Iron Winter n-3

by Stephen Baxter

  Around her men were gathered, on foot, warriors all, brandishing weapons, spears and swords and axes. One of them was waving a bit of smashed furniture at the Khan, carved wood and pale pink silk, a ragged scrap of a chair that must once have been exquisite. At least as many men surrounded the Khan, many from the hunting party. Cowering from these posturing warriors were courtiers, Mongol grandees with their shining cloaks and tonsured scalps, nervous-looking Cathay officials in silk gowns. There were hundreds of people all jammed in this one huge room together, and their voices rose up like the cawing of gulls on a cliff face.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ Uzzia said, looking at the mounted woman.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Mongols are horse warriors. I’m guessing that to ride your horse into another man’s yurt is a grave insult.’

  ‘So, along with the assault by the steppe warriors, and the Cathay uprising in the city-’

  ‘Yes. Now the Mongols are turning on themselves.’

  There was a hiss, a soft impact. A single arrow had been shot into the air to thud into the roof, high above. The woman on the horse had fired it. The clamour in the room stilled, and all eyes turned to her. She sat straight on her horse, and spoke directly to the Khan, in rapid-fire Mongol. For his part he replied angrily. Their two voices filled the room.

  Uzzia murmured, ‘She says she is Kokachin, called the Wind-Rider. He says he knows who she is; she is a niece gone to the bad. (Not a niece — something like that.) She says he has shown his weakness by allowing the brutes from the steppe to penetrate the empire. He tried to buy them off, it seemed; it did not work. He says matters of state are not hers to judge. She says her own father was disinherited by the Khan’s father, who was a camel turd. (A Khan cannot accept such insults! Ah, that’s the nub of it. It’s a family dispute. The descendants of Genghis Khan are as numerous and as disputatious as the royal family of New Hattusa.) The Khan is offering a conference to settle it. (That’s what the Mongols do, the clans gather on the steppe and talk it out.) She says the time for talking to the likes of him is over. He is demanding she kowtow-’

  ‘Look! There is Pyxeas, with Bolghai.’

  The two scholars stood together, Pyxeas frail but defiant, Bolghai agitated. The Mongol was clutching the Northlander’s sleeve, as if for protection.

  ‘Come.’ Uzzia slipped through the crowd towards them.

  By the time they reached the scholars the Khan and his niece were shrieking at each other, and their followers were growing restive, their voices a rumble. Bolghai was murmuring to himself, distracted. Pyxeas was dismissive. ‘What a scene! What savages these fellows are, under the veneer of civilisation they stole from their Cathay subjects.’

  ‘That’s as may be, scholar,’ Uzzia said, ‘but a small war is about to erupt in this room, and we don’t want any part of it. We are going to get out of here, and fast.’ She pointed. ‘That door.’

  Avatak nodded. ‘Why that one?’

  ‘Because it’s the quickest way to the city’s south gates. We have the paiza. If we move fast enough, maybe we can beat the spread of the bad news from Daidu.’

  ‘And then?’

  She was distracted by the gathering row, tense, nervous herself. ‘It’s always “and then” with you, isn’t it, Coldlander? And then we will get out of this insane place and find a way to get the two of you home.’

  Kokachin jumped up onto the back of her pony. Standing straight on the stolid beast, she called out, waving her bow in the air.

  ‘ “To me, to me,” ’ translated Uzzia. ‘ “To me, my cousins!” This is it. Now the barons and the rest of the Mongols have to choose, Khan or challenger.’

  Bolghai hid his face in his hands. Then he straightened up, looked regretfully at Pyxeas, and walked towards Kokachin on her horse. He had made his choice, Avatak realised; at heart he was a Mongol like the rest.

  The fighting erupted. It broke out across the whole room, all at once, as if somebody had given a signal. Suddenly there were struggling figures everywhere, screams, and blood splashed on the rich carpets.

  And a warrior took a measured stride towards Bolghai, swung an axe, and beheaded the scholar with a single stroke.

  ‘No!’ Pyxeas rushed forward, but Avatak held him back. ‘No, no! That such a scholar, such a mind, should be destroyed like this-’

  Uzzia held his shoulder. ‘He was a Mongol, and he died a warrior’s death. His children will laud him for it. Come now, we must go-’ She grunted, staggered, her eyes wide.

  Avatak said, ‘Uzzia? Are you all right?’

  She straightened up, determined. ‘Go, go! Get Pyxeas out of here.’

  So they hurried for the door, Avatak using his broad shoulders to push through the crowd. Once out, Uzzia led them through the network of corridors and rooms. Warriors and courtiers ran both ways in the corridors, drawn by the clamour of the battle in the great hall, or fleeing from it. And Avatak started to hear the rumour, spread in a dozen languages, some of which he understood: ‘He is dead! The Great Khan is dead! Buyantu slain, and so is the she-wolf who challenged him. .’

  They reached the gate in the palace wall. Already small battles were breaking out in the city beyond. And now they were out in the open air, Avatak noticed for the first time the short Mongol arrow that stuck out of Uzzia’s shoulder.

  55

  The travellers left Daido almost as lightly equipped as when they had arrived. They used some of Uzzia’s money, Mongol scrip acquired by selling her own gems and gifts from the court, to purchase a small cart and three horses. Even Pyxeas had sensed trouble coming; he had already packed up the essentials of his work with Bolghai in a trunk, along with personal effects.

  Before noon on the day of the rebellion they were already out of the city and heading down along the road they had just travelled, south towards the Khan’s hunting grounds once more. Uzzia drove the cart behind two of the horses, with Pyxeas and their gear. Avatak rode the spare horse. He wondered what would become of the mule, and wished he had had time to say goodbye.

  Only when they were well clear of the city would Uzzia permit a stop so Avatak could treat her wounded shoulder. Pyxeas remained in the cart, sipping sullenly on a skin of wine. He had barely spoken since the death of Bolghai; he seemed in deep shock.

  Avatak plucked out the arrow, making Uzzia wince. She said she was lucky; it had not penetrated deep enough for the barbs to dig into her flesh. But she warned him against touching the arrowhead, or the brown stuff smeared on it. She loosened her tunic, and let Avatak dab cleansing unguents on her broken flesh with scraps of cloth. The medicine’s scent made his nose wrinkle. The wound was not deep, did not need stitching, and the blood was already clotted. But there was a patch of discoloration around the wound, not purple like a bruise but an ugly, faintly green colour.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Uzzia said when he described this. She pulled up her tunic. ‘We must get on. The sooner we can put some distance between us and Daidu the better.’

  ‘Heading south.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why not west? That’s the way we came — the way back home.’

  ‘But we can’t go back that way.’ She sighed. ‘Look at Pyxeas, Avatak. Do you imagine he could stand another journey like that? Even if it could be made at all, after another year of his longwinter!’

  ‘South, then. How?’

  ‘By ship. We’re heading for a port called Quinsai, a few days’ ride from here. There we’ll find a ship. You’ll sail home in comfort.’ She wiped sweat from her brow, though the air was far from warm. ‘You’ll like Quinsai. It’s just like Hantilios.’

  So they hurried on.

  Beyond the Khan’s hunting grounds the country changed, becoming more dominated by farmland, and Avatak stared out curiously at wide flooded fields where the people waded amid their crops of rice. Towards the end of the day they found a way station, deep in the old heartland of Cathay, a handsome wooden building with dry, comfortable rooms. Avatak thought they would not
have stopped at all if Uzzia had had her way. But they had to rest the horses, and they were all exhausted; even before the rebellion Uzzia and Avatak had ridden through a day and night with the Khan. So they stayed the night. They were served country food of rice, meat, freshwater fish and molluscs — delicious, at least compared to the over-elaborate concoctions of the Mongol city to the north. Avatak concluded that the Mongols had poorer tastes than their subjects.

  Pyxeas barely ate. He did as he was asked, he looked after his own personal needs. But he seemed to have withdrawn deep within himself, to a place where, perhaps, he felt safe. Uzzia grew weaker. She would not let Avatak look at her wound again. But she was pasty, pale, sweating.

  She roused them all at dawn, and drove them on.

  Thus was the pattern of their days, until, ill, bedraggled, withdrawn, bewildered, they arrived at Quinsai.

  They found rooms on the outskirts of the city, for an exorbitant rent, and they got a lousy price when they tried to sell their horses. Avatak concluded that despite their haste the rumours about the Khan’s fate had reached this city, and things were falling apart. Uzzia disappeared to find a ship. Pyxeas withdrew to his bed in the rented room.

  Avatak cautiously explored Quinsai.

  Yes, it was like Hantilios, as Uzzia had promised, but so overwhelmingly larger in scale it made comparisons with that city seem specious. Like Hantilios, Quinsai was built on a lagoon strewn with islands. Canals ran everywhere, crowded with waterborne traffic and crossed by many bridges. These canals were straight and clean, with none of the fetid stink of Hantilios. A freshwater lake embraced one side of the city, and a river to the other side kept the canals clean of stale water.

  The city itself was an artificial landscape of wide squares, and broad, straight streets paved with baked brick, and magnificent houses, most of them built of wood. There were pavilions, temples, palaces. Every day the great squares were full of market stalls where you could buy foodstuffs, clothing, heaps of shoes and bales of silk and wool, racks of jewellery — and full of crowds, Cathay and Mongols and many others, Persian, Muslim, Carthaginian, Rus, even Northlanders, and exotic folk Avatak had never seen before, perhaps from further east. And full, too, of entertainers, jugglers and magicians and acrobats. Avatak heard a rumour of a man who had trained a fish to wear a hat and perform various tricks, but never saw him.

  Far though he walked in his brief time in Quinsai, Avatak knew he did not get a sense of its true scale. He suspected that a western city like Hantilios could be lost without trace here.

  ‘Of course it is beautiful,’ Pyxeas whispered when Avatak described all this in the evening. ‘A beautiful and ancient city built by a beautiful and ancient people. This is how Cathay was, before the Mongols came along to build their temples to vulgarity and greed, like Daidu. And of course it is crowded. We are a good way south of Daidu — that much further south of the eventual march of the ice. This place will not be spared — nowhere will be spared — but comparatively, Quinsai may prosper, and so people will flock here like migrating birds. But this is an occupied city despite its beauty, as you can tell from the number of soldiers on the streets — Mongols all, I’ll wager.’ And he fell silent again, retreating inward to his own inner mesh of calculation.

  He was right, of course, and the soldiers became more obvious when night drew in. Towards midnight great drums were beaten to signal the curfew, a pulsing rhythm that crossed the city air.

  And every night, too, part of Quinsai burned. The buildings were of wood, and dry as tinder after years of drought. Avatak heard rumours that some fires started because people recklessly built bonfires to battle the cold of the spring, and perhaps there was some rioting over a shortfall of the city dole. But the city was organised; engines would rush through the street, and pumps would pour water into the latest conflagration, even as the rebuilding began in last night’s disaster area.

  Avatak was bemused by Quinsai, the crowding people, the endless carnival, the whirlwind of buying and selling, the nightly blazes and frenetic rebuilding. An insane city, a city at the end of the world. He was relieved when, on the third day, Uzzia said she had found a ship.

  ‘Here are the details.’ She pushed a slip of paper across the table to him. ‘Berth, all the way to Carthage, if the gods spare her, and the pirates. Remember, the ship won’t wait. I’ll leave it to you to get the old man ready.’ She stood up, leaning for a moment with her fingertips on the table; she looked very pale, her brow slick with its customary sweat.

  ‘Are you going out again?’

  ‘That’s my business,’ she snapped. ‘Just don’t miss the ship.’ She went to the door and gathered her cloak. ‘And finish the journey. For, you know, it might be a journey no one else will be able to make, not for many generations. That’s something to tell your grandchildren, isn’t it?’

  She did not return that night, despite the curfew.

  The next day he waited almost until noon. Still she did not come back. When he went into her room, he found her sparse luggage gone — all save the quilted coat, with its sewn-in treasure.

  He donned the coat, and began to get Pyxeas ready for the sea voyage.

  56

  A month after the first Hatti landings on the African shore, Fabius suggested to the councils of Carthage that the time was ripe for an attempt at negotiation. He kept Nelo at his side during his sessions with the councils, so the boy could sketch the scene, the general in his Roman-purple cloak standing before the Tribunal of One Hundred and Four in their chamber on the Byrsa, or in a private office in deep discussion with the two suffetes. Nelo’s crayon captured expressions and body postures in rapid, silent sweeps.

  ‘I will lead the party myself. Let us show these Hatti that we are strong and determined. Honour must be served. They tread on our sacred land-’

  ‘It’s not your land, Roman.’

  ‘My apologies. And already blood has been spilled.’

  ‘Yes, because you failed to drive them off.’

  ‘We could not defend the entire coast. And the Hatti are a mighty host.’

  ‘A host of locusts.’

  ‘If we must fight them to the finish there will be a great war — the kind of war which both sides lose, a veteran of too many wars might say. If we can turn them away with words we may be spared great destruction.’

  ‘He is a soldier who would sue for peace. And a Roman too!’

  ‘The Hatti want Carthage. We know that. They want to destroy us so they can gorge on Egyptian wheat. They won’t accept peace, they won’t accept anything short of our obliteration.’

  ‘But it’s worth a try, brother. Talking may buy us time for the siege that is sure to come.’

  ‘Well, you may be right. What have we to lose? We can spare a Roman and his Northlander runt. .’

  The great men of Carthage, Nelo quickly learned, were very suspicious of their generals, even as they relied on them to fight and die on their behalf. It was the way the Carthaginian system worked, with a split of powers between the civilian and the military, neither one dominant. The Tribunal of One Hundred and Four particularly was charged with keeping the soldiers on a tight leash. In history, it seemed, it had not been unknown for generals to win famous battles, against the Romans or the Persians or the Muslims or the Mongols, only to return home to face trial for a lack of loyalty or other perceived crimes, with the penalty often being execution, which was traditionally by crucifixion. They were especially suspicious of Fabius, because he was brilliant, popular, and a Roman. But he was the best they had.

  ‘You may proceed, General. One of us will travel with you. But go with caution. And don’t make any promises.’

  ‘I understand. Come, gentlemen; come, Nelo.’

  On a late spring morning the mission to the Hatti formed up outside the city gates: Fabius and his officers, one of the suffetes, a man called Carthalo, with his own advisers, and a small squad of soldiers as guard. They gathered under a banner especially made for the occasion, an orn
ate image of Jesus Sharruma, Son of Teshub Yahweh, the Storm God of the Hatti, with the crescent moon sigil of Baal Hammon over his head: a gesture of peace, the gods of Hattusa and Carthage intertwined. The details had been agreed by ambassadors exchanged between the two nations.

  The party was slow in forming up, the horses being harnessed and saddled, a few wagons loaded with rations and water, the soldiers checking their boots. The day was fine, bright, and though the winter snow was long gone nothing but scrubby grass and weeds grew away from the roads. Another hungry summer was coming, Nelo thought gloomily.

  Sergeant Gisco was here, to add to his burden. And then he learned that the escort as a whole was under the nominal command of a man Nelo knew: Mago, nephew of Barmocar, a scion of one of Carthage’s great families appointed to lend a bit more weight to the party.

  Mago soon spotted Nelo. He was more grandly dressed even than Fabius himself, with a spectacular crimson plume on his helmet. ‘Ha! When I heard the general had adopted a Northlander runt who could scribble a bit, I thought it must be you.’

  Nelo thought it was a long time since the two of them had worked together in the aftermath of the Autumn Blizzard in Etxelur. As soon as he was back home, the worst of Mago had come to the fore once more. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘What do you want, sir.’ Mago stalked around Nelo, inspecting his quilted tunic and light mail coat and cloak, his pouch with his paper and crayons for the sketching. ‘Treats you well, does he, the general? I don’t hold with the rumours that he’s bumming you, though Romans are notorious for it. Greek influence, you see. No, you’re not pretty enough. You’re his little pet, though, aren’t you? Feeds you on scraps from the table, does he? And how’s your mother? And that tasty sister of yours-’

  Nelo faced him. ‘My sister’s dead.’

  They faced each other, eyes locked.

  Mago sneered, contemptuous, arrogant. ‘You’re no soldier.’

  ‘I agree.’