Iron Winter n-3

by Stephen Baxter

  ‘I think we know why, Sergeant,’ said the priest.

  ‘You’re sure you sorted them properly? There are to be no nursing mothers on the March, no child under five, nobody over forty, no invalids, no lame.’

  ‘I read the instructions,’ Henti said. ‘I did what’s been asked of me.’

  ‘There aren’t many, are there? What, a dozen able-bodied?’

  ‘It’s not a big farm.’

  ‘What did you tell them?’

  ‘The lie I was told to repeat. That the able-bodied are being taken off for a few days to build new grain stores in the city. They believed it, I think.’

  ‘Umm. Well, the disposal has been going on for a few days already. We started in the city. We wanted to get as many of the able-bodied out and the rest finished off before the news started to leak out. The last thing we need is a revolt.’

  ‘There was a runner,’ Palla said. ‘Came through the farm, not long before you.’

  ‘I sent a couple of lads after him. Won’t get far. Look, it will take a bit of time before the walkers are shackled and taken out of earshot.’

  Palla said, ‘I will talk to the rest.’

  ‘Good. Distract them. Just don’t get them stirred up before we’re ready to process them.’

  Process?

  Henti said, ‘You may as well come to the house, Zida. Bring your officers. I’ve some food and drink we won’t be able to carry that needs using up. .’

  The voices receded.

  Pimpira stayed in his hole, hungry, thirsty, cold, listening to the rattle of shackles being attached to ankles and wrists. He did not know what was going to happen, but he understood the meaning of the basic separation of the slaves into healthy and not healthy, lame and not lame. He knew which group he would be in. This was why his father had hidden him, so he could not be put with the lame and ill and old and very young. He stayed in his hole, and waited, and thought about his father.

  After a time he heard singing, a wistful hymn to Jesus Sharruma, led by the priest’s clear voice. Pimpira mouthed the words.

  Then he heard a rumble of many voices, barked commands from the soldiers, and a shuffling tramp, a clink of iron that settled into a steady, slower rhythm. Shackled slaves being marched away. The line passed by his pit, and he cowered, fearful of discovery. There was a lot of weeping. He strained to hear his father’s voice, his mother, but the weeping drowned them out. The shuffled steps, the rattle of the shackles, the occasional crack of a whip, receded.

  Now there was only the soft murmur of voices from the group that was left. A child crying. The priest’s steady voice. Pimpira imagined him walking from one to the next. Maybe Pimpira’s grandmother would be cradling Mira, his baby sister. But the voices were sparse sounds against a greater silence. It was a spring of silence, no frogs croaking in the ponds, no songbirds calling for mates.

  Then it began. He heard the sigh of steel, swords being withdrawn from scabbards.

  The priest’s voice again. ‘Kneel. That’s it. Gather in a circle. Hold hands if it helps. No, Nala, it doesn’t matter that Mira’s crying. Just hold her. You’ll see, soon she’ll be smiling for you in the afterlife, in the eternal light of Jesus Sharruma, and bathed in the tears of the Holy Mother Mary. No — don’t struggle. It helps if you just kneel up and keep still. The soldiers know what they are doing. .’ The little children were crying, afraid. ‘Now, I would suggest, Sergeant.’

  And there was a noise like a pig being gutted, like meat being sliced. Harsher scrapes, like a butcher’s cleaver on bone. People tried to cry out, to pray, but their voices were drowned by a kind of gurgling, as if they were drowning. Somebody screamed, and Pimpira heard running footsteps. ‘Oh, no, you don’t-’ Heavier footsteps, a tumble, a brief struggle, a hiss of steel.

  Soon it was done, it seemed, and he heard swords wiped on cloth and slid back into scabbards. Low soldiers’ voices — a rumble of laughter.

  Henti stormed, ‘How can you laugh? How canyon laugh? The bodies at your feet — the children-’

  ‘Hush, hush,’ said the priest. ‘They did it so you didn’t have to. It’s the Emergency Laws, remember. Think of it as a kindness. It’s not these soldiers’ fault, Henti. It’s not anybody’s, save the winter’s. Now they will burn the bodies for you, and tidy up.’

  ‘But they laughed.’

  ‘Let it go, Henti. Without humour how could any man’s mind survive such acts?’

  ‘So what now?’

  ‘The March begins in the morning, from the Lion Gate,’ Zida, the soldier, said. ‘Not that I’m expecting a prompt start. It will take a long time before thirty or forty thousand people are formed up and ready to go, no matter how willing they are. Believe me, I know; I’ve been on booty-people marches.’

  ‘Zida. I. . Thank you. You’ve spared Kassu a lot of pain.’

  ‘You were brave to face it yourself, lady. Braver than most. One does become attached to these creatures, doesn’t one? Their little lives — their babies, their mourning of their dead. Not that attached, mind you. People have been complaining more about getting their pet dogs put down.’

  ‘But is it all worth it, Palla? All this blood spilled before we even begin the March?’

  ‘Wait until you see it tomorrow,’ the priest said. ‘It will be a magnificent sight — a whole city, the greatest city in the world, emptying out on the Troad. And the armies marching to either side, the cavalry too. Even the fleets will be setting sail out of the bay. The March of the Hatti is an event unprecedented in history, an event that will be marked for all time. It will be like a festival day! Jesus Sharruma will be brought from His church to lead. Then will follow the crown prince and the royal family. And then will come the priests led by Angulli Father of the Churches, who will proclaim the March and its meaning-’

  Zida guffawed. ‘Ha! If he can be separated from his bottle.’

  Palla said in a lower tone, ‘Well, we have a plan for that. We priests, I mean. We’ve a copy of the words he is to say. Words to be repeated daily throughout the journey, until we reach the plains of Libya.’

  ‘What words?’

  ‘About how Jesus was a booty-person once.’

  ‘Was He? My theology is a bit vague, priest.’

  ‘Then shame on you, Zida. It dates from the time after the Lord of the Watchtower in Jerusalem saved His life from the Judean authorities. Jesus spread His message further, but He stirred up trouble too. There were radical Jews who rejected His divergence from their traditions, others who saw Him as the one who would lead the final holy war, and the usual malcontents who looked for any excuse to rise up against Hatti rule. Well, Jesus gave them all an excuse. He was an old man by then, sixty or seventy. The rebellion was put down with some effort, and the Jews had to be quelled.’

  ‘In the traditional way, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes. Jerusalem and their other cities were emptied and burned, their temples smashed. The population of Judea was rounded up and marched to the Land of the Hatti, to be put to the usual uses. Jesus Himself was recognised as innocent of trouble-making and would have been allowed to flee with others of the elite, but He insisted He stayed with the people. He was lost in the march.’

  Pimpira, in his hole, found himself getting lost in the story. He had always liked the priest’s stories.

  ‘A few years after that a scholar called Hapati-urmah, of a school that was developing an interest in Jesus’ teaching, heard a rumour He was still alive, and in Hattusa of all places, I mean Old Hattusa. So he hunted around and there was Jesus, bent and old, working as an assistant in a carpenter’s shop. All around Him loved Him, it’s said. Well, the scholars wanted to take Him up into the temple, but He refused to leave the shop, His life would end where it began, He said. So they came to Him, sitting in the sawdust as they listened to His words. So you see, there is the example we wish to promulgate to the people: for Jesus Himself, a booty-people march ended in redemption.’

  ‘Hmm. Until His bones were pinched by the Nor
thlanders.’

  ‘There is that, yes.’

  ‘I’ll tell you why the Hatti kings liked Jesus. Because the faith He preached was a submissive creed. A slave’s creed. Makes people easier to handle, see, if they think you’re enslaving them for their own good.’

  ‘That’s a cynical point of view.’

  ‘All soldiers are cynics.’

  ‘Oh, no, they’re not, Zida, believe me. Your friend Kassu for one. Look, I’m getting cold, Henti. Shall we go to the house?’

  ‘All right.’

  Zida called, ‘You two! Keep an eye out for stragglers. And you lot get on with the pyre. .’

  Footsteps.

  And there was Pimpira, alone in the dark. Soon he could smell burning meat.

  28

  He waited and waited.

  He was growing very cold, because he had been lying still so long. He tried not to think of what had happened above, where his mother and father might be now. What he might see when he came out.

  But when to come out? He had no way of telling the time; he couldn’t see any daylight. He waited a long time. It might have been hours. It might have been heartbeats! It seemed long.

  When he tried to move he found he had stiffened up; he had been lying curled up, like a baby. He moved as slowly and deliberately as he could, pushing the chunks of frozen earth away as noiselessly as possible. His father’s hasty shovelling had left the earth loosely packed, and it wasn’t difficult.

  Soon he was standing, his head and shoulders thrust out of the pit. It was still daylight, but the light was fading under a grey lid of sky. The big house was dark. A fire burned in a corner of the farmyard — he didn’t look at that too closely. There was no wind, and the smoke from the pyre rose straight up to a blank sky. He hoisted himself up, kicking away the last of the debris, and stood, a bit shakily, on the lip of the pit.

  ‘Told you.’

  A hand grabbed the ragged queue of hair at the back of his head. With a cry, he fell to his knees. He felt cold sharpness at his throat, a blade.

  Two figures stepped into his sight. It was the priest Palla, his face expressionless, and a soldier, wearing mail and a heavy,dusty cloak. The soldier said, ‘Always a few stragglers. Wily lot, these slaves. Well, let’s get this done.’

  Pimpira felt the blade at his neck press harder. He stiffened, determined not to cry out, in case his father should ever hear how he died.

  ‘No, Zida.’ The priest stayed the man’s arm with his hand. ‘Not like this.’

  ‘Look at him, he’s lame. He can’t join the March. It’s the law. You know that, priest.’

  ‘Yes, but have some humanity, man. Look at his face! There was hope there, even if he knows he’s lost his family. Hope now replaced by a despair, so cruelly. What’s your name, boy?’

  ‘Priest, this is not a good idea-’

  ‘Your name.’

  ‘Pimpira,’ the boy said, his voice a croak after so long in the earth. ‘My name is Pimpira.’

  ‘A Hatti name,’ said the soldier.

  ‘Given him by his parents’ owners on his birth, no doubt. And where do you come from?’

  ‘Wilusia district.’ Which was where the farm was, where they stood.

  The soldier laughed out loud.

  ‘Well, if he was born here it’s a correct answer,’ the priest said. ‘I mean your people. Where did they come from, originally?’

  Pimpira couldn’t remember the name, of a place neither he nor his parents had ever seen.

  ‘Which prophet comforts you? Jesus, Mohammed?’

  ‘The wise Zalmoxis.’

  Zida asked, ‘Who?’

  ‘He’s a Dacian.’ It was the voice of the master. Kassu himself walked up to stand before Pimpira, in mail and cloak and dusty boots. Pimpira tried to drop his head in submission, but the blade at his throat, the hand holding his hair, would not allow it. ‘His people are Dacian.’ Kassu glanced around, at the blood-splashed ground, the pyre of corpses. He glared at Palla. ‘You did this while I was away. To my slaves, on my farm. Your idea, I suppose, priest. Must you meddle in every aspect of my life?’

  Palla said firmly, ‘It was Henti. Your wife wanted to spare you the chore.’

  ‘As I did,’ Zida growled, still holding Pimpira tight. ‘We’re here to help you, Kassu. Anyway, you’re back early.’

  ‘We’ve been setting up the March. There’s a baggage caravan you wouldn’t believe. . We’re being released in shifts so we can prepare our own families.’

  ‘Then go to Henti. I’ll finish up here.’ Again Zida tensed for the strike.

  But Kassu grabbed the man’s arm, pushed him away. Pimpira, released, slumped to the ground. ‘No. Not this one.’

  Palla said warningly, ‘Henti said you would be like this. Sentimental. Not able to do your duty by the Emergency Laws.’

  ‘Not this one.’

  Zida said, ‘Look at his foot. He can’t walk, man. He can’t join the March.’

  ‘He’s with me. He’s — my nephew.’

  Zida stared at him, then laughed. ‘You can’t be serious.’

  ‘My nephew, Zida. That’s what I’m telling you.’

  Zida held up his hands. ‘Well, it’s up to you, priest! It’s your lot who announced the Emergency Laws. If you lie, if you help him hide a slave, it’s your crime.’

  Kassu faced Palla. ‘You owe me your life. Now you owe me this.’

  ‘Is it worth it, Kassu?’ Palla asked evenly. ‘For one lame slave boy?’

  ‘You tell me. You’re the priest.’

  Palla stared at Pimpira, and shrugged. ‘Fine. It’s your crime. I will say nothing. Are we even now?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Kassu snapped. ‘Never that.’

  Palla turned and walked away towards the house.

  Zida turned on Kassu. ‘You fool. You idiot. You walnut-brained sack of-’

  ‘Enough.’

  Zida pointed after the priest. ‘That man is your worst enemy. He tried to take your wife. And you spared his life! Whoever forgave a man for doing that? And now you’ve given him a weapon to hold over you. And for what?’ He swung a kick at Pimpira’s good leg, and the boy twisted on the cold ground. ‘A slave boy who’s neither use nor decoration. What’s wrong with you, Kassu?’

  Kassu had no more to say. He walked after the priest.

  Zida stared at him, muttering under his breath. ‘And you.’ He turned on Pimpira, who cowered. ‘Get back in that pit, nephew, and stay there until I’m gone.’

  On hands and knees Pimpira scrambled over the broken earth.

  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.