Iron Winter

19

The First Year of the Longwinter: Midwinter Solstice

Kassu tried to get out of the farmhouse without waking his wife.

It should have been possible. They no longer slept together. Henti had the marital bed, and Kassu a heap of blankets and furs by the big hearth in the main room. He particularly didn’t want to wake her this morning, for today was the day he had asked to see Himuili, his commanding officer, in New Hattusa, for advice on the legal aspects of his divorce.

But of course she woke when he did. Maybe it was the soft rattle of his armour as he buckled it on.

She came storming out of the bedroom. ‘Ha! Off to see the boss, are you? Off to ask him how to fix your marriage?’

He kept silent as he shook out his heavy cloak and pulled it around his shoulders. It was no use being dragged into an argument. She always won arguments. She always had been cleverer than he was, he admitted that — even though, he felt, he had a better sense of what was right, of what was true.

But Henti was not herself this morning. Her hair was tangled, she was wearing a robe she hadn’t changed for too long, her fingernails were still caked with mud from yesterday’s work with the animals. She was distressed and frightened, he thought, behind the blustering anger. As well she might be, for under Hatti law a possible penalty for her adultery was death, for her and her priest.

He couldn’t help responding. ‘Yes, I’m seeing Himuili, if you want to know. He agreed to meet me at the Lion Gate. I’m going to ask him to sponsor me if I decide to go to the courts.’

‘This is you all over. Always asking somebody smarter than you to tell you what to do. Palla is twice the man you are, in every way.’

Kassu sighed. ‘Maybe he is. But he’s not your man. I’m yours.’

‘But I don’t want you.’ She looked at him for a heartbeat, trembling. ‘Not any more. Why did you ever take up the offer to be a Man of the Weapons? My father was a church scribe! I never wanted to be a farmer’s wife. I don’t want this, a farm that’s dust in the summer and frozen in the winter, and we have to give half whatever we do grow in taxes, and I spend my life queuing at the city granaries for the bread dole, and the cattle are scrawny and they kick and try to chew your clothes when you squeeze a drop of milk out of them. .’

‘Nobody wants the drought,’ he said more gently. ‘Nobody wants the winter. At least we’re playing our part. I fight for the King, for New Hattusa, and we produce more food than we eat, and there’s not many can say that these days.’

‘Oh, how noble you are,’ she said blackly. ‘Playing our part. You are a lump of the dirt you love so much.’

‘The whole world is suffering. The story isn’t all about you.’

She lifted her head, her cheeks stained by tears. ‘Oh, of course it is. Of course it’s about me, and you, and him. What else is it about? You useless lump. You understand nothing. Palla understands. . Go.’ She picked up bits of his clothing, scattered on the floor where he’d been sleeping, and started throwing them at him, breeches, socks, tunics, woollen caps. ‘Go! Go to your precious general!’

He left with as much dignity as he could muster. Burning with humiliation. Burning with thwarted passion, for he still loved her.

The morning was still early. No fresh snow had fallen overnight but nor had yesterday’s fall melted, and it lay in the furrows and ridges of the churned-up mud. Everybody was getting used to the snow now, but Kassu remembered childhood winters when snow in New Hattusa had been a rare event.

But he forgot about the snow when he met Himuili at the gate in the city’s Old Wall. For, beneath the gaping mouths of weathered stone lions, Palla, the adulterous priest, was here too.

The gate itself was firmly locked, a great barrier of wood and bronze. These were times of insecurity, and had been even before thousands of Rus and Scand had shown up in the autumn to make camp on the far bank of the Simoeis river. But Himuili’s party, plus Kassu, was evidently going out into the country, not into the city. It was an impressive force. Kassu counted fifty men, all heavily armed — plus himself, though he hadn’t known about the nature of the assignment before now. He thought he recognised a couple of them, Men of the Golden Spear probably, an elite unit close to the King and second only to the Bodyguard. There were no mercenaries among their number, as far as he could tell from their armour and equipment, which was unusual for a Hatti force.

These formidable-looking men stood by a dozen carts, which were covered with leather sheets and harnessed to depressed-looking donkeys, with shivering boys standing by with switches. Kassu wasn’t so surprised by the strength of the force when he glimpsed what the carts were carrying, as one of the wagon covers was shifted to make it more secure. Bread! Loaves, hard-baked, heaped up. They were still warm from the oven and Kassu, never far from hunger himself, could smell their delicious crisp heat. There was no greater treasure in all of New Hattusa just now, he knew that. Kassu had no idea where these supplies were to be taken — some suffering town deeper in the Troad, perhaps.

As for Himuili himself, he knew that Kassu wanted to speak to him, but not for now. Himuili was in deep conversation with his senior officers, a huddle of men in heavy cloaks and expensive plumed helmets. General Himuili looked as if he had been made for days like this, Kassu thought, days of bleak and cold and tough duty; he was a pillar of a man, and his battered face, scarred and asymmetrical, was a mask of defiant strength.

But here was Palla, the priest, wrapped in a military cloak, even wearing a steel helmet. Standing with Himuili himself in the huddle! When he saw Kassu the recognition jolted Palla, there was no mistaking that. Evidently he’d not expected his lover’s husband to show up, not today. Palla was a slim, tall man, a few years younger than Kassu — closer to Henti in age, in fact, and that was probably part of the problem. His hair was dark, but his eyes were a pale blue, blue as a Scand’s. He wasn’t particularly handsome, Kassu thought. But his face bore no scars, his nose hadn’t been broken even once — his face was that of a soft city dweller’s, and so what Henti was used to, that and his evident learning. When Kassu looked at him now there seemed no harm in him. He was not the kind Kassu would ever seek out as a friend, but he was the kind Kassu had sworn to Jesus Sharruma to protect, the kind that made New Hattusa what it was: literate, intellectual, civilised. He seemed likeable. But Kassu had seen this likeable young man kiss his wife.

Inwardly he cursed his fate. Why must life be so complicated? Why couldn’t whatever malicious angel was toying with him have sent him a rival he could cheerfully hate? Because, he realised, thinking about it, such a man would never have been good enough for Henti, as, perhaps, he had never been good enough. And that was a true measure of the angels’ spite. All they had to do was to turn your own weaknesses against you, and your heart was smashed.

The priest looked away and visibly tried to concentrate on the conversation around Himuili. But then the group broke up, for a newcomer approached, walking around the curve of the city walls, and Kassu immediately understood who this shipment of bread was for, why it needed to be so closely guarded.

The newcomer was a Rus.

With his aides, Himuili walked forward to meet him. All the Hatti save Himuili himself had their cloaks pulled back so their weapons were free, though for now their swords stayed in their scabbards. The Rus was, after all, a representative of a force that had sent assassins into the heart of the capital to murder the King.

The Rus, though, came alone. He was a big man, with the blue eyes and red hair every Hatti associated with his people. He wore a loose cloak over a long tunic and baggy trousers, and linen wraps around his legs over long leather boots. He wore a cap rather than a helmet, and had one weapon, a single-bladed axe a Scand might carry, slung over his shoulder by a leather strap. His hands were empty.

Himuili grunted to his men. ‘Ugly enough to be a Rus. That rust-coloured hair.’

To Kassu’s blank astonishment it was Palla who replied first. ‘Careful, lord — he may understand more Nesili than you think. See how carefully he has been selected.’

‘Selected?’

‘The red hair, the blue eyes — not all the Rus share that colouring. This man looks like a Rus, to us. Notice the brooch that clasps the cloak, quite expensive. A warrior and a prince of the Rus — that is who they have sent to accept our gift. This is a game of symbols, you see.’

Kassu had perceived none of this.

Himuili grunted. ‘You should know, priest, you’ve spent enough time among them. Well, I hope he can read the symbolism of the crowd of big murderous bastards I’ve brought out to meet him.’

‘I’m sure he can, sir.’

The Rus approached Himuili, recognising his authority, and began to speak in his own heavy tongue.

Palla translated smoothly. ‘His name is Jaroslav. .’

‘I come from Kiev originally. I moved south with my family and my men, for we were starving. After the famine there was little left of our country, and what was left was ravaged by the Pechenegs and other scum, and we suffered badly, and so we moved. But in the new place the Scand came, and we fought them, but soon we were all starving again, and we moved on. And so we have come here, to Miklagard.’

‘Which is the Rus name for New Hattusa, sir,’ Palla added. ‘ “The great city.” ’

‘And he’s still starving, is that the game? Well, tell him we’ve got a load of good Hatti bread to fend off the pangs for him and his whores and his squalling Rus brats, and we’ll transport it to the riverbank for him, and we’ll be back again with more, and come the spring we’ll see what’s what.’ He glanced at Palla. ‘You could probably leave out the bit about the whores.’

‘I’m very discreet, lord.’ He repeated the general’s message to the Rus, who chattered volubly in return.

This response, that New Hattusa would feed the enemy horde, astounded Kassu. But the decision wasn’t his to make.

Himuili’s officers quickly formed up their troops to escort the bread wagons to the river. There would be a tight escort walking with the wagons themselves, and scouts on horseback riding further out. Kassu himself took a place beside one of the wagons, but barely had the party started to trundle away from the city walls than Himuili beckoned to Kassu and brought him forward, to where the priest was walking with the Rus near the head of the little caravan.

‘You are Kassu.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And this priest is the man you’re thinking of prosecuting, is it not?’

‘Yes, sir, I-’

‘Shut up. Walk with each other now. Talk. See if you can’t sort this out without bothering the courts. Or me.’ And he stalked off back to his position at the head of the caravan.

So Kassu walked with Palla, resentfully. Palla’s nervousness had evidently returned, as well it might, being within striking distance of a heavily armed cuckold. But he had composure, Kassu saw, you had to give him that.

They both walked behind the broad back of the Rus.

‘I can’t believe we’re dealing with these people,’ Kassu said. ‘Taking bread from the mouths of our own children and giving it to these northern brutes, who killed our King. And are we really going to keep feeding them until the spring?’

Palla dared to smile. ‘That’s what the opponents of the policy ask, even in the presence of the Tawananna herself.’

Kassu gaped. The Tawananna was Queen Hastayar, widow of the murdered Hattusili. It was the Hatti way that she retained power and influence after her husband’s death. ‘You’re saying this is her idea?’

‘Her and her advisers.’

‘But the Rus struck down her own husband!’

‘What choice is there? Look at the reality of it, Kassu. The Rus and their Scand allies are here. They aren’t going anywhere, certainly not until the spring. And even then they won’t be going back north. This party is just a vanguard. The whole of their people are on the move. Those trading cities they have on the rivers stretching back north are all abandoned now, everybody fleeing south, young and old, healthy or not. Because winter has got their northern lands in its grip and it doesn’t look like it’s going to let go.

‘So here they are on the northern bank of the Simoeis, less than a day’s march from New Hattusa. Yes, it feels unacceptable to deal with an enemy that has tried to decapitate us. But what if we didn’t feed them? Surely even you can imagine the consequences.’

‘Your condescension, priest, is going to get you killed.’

‘I apologise.’

‘How come you know so much anyway? Why was it you who talked to the Rus? How do you know his dog’s bark of a tongue?’

‘Well, it has been the priests who have always dealt with the Rus, ever since they first brought their dragon boats down the rivers to the Asian Sea, and began to plunder our coastal cities. My predecessors brought the word of Jesus Sharruma to them. We sought a syncretism between Teshub Yahweh and their own great god Odin.’

‘A what?’

‘Never mind — a philosopher’s term. The point is that followers of Jesus are less likely to go to war with each other. We began to trade with them rather than fight. And we taught them to read and write. Did you know that? We actually devised a written language to represent their tongue and taught it to them. And all this against a drumbeat of war. That is how I know them, Kassu. Some would say that civilising the Rus is a great achievement of the Church.’

‘You brag a lot for a priest, don’t you? What would Jesus think of that?’

Palla actually blushed. ‘I don’t mean to be immodest.’

‘And what would Jesus think of what you’ve done to my wife?’

Now there was a dash of anger in Palla’s look as he turned on Kassu, though he kept his voice down. ‘I didn’t do anything to her. It was her choice too. We’d met when we were younger, at the Church of the Holy Wisdom, where she trained as a scribe like her father, before. .’

Before she gave up the city to become the wife of a farmer-soldier, with Kassu.

‘Then I bumped into her again at a festival. We remembered each other. We talked — we’d always talked. She was full of questions about the court, the Church.’

‘Discussions she could never have with me.’

‘No,’ the priest said bluntly.

‘I was a good husband. I left the soldiering at the door, every night. I never bragged of the killing, as some men do. On campaign I never raped, or took whores-’

‘You never gave her a child.’

‘That was her choice! We discussed it. We’d lost one child already. We wanted to wait until the bad weather is over; this is no world to bring a child into.’

Palla said, almost gently, ‘Look around you, soldier. How many others go childless? Even though we’re all in this world-winter. She was keeping you at a distance, Kassu. She knew she had made a mistake, with you. She loved you — the strong solid core of you. She still does, in a way, I think. She still speaks of you when-’

‘Don’t tell me.’

‘All right. But it wasn’t enough.’

‘And then you showed up.’

Palla took a breath. ‘We love each other,’ he said defiantly. ‘Perhaps we always did when we were younger, and never knew it. We knew we could not have each other. But we could not stay apart, we are not strong enough for that. If you had not spotted us, if not for the extraordinary circumstances of the day the King died-’

‘You’d be carrying on now.’

‘Our lives are yours to dispose of,’ Palla said, calm now. ‘That is literally true. You must make your decision.’

They said no more, walking on in silence into the deeper snow.

Long before they reached the river and the Rus camp, a runner on a fast horse came dashing out from New Hattusa. Himuili was summoned back, urgently, to a council with the Tawananna. The mission to the Rus would have to be handled by his juniors.

The general picked men to accompany him back, and he glanced at Palla and Kassu. ‘You two. With me. Let’s go. Now.’