Iron Winter

29

The Second Year of the Longwinter: Midsummer Solstice

Barmocar insisted on leaving Etxelur before the midsummer Giving.

Rina knew the Carthaginian hadn’t done this just out of spite for her. He and his colleagues and agents had spent much of the winter planning the trek to Carthage; the earlier in the year they started out on this long journey the better chance they had of completing it before the weather closed in again. In fact, Barmocar told Rina, he would have left even earlier if Northland’s dismal non-spring had allowed it.

But the midsummer Giving was the high point of the year for all of Northland, when the people came together before the Wall, under the guidance of their Annids and the priest-philosophers of the House of Wolves. It seemed a dreadful betrayal for Rina to prepare for such an event with the other Annids, while all the time she intended to abandon Northland herself — and while she quietly planned to steal the bones of the Mother of Jesus from their thousand-year-old sarcophagus deep in the fabric of the Wall. She felt the pricking of what a priest of Jesus would, she knew, call her conscience. But it had to be done.

No, Barmocar wouldn’t plan the timing of his journey just to spite her. She wasn’t important enough even for that, she suspected.

A day after Barmocar and his party had left Etxelur with great pomp, Rina made her own furtive departure.

She collected her bewildered children, took them to the Embassies District of the Wall, and told them she had booked passage on an early morning freight caravan running south from here to the shore of the Moon Sea, where they would join Barmocar’s group. Thaxa was here too, to say his own tearful goodbyes. She’d given the twins no advance warning, so they had no chance of breaking the secret — or of escaping her clutches on the day.

Naturally Alxa and Nelo didn’t want to go. Now sixteen, the twins had their own friends, their own ambitions, their own nascent place in Etxelur society. It had been Alxa who had pressed her mother to take Pyxeas’ dire warnings seriously in the first place, but she was unhappy at abandoning her home, her family. As for Nelo, he had his art, his friends in the school of look-deep experimental artists, the scraps of money he was making from selling his work in the markets. It took all that was left of Rina’s authority as a mother to force him to come away. ‘Carthage is one of the world’s greatest cities, though it may not be Etxelur. There will be lovers of art, there will be Carthaginians who will buy your work!’ Even then she had to compromise by allowing him to bring a stack of his sketchbooks and canvases. The arguments were heated, distressing, predictable. But she would not give way, and Thaxa backed her up. At last she got them both on the steam caravan, with a mound of luggage.

As the caravan made its cautious way south and west, locked together in a tiny passenger cabin, they took out their tensions and unhappiness on each other. The twins worked their way through their resentment, and were soon nagged by guilt at abandoning their friends, the rest of their family — even Thaxa, their father. It didn’t get any better when the caravan wound its way through the bank of low hills called the First Mother’s Ribs, and they lost sight at last of the tremendous world-spanning face of the Wall.

They were all in a poor state when they arrived at Alloc at the end of a long day’s travel, to be met by Barmocar and his party.

Alloc was a major port on the eastern shore of the Moon Sea. It was a hub for trading links with Albia; from here timber and furs brought down the peninsula’s great rivers were transported across Northland by roads and canals, and on a shiny new steam-caravan link to the south. Rina had been here many times on Water Council business before. But it had never been so cold, not at this time of year, so close to midsummer, with a nip in the air that felt like it promised a frost.

As hungry-looking porters unloaded their goods and heaped them up beside the track, Rina got her first look at the caravan Barmocar had spent the winter organising. It was a lot more impressive than the caravan they’d taken from the Wall, with a string of expansive and luxurious passenger cabins, and goods wagons with fuel for the engine and provisions for the long journey. Rina felt a stab of envy, remembering how she had crossed Northland on foot and horse-drawn carriages with Pyxeas last year — but that had been his choice.

As they gathered by the track Rina recognised some of Barmocar’s party from meetings and social gatherings at the Wall. There were more Carthaginians, nobles from the many small nations of Gaira and Ibera, even a party of Muslim Arabs who must be intending to continue their journey onwards from Carthage across North Africa, or perhaps by boat the length of the Middle Sea. All these dignitaries and their families and entourages had been trapped by the winter weather in Northland, like Barmocar himself. There was a group of soldiers too, tough-looking Carthaginian veterans in their long cloaks and boots and with their weapons strapped to their backs, here for the protection of the travellers, Rina assumed. As soldiers always did, they eyed the women in the group with a kind of lazy calculation.

Amid this churning polyglot crowd, with the caravan’s engine already venting steam, Rina and the twins stood uncertainly beside their heap of luggage. At last Barmocar himself approached them, trailed by Mago, his slab-of-muscle nephew, who leered at Alxa.

Rina bowed her head formally. ‘It is a pleasure to see you again.’

Barmocar was wrapped in an expensive-looking cloak, confident, plump — he hadn’t gone hungry during Northland’s bleak winter — and he had an air of total command. He barely glanced at Rina. ‘You’re late.’

‘We had no control over-’

‘We’d have left without you. Maybe we still will.’ He strode over to the heap of luggage. ‘Is all this yours?’

‘Only the essentials.’

Mago pushed into the heap. ‘Look, Uncle. There’s furniture in here!’ He shoved boxes off an exquisitely polished table. ‘Nice stuff.’

Rina winced. ‘That is an heirloom, in my family for generations.’

Now Mago found Nelo’s stack of artwork. He lifted a canvas, ripped off its packaging of thick paper, and theatrically flinched back. ‘Oh, good, Nelo brought his pictures!’

Nelo stepped forward, fists bunched. Alxa grabbed his arm.

Barmocar said, ‘Well, you’re going to have a job fitting all this into your cabin. Which is that.’ And he pointed at the rear of the caravan, to a single battered-looking passenger cart.

Rina felt her own temper rise. ‘Is this all that the bones of the Virgin Herself bought me?’

Barmocar shrugged. ‘It was a buyer’s market, wasn’t it? We Carthaginians have always been traders. It’s business, that’s all. Nothing personal.’ And he eyed her, waiting for her response.

This was only the beginning, she realised. She dug deep inside herself, seeking patience. She was not without resources. Once she got through this bottleneck of the journey to Carthage, she would build a new life, a new position, and then she would wipe the grin off the face of this plump, foolish, cruel man. For now, she smiled. ‘What would you suggest we do with the rest of our luggage?’

He glanced at the heap of goods. ‘Sell it to the porters, if you can. Dump it. I don’t care.’

Nelo stepped forward, still fizzing with anger. ‘I won’t leave my paintings.’

Mago laughed. ‘Then stay here and eat them, Northlander.’

‘I won’t leave my work, Mother.’

‘Silence. You’re not a child. You can see how things are. If you aren’t going to be any use just shut up. Alxa.’ She hauled a leather trunk from the heap of luggage and opened the buckles on the straps. ‘Help me. Whatever we can fit in here, we take. Nothing else. Clothes, a few sets of everything for each of us. And anything small and valuable. Jewellery — the money bags-’

‘Yes, Mother.’ Alxa at least seemed to understand; she started opening boxes and cases, hastily pulling out clothes and other goods.

There were far more clothes than could possibly fit in the trunk. Well, they could wear some, Rina thought, a few layers each. They might need that during the cold nights of travelling to come.

Nelo stared at his work, his face ashen.

Rina relented. ‘Take some of it. One canvas, your best. Your most recent sketchbook, and your earliest. That will go in the trunk. And take a blank book.’

‘What?’

‘And your styluses and crayons. I suspect we’ll be seeing some remarkable sights before this journey is through. Raw material — that’s what you artists are always looking for, isn’t it?’

The steam caravan departed not long after dusk, and travelled through the night.

Rina woke at dawn. She had slept in her seat, huddled under her cloak. She felt stiff, sore, and cold, despite her layers of clothes. The caravan was still moving. Alxa slept, lying on the opposite bench with her head on her brother’s lap and her feet on their single trunk. Nelo had his sketchbook open, and was staring out of the window. When he saw his mother was awake he drew his finger down one of the window’s small panes, and showed her a thin rime of frost under his fingernail.

The caravan rattled through one halt after another as it passed down the track, heading steadily south. The tremendous plain of Northland rolled past, rich, intensively managed, studded by flood mounds and criss-crossed by roads and dykes and canals. It was all but impossible to believe that all this would long have been drowned under the chill salt water of a rising ocean if not for the genius of long-dead Ana and her heroic generation, and the ingenuity and dedication of all those who had followed. And, Rina wondered idly, how would the story of the wider world have differed if not for the saving of Northland?

But had it all been for nothing? For the signs of Pyxeas’ longwinter were visible all across the landscape. Banks of snow in the shaded hollows, even at midsummer. The telltale grey of ice on the wetlands where last year’s reeds, brown and dead, were still frozen in place, and wading birds struggled to feed. Even the leaves on the trees, the oak and alder and ash, were pale and shrunken. In the communities around the caravan’s halts she could see the damage done by the winter, houses of wood and stone smashed in by snow, the stumps of ancient trees hacked down for long-burned firewood.

The eeriest thing was the absence of people. Rina saw houses untended and unrepaired, and no threads of smoke rising from the fires. In one place she saw deer wandering through the big communal hearthspace, nibbling at the thatch of collapsed houses, undisturbed. The deer themselves looked gaunt, their ribs showing. Where were all the people? Gone — south, probably, in flight from the cold, just as she was leaving Northland herself.

Still the caravan rattled on, rarely stopping, such was Barmocar’s haste to get this long journey done. The cabin did have a privy with a vent to release waste through the floor, and running water from a tap, and a food box with dried meat, scrawny bits of fruit, bread, Northlander dried cod. Rina forced herself to eat every scrap, even the bread, the signature product of the farmers, disgusting, tasteless stuff that every Northlander knew would wear away your teeth.

They were all weary and feeling none too clean by the time the caravan reached its final halt, at a small port on the southern shore of Northland, at the Cut. Just as last year when Rina had travelled with Pyxeas, here the polyglot party were to embark on a flotilla of riverboats and make for Parisa. Boats were waiting, but not enough of them, and the transfer was messy and hurried. Now it was the turn of others to shed prized possessions for the lack of room on board, and to fume at Barmocar for his terrible service after extracting such high fees for the privilege of the journey.

Parisa itself, as they approached along its great river, was much as Rina remembered from last year, but even more crowded. Smoke rose everywhere, and people camped in shacks of rubbish on the quayside. The party was supposed to disembark here and proceed south overland across Gaira to Massalia, a port on the Middle Sea and a Carthaginian dependency. But when the lead ships tried to put into dock they were blocked by a small boat rowed by a team of oarsmen, to Barmocar’s fury.

A uniformed official stood up in the boat. He wore a thick mask over his mouth, as did the oarsmen. In the argument that ensued, shouted across the river water, it emerged that the Carthaginian flotilla had to make for the island at the centre of the river. There the passengers could disembark, but the ships would have to turn around and leave immediately. None of them would be allowed into the city proper.

The reason for all this caution was the subject of rumour that swirled around the ships in half a dozen tongues: ‘Plague. It is in the city.’ ‘No, not yet, but they fear it. .’

Barmocar and his companions argued about how difficult this was going to make life, but it was clear the official wasn’t going to back down. The oarsmen in the boat were armed, and Rina saw troops drawn up on the quayside, all wearing face masks, clearly ready to repel anybody who tried to land.

So they disembarked on the island. Rina, with her children and their single trunk, had to spend the night in a dusty, empty, cold warehouse, sharing the bare floor with perhaps fifty others, surrounded by snores and farts and the sheer animal stink of people who had been travelling too long.

In the morning Rina woke early as she usually did.

She walked outside, breathing air that was fresh and crisp, with a tang of frost — not an unpleasant mix, but it felt autumnal, even though the summer solstice was barely gone. The travellers had been ordered to keep within a perimeter around the dock marked by a crude chalk line scrawled on the cobblestones. Rina walked up to the line now, looking to the south bank of the river. Raised up on an artificial mound very like the flood mounds that studded Northland, she could see a sky temple, rings of massive stones polished until they shone. In the low light of the morning sun priests in white robes walked and bowed and prayed to ancient gods. But other deities were being addressed too. Banners had been set up within the innermost stone ring, showing the crossed palm leaves of Jesus, the star of Islam, even the crescent moon and outstretched finger of Baal Hammon and his consort Tanit, gods of Carthage. A temple of many faiths for this city of traders, and all the gods, she imagined, would be subject to ardent prayers for summer.

A soldier, patrolling in his face mask and bearing an ugly-looking spear, waved her back, and called something in his own guttural tongue. He looked ill himself; he coughed into his mask, his forehead was slick with sweat despite the cold. She hurried away, back to the warehouse and her children.