Iron Winter

62

In the Sea of Indh, the ship was struck by a great storm.

There had already been trouble, from bandits in the water and boats and rafts full of nestspills, all imploring passage. The great continent of Indh, to the north of here, was in turmoil as Mongols invaded from the north, fleeing the cold, to meet ferocious resistance from the Hindu population and the Turkish sultans who ruled them. Avatak had watched Bayan and the rest of the crew fend off skinny, half-starved nestspills with oars and pikes as they crowded around on their waterlogged craft, some of them holding up infants for sanctuary. All this added to the anxiety of the crew, who, Avatak learned, were much perturbed by the disruption of wind and weather patterns which had always been predictable on these great ocean highways. Even without human threats sailing had become a much more chancy business.

And now, the storm. It took days to gather. The first sign Avatak noticed was a steadily rising swell that lapped against the ship’s hull, gathering into white-flecked waves that rocked the vessel. That was all: the air was calm, the sky clear of cloud, only the sea was restless. But the sailors watched the weather anxiously, muttering in the coarse Persian that was their common argot that it was not the season to expect such conditions. Then a lid of feathery cloud covered the sky, and descended, horribly quickly. Lost in grey fog, the sailors began to make fast the sails and lash loose goods and fittings in place. The captain brusquely told the passengers to stay in their cabins, and they were given a couple of days’ ration of biscuits and beer to keep them happy.

Pyxeas had barely stirred from the cabin anyway, and complained only when the rocking of the ship, the howl of the wind, disturbed his concentration. Avatak spent a lot of time standing at the window, holding down the scraped leather cover to keep the draught out of the cabin. He watched the sea surge, and the wind tearing at the crests of the waves, scattering spray that flew horizontally. He began to see strange sights in that sea, trees uprooted, a dead cow floating with its legs stuck up in the air — debris from the land where the storm must already have struck. He saw nestspills too, their fragile craft smashed, bloated bodies drifting in rags.

Still the seas rose, still the winds gathered until no man could stand on deck, still the clouds raced over the sky, dark and menacing. And suddenly the rain lashed down, coming in horizontally, hammering against the hull, leaking through the slightest gap. It washed into the cabin and over the scholar’s pages, evoking furious complaint, unless Avatak held the leather cover firmly in place with both hands.

Then, suddenly, the storm went away. The sea was calm again, the rain vanished, the winds dropped. Avatak and Pyxeas exchanged puzzled glances; this did not seem natural. The air felt warmer than it had done for days, warm and humid, sticky. Avatak cautiously peered out of his window. By a peculiar golden light he saw a flat sea littered with debris — some of it having come from the ship, barrels, what looked like a snapped mast — but, further out, there was a mass of cloud, low, racing by.

‘The eye of the storm,’ Pyxeas said, marvelling. ‘Remarkable. I’ve heard travellers tell of it; I never expected to experience it myself. But don’t relax, Avatak; the storm is not done with us yet.’

He was right. Soon that wall of cloud roared towards the ship, and they were plunged back into the storm as abruptly as they had left it.

The ship survived the storm, thanks largely, Avatak suspected, to the clear-thinking command of al-Quds, although if you listened to Bayan’s bragging it was all down to him. A handful of crew had been lost, one passenger, and one hold had been broken open and flooded, drowning a few pedigree goats.

On the first calm day, Avatak went down to the ship’s galley and returned with a small tray. A very small tray. It bore two biscuits, flour and fat baked and compressed until they were hard as fired clay, and one sack of weak beer. Thus their ration for the day.

Pyxeas, as was his wont, had spread his work over the cabin’s two bunks, the small table, the open trunk, even the floor, and Avatak had to be careful where he stepped. He found an empty spot on one of the bunks and set down the tray. Then he sat on the floor, his back against the closed door, and got to work at mouthing one of the biscuits, hoping to soften it a little before a first attempt at biting into it.

The ship rolled, and Pyxeas looked around uneasily, as if remembering where he was. ‘You’re back! I didn’t see you return.’

Avatak was used to that. ‘Scholar, when you work, you see nothing else but the work.’

The wind shifted, and a slaughterhouse stink drifted up from the holds.

Pyxeas pressed a cloth to his nose. ‘The ability to concentrate is a rare gift, boy,’ he said. ‘One you would do well to acquire. I myself would never have dreamed I would be able to achieve substantial work in conditions like this, in this, this cage.’

‘Yes, scholar.’

Pyxeas noticed the tray with the single remaining biscuit, and the sack of beer. ‘What’s this, breakfast?’

Avatak sighed. ‘Dinner, scholar. It’s later than you think. But actually that’s breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper, rolled into one. Not even bribing Bayan helped this time.’

‘I thought the captain promised to reprovision. Fresh fruit, he said! Fresh water!’

‘He’s not been able to put into the ports, scholar.’

‘Why not?’

‘Plague,’ Avatak said simply.

Pyxeas grunted. ‘It would take a brave king to put his people at such risk for the sake of stocking up a few hungry sailors. Well, the spread of plagues is to be expected — I wrote it down in my notes some years ago, you can check it. When people are stirred up and on the move, and animal populations too, plagues are carried from their natural reservoirs, even carried between continents. It’s about time al-Quds sacrificed a few of those prize cattle down in the holds to feed us. I must have a word with him, I must. .’ He gazed at the biscuit, picked it up, then set it down again, as if puzzled by its very presence. Then he glanced at Avatak. ‘The numbers, boy — it’s all in the numbers. It always was.’

‘What numbers?’

Distracted, the scholar cast about, shifting in his chair, and brought together lists of numbers, either in the hand of a scribe or his own spidery writing, some set out neatly on scrolls or books, some scrawled on scraps of paper and parchment. ‘Thank the mothers Bolghai was good enough to have his results translated into the Northlander system. Here now — can you see?’ He pointed to two lists of numbers.

‘See what? I’m sorry, scholar.’

‘Of course you won’t see it, of course not, it’s been staring me in the face for years, it still is, and I can make no firm conclusion, not yet. . Look! What drives the weather, I mean the grand changes like the coming of a longwinter?’

‘The sun in the sky,’ Avatak said promptly; he had absorbed that much.

‘Yes. Good. The world bobs about like a duck on the Khan’s ornamental ponds in Daidu. The higher the sun is at midsummer, the warmer the world is that year. But how high, how warm? We Northlanders have been keeping records of the weather for millennia. And in those records I, Pyxeas, have found a good measure of that changing warmth.

‘Look here — this is a list of years, and this is a list of solar elevations at Etxelur at midday on midsummer day on each of those years. And these dates, Avatak, record the last spring frost of each year and the first frost of winter. Pieces of information easily and unambiguously recorded, and though they vary with circumstance the overall trend is clearly related to the warmth of the year. Can you see the correlation between the two? Oh, it takes a trained eye. Avatak, these tables show conclusively that the elevation of the sun drives our climate, as indicated by the span of the frost. But.’

‘But, scholar?’

‘But the tidy patterns break down! Centuries, millennia back, you can see it. The world should have got colder, quicker. The longwinter should already be here! I had long suspected this, from historical accounts, anecdotes. Now, after intensive study, I have assembled quantitative proof.’

‘Then there is another agent, acting to postpone the longwinter.’

‘Yes. Good! And that agent is?’

Avatak considered before answering; he had fallen into Pyxeas’ verbal traps before. He said carefully, ‘You suspect that the agent has something to do with the various airs Bolghai was studying.’

‘Yes! Especially the fixed air, which holds back the heat. Good. But how? And why? That is the question I wrestle with. And I still can’t see it, I can’t. Though I suspect I edge closer to the truth.’ He glared at Avatak. ‘Suppose I fell over the side of this wretched tub tomorrow. Would you be able to communicate all this to the scholars of Etxelur?’

‘No,’ Avatak said frankly.

Pyxeas nodded. ‘And could they progress the work without me? No! Those dolts in Etxelur have always been too busy questioning me and my methodology rather than listening. Than thinking. Very well! I, Pyxeas, must resolve this planetary conundrum, or go insane in the attempt. Yes?’

‘Yes, scholar.’ Avatak took a moment to pop his biscuit into the sack of beer, hoping it would soften a bit more, before he bent with Pyxeas over the tablets, scrolls and books.