He turned his horse’s head to the east, towards Carthage, and led Kassu a little further away from the line. The plain before Carthage was turning yellow-brown, like the desert, from all the sandstorms, but you could still see the hummocks and ridges that had once marked out farms and orchards, and the ruins of broken-down buildings stuck out of the dirt like broken limbs. And beyond all that, on the horizon, Kassu could see the walls of the city itself, a line of dirty white, studded with towers.
Himuili grunted. ‘A formidable sight.’
‘Yes, sir. But even from here you can see how the walls have been blackened by our fires. Anyhow, Carthage itself isn’t the prize. Carthage is just an obstacle on the road to Egypt, and all its lovely grain.’
Himuili grinned, leaned over and slapped his back. ‘Good response. You should talk to Palla about putting some of this stuff in his sermons to the troops, which for me are a bit heavy on the suffering and submission of Jesus. Ah, but you and Palla have history, don’t you? Well, forget I mentioned him.’
He turned his horse again so they looked back at the army of the Hatti, drawn up for battle, blocks of men, their armour and polished weapons glittering in the light of the rising sun. Kassu could see the restless rustle of the cavalry units on the left and right wings. Arnuwanda with his party was galloping before the line, under a great banner of Jesus Sharruma, a colourful little knot of motion. Jesus Himself had been brought out of His temple and positioned on a cart just behind the central phalanx, a towering statue encrusted with precious metals and jewels, shining in the low sunlight.
‘So you see the formation,’ Himuili said. ‘Our best troops in the centre, the Bodyguards and the Golden Spearmen, before Jesus, to be led by Arnuwanda himself. The other central units have been handed to the Chief of Bodyguards, the Chief of the Wine Cellar, the prince’s brothers and cousins. .’
In the Hatti system the King was always the commander in chief — but as the Hatti nation had no king just now, with Uhhaziti’s coronation postponed until after the fall of Carthage, Prince Arnuwanda took that formal command, while relatives, more men of the royal blood, filled the other senior posts. Kassu suspected that Arnuwanda would be allowed to lead the initial advance, but would be whisked to the back of the lines by his own guards before the real action started. ‘Who have they given you, sir?’
Himuili pointed to his right, and spat between his helmet’s cheek flaps. ‘That bunch of bears.’ They were a unit of Scand and Rus. Bristling with fur and in their horned helmets, from this distance they did look like animals. ‘I’ve learned enough of their language to order them about. Mostly obscenities. You should see them in their quarters, Kassu. Hairy as my left bollock, every last one of them, but when they strip naked to scrape off the filth, you see that their entire skin is coated in tattoos. If I were a Carthaginian I’d take care where I pierce such a fellow when I kill him, for his flayed hide would make a good souvenir to hang on the wall. But they’re ferocious, I’ll say that.
‘Well. There you see it, soldier. What do you think of our chances today?’
Kassu thought carefully before answering. Himuili was quick to anger, but he knew the general wanted the truth. ‘There’s a lot of us, sir. But a lot more have died since we got here. And we look. .’
‘Say it, man.’
‘Weakened. Even before the fighting starts. By the hunger, the thirst. Many of us have had a brush with one sickness or another even if we haven’t succumbed to the plague, and every dose of the shits weakens you a bit more.’
‘You’re not wrong about that. Ten days back you’d have observed me attempting to spew up my own arsehole. Look how scrawny they are — even those cursed Rus, for all their bluster. Look how slowly they move. I think we’ve prepared as well as we can today. But even so, here we are, Kassu, the last army of the Hatti, and it’s an army of skeletons, of wraiths.’
‘Perhaps. But it’s the Carthaginians’ last chance too. .’
Now there was a trumpet blast, cries of warning, fingers pointing east. Turning their horses, they saw that the great gates of Carthage had opened.
Himuili grinned. ‘The game’s on. Good! Come on, soldier, let’s get back to our line before it blows away in the desert wind.’ And he flicked his horse’s reins and galloped away.
69
In the early morning of the very day of battle a courier came for Rina, sent by Barmocar. To her bewilderment she was summoned to join a party that would go into the field ahead of the Carthaginian army, to meet the Hatti leaders in a last-ditch negotiation. Her — a Northlander matron and outsider in this city, summoned to this most historic of events! But, she thought with a kind of grim pride, a Northlander should be marching with the Carthaginian army today. After all it was a Northlander weapon that might win the day for Carthage. And, short of beating out the iron carcass of an eruptor herself, in the days since her meeting with Barmocar and Carthalo she had used long-dormant skills of leadership to do as much as anybody to ensure that the project had been completed.
So she dressed quickly, donning a smart but sensible robe, and pulled a cloak over her shoulders. For walking on the rough ground outside the city, she dug out the stout boots she had worn for the journey from Northland. Here in the small town house given her by the suffetes, she had no servants to help her. She could not bear servants in her presence, not any more. Having checked her appearance in a brass mirror, she hurried out of her house and to the city gate.
The army pouring out of Carthage was an extraordinary sight. It was an army of scarecrows, Rina thought, after months of siege, all but the officers dressed in ragged uniforms and armed with rusty blades.
Fabius’ carriage was more extraordinary yet. He called it his ‘truce wagon’. The great vehicle, specially constructed, rolled on four pairs of mighty timber wheels, each hooped by iron and fixed to tremendous axles. The wagon was drawn by teams of Hatti prisoners, harnessed like oxen, but Fabius had promised them their freedom when the job was done, and so they pulled willingly. On the wagon’s bed sat a great chest, a huge wooden box nearly as tall as Rina, so long that the custom-made wagon barely fit it. The chest was covered in expensive cloths and tapestries bearing images of the city’s gods. But the most extraordinary aspect of the whole thing was what lay on top of that chest: human skulls, all lacking their lower jaws, a heap of them arranged in an orderly pyramid. You could see that most of the skulls were small, most of young children; the larger ones supported the smaller, until at the apex of the pyramid was fixed the smallest of all, tiny enough to have fit into Rina’s palm. It was the skull of a newborn, its little throat slit at the moment of its birth. This was a molk cart, and the city’s primitive sacrifice was horribly visible. And that, of course, was the point.
As the truce wagon rolled out of the gate, followed by the columns of troops, Fabius with his senior officers walked ahead. The great and the good of Carthage had been summoned to follow behind the general, and Rina hurried to join them. Here came Carthalo, following in the Roman’s wake, along with many others of the councils, even the Tribunal of One Hundred and Four whose constitutional function was to keep generals like Fabius in check. None dare resist him now. Some of Fabius’ soldiers walked beside the general, whether to protect him from Hatti or Carthaginians it was hard to say.
Barmocar, his expression dark, worked through the small crowd of dignitaries towards her. ‘So you came, madam.’
‘You summoned me. It was only courteous-’
‘Courteous? I brought you here to see what you have done, woman. The skulls, Rina — the skulls!’
She took a breath. ‘And Mago-’
He turned away from her, his face working. ‘His skull is here, on the carriage with the rest, not ten paces from where you stand. He did not die on the grisly altar of the temple, however. He died well, in combat, fighting off a Hatti raid. I hope that whatever you imagine I have done to you is now compensated.’ He leaned closer and whispered, ‘And if we live through this day I will make
sure the rest of your life is blighted as mine is.’ He withdrew.
Alone, Rina walked on, trying to show no emotion.
Outside the city walls the Carthaginian army began drawing up in battle order, the men gathering in great blocks within which the men were all dressed and equipped similarly. These formations were called phalanxes, Rina had been told. The truce wagon rolled forward, accompanied by Fabius and the nobles, advancing beyond the lines. And now, Rina saw, a party of the Hatti came out to meet the Carthaginians. One man was mounted, and the rest walked under their own truce banner, of Jesus Sharruma with the crescent moon.
Rina was close enough to Fabius to hear one of his aides muttering advice to him. ‘The mounted man is Arnuwanda, their prince, chief of the armies, though it’s said it’s his aunt the Tawananna who makes the big decisions. The soldier at his side is Himuili, one of the smarter generals. The young priest — I don’t recognise him, I was expecting Angulli. .’
‘Mother?’
She whirled. She had not heard that voice in months. ‘Nelo?’
It was him, her son, a soldier in his tunic and mail and helmet, standing beside the Roman. He was armed with nothing more lethal than a crayon and his sketch paper. For a heartbeat they stared at each other, both disbelieving. Then they broke and ran to each other, regardless of the rest of the world, the two foreign armies before and behind them.
‘I didn’t know you were here,’ he stammered out at last.
‘Nor I you. I spent an awful lot of money paying for news of your progress.’ She laughed, but it was as much a sob. ‘I tried to save you, to get you out of there. It was part of the deal — I thought Barmocar had cheated me-’
Nelo glanced at Fabius. ‘His man came for me. I refused to leave. I could not leave him, Mother. The general. This is history.’
Fabius heard all this. He growled, ‘There won’t be much more history for you if you aren’t back by my side this instant, boy.’
Rina clung to him. ‘Forgive me,’ she said frantically. ‘For what happened in the beginning — it was Barmocar, again. We could not have survived here in Carthage if I had not let the army take you. Forgive me!’
Nelo shrugged. ‘I thought it had to be something like that. It wasn’t your job to protect me, I was old enough. If you’d just asked, I’d have gone anyway, to save you and Alxa.’
‘Oh, Nelo-’
He broke away. ‘Later, Mother.’
There was no more time. For now, in the middle of the field, the enemy commanders met.
The Hatti prince dismounted. With the general and the young priest, and trailed by aides and wary soldiers, he walked boldly towards Fabius.
‘Roman,’ Arnuwanda said. ‘We meet again.’
Fabius bowed. ‘I am honoured to be in your presence again, sir, My Sun, whose integrity is known to all the world.’
They both spoke Hatti and Carthaginian, and aides murmured translations.
Arnuwanda grunted. ‘I don’t deserve that title, and Crown Prince Uhhaziti won’t have it, not until this day is won. Why are we speaking? Why are we not fighting? And what is that grisly contraption? What are you going to do, pelt us with skulls?’ He was rewarded with a ripple of laughter from his own men.
Fabius waited patiently until they were quiet. ‘I am a Roman. But I work within the traditions of my adopted city. And these poor bones represent one of those traditions. It is the molk, the sacrifice. In this lore the gods’ favour is won by the sacrifice of children.’
Arnuwanda paced. ‘What barbarism is this?’
Some of his men were disturbed, and they muttered prayers, and made the symbol of Jesus Sharruma, the crossed arms over the chest. Every eye was fixed on the heap of skulls, which, Rina knew, was its true purpose, to distract.
‘Not barbarism, Prince,’ said Fabius evenly. ‘If I had a son myself I would have given him up willingly, to the gods of the city.’
‘Well, our gods will have something to say about how effectual that has been. What else, Roman?’ He peered at the huge covered casket on the wagon, on which the skull heap stood. ‘I yield to curiosity. What is in the box?’
Fabius smiled. ‘Another tradition of the Carthaginians, sir. A gift. They are a trading people, remember; they would always rather trade than fight. So here is this offer — a gift for you, after the receipt of which, they hope, your will to fight this day will be eliminated.’
‘Are you trying to buy us off? Is it gold, silver, jewellery? Is it so banal? My men can’t eat gold. And besides, every coffer in Carthage will be open to me by the end of the day.’
‘Not that.’
The Roman seemed to be enjoying the game, Rina thought uneasily, and she prayed he wouldn’t push his luck too far. Already some of the men behind Arnuwanda looked suspicious.
Now one tough-looking soldier stepped forward and grabbed Arnuwanda’s arm. ‘There’s something wrong here. Sir, step back-’
‘Oh, be still, Kassu-’
Fabius roared, ‘Now, Gisco!’
In an instant Carthaginian soldiers leapt at the cart and hauled aside the drapes, scattering the skulls carelessly on the dusty ground, to reveal the wooden crate. With a few tugs on rope loops the walls of the crate fell away — and the eruptor was exposed to the air. It was a great bulb of cast iron, reinforced with bound hoops, and with a gaping mouth pointing straight at the Hatti lines. Men huddled around the eruptor, blinking in the sudden daylight; they too had been hidden with the weapon inside the crate. One of them was a young man called Thux, a Northlander engineer who had once worked the pumps on the Wall. The rest were Carthaginian soldiers.
Already they were in action. Rina had witnessed endless rehearsals with this team since the casting of the barrel, and she knew that the loading must already be complete, the powdery fire drug itself shovelled into the barrel and rammed home, the muddy loam paste pushed in after it, and then the stone, a rock roughly chipped into shape. And the wick, a tube of paper filled with the drug, would have been pushed into a hole drilled into the eruptor’s metal flank. Now Thux himself approached this wick with a lighted candle.
Arnuwanda and the Hatti stood and stared. ‘What is that?’
‘A thunderbolt from Jupiter,’ snarled Fabius in Latin. ‘Now, Northlander!’
As Thux lowered the candle to the powder tube, Rina screamed to her son. ‘Get down, Nelo! Oh, get down!’
Kassu saw the iron contraption, and the flame, and the scattering Carthaginians. This was a weapon. And he stood right before it. He was nowhere near the prince — Himuili had already dragged Arnuwanda away — but Kassu stood beside Palla. He grabbed the priest and hurled him to the ground.
The eruptor exploded.
That was what it felt like, sounded like. He glimpsed a dark mass flash from its mouth in a plume of fire and smoke, with a noise like thunder — it seemed to brush his foot even as he fell over Palla — and then it plummeted into the Hatti lines, and scattered the men, and he saw a kind of bursting of blood and bone.
When the roaring was over he found himself down on the ground, on top of the priest, Palla’s face below his. Smoke billowed around them. Men were screaming, but it felt as if his ears had been stuffed with cloth. He looked around. The central phalanx had been scattered, men lying smashed and broken. The statue of Jesus was gone too, shattered, only a stump remaining. And high on the walls of Carthage he saw dark mouths, more eruptors, aimed at the Hatti lines.
Then the pain hit him, a great wave from his right leg. He looked down. The leg was gone, from beneath the knee. Oddly no blood spurted. Perhaps the heat of the stone had cauterised it.
The priest beneath him grinned. ‘You’re crippled.’
‘Your god is dead.’ He had to shout to hear himself.
‘You should have killed me while you had the chance.’ And the priest drove a blade into Kassu’s side, under his mail coat.
More pain, exploding in him like the Carthaginian weapon. The priest twisted his blade, and Kassu could feel it pierce h
is muscle and pull his guts, feel it as it scraped on his backbone.
But Zida was here. He rolled Kassu aside. ‘This story ends now.’ He brought his axe chopping down on the priest’s neck.
Kassu, lying on his back, tried to speak. ‘Pimpira. . I leave my estate to Pimpira, not to that whore of a wife. To Pimpira. .’ But he saw no more, heard no more, save a rush like thunder that rose up and enveloped him.
FOUR
70
The Fourth Year of the Longwinter: Spring Equinox
In the north the snow was still falling. The great ice sheets continued to spread across the continents, merging, pressing south. As so much water was locked up in the newly formed ice, all around the world sea levels dropped, and the land grew arid. Even the tropical forests withered back.
One day new kinds of terrain would coalesce south of the ice sheets, belts of sparse tundra, grassy steppe, barren desert, stretching all around a colder, dryer planet. The chill oceans would be fecund too. New ways of life, in the future.
One day. For now, there was only the death of the old.
Still this was only the beginning.
71
The Hatti negotiating party was to be met by Barmocar at the Byrsa gate.
Pyxeas and Rina had been invited to join the official Carthaginian response as representatives of Northland in exile, and as embodiments of the knowledge and power that had crushed the morale of the Hatti siege forces. Rina insisted that Nelo should attend too, to see the end of the story that had had such an impact on his own young life.
So Nelo met his mother and great-uncle at the gate. Waiting for the Hatti, they were all wrapped in their winter cloaks for, despite the arrival of another spring, it was a cold, blustery morning, with flakes of snow driven on a swirling wind. This was a part of Carthage Nelo rarely visited, much too grand for Northlander exiles, even now.
And Fabius still dangled from his cross high above the gate, bones and flesh and cartilage, wrapped in his cloak of Roman purple.
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