She stared.
‘Keep digging,’ he murmured.
She bent over her spade. ‘I never heard of a House of the Crow. Besides, you’re an Owl. You sacrificed your balls to become one! How can you be in two Houses at once?’
‘It just evolved that way… Milaqa, like most things in Northland, the House of the Crow is very old. Somebody far back in our history realised that we have this basic problem of getting stuck in our ways. And that every so often the world changes, something new happens, and we have to be able to cope with it. So the Crows emerged. Like the other Houses, you can only join if you’re invited. And you’re only invited if you have the right kind of mind.’
‘What kind?’
‘The kind that doesn’t fit anywhere else. The whole point of the Crows is to be the ones who deal with the new, the unexpected, the challenging.’
She felt her heart beat faster. ‘The exciting.’
‘The dangerous,’ he warned. ‘Look, Milaqa, I’m just offering this to you as a way forward. I already showed you something unexpected. Something strange.’
‘You mean the arrowhead.’ She pulled it out from under her tunic, as he had his crow’s foot.
‘What have you done about it?’
‘Nothing,’ she said slowly. ‘I…’ She had felt reluctant to face the fact that her mother must have been murdered. Somehow asking questions about it would make her seem even more dead. It was easier to dive into the clamour of the Scambles and forget everything.
‘I know it’s complicated,’ Teel said. ‘But that arrowhead isn’t just lethal, it’s new. Maybe if you can find out where it came from, what’s different about it-’
‘Nice pendant.’ Ximm was only a pace behind them. Teel hastily tucked away his crow’s foot. Ximm reached out to cradle the arrow in his palm. ‘I know a bit about iron.’ He frowned. ‘An arrowhead? Funny sort of ornament.’
Milaqa took a breath. ‘It’s not just an ornament. This works. It’s been fired.’
‘You saw that, did you?’
She stayed silent, hoping she wouldn’t have to lie.
Ximm turned. ‘Here, Voro, take a look at this.’
Voro straightened up from the mud and strode over. ‘Iron?’
‘Not just iron. Hard and true iron, good enough for the bow, according to the lady here.’ He tapped the head on the shaft of his shovel. ‘How come? Iron falls from the sky, doesn’t it? No use for anything but showing off,’ and he cackled.
‘I heard rumours,’ Voro said. ‘About the Hatti. You know how it is — we send them potato and maize mash, and tin for their bronze. We get iron goods back from them in exchange, among other stuff, and so we know something of their techniques. I heard they have a way of working iron that makes it harder. Better than bronze, so they say. I may be meeting some Hatti myself. Some of their high-ups are coming to the Giving in midsummer. I’m supposed to go with Bren to meet them in Gaira and escort them here.’
Teel pulled Milaqa away, and murmured, ‘Maybe this is your way forward.’
‘To do what?’
‘Follow the thread, Milaqa. If you can find out where this arrowhead was made and how it got to Northland, maybe you can find out who pulled the bowstring. If there’s some connection with the Hatti-’
‘I don’t know any Hatti. I don’t know anything about them.’
‘What, you don’t bump into any in the Scambles? Then it’s time you found out, isn’t it?’
12
The midsummer Giving at Etxelur was, Qirum had learned, a custom more revered than all the ceremonies of Egypt, more ancient than the rites of vanished Sumer and Akkad. And as the solstice approached people travelled from across half the planet to attend the Giving, like a great drawing-in of breath. Now Qirum was going to Northland for the first time, he was going to a Giving. And he would have a queen of the Hatti at his side.
The long journey began as they pushed off from Troy’s long gritty beach. The rowers dragged on their oars under Praxo’s gruff leadership, and Qirum worked his steering oar as they navigated the treacherous currents of the strait.
Kilushepa was fascinated by Qirum’s ship. She paced the length of it, picking her way between the eight rowers’ sweating torsos and the bales of food, water, wet-weather clothes, folded sails, bailing buckets, bundles of weapons and other junk that crammed the narrow hull. Her balance was good, as the ship pitched and creaked in the offshore swell.
‘Twelve paces long.’
‘About that.’ Qirum, sitting at his position in the high stern, was unfolding the periplus for this stretch of coast. He was amused by the way the rowers were distracted by Kilushepa’s slim figure brushing past them, and by Praxo’s clenched, furious expression under his salt-stained felt cap.
She sat down at the prow, running her fingers along the hull beams. ‘Your paintwork is flaking.’
He laughed. ‘Probably. We never were the smartest ship on any of the oceans. But it’s pitch, not paint.’
Praxo growled, ‘Smart or not, she’s the fastest and most feared of all — right, lads?’
The only answer he got was a couple of uninterested grunts. Most of these rowers had been signed on in the dingy taverns of Troy, and most looked as if all they wanted was to work off last night’s mead or wine or beer. At least they seemed to be an experienced bunch, however; they could handle their oars, and none of them was throwing up as the sea swelled under them.
‘Oak,’ Kilushepa said now. ‘These planks are of oak, are they not?’ She picked at the withies that bound the planks, the caulking. ‘And these lengths that bind them?’
‘Yew. And then it’s all caulked with moss, beeswax and animal fat. The hull is sealed to keep out the water.’
‘You know, we Hatti generally don’t have much time for ships. Even though we rely on the fleets that bring us our grain from Egypt. Everything this ship is made of was once alive, wasn’t it? The wood, the wax, the moss, the leather — all these bits of trees and plants and animals, sliced up and stitched together. The living stuff of the land moulded to defy the sea. It’s wonderful when you think about it.’
‘Is it?’
‘Yes! As if the ship is itself alive, a creature bounding across the waves.’
‘Praxo says she has a mind of her own, that’s for sure.’
His only response from Praxo was a scowl.
They were putting out from the land now. Troy diminished to a shabby blur on the eastern horizon, and a breeze was picking up, fresh with salt. Sitting at the prow, Kilushepa turned and looked out to the open sea, breathing deep. She was remarkably composed, Qirum thought, not for the first time, considering her circumstances — considering she had been the booty of her own people’s army so recently, and now here she was alone on the ocean with ten violent, lusty men.
‘So we sail for Northland,’ Kilushepa called back. ‘Will we be out of sight of the land altogether? How remarkable that would be — the world reduced to an abstraction of sea and sky.’
‘Only for brief stretches,’ Qirum replied. ‘We’ll do some island-hopping before we get to the Greek mainland. Basically we’re following the coastline.’ He held up his periplus, a linen scroll. ‘From Gaira, we’ll work our way up the river valleys and overland to get to Northland.’
‘Would you get lost, out of sight of land?’
Praxo hawked and spat over the side, a green gobbet on the grey-black water. ‘ He would. There are clever sorts who have tricks to find their way around on the open water. Such as to see how high the sun rises at noon, and from that you can work out how far north or south you are.’
She frowned. ‘What sort of divination is that? Sounds like the Greeks to me. Always full of tricks, the Greeks, clever-clever, like clever children. What is that scroll, Qirum? A map, is it?’
He unrolled the periplus carefully, passing the fragile fabric from one spindle to the other, holding it up so she could see the writing, the little sketches. ‘This is my periplus. A guide to the coast. It cost me half my fortune when I bought it from an old seaman down on his luck. And he bought it in turn from somebody else, long ago. I’ve been adding to it since. See, the three different writing hands?’