sufficient punishment for the mother’s shade to bear in the underworld, I think. But don’t harm the child.’
The surgeon nodded, gingerly cutting away the King’s bloody tunic.
‘All the time she’s held that knife, over months and months, waiting for the one moment when the guards were distracted enough to give her a chance. And I thought she was growing fond of me. People always surprise you, don’t they, Telipinu? Oww, man, be careful with that salve! Now, where were we?’
The Spider grinned, and knelt down to wipe the blood off his knife on Hadhe’s tunic. ‘Talking about siege tactics.’
57
‘We must be patient,’ Teel said.
‘And I agree,’ Raka said.
In this crowded room deep within the Wall, an annex to the great Hall of Annids, the air was thick with the smoke from the lamps on the walls, with stale aromas from cloaks of elderly feathers and fur, and with a sharper stink of fear, Milaqa thought.
Now Noli, her hunger-gaunt making her seem more stern than ever, held up a hand. ‘I do not question the vigour of our fighters, or their bravery, or the hard work and ingenuity that has been put into our defences. But the fact is the Trojan bear cub continues to find ways to test those defences. We were lucky that his absurd tower stumbled into a trap.’
Deri said, ‘The trap was meant for chariots, granted, rather than siege towers. But it worked. A simple hole in the ground defeated all the ingenuity and labour that went into that monstrosity.’
‘And the lesson you draw from that?’
‘Why, to dig more holes!’ Deri cried. ‘To be still more vigilant.’
‘And to wait?’ Noli asked. ‘Is that all you have? To wait, and wait, until Qirum gets bored and goes away?’
‘Yes,’ said Kilushepa sharply, in Northlander.
Milaqa turned with the rest. The Hatti queen swept into the room, with Muwa her Chief of Bodyguards and Hunda her sergeant at her side. Milaqa hurried forward to translate for her. The Tawananna’s hair was cropped short these days, she had only a touch of kohl at her eyes and rouge on her cheeks, and she wore a simple white robe, less grand than the Northlanders’ House cloaks. Yet she instantly commanded attention, Milaqa saw, even from the Annid of Annids.
‘Yes, you must wait,’ Kilushepa said. ‘It is how a siege must be withstood, and believe me, I have witnessed several, and studied many more from history.’ She waved a hand. ‘If you are improvising your defences, well, so is Qirum improvising his assaults. All this is as novel to him as it is to you. Let him waste warriors and wood on his ridiculous siege engines.
‘Meanwhile you people are safe, here in your Wall. I have seen it for myself. You have fresh water, from the streams that flow to the Wall. You are cut off from the country, but you have your ingenious harbours on the Wall’s ocean face; your fishing fleets come and go with impunity. You have tribute brought to you from the lands all along the northern coast, from the World River estuary to Albia — why, I believe there are even boats plying from Kirike’s Land. Meanwhile your people in the country have simply faded away into the marshes and forests, the wild land where Qirum’s troops cannot follow. They are safe too. You may be growing tired of the taste of fish — frankly, so am I, and I only just arrived. But that’s a small price to pay for survival. You are safe. Sit in your Wall. Wait it out.’
Milaqa thought she was hugely impressive. But since her return to Northland, and Milaqa had shadowed her closely ever since to aid with translations, the Tawananna had not asked about the fate of the child she had borne and left behind here. Not once, not a word. Any more than she had asked after the fate of her son in Hattusa.
‘But,’ Noli said, stressing her words with blows of fist into palm, ‘ for — how — long? Kilushepa, you have seen the flooding at the base of the Wall. The Beavers tell me that they have no record of a full year when they have been able to perform no significant maintenance on the Wall and its systems. In the end the flooding will eat away at the growstone. And out in the country the drainage and diversion systems are either neglected or purposefully wrecked — purposefully, we wrecked some of them ourselves, to make the land difficult for Qirum! How long do you believe the siege will last — years? There may not be a Northland left to recover by the end of it.’
Teel murmured, ‘Come, Noli. The Wall has lasted hundreds of generations. It is not likely to fail tomorrow.’
Raka said, ‘And we have our fallbacks. The wheels, the manually driven pumps.’
‘ ‘‘Manually,’’ ’ Noli said with disgust. ‘ That’s a milkwater word for what’s going on in those chambers. Trojan prisoners strapped to the wheels and whipped into the work by Hatti thugs!’
Milaqa was shocked. She’d believed the official story that the wheels were manned by volunteers.
‘It is necessary,’ Raka said unhappily.
Noli snapped, ‘Necessary! To keep slaves? Northland has never kept slaves, not since Ana’s time.’
‘They are not slaves-’
‘Slaves, I insist, who we beat and work to death. This is hypocrisy, Annids! Lies we tell ourselves, and our people. This may destroy Northland more thoroughly than any flooded lowland or blocked dyke.’
Deri said, ‘But, respectfully, what choice is there? If you are advocating going out to meet Qirum in open battle — I have seen his troops. I have fought them. I would not recommend it.’ He nodded at Kilushepa. ‘Even with your fine troops at my side, queen, and I mean no disrespect.’
Kilushepa said evenly, ‘I agree with you completely. It is easy to lose patience — but if you lose that, you lose everything. This is in fact the mistake that Qirum’s own people made at Troy, when that city was besieged by the Greeks. If only they had kept their patience they could be starving the Greeks out even now, still safe and rich and strong. Instead of which-’
There was a commotion in the corridor outside. People turned to look, and Milaqa peered to see over their cloaked shoulders, in the dim light of the flickering oil lamps.
Tibo stood there, panting, uncertain. ‘There is a man,’ he said. ‘He says he sailed from Kirike’s Land. He had a cargo of their dried fish…’
‘Yes, boy,’ Raka snapped. ‘What of it?’
‘He was attacked. His ship. Attacked on the Northern Ocean.’ He looked around, searching for Deri. ‘Father — it’s Adhao.’ A neighbour of Vala’s and Medoc’s on Kirike’s Land, before the fire mountain. ‘May I bring him in?’