Iron Winter n-3

by Stephen Baxter

  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.

  63

  Nelo saw it all, that fateful day, the day that everything changed, for Fabius, for Carthage — for everybody Saw it all from beginning to end. Drew it all, and remembered.

  It began before dawn, on another chill late summer’s day. Nelo, in his barrack, was woken by a shake from Gisco, unexpectedly gentle, not the usual boot in the back. ‘Out you get, aurochs,’ he murmured. ‘Got a special job for you. But keep quiet about it. No need to disturb the other cock-pullers in their slumbers. You too, Suniatus.’

  ‘Sergeant-’

  ‘What did I say?’ Gisco snapped, in a whisper. ‘Keep that mouth of yours shut.’

  The barrack room was dark, with only a single sputtering lantern burning in one corner. After another night in here the air was thick with beery farts, the acid stink of rotting feet. Only Nelo and Suniatus were moving; the rest of the troop slumbered on.

  Suniatus pulled on socks and boots. ‘Just us, Sergeant?’

  ‘Just you.’

  ‘Why? I mean, why me and that?’ He jerked a thumb at Nelo.

  ‘Because I can trust you two. Yes, you as well, Northlander, I know I can rely on you to follow an order while keeping your mouth shut, and you can do this little job for me and still be free to scribble your drawings for the rest of the day. This army of ours is full of useless
Libyans, and useless sods, and useless Libyan sods, and two reliable men are hard to find.’

  Suniatus grinned. ‘Hear that, aurochs? You’re reliable.’ He picked up his sword in its scabbard. ‘So what’s the job, Sergeant?’

  ‘To save Carthage.’

  ‘What, again?’

  ‘Just get on with it.’

  Nelo grabbed his weapons and satchel and made for the door. Suniatus couldn’t resist clowning; he walked on exaggerated tiptoe and shoved Nelo in the back, trying to make him stumble. But they got out of the barracks without disturbing anybody else.

  They emerged onto a silent street. The sand that had blown in from the desert scraped on the cobbles under Nelo’s boots. Gisco had left a lantern by the barracks door; he raised this now and scrutinised a bit of paper. Nelo saw it was a list of addresses, all in Megara. This barracks, by the city wall, was on the periphery of the suburb.

  Suniatus glanced over the sergeant’s shoulder. ‘I know the first address, sir. That street anyhow. There’s a whorehouse where they have these Balearic women who-’

  ‘All right, Suni. Just lead the way.’

  The soldier strode confidently through the darkened streets. With experience Suniatus was becoming a good soldier, Nelo realised, for all his bullying and bluster. The word in the barracks was that he would already have had a few promotions if not for his habit of punching out his comrades when drunk.

  The sky was a lid of cloud, the city all but pitch-dark save for the occasional gleam of a lantern in the houses and shut-up shops and shrines. Nelo wasn’t sure what time it was, but these were the hours of the curfew the suffetes had imposed months before, and the streets were empty — silent save only for distant soft whistles, the signals of the patrolling guard. One of Fabius’ iron rules was that the streets had to be kept clear, there could be nobody sleeping out in the open, in alleyways or doorways, as had become common since the city had filled up with nestspills. The rule seemed to be working well. Occasionally you would hear a scurrying in the dark, a rustle, perhaps footsteps, a rat or wild dog, or maybe some human scavenger. But Nelo, eyes wide open, saw nothing.

  Once they passed a cart hauled by a couple of beefy-looking Libyans, perhaps slaves, and led by a soldier in a dark cloak, his face hidden. The cart’s load was covered by a thick, bloodstained cloth, and Nelo did not need too much imagination to know what was under there. The deaths continued in a steady trickle, from hunger, from the blood plague and other diseases that swept like fires through the city’s crowded tenements. Nelo had found these deaths horrific when he had first come to live inside the city walls. But Fabius had once told him that cities were always like this, even in the good times, even with plentiful food and water. It made Nelo sharply homesick for the wide, empty, orderly landscape of Northland, where people did not die like this.

  They came to a darkened property that had once, according to a faded sign over the door, been a manufactory of jewellery. Now the frontage was scarred by fire, and the door had been broken down.

  Gisco checked his bit of paper. ‘This is the one.’ He gestured to Suniatus. ‘No need to knock.’

  Suni grinned, drew his sword, kicked the door in, and led the way inside.

  If this had been a manufactory it had long been stripped bare, the contents looted. Now in two, three, four ground-floor rooms people huddled, whole families crammed into one corner or another, mothers clutching infants, cowering back from Gisco’s light. There was a complicated stink of milk, piss, shit, sweat, and deep ingrained dirt. Gisco, without a word, stalked through the rooms, blade in hand, holding his lantern so he could see faces. Eyes gleamed bright from heaps of rags. He still hadn’t told Suni or Nelo what he was looking for.

  ‘Not here,’ he said once they had gone through all the rooms. He saw that Suniatus had grabbed a bit of bread from some wretch, and was biting into the hard crust. ‘Oh, give that back, Suni.’ Suniatus cast the fragment over his shoulder, and the huddled forms scrambled for it. Gisco looked around. There was an upper floor, but the ceilings of the rooms were flimsy and cracked, and the dawn sky showed through, a reluctant grey.

  ‘Nothing up there, Sergeant,’ Suniatus offered. ‘I saw from outside. Top floor pulled down, for the wood to burn, I guess.’

  ‘All right.’ Gisco stalked through the rooms again, ignoring the people who had to shrink back out of his way. At length he found a hatch in the floor. ‘Aha! A cellar.’ He gestured at Suni, who found an iron ring fixed to the hatch, and hauled it up. Gisco held up his lantern over the hole. Nelo glimpsed a wooden ladder, a floor of packed earth beneath.

  Gisco nodded to Suniatus, his finger to his lips. ‘You first, Suni. Quiet, now.’

  Suni grinned, settled into the hatch, and let himself down the ladder one-handed. Gisco passed the lantern. Suni looked around, then headed off determinedly to one corner, moving out of sight.

  Nelo waited with Gisco. Somewhere an infant murmured, and was hushed. Nelo wondered what happened to these people when it rained, under that roof. But then it rarely rained in Carthage nowadays.

  There was a brief sound of a struggle, a surprised grunt. Then Suni called up, ‘You can come down, sir.’

  Nelo led the way down the ladder.

  The cellar, whatever it had once stored, was stripped as bare as the rest of the house. In one corner a man lay face down on a pile of blankets, with Suni grasping one twisted arm and kneeling on his back. There was a heap of clothes, a discarded mail coat, and weapons — a battleaxe leaning against one wall. And there was a woman, Nelo saw, cowering in the corner, grasping a blanket to her chest.

  Gisco took in the scene at a glance. ‘Good work, Suni.’ He strode across to the man, got a handful of hair and pulled his head back, making the man grunt. Nelo saw the hair was bright red, and that the man was bearded. Gisco dropped the man’s head casually, as if dropping a sack of potatoes. ‘This is the one. Who’s she?’

  The woman sat up straighter. ‘Sir. My name is Satilis. My husband owns this shop. Owned — I have not seen him for some time.’

  Gisco leaned down and peered at her in the lantern light. ‘She’s older than I thought.’

  Suni grinned. ‘Maybe this fellow likes ‘em wrinkly.’

  ‘Sir — are you acting under the orders of the suffetes? Of the Popular Assembly?’

  ‘Aren’t we all?’

  ‘I demand my rights. We have always paid our taxes and tolls, officer. My husband’s father once served on the Tribunal of One Hundred and Four. It was bad enough that my shop, my home, was forced to open its doors to stinking farmers’ families from the country. Now this man has come, he just walked in here, he doesn’t even speak our tongue, but he had a letter demanding asylum, a letter from General Fabius, and, and-’

  Suni guffawed. ‘General Fabius? Sure he did.’

  Gisco stood straight. ‘Get out of here, madam.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You won’t want to see what’s to come. Get out. Shoo, shoo.’ And he chased her as he would a reluctant dog.

  The woman got up and scrambled for the ladder, which was hard to negotiate in her blanket. Both Gisco and Suniatus stared as she climbed, revealing thighs, buttocks, ample hips.

  Gisco sighed. ‘That will keep me warm tonight.’

  Suni laughed again. ‘Now what, sir? What do we do with this fellow? Haul him in?’

  ‘No time for that, Suni. He’s an obvious saboteur. Placed here to open the gates and let his brutish comrades into our city, along with their Hatti overlords. Finish him off.’

  ‘With pleasure. How?’

  ‘Behead him. Make it neat, would you?’

  Suniatus lifted his blade, yanking the man’s head back; the man began to struggle, his teeth grating.

  ‘Oh, by the left bollock of mighty Teshub, kill the man first. Have some manners, Suniatus.’

  ‘Sorry, sir.’ Suniatus efficiently slit the man’s throat with a scrape of his blade, held him down while he bled out, and then sawed off the head, gru
nting and complaining as his blade got stuck in the vertebrae.

  Meanwhile Gisco turned to Nelo. ‘You. Find a sack, a bag.’

  ‘Yes, sir. What for, sir?’

  ‘Our keepsake. This brute’s crimson head, boy. We’re on a mission to root out agents of the Hatti princes, like this one.’ He said this absently, while perusing his list by the light of the lantern. ‘You still here? Go, boy, go!’

  So they proceeded through Megara. Nelo had to carry the sack, which dripped blood as they walked, and was surprisingly heavy. It got heavier yet as they visited a second house, and a third, each time finding a solitary Rus or Scand warrior living among fearful Carthaginians, each time coming upon him without warning, each time coming away with a head. The whole business, the stink of the heads, sickened Nelo.

  Yet it puzzled him too. Even when the warriors saw them coming they made no attempt to resist, not until it was too late and they realised their fate at Suniatus’ hands. They did jabber out pleas in their own harsh tongues, but that was to be expected, and none of the killing party understood a word.

  On the fourth killing Suniatus whistled as he sawed at the man’s neck. ‘This is the life for me, aurochs,’ he said to Nelo. ‘Killing these brutes is as easy as picking olives off a tree.’ He threw over the head for Nelo to catch.

  They came upon the fifth man in an upper room of a small abandoned temple. By now the day was bright, the curfew lifted, and in the streets outside the wagons of the dead continued their mournful progress, amid the gathering noises of the city day. This time Suniatus struggled to get the Scand on his back before despatching him. Gisco was forced to help, sitting on the man’s legs while Suniatus pinned his chest.

  And the man saw Nelo. His eyes widened. ‘Northlander.’

  Nelo was startled. He had said the word in the tongue of Etxelur.

  ‘Northlander. You are a Northlander. I can tell, the hair, the eyes. I visit — I have visited-’ Suniatus punched him in the mouth, knocking his head to the side. But he stayed conscious, and spoke from a bloody mouth. ‘Please. Mistake. They make mistake. I am loyal, loyal to Fabius!’