Targasnalli

Targasnalli was born the last of eight children in a Luwian-speaking village on the southern Anatolian uplands, where temple estates took grain, wool, and labor and sent orders down through overseers. The household kept to the local mix of Anatolian cult practice: a clay stand by the hearth, a small bowl for beer, and bits of bread set aside for the Storm God and for dead kin whose names were still spoken.

His mother, Anniya, ran the household without a resident husband. When people asked after the father, she answered in short phrases and shifted the talk to work. In the compound there was always a woman’s voice giving instructions. His grandmother Zalpa nursed him and carried him on her hip while she ground grain; his oldest sister Hantiliya, already twelve when he was born, took over when the grinding needed two hands. Three other sisters filled the household: Tiwati, three years older, steady and watchful; Luli, five years older, who carried water jars and sang while she worked; and Aruna, only a year older, the one nearest his age.

The family had already buried three children. An infant sister, Pirwa, had died before Targasnalli was born; another, Mara, had lived one year. His only brother, Arnuwi, had died the year Targasnalli was born, at seven—old enough that adults still spoke of him. When Anniya poured the first drink each evening, she tipped a few drops to the floor and said the names in a fixed order.

Targasnalli grew up small. When the other children climbed onto low roofs or wrestled in dust, he pushed in anyway, loud and quick with insults and jokes. A cousin once called him “little bones,” and he chased the boy the length of the threshing yard, stopping only when Hantiliya grabbed his ear.

When he was six, Luli sickened and died. She had been old enough to carry water jars, and then her place at the hearth went empty. The next year, Zalpa died.

That same year the estate’s demands sharpened. Word came that the Great King in Hattusa wanted more grain, more wool, more labor. Kuwalanaziti, the overseer, began arriving with a tally stick and a man who carried a seal. Labor days were counted more tightly, and grain deliveries prompted more arguments over measures. Targasnalli ran messages between the overseer’s post and the storehouse gate, because he walked fast and talked faster. Happiya, the gate-keeper, liked news. Targasnalli fed him small talk—who had a new calf, who fought with a neighbor, who complained about ration measures—and got waved through without waiting.

At eleven, Hantiliya died at twenty-two. She had been the one who could face Kuwalanaziti without shrinking and argue over measures without flinching. After that, Anniya leaned harder on Targasnalli and on Tiwati, who took over much of the grinding and food work that Hantiliya had managed. The following year brought a bad harvest, and the estate tightened rations. Before the harvest was in, Aruna took a fever and died at thirteen. She had been the sister nearest his age, the one who teased him when he preened for the guards, calling him “little man” in a singsong. After her burial, he talked even more. He interrupted adults, repeated jokes twice if the first telling did not land, and pushed himself into the center of any group that would have him.

The household scrambled. Anniya brought a blanket and a bronze awl to her sister’s house and returned with grain on credit. She sent Targasnalli out constantly as a runner and porter: a jar of oil to a shrine helper, a bundle of flax, a sack of barley from the storehouse to the millstone yard. He learned which overseer wanted deference and which wanted speed. He argued his way out of punishments with bright, shameless confidence until he met someone who enjoyed slapping boys. After that he kept his mouth running but his hands still.

On errand days he drank from field channels and springs without thinking. By twelve the stomach cramps had become familiar—days of diarrhea that left him lightheaded and slow. Anniya boiled water when she could, but fuel was scarce and the household could not spare him from work whenever he doubled over. Pazunuwa, an older porter, mocked him when he lagged and then used him anyway, sending him on extra trips because Targasnalli could talk guards into opening gates. Between bouts of sickness he gambled with knucklebones, shouted at the throws until elders scowled, and took quiet pride in knowing every shortcut between fields, pens, and shrine. He liked the first cup of thin beer after a long run. He liked being greeted by name at the gate.

At sixteen he was still small, still quick, still talking, though the recurring stomach sickness had left him thinner than before. After carrying loads for Kuwalanaziti during a stretch of heavy estate work, he handled a jar of leather tanning solution in a workshop yard and then ate without washing. The cramps came back harder than usual. He vomited, retched again, and could not keep water down. Years of intestinal illness had worn his body down; what a stronger body might have thrown off in days became something he could not survive. Anniya and Tiwati laid him by the hearth and offered bread and beer at the clay stand, naming the Storm God and the household dead. His body was washed, wrapped in a cloth, and carried to a burial place near the settlement; they set a small bowl and a little barley beside him and sealed the spot with stones.

Review completed: 2026-01-16