A pall of smoke, yellowish, hung over the city as the Hatti party approached, and Kassu, walking in the train with his wife Henti at his side, wondered what could be left in that hulk of a city to burn. The day was bright and the sun high, though the air was no hotter than usual, and the Hatti queen walked under a canopy carried by four favoured servants – including Pimpira, Kassu’s ‘nephew’. The awning itself was a spectacular tapestry, a minor masterpiece of Hatti art, and a great banner of Jesus Sharruma with crossed palm leaves went before Hastayar. The invitation to serve had been an honour for the relative of a serving officer, but Kassu wondered what Hastayar would think if she knew the boy’s true origin. Pimpira limped bravely, compensating for the deformity of his foot. The sight of him there made Kassu obscurely proud. He had failed at many things in his life, but at least he had saved this one boy.

Kassu himself, in brightly polished mail and his best cloak, walked behind the main Hatti party. Henti carried a bowl of potatoes, gathered from the bit of farmland they had been granted a day’s walk from the Hatti camp-city, dispossessed from a Libyan family. Fifty soldiers’ wives in this party were carrying such bowls. The potatoes were a symbolic gift for the Carthaginians, to show them the Hatti besiegers were not starving, that they could afford to be generous. The bowl was heavy, and Henti looked hot, weary, displeased. They barely spoke. They rarely did these days. Kassu had saved her life, and Palla’s, but he had not been able to save his marriage, it seemed, apart from the outer form.

Then the wind changed, and the smoke from the city wafted over them. Kassu smelled meat, grease: the smoke of funeral pyres. Henti winced and turned her head, but with her two hands holding the bowl she could not cover her face.

Only a handful of advisers walked with the queen under the awning: Tiwatapara who had once been Hazannu of New Hattusa, the general Himuili with a small, carefully selected guard – and Palla, the young priest, dressed in elaborate robes of purple embroidered with gold. It sickened Kassu to his stomach to see Palla there. But he had to admit Palla was doing well during this extraordinary war, filling the gap left by his superior, Angulli Father of the Churches, who was usually either insensible with drink or raging because of the lack of it.