The drums of war were pounding. Alarm bells clamoured. The screams of dying men on the distant city walls carried on the air, thick with dust.

Securely locked away inside the highest tower, right in the centre of the palace, the princess and her women prayed. Kneeling in a semi-circle before a polished statue of Pinikir, the mother goddess of Elam, the five ladies murmured hushed invocations to their benefactress, begging her to intervene, to preserve their husbands and children, to hold back the invading host at the city gates.

Of them all, only the princess was serene and unconcerned. Sustained by the knowledge that no man in the land was the martial equal of her beloved, she radiated peace and tranquillity. Her husband had sworn to return to her and their son. In seven years of perfect marriage, he had never broken a promise to her; from the day he had promised to claim her as his bride, to this day, he had never given her cause to doubt him. Why would she begin now?

At four-and-twenty years of age, she could still stop a man in his tracks with a flicker of her almond-shaped eyes; a flutter of black lashes against cheeks smooth as buttermilk, a curve at the corner of her rose-petal lips, and a man was hers to command. But after she captured her husband, she had no need of such power. He had been just twenty years of age when his eyes first lit upon her, but he had never looked at another woman since.

She was utterly suffused with love. She had borne him one strong son, and another grew within her. Awan did not know it yet – she would tell him when he returned victorious from battle, intensifying his joy. As mumairu, commander of Elam’s army, the triumph and glory would be all his. Throughout her prayers, she longed to embrace him, to see the elation in his eyes when she gave him her news. She was four moons gone – she could not have hidden the secret for much longer. Perhaps she would have told him sooner, but she could not bring herself to trouble him with her condition when he had pressing matters of war to attend to.

A warm, wriggling body nestled against her right arm, disturbing her thoughts; she opened her eyes. Her four-year-old son squirmed beside her, distressed by the sounds and smells of the battle, eager to escape the tower room that had been their prison for two days.

‘Hush, child,’ she smiled down at him. ‘There’s nothing to fear.’

‘I’m not afraid,’ the prince lied, his little brow furrowed. ‘Father wouldn’t be afraid.’

‘No, darling. He wouldn’t.’

‘Will he be back soon?’

‘Yes,’ she ran a gentle hand over his head, through the tangle of his hair, looking lovingly at the face that was a miniature copy of her husband’s. ‘Why don’t you practise your fighting with Nazaru?’

The boy shook his head, ‘Nazaru plays too hard. Look!’ he pulled up his tunic to expose a purple bruise covering half of his left thigh.

She laughed softly, ‘That is just his way. Nazaru is a strong young man. When you fight an enemy who wants to hurt you, he will give you far more than bruises. You must learn to block his cuts.’

‘I will,’ her son nodded vehemently, tugging his tunic back down, suddenly ashamed of his bruise; a badge of failure. He jumped to his feet, threw his arms around his mother’s neck, and ran off to badger their young bodyguard to fight with him.

She watched him go with pride in her heart. He tugged at Nazaru’s tunic, and they were soon up and running through the basic drills, the boy fighting his giant opponent with renewed determination.

The bodyguard, broad and muscular, towered over even the tallest of her ladies. At just seventeen years of age, he promised to be the fiercest fighter that Elam had ever known. He already had a reputation for ruthlessness and brutish behaviour. It made him the perfect sparring partner for her young son – he must learn that his victories would not be handed to him easily. Nazaru would ensure that the little prince always took a lesson from each bout.

He had been furious to be left behind to guard the women and the children – he was the sort of man who would always be happiest where the fighting was thickest – but her husband, his cousin, had commanded him to be their protector, and he had obeyed, swearing to defend them at all costs.

She returned to her prayers. So intent was she on the words of her invocation to Pinikir that she failed to notice when the insistent bells fell silent and a hush settled over the city. The only sounds to be heard were the dull clatter of wooden daggers upon shields, the huffing and panting of the young prince, and the grunted instructions of his teacher. Soon, even they fell quiet.

A hand upon her shoulder made her open her eyes again. The angular features of her bastard half-sister, Ani, came into focus.

‘My lady Susa, listen.’

Cold dread seeped into her bones as the silence absorbed her. ‘What does it mean?’ she whispered through numb lips.

‘I don’t know,’ Ani confessed, ‘but I think we must prepare ourselves.’

Susa rose gracefully to her feet. ‘Ashan!’ she called, her tone commanding. ‘Come here.’

Still clutching his wooden dagger, he ran to her.

She seated herself in her carved and lacquered wooden chair of estate and gently prised the mock weapon from his fingers. ‘I have something very special to give you,’ she said, her soft eyes meeting his frightened ones. She nodded to Ani. ‘Your father left this in my care before he went off to battle. He wanted you to have it, if...’ she trailed off, unsure how to finish the sentence.

Ani appeared beside her, clutching an unremarkable wooden box. The princess lifted the lid and withdrew the dagger.

It was a thing of beauty – a gleaming bronze blade, honed to a razor edge, set in a polished bone hilt. The bronze was engraved with the arms of the royal house of Elam, the bone carved with the symbols of the warrior gods.

‘Be careful,’ she said, handing the dagger to her son, ‘it is sharp enough to kill a man, if you use it properly.’

Ashan’s eyes, so like his father’s, grew wide in awe. ‘For me?’ he whispered.

‘That’s right,’ Susa smiled through her tears. ‘You may need it.’

‘To help Father?’ he asked, all innocence.

‘To help Father,’ she nodded. ‘Ani – fetch me my diadem. We will soon be leaving this tower – I mean to leave it with my head held high.’

The hours that followed were slow and tortuous. The continued silence hung heavy in the air, smothering and oppressive. Not until the sun began to collapse towards the horizon, dragging dusk in its wake, did they hear muffled sounds within the palace precincts.

Susa’s stomach contorted in fear as an unmistakeable noise echoed up the tower stair: a battering ram against the heavily fortified door at its base. In all-too-short a time, the door cracked and splintered with an ear-splitting crash, and footsteps sounded on the stone steps.

Nazaru stood near the door, his dagger drawn. Susa shook her head, ‘No, my hot-tempered one. Whoever that is coming up to greet us, the battle is already won or lost. Awan promised to return to me, and swore that the only way I would ever lay eyes on a Babylonian would be if he breathed no more – he always keeps his promises. It must be him. It could only be him.’

The bodyguard gave her a sceptical look, but she did not reprove him for insolence, merely gestured for him to open the door.

Four men, all unfamiliar to her, coated in dust and spattered with gore, strode in and stood before her. She did not rise to greet them.

‘Susa, princess of Elam?’ one barked.

‘I am,’ she replied.

‘You are to come with us,’ the man stretched out a hand to take her arm.

Nazaru stepped between them.

‘You will not lay hands upon a princess of Elam,’ he growled, dagger in hand.

‘Don’t make us kill you, boy,’ snarled the man. ‘There’s been killing enough this day.’

‘I do not obey foreign barbarians who burst into my chambers unannounced,’ said Susa, mildly. ‘I owe allegiance to none but my father and my husband.’

‘Both dead,’ came the short reply. ‘You owe your allegiance to King Hammurabi of Babylon now.’

Icy fingers gripped her stomach – she felt as though she might be sick. ‘No,’ she whispered.

The man nodded to a companion. Stepping forward with a hempen sack in his hand, the man dumped its contents on the ground with a wet thud.

So bloodied and beaten that it was almost unrecognisable, the ragged head of her adored husband rolled to a stop against her foot; his blank, dead eyes staring unseeingly up at her.

The fingers in her stomach gripped harder. The room began to spin. An agonising pain seized her about the middle, a searing fire like nothing she’d ever known. A gush of fluid spattered the ground between her feet, and a red bloom spread across the rose silk of her gown.

The metallic odour of hot blood filled her nostrils as swirling blackness closed in about her. The last sound she heard before giving herself up to it was the voice of her little son crying ‘Mother!’