‘A few years after that a scholar called Hapati-urmah, of a school that was developing an interest in Jesus’ teaching, heard a rumour He was still alive, and in Hattusa of all places, I mean Old Hattusa. So he hunted around and there was Jesus, bent and old, working as an assistant in a carpenter’s shop. All around Him loved Him, it’s said. Well, the scholars wanted to take Him up into the temple, but He refused to leave the shop, His life would end where it began, He said. So they came to Him, sitting in the sawdust as they listened to His words. So you see, there is the example we wish to promulgate to the people: for Jesus Himself, a booty-people march ended in redemption.’

‘Hmm. Until His bones were pinched by the Northlanders.’

‘There is that, yes.’

‘I’ll tell you why the Hatti kings liked Jesus. Because the faith He preached was a submissive creed. A slave’s creed. Makes people easier to handle, see, if they think you’re enslaving them for their own good.’

‘That’s a cynical point of view.’

‘All soldiers are cynics.’

‘Oh, no, they’re not, Zida, believe me. Your friend Kassu for one. Look, I’m getting cold, Henti. Shall we go to the house?’

‘All right.’

Zida called, ‘You two! Keep an eye out for stragglers. And you lot get on with the pyre . . .’

Footsteps.

And there was Pimpira, alone in the dark. Soon he could smell burning meat.

28

He waited and waited.

He was growing very cold, because he had been lying still so long. He tried not to think of what had happened above, where his mother and father might be now. What he might see when he came out.

But when to come out? He had no way of telling the time; he couldn’t see any daylight. He waited a long time. It might have been hours. It might have been heartbeats! It seemed long.

When he tried to move he found he had stiffened up; he had been lying curled up, like a baby. He moved as slowly and deliberately as he could, pushing the chunks of frozen earth away as noiselessly as possible. His father’s hasty shovelling had left the earth loosely packed, and it wasn’t difficult.

Soon he was standing, his head and shoulders thrust out of the pit. It was still daylight, but the light was fading under a grey lid of sky. The big house was dark. A fire burned in a corner of the farmyard – he didn’t look at that too closely. There was no wind, and the smoke from the pyre rose straight up to a blank sky. He hoisted himself up, kicking away the last of the debris, and stood, a bit shakily, on the lip of the pit.

‘Told you.’