Iron Winter n-3

by Stephen Baxter

  Suniatus recognised the general’s name, and sat back, panting, pinning the man’s arms. ‘What did he say? Something about my general?’ And he slammed the back of his hand into the Scand’s face.

  ‘Get on with it, Suni,’ growled Gisco, pressing on the man’s legs.

  ‘Sir.’ Suniatus made a more determined effort to contain the man’s struggles.

  But the Scand still tried to talk to Nelo. ‘Please! Fabius, his men take us, he speaks to us. Offers us gold and bread, more than the Hatti, if we fight for him. He will give us back to our families, when Hatti are gone. That’s what he said.’

  ‘Shut up!’ Another blow with the back of the hand.

  ‘That’s what he said! Gold and bread! Look, look-’ But, pinned, he could not reach whatever he was after. Some proof of a contract with Fabius? ‘That’s what he said-’

  At last Suniatus drew his blade across the neck. The man died, choking on his own blood, gaze still fixed on Nelo.

  As Suniatus removed the head, Nelo said, ‘Sir. He was speaking Northlander.’

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘He said the general recruited them. General Fabius, sir.’

  ‘No, he didn’t.’

  ‘He gave them gold and bread, and told them-’

  Gisco stalked over to Nelo and loomed over him. ‘No, he didn’t, aurochs. You didn’t hear him say any such thing. Because if you did I’d have to cut off your precious artist’s hands, and then I’d let Suni finish you off like the rest of these treacherous scum, and maybe I’ll do that anyhow because you annoy me, Nelo, you’re a waste of good muscle. Now. Did this man say anything to you?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Good. Right. Where to next?’

  64

  There were two more items on Gisco’s list, two more addresses. Two more heads to collect. By the time they were done it was mid-morning, and Suniatus had to take three of the heads from Nelo to carry in a separate sack.

  Now they had a fresh appointment, Gisco said.

  He led them through the streets of the lower city to the ancient inner wall that enclosed the Byrsa, the citadel. People were going about their business, to work if they had it, or to queue for the daily dole of grey bread and water if not. Nelo was aware of the glances they attracted, for the sacks dribbled blood, but people knew not to stare at soldiers.

  They reached a gate in the citadel wall where more soldiers had gathered, with more bloody sacks. Comrades hailed each other, and made black jokes about what their sacks contained. Gisco spoke quietly to other officers, and they scrutinised each others’ lists, comparing notes. Nobody asked why they were waiting, or what for, or why the heads were needed. You weren’t supposed to ask such questions.

  With permission, Suniatus went off and bought shrivelled apples from a trader in a sparsely populated marketplace nearby, and handed them around. Suniatus made a pretence of offering one to Nelo, then threw the fruit in his sack instead. ‘Let these Scand fight over it in Valhalla.’

  Then there was a gathering noise, the murmur of a crowd, along with footsteps, some laughter and cheers, and the rattle of wheels. The soldiers dumped their apple cores and straightened up, fixing helmets and mail coats.

  A war chariot, a big two-horse machine stolen in a raid from the Hatti, came clattering into view around a bend. With driver and spear man, Fabius was aboard, resplendent in a polished breastplate, scarlet tunic and purple cloak. With his helmet off he was unmistakable, and the men cheered as he approached. A couple of carts followed behind him — and they were laden with severed heads, Nelo saw, dozens of them heaped up like turnips on farmers’ carts. They were all men, all bearded, all red-haired — all Rus or Scand. A guard detail jogged along beside chariot and carts.

  Behind Fabius came the crowd, citizens of Carthage. They were a ragged, grimy lot, Nelo thought; not only was there no food to be had but there were no new clothes to buy in the market, not even soap and fresh water to spare to clean the old. But today the great general Fabius was putting on some kind of spectacle, and on impulse the people came out to see what was going on. And it helped, Nelo saw, that a few more soldiers followed behind the guard, carrying satchels from which they threw stuff out to the crowd — peas, beans perhaps, small items that people leapt for and scrapped over.

  The chariot pulled up at the gate. Fabius beckoned Gisco over, while Nelo and Suniatus emptied out their own sacks onto the heap on the carts. ‘More fruit for my harvest I see, Gisco.’

  ‘I’ve spoken to the other commanders, sir. I think we got them all.’

  ‘Good, good, a thorough job. The city thanks you for it — or it will, before the day is done. Ah, there’s my scribbling Northlander. Up here, boy, ride with me. Do you have your satchel? By the gods, what’s that mess on your clothes?’

  ‘Sir-’

  ‘You. Give him your tunic, man. Just do it! He can’t be facing the Tribunal of One Hundred and Four with Rus brains all over his bib.’

  The soldier, picked out at random, reluctantly stripped down to his breeches and handed his tunic to Nelo. His companions whistled and mocked.

  Nelo climbed onto the chariot, hideously self-conscious. He dared to ask, ‘The Tribunal, sir? What are we going to do there?’

  ‘You’ll see, boy. Just record everything, Nelo, regardless of how well you understand it. Once again we are going to witness history. No — we are going to make history.’ He stood on his chariot, and turned to face the crowd and the soldiers. ‘Did you hear that? Did you hear what I said?’ He had the leathery lungs a commander always needed, and at his bellow the murmur of the crowd subsided. ‘I said that today, we, all of you, are going to make history!’

  That won him a ragged, slightly bemused cheer.

  Fabius dramatically pointed to the Byrsa. ‘There are men up there, old men, men who are fat in these times when even a soldier goes hungry, men who would today hold me to account. That’s their job, you might say. That’s the purpose of the One Hundred and Four. Well, so it is. That’s their duty. That’s their privilege. That’s their right. But such duty requires immense wisdom. And what wisdom do they show? They question the conduct of the war. My conduct of it.’

  ‘You’ve not won it yet,’ somebody dared call out.

  There was a mutter, people looked at each other, and soldiers prowled menacingly.

  ‘No!’ shouted Fabius. ‘No, let him be. He speaks the truth, after all. This war is not yet won. The siege is not lifted. It might take months yet. Years. But, if it were not for me, if not for my vigilance and the vigilance of my men, the war would already have been lost.’ He turned to Nelo, and murmured, ‘Pass me one of those heads, boy. And for Jupiter’s sake keep the innards from spilling on your clean tunic.’

  When he had the trophy, Fabius held it aloft, its red hair grasped in one strong fist. People gasped and turned away.

  ‘Do you see?’ Fabius cried. ‘Do you see what my men found in your city? Do you see what we are up against? If we had not rooted them out, these infiltrators would have opened up the gates in the night, and slaughtered you men in your beds — your children next — and then they would have fallen on your daughters and your wives. This is the horror that I have averted. This very morning!’ He pitched the head into the crowd, and people flinched back out of its way as it bounced and rolled. ‘I cannot promise you a quick victory. Nobody could. But I can promise you there will be no quick defeat. I can promise you that Carthage will throw off these wolves at the gate, and will rise again. I can promise you all this. Here, you see the proof! What can the old men on that hill promise you, but to bring me down?

  ‘Well, this morning I have been summoned to account for my actions. I am a good Roman, and a good Carthaginian. I will obey the summons. But will you come with me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Will you be at my side?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Will you, will you?’

  ‘Yes! Yes!’

  At that moment Fabius’ driver whipped his
horses, and the chariot lurched forward, through the gate and into the Byrsa. The cart followed, the piled-up heads rolling and rattling perilously, and then came the gathering crowd. Nelo saw Gisco take brisk command, ensuring that the general was secure, and that the chariot was escorted by flanking soldiers.

  The chariot rolled up a broad avenue towards the summit of this central mound, passing through the Hannibal Quarter, a district that Nelo had heard of but had never visited before. There were shops, temples and grand government buildings here, all in shining stone, some faced with marble, and in much better order than the lower city. Yet as in the rest of Carthage those shops that weren’t selling essentials, such as shoes, clothes, food and oil, seemed mostly to have been turned over to habitation. These days even the Byrsa was crowded with nestspills. As Fabius passed, some of these folk came out to follow him too, joining their grubbier counterparts from the lower city. Whatever Fabius was up to, this was a chance for them to make some noise, to vent their frustration, and maybe to smash a few windows and crack a few skulls in the process.

  Soon a great tide of people was washing up the slopes of the Byrsa, carrying Fabius to the house of the Tribunal of One Hundred and Four at the summit. Nelo sketched and sketched.

  Fabius glanced at what had been drawn, smiling, folding the pages back. But he frowned when he got to one sketch, of himself holding up the severed head before the crowd of the lower town. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Sir?’

  He had to shout above the noise of the crowd. ‘The head of this Scand — he’s looking at me. And the heads in the barrow too, all turned — all looking at me!’

  ‘It’s what I saw, sir. I mean-’

  ‘What your heart saw?’

  ‘The dead Scand and Rus are asking why you betrayed them.’

  ‘Betrayed?’ His voice was deep, ominous.

  Nelo knew he was talking himself into trouble. But he said, ‘One of them spoke to me, sir. Before we managed to kill him. He told me-’

  ‘That I had invited them in.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And so, you conclude, this is all got up by me. A stunt to impress the rabble.’

  ‘Yes — no, sir-’

  ‘It’s all right. I took you under my wing because I believe you see the truth, where other men fail. I can’t complain if you see the truth about me, can I? But it is only a partial truth, Nelo. Only a necessary lie. Greater truths lie beyond.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘These fellows, with their ridiculous red hair and their inability to hide, are of course a fiction, a plant. But the city is riddled with spies, informants, would-be traitors. That’s the greater truth. And it’s only my strict control of the city, my soldiers’ thorough rooting-out of it all, that keeps us safe. It’s hard and it’s not pretty, but it’s the truth.

  ‘The Tribunal of One Hundred and Four think this isn’t enough. Some of them are impatient for war. They want me to ride out with the phalanxes and meet the Hatti on open ground. That would lose us the war for sure, and I suspect some of them know it in their hearts, but the siege has so ground them down that they’d rather lose it than carry on. I have seen sieges, I’ve laid them, I’ve survived them. Most sieges last years — that’s what they don’t understand.

  ‘Others, meanwhile, want to clip my wings. They are envious of my power, my position, and so on. Such envy is a constant in the affairs of human beings. Some, indeed, think my appointment with the cross is overdue.’ He glanced at his hands, flexing them, as if his palms itched. ‘Again, they want this even though they know it will lose them the war, or at least they suspect it. They want me downed even so. But I, you see, cannot allow that, Nelo, for my duty is to save Carthage, despite the difficulties I am having with some of the Carthaginians.

  ‘So it is true that I have rigged this business of the red-headed saboteurs. I’m sure you won’t be the last to spot it. But I am doing it to force the Tribunal, and the elders, the suffetes and the rest, even the s’rnm, the ordinary folk of the city, force them to accept that they need me if they are to survive this war. And that they need to give me a free hand.’

  Nelo thought he understood. ‘You’re going to take over the government.’

  Fabius grinned. ‘It’s happened before, as I know very well, for all literate Romans are perforce taught a great deal about Carthaginian history. A man called Bomilcar, for example, back in the days even before Carthage went to war with Rome. Not that his coup succeeded, but he had the right idea.

  ‘It is quite a feat I am attempting,’ he said now. ‘A foreign general who won’t call his troops out to fight the besieging enemy. Hardly a basis for great popularity with the people, you’d think. Yet here I am, strolling up the Byrsa with a mob at my back.’

  ‘And if you win today, sir? What then?’

  ‘Two things. I’m going to want to talk to your people, Nelo.’

  ‘My people?’

  ‘The Northlanders. I’m aware there’s quite a community of you here, having fled from your own frozen country. And I’m also aware you’ve brought treasure with you.’

  ‘Treasure?’

  Fabius rapped his temple. ‘Up here. Secrets. That’s what I intend to acquire next.’

  Nelo thought of his enigmatic conversation with Ontin the doctor, his talk of secretive House of Crow projects, work Nelo had never been able to progress but perhaps others had. .

  ‘That’s the first thing,’ Fabius went on. ‘And the second — I will rewrite history, for all time. A Roman defeating Carthage at last! In a manner of speaking at least. How the Carthaginian historians of the future will spit and fume as they are forced to copy out my name, over and over! And all of this, my boy, you are going to capture with your clever scribbles. Scribbles that will some day be etched into stone friezes that will cover the walls of the new buildings that will flourish in this miserable old city.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Now they approached a grand, square building, sitting on a stone pavement on the terraced summit of the hill.

  ‘Is the Tribunal of One Hundred and Four in session, Gisco?’

  The sergeant jogged up to interrogate the guard at the door, then turned. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then get those big doors open.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Gisco snapped commands to a soldier nearby. Soon a group of men were running at the doors, swords in hand.

  When the doors were open Fabius urged his driver to drive the chariot right into the great palace, into the central chamber itself, to shouts of outrage from the white-robed men who sat in their rows within. The cart with the severed heads followed too, its wheels leaving trails of blood and mud on the marble floor. Fabius leapt down, ignoring the shouts and pointed fingers of the outraged Tribunal members, and he started hauling the heads from the cart and throwing them at the members. ‘This is why you need me! And this, and this! This is what I protect the city from!’ The delegates flinched back, as blood and grey skull-matter splashed over their white robes.

  Nelo saw it all, everything that came about that day, and fixed it all on paper, scribbling, scribbling.

  65

  The ship sailed on, heading west, making for the Sea of the Arabs. The crew toiled to repair the storm damage. Pyxeas grumpily put his notes in order and rewrote those that had been spoiled by water from the leaks. The weather, for now, was calm.

  Then the pirates struck.

  Avatak and the scholar were immersed in a deep technical discussion on the absorption of fixed air by a given unit area of farmland, and its production by the burning of the same unit area of forest. ‘Once men hunted the worldwide forests,’ Pyxeas said. ‘Now they farm — not in Northland and its hinterland, but elsewhere, they farm. It must make a difference. It must! I nearly have it, Avatak — I nearly have it-’

  Bayan burst into the cabin, and slammed the door shut behind him.

  Pyxeas glared. ‘What’s this? I left clear instructions not to be disturbed.’

  ‘Pirates,’ sai
d the boy. His eyes were wide, he was bathed in sweat, and Avatak saw that his shirt was stained red with blood. ‘Yes-yes-yes. Hide me!’ He dived at the floor, into the heaps of scrolls and books, and burrowed in like a rat into garbage.

  ‘Get out of there!’ Pyxeas ineffectually pawed at the papers.

  ‘I’ve never seen pirates like these. Monsters. Killers! Yes-yes-yes!’

  Avatak was bemused. Pirates? ‘Bayan, come on. Al-Quds has beaten off pirates and nestspills before-’

  ‘They killed al-Quds! Slit his throat with a single swipe — near enough clean took his head off — they killed him, yes-yes-yes, the first heartbeat they were aboard! Oh, they’re coming, they’re coming. .’

  Avatak heard it now, heavy footsteps, shouting, the scrape of steel — screams. He tried to think. ‘Maybe we can block the door — maybe if we hide-’

  It was too late. The door crashed open, smashing off its iron hinges, sending Avatak tumbling back into the little cabin, landing on top of Bayan in a mess of scrolls and parchments.

  Pyxeas stood and faced the intruders. ‘You have no business here-’

  A gloved fist slammed into the scholar’s mouth, and Avatak heard the crunch of breaking teeth. Pyxeas fell back, landing against the outer wall with a thump, his mouth a bloody mess.

  Two men pushed through the door. They seemed huge, their arms and necks bare, their trousers blood-soaked leather, their hair tied back. They had weapons at their waists, cruel-looking swords and axes. Each had his face covered in intricate tattoos, like a tracery of black-walled veins. Avatak scrambled back against the bunks and reached for his own weapon, a blade hidden in his mattress. Before he got there one of the pirates grabbed him by the shirt front, raised him with one unbelievably strong arm, and drove his fist into Avatak’s belly. Avatak fell back, doubled up, hollowed out by pain.

  Bayan took his chance. The little Mongol scurried on all fours through the men’s legs and out of the cabin.

  As Avatak and Pyxeas lay helplessly, one pirate brutally rummaged through the cabin, lifting the bunks, ripping through heaps of paper, shaking out bundles of clothes. Uzzia’s coat, with the jewels sewn into the quilting, hung unnoticed on the back of the sagging door.