the better chance they had of completing it before the weather closed in again. In fact, Barmocar told Rina, he would have left even earlier if Northland’s dismal non-spring had allowed it.
But the midsummer Giving was the high point of the year for all of Northland, when the people came together before the Wall, under the guidance of their Annids and the priest-philosophers of the House of Wolves. It seemed a dreadful betrayal for Rina to prepare for such an event with the other Annids, while all the time she intended to abandon Northland herself — and while she quietly planned to steal the bones of the Mother of Jesus from their thousand-year-old sarcophagus deep in the fabric of the Wall. She felt the pricking of what a priest of Jesus would, she knew, call her conscience. But it had to be done.
No, Barmocar wouldn’t plan the timing of his journey just to spite her. She wasn’t important enough even for that, she suspected.
A day after Barmocar and his party had left Etxelur with great pomp, Rina made her own furtive departure.
She collected her bewildered children, took them to the Embassies District of the Wall, and told them she had booked passage on an early morning freight caravan running south from here to the shore of the Moon Sea, where they would join Barmocar’s group. Thaxa was here too, to say his own tearful goodbyes. She’d given the twins no advance warning, so they had no chance of breaking the secret — or of escaping her clutches on the day.
Naturally Alxa and Nelo didn’t want to go. Now sixteen, the twins had their own friends, their own ambitions, their own nascent place in Etxelur society. It had been Alxa who had pressed her mother to take Pyxeas’ dire warnings seriously in the first place, but she was unhappy at abandoning her home, her family. As for Nelo, he had his art, his friends in the school of look-deep experimental artists, the scraps of money he was making from selling his work in the markets. It took all that was left of Rina’s authority as a mother to force him to come away. ‘Carthage is one of the world’s greatest cities, though it may not be Etxelur. There will be lovers of art, there will be Carthaginians who will buy your work!’ Even then she had to compromise by allowing him to bring a stack of his sketchbooks and canvases. The arguments were heated, distressing, predictable. But she would not give way, and Thaxa backed her up. At last she got them both on the steam caravan, with a mound of luggage.
As the caravan made its cautious way south and west, locked together in a tiny passenger cabin, they took out their tensions and unhappiness on each other. The twins worked their way through their resentment, and were soon nagged by guilt at abandoning their friends, the rest of their family — even Thaxa, their father. It didn’t get any better when the caravan wound its way through the bank of low hills called the First Mother’s Ribs, and they lost sight at last of the tremendous world-spanning face of the Wall.
They were all in a poor state when they arrived at Alloc at the end of a long day’s travel, to be met by Barmocar and his party.
Alloc was a major port on the eastern shore of the Moon Sea. It was a hub for trading links with Albia; from here timber and furs brought down the peninsula’s great rivers were transported across Northland by roads and canals, and on a shiny new steam-caravan link to the south. Rina had been here many times on Water Council business before. But it had never been so cold, not at this time of year, so close to midsummer, with a nip in the air that felt like it promised a frost.
As hungry-looking porters unloaded their goods and heaped them up beside the track, Rina got her first look at the caravan Barmocar had spent the winter organising. It was a lot more impressive than the caravan they’d taken from the Wall, with a string of expansive and luxurious passenger cabins, and goods wagons with fuel for the engine and provisions for the long journey. Rina felt a stab of envy, remembering how she had crossed Northland on foot and horse-drawn carriages with Pyxeas last year — but that had been his choice.
As they gathered by the track Rina recognised some of Barmocar’s party from meetings and social gatherings at the Wall. There were more Carthaginians, nobles from the many small nations of Gaira and Ibera, even a party of Muslim Arabs who must be intending to continue their journey onwards from Carthage across North Africa, or perhaps by boat the length of the Middle Sea. All these dignitaries and their families and entourages had been trapped by the winter weather in Northland, like Barmocar himself. There was a group of soldiers too, tough-looking Carthaginian veterans in their long cloaks and boots and with their weapons strapped to their backs, here for the protection of the travellers, Rina assumed. As soldiers always did, they eyed the women in the group with a kind of lazy calculation.
Amid this churning polyglot crowd, with the caravan’s engine already venting steam, Rina and the twins stood uncertainly beside their heap of luggage. At last Barmocar himself approached them, trailed by Mago, his slab-of-muscle nephew, who leered at Alxa.
Rina bowed her head formally. ‘It is a pleasure to see you again.’
Barmocar was wrapped in an expensive-looking cloak, confident, plump —
‘We had no control over-’
‘We’d have left without you. Maybe we still will.’ He strode over to the heap of luggage. ‘Is
‘Only the essentials.’
Mago pushed into the heap. ‘Look, Uncle. There’s
Rina winced. ‘That is an heirloom, in my family for generations.’
Now Mago found Nelo’s stack of artwork. He lifted a canvas, ripped off its packaging of thick paper, and theatrically flinched back. ‘Oh, good, Nelo brought his pictures!’
Nelo stepped forward, fists bunched. Alxa grabbed his arm.
Barmocar said, ‘Well, you’re going to have a job fitting all this into your cabin. Which is that.’ And he pointed at the rear of the caravan, to a single battered-looking passenger cart.
Rina felt her own temper rise. ‘Is this all that the bones of the Virgin Herself bought me?’
Barmocar shrugged. ‘It was a buyer’s market, wasn’t it? We Carthaginians have always been traders. It’s business, that’s all. Nothing personal.’ And he eyed her, waiting for her response.
This was only the beginning, she realised. She dug deep inside herself, seeking patience. She was not without resources. Once she got through this bottleneck of the journey to Carthage, she would build a new life, a new position, and then she would wipe the grin off the face of this plump, foolish, cruel man. For now, she smiled. ‘What would you suggest we do with the rest of our luggage?’
He glanced at the heap of goods. ‘Sell it to the porters, if you can. Dump it. I don’t care.’
Nelo stepped forward, still fizzing with anger. ‘I won’t leave my paintings.’
Mago laughed. ‘Then stay here and eat them, Northlander.’
‘I won’t leave my work, Mother.’
‘Silence. You’re not a child. You can see how things are. If you aren’t going to be any use just shut up. Alxa.’ She hauled a leather trunk from the heap of luggage and opened the buckles on the straps. ‘Help me. Whatever we can fit in here, we take. Nothing else. Clothes, a few sets of everything for each of us. And anything small and valuable. Jewellery — the money bags-’
‘Yes, Mother.’ Alxa at least seemed to understand; she started opening boxes and cases, hastily pulling out clothes and other goods.
There were far more clothes than could possibly fit in the trunk. Well, they could wear some, Rina thought, a few layers each. They might need that during the cold nights of travelling to come.
Nelo stared at his work, his face ashen.
Rina relented. ‘Take some of it. One canvas, your best. Your most recent sketchbook, and your earliest. That will go in the trunk. And take a blank book.’
‘What?’
‘And your styluses and crayons. I suspect we’ll be seeing some remarkable sights before this journey is through. Raw material — that’s what you artists are always looking for, isn’t it?’
The steam caravan departed not long after dusk, and travelled through the night.
Rina woke at dawn. She had slept in her seat, huddled under her cloak. She felt stiff, sore, and cold, despite her layers of clothes. The caravan was still moving. Alxa slept, lying on the opposite bench with her head on her brother’s lap and her feet on their single trunk. Nelo had his sketchbook open, and was staring out of the window. When he saw his mother was awake he drew his finger down one of the window’s small panes, and showed her a
