Iron Winter

the able-bodied out of hearing range before we start with the rest, because-’

‘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 Northlanders.’

‘There is that, yes.’