Iron Winter n-3

by Stephen Baxter

‘The who? That’s a Greek word.’

  “True. And their workshop District is often called “the Greek quarter”. But few mechanikoi these days have more than a trace of Greek blood in them! The word is a reference to the deeper history of philosophy in Etxelur, for it was there that the sage Pythagoras fled with his followers some two thousand years ago, fleeing the reign of a tyrant in his native Samos. Pythagoras’ essential legacy, you see, is his insight that the universe is based on order; that the cosmic order can be expressed in numbers; and that those numbers can be grasped by the human mind. It all follows, it is said, from Pythagoras’ observations of the notes of a plucked lute string.’

  Avatak was used to discursions like this, and had learned not to listen until the scholar got to the important stuff.

  Uzzia, however, boldly laid a hand on the old man’s arm. ‘Pyxeas. We get the point. It took hundreds of generations of string-plucking before some bald-pated genius was able to make this thing. But what does it do?’

  ‘Why, it enables me to calculate where I am, as I cross the turning globe of the earth. And, in a sense, when I am.’ He eyed her, and Jamil. ‘You understand that the world is a sphere.’

  ‘Actually a somewhat flattened sphere, according to Hatti astronomers,’ Uzzia snapped back. ‘Who in turn have built on studies by the Babylonians and others going back millennia. Please don’t condescend, old man.’

  ‘Very well. Then you’ll understand that as we travel north and south, the apparent position of the pole star in the sky will change. It would be directly overhead if we were at the north pole, whereas if we travel south-’

  ‘Yes, yes.’

  ‘So if I measure the star’s position-’

  ‘Or you get me to do it,’ murmured Avatak.

  ‘What’s that? Then I can determine the north-south arc of my position on the world’s spherical surface. Now, knowing the date and that single number, the northern arc, I can use my oracle to predict for me’ — he spun wheels and pressed levers, making the face of the oracle sparkle and shift — ‘the length of the day at this place, and the greatest height achieved by the sun in the sky. I have the boy check these independently with his sightings and his hourglass. The numbers are never identical, but the differences teach us about flaws in our methodology, and indeed the small digressions of the earth from its spherical state, to which you have alluded.’

  Jamil studied the oracle longingly. ‘Must be useful at sea, that. And in some deserts I’ve crossed. So you have your position north to south. But what about east-west?’

  ‘Ah,’ Pyxeas said, enthused. ‘Excellent question, considering it’s you asking it. The oracle also contains, encoded into its dials and gears, a knowledge of eclipses of the sun and moon, both past and future.’ He tapped the face. ‘The little ivory moon slides across the golden sun. . It’s really quite pretty to watch. And by matching the prediction with the reality of an eclipse, I can determine my distance from Northland, west to east. The procedure is a little tricky.’

  Uzzia said, ‘Just tell me this one thing. You dream of saving the world. Is it through such means as this, the numbers of the sky?’

  ‘Yes! Yes, precisely. You see-’

  But she held her forefinger to his lips. ‘Another time,’ she said gently. ‘For now, I understand enough. It is late. You two must finish your work, and come closer to the fire, and we will eat and sleep.’

  Pyxeas seemed oddly charmed by her motherliness. ‘Another time, then,’ he agreed.

  Heading ever east, following the vagaries of roads and passes, they moved out of the fertile plain into a land that was higher, dryer, much more forbidding. Avatak glimpsed mountains, streaked with ice.

  They came to a small town fortified by a stout wall of mud-brick. Beyond, the land was more arid still: the town marked the edge of desert. To enter the town the travellers had to pass through a wide gate, horses, cart and all — even the mule. There was stabling for the animals inside, and Jamil immediately did some business, selling off his horses in order to buy — what? Avatak glimpsed a new sort of beast in the shadows of the stables, taller than a horse, stately, foul-smelling. Jamil did keep the mule. Avatak wasn’t sure if he was pleased or disappointed.

  They spent a few nights here. The city was full of people of diverse hues, costumes and tongues. Jamil said this was a major meeting point for traders, who routinely travelled half the world for the sake of the profit to be made through the trade between Cathay and other eastern empires and the Continent and Northland to the west. Jamil said he’d half-expected the town to be quieter than usual, because of flood, drought, plague, banditry and the coldness of the year; such things were bad for trade. On the other hand there were more migrants than usual on the trail, coming both ways — people coming from the west in the hope of finding a better life in the east, only to meet people from the east heading west with much the same ambition. These were times of turbulence. Ominously, Pyxeas pointed to heavy shipments of weapons and armour.

  Jamil was waiting on a number of other traders to get ready to leave. They would travel together as a caravan — not steam-driven, but a train of beasts and people laden with goods. Avatak had never known that the word for the Northlanders’ dazzling transport system was borrowed from a much older meaning.

  The morning came when Jamil’s caravan was ready — and Avatak was introduced to his camel. The beast was extraordinary. It had two fleshy humps on a back covered with dirty brown hair, and a small head mounted on a long neck, and massive teeth, and an oddly disdainful expression. When it walked on its long legs it seemed to stagger, and at first, after climbing clumsily on its back, it was all Avatak could do to hang on. More laughter from his companions.

  But after a few days he saw the beast’s advantages. It had broad hoofs that would not sink into the softest sand, and could travel for days without water. And all this with the weight of a man on its back. The stink, though — the stink was high! There were times when Avatak looked back at his mule, plodding through the sand, with almost nostalgic affection.

  The caravan worked its way steadily west, a party of thirty people and twice as many camels, a few horses, one mule. The desert was flat, arid, featureless, but on the horizon mountains loomed, capped with ice, a grand setting.

  Some days later they came upon their first desert town, at what Jamil called an oasis, a place entirely sustained by a single water spring. There were even trees here, their leaves bright and green against the background of the desert. Jamil had boasted of the melon you could buy that was a speciality of the region, which was sold dried out and cut into strips. But the weather was playing havoc here too; it had been a bad spring so far, too wet remarkably, and the melon crop was poor.

  After a two-day stop and a change of animals, Jamil’s caravan moved on.

  The deeper they got into the desert the clearer the air seemed, and the dryer, so that it sucked any moisture straight out of Avatak’s skin. But the nights, though: the nights were spectacular, with a dome of star-filled sky framed by the shadows of the mountains on the horizon.

  ‘Oh,’ said Pyxeas one night, wrapped in his sleeping roll beside the fire, ‘I would give a great deal to have the eyes of my younger self back again, just for one night. A sky like that is the little mothers’ jewel box!’

  Uzzia grunted. ‘Your understanding — all that business of the arc of the world, and the numbers, and your little bronze box — does that not diminish your sense of wonder, old man?’

  ‘Not at all. The deeper the understanding the more the universe connects with one’s deeper self, the more one is enriched. That was the essence of the teaching of Pythagoras, I think. And our destiny is written in the stars, to those who have eyes to read it.’

  ‘You’re talking about saving the world again.’

  ‘I’m talking about numbers.’

  Jamil shook his head, a shadow against the starlit dark. ‘All this sophistry and philosophising. No man can know the past, scholar. Let alone the future.’<
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  ‘Can I not?’ Pyxeas replied sharply. ‘The numbers know the future, and they speak to me — or they will, when I have completed my studies.’

  Jamil grunted. ‘Any god would punish such arrogance.’ He walked off to see to the animals.

  Uzzia turned away and rolled herself up in her blanket.

  Avatak lay silently, with the old man and the stars.

  Pyxeas coughed painfully. ‘Oh, this dust.’

  The next day, not long after they had set off, a sandstorm hit them. It battered their faces and scraped their eyes, and made seeing and hearing impossible. They had to stop and make a rough camp. They were unable to move further for two days, until the storm blew itself out, by which time they were starting to worry about running out of water.

  The camels, however, seemed unperturbed. And the mule expressed no opinion.

  27

  The first Pimpira knew about the March of the Hatti was when the escaped slave came running out of New Hattusa. But then Pimpira himself was a slave, born of slaves. Slaves were never told anything.

  Even of the day they were to die.

  It was a spring morning, though it was so cold you’d have thought it was winter. Old snow still lay on the silent fields, and on the ramparts of New Hattusa on the horizon, and in ugly soot-stained heaps in the yard of the master, Kassu the soldier, where it had been scraped up by the slaves. But the problem in the last few days had been not the snow, but the rain. By night Pimpira and his family had been forced to huddle in corners to avoid the freezing-cold water leaking into their shabby hut, and outside the rain pooled on ground that was still frozen just under the surface if you pushed your finger into it, and froze hard in great sheets. Pimpira’s father said it was an extraordinary sight, something he’d never seen in all his years. Every year, every month, every day, brought a new sight, something that nobody had ever experienced before in the history of the world, he said. Pimpira’s father was thirty-one years old.

  Despite the freeze, this morning, as every other morning at this time of year, the slaves were sent out into the fields for another day of struggling to plough the hard earth, goading the surviving oxen. As the morning wore on they would be joined by more workers, paid free folk coming out from the city, desperate for work and food. Pimpira, fourteen years old, knew little about crops, about wheat and rye and barley — with his deformed foot he was rarely sent out into the fields — but he couldn’t see how the seeds were going to take in ground frozen hard as rock. But they all went through the routines of the season anyhow, and the master seemed to see that they didn’t need whipping to do it. For what choice was there, if they were to have any chance of food later in the year?

  As usual, Pimpira was sent away from the rest. The boss told him to dig out an old storage pit under the floor of a demolished barn. It was the kind of job that suited him; he was strong in his upper body, but he wasn’t too mobile because of his foot. It was tough labour, smashing the frozen earth into chunks that he could pitch out of the hole, but as he hacked away with his rusted iron shovel, he soon started to warm up.

  He didn’t know why he was digging this hole. It wasn’t as if they were likely to need more storage pits any time soon. He had a sneaking feeling that what the pit might end up storing was not grain but bones. People were dying, his own brother had been taken during the winter, leaving his mother clinging to his little sister, Mira. But it didn’t matter. It wasn’t his decision. To Pimpira life was simple; a hole was a hole was a hole. He got on with his digging, and he watched the pale sun climb in the sky. Like every other day the hours would stretch long and empty until the evening, when the slaves would huddle in their shabby huts, and speak of better times, and pray to their gods and prophets, Jesus or Mohammed or the little mothers of Northland or the sun god of Egypt, and Pimpira’s father would relate the calm sayings of the teacher Zalmoxis from the old country. They would talk endlessly of food. People would describe the very texture of the meat as it was cut, the way the juices pooled on the hard bread that served as your plate, the feeling as your teeth cut into it, the spurting of blood and fat, and Pimpira’s empty stomach would gurgle and twist.

  And they would seek news of the future from the oracles — not the way the sages did it in the city, studying the writhing of snakes in boxes or the way sheep entrails fell from an opened bowel. The slaves had no snakes, and any entrails went straight into the pot. But they had their own ancient ways, studying the flight of the birds in the sky — not that there were many birds this spring save crows and buzzards — and dropping oil or blood in bowls of water, to see how the fluids flowed and spread. They argued endlessly about the meaning of each sign, and it seemed to Pimpira that they never agreed, but it comforted everybody.

  This dull routine was the whole of Pimpira’s life.

  And it ended, cut off as if by the fall of a blade, when the slave boy came running from New Hattusa.

  When he heard the boy coming, Pimpira climbed out of his hole to watch, and the other slaves and workers paused in their tasks, curious. The boy ran like a whipped dog, right through the farmyard, legs and arms pumping, his eyes wide, his mouth gaping. He was young, not much older than Pimpira, perhaps, though it was hard to tell anybody’s age these days as everybody was so skinny. You could tell he was a slave, though. He was barefoot, for one thing. And his tunic and trousers were old in the way only slaves’ clothes were old, patched and handed down, the colour of mud, generations-old clothes so worn they were more like memories of clothing than the real thing. A slave, running away from the city.

  Then there was a thunder of hooves. On panting horses, two soldiers in light mail and shining steel helmets came charging after the boy. One man carried a net, the other wielded a sword. Cavalrymen! Pimpira was thrilled at the sight. He had only seen soldiers on parade in the city, on occasional feast days when he had been allowed to accompany the master and his family. He pitied the boy, for he clearly had no chance of outrunning the horses; he must have had a good start to get so far. As the cavalrymen passed through, some of the men on the farm called out greetings and good-natured abuse. ‘I’ll give you five to one the fat one falls off his horse!’ The soldiers did not respond. Soon they were disappearing into the east.

  After that Pimpira heard a rumble of noise, coming from the west as had the running slave and the cavalrymen, and again he turned to look. More soldiers, he saw from a glint of distant armour, a small squad of them this time, walking before wagons.

  The mistress, Henti, emerged from the big house, with the young priest Palla who so often seemed to hang around here, evoking much ribald speculation from the slaves. Henti walked to the fields and passed among the workers, speaking to them softly. It seemed to be the end of work for now. The slaves were told to gather in the courtyard, a square of beaten earth before the big house, while the hired hands laid down their tools and began to drift off towards the city. They muttered, looking confused, distressed; none of them could afford to be without a day’s pay.

  The squad of soldiers drew nearer. Pimpira, in his hole, stood on tiptoe, balancing on his good leg, squinting to see them better.

  The punch in the back caught him completely by surprise. He was knocked forward into his pit, banging his head on the hard-frozen wall. Winded, he lay there, submissive. He had been born and raised a slave; you just accepted whatever was done to you.

  ‘Don’t move.’ It was his father’s voice.

  Dirt rained on his back, and heavier lumps. He turned, squinting up. ‘Father?’

  His father had taken Pimpira’s shovel and was frantically scooping the pile of lumpy, still-frozen earth back in the hole. ‘Shut up,’ he said, panting, glancing up. ‘Don’t move.’

  ‘What are you doing? Must I hide here?’

  ‘Yes, you must hide.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘You’ll know. Then dig your way out.’ His father kept shovelling. The rubble was building up on his chest, his legs. Soon he would be buried. Pimpira, s
hocked, saw tears stream down his father’s face. ‘Remember us. Now put your hands over your face.’

  The next shovel-load came raining down on Pimpira’s head. He huddled in the hole, curling around big blocks of frosty earth. Soon the rubble had shut out the light, and he was covered. But the weight was not great; he would be able to climb out. He heard frantic scuffing. He imagined his father kicking dirt over the storage pit, to conceal it. Then running footsteps, receding.

  And then the soldiers arrived, with a tramp of marching boots, a clink of scabbards knocking against greaves, wagons trundling to a halt. Pimpira longed to see them! But, as his father had ordered, he lay curled in the hole.

  More footsteps. His mistress’ voice. ‘Zida. I hoped it would be you.’

  ‘I told you I’d do it for old Kassu. I take it he’s not here.’

  ‘Working on the round-up in the city. He knows in his head what must be done here, but his heart would explode out of his chest if he were forced to dispose of his own slaves.’

  Dispose of?

  ‘That heart of Kassu’s is his big trouble, for all he’s a stickler for his duty. And if not for the generosity of his heart, lady, you might not be alive to see this day. Or that streak of piss standing beside you.’

  ‘The blessing of the Carpenter be on you too, Zida.’ That was the voice of the priest, Palla. He sounded good-humoured.

  ‘I asked Palla to be here,’ Henti snapped. ‘He’s good with the slaves. I’ve seen him comfort them. They’re not animals; they deserve consolation when it comes to the end.’

  Zida said sourly, ‘You’re a big bucket of consolation, priest, while the rest of us bloody our hands with the killing.’

  Palla said evenly, ‘I think Jesus will understand what’s to be done today, and He’ll see the grain of goodness in you even as you slaughter, officer. You’re here to commit a terrible act — and yet you have come to spare your friend the pain of doing it himself.’

  Zida snorted. ‘We’ll have time to discuss it when we’re all down in the Dark Earth. Let’s get on with it. I’ve a dozen more farms to visit before this day is done. I see you’ve got them separated. Good. We find it’s best to get the able-bodied out of hearing range before we start with the rest, because-’