Iron Winter

‘He did? Why?’

‘Heard there was blood plague in my family.’ The Carthaginians were terrified that the awful infection they called the ‘blood plague’, which had left scars in their history before, was on its way back to the city, brought by the endless nestspill flows.

‘He threw you out just for that? And was there plague? In your family, I mean?’

‘No. Father died. Not plague. Just died. Hungry, got sick. I had nowhere to stay. Got work cleaning sewers, and bought food for the family, little brothers and sisters, but still nowhere to stay. Sleeping in streets, like these folk. Then I heard a rumour about the Ana.’

‘Who?’

‘Your daughter, mistress. The Ana was helping people find places to live. I went looking, I asked and I asked, found the Ana and she remembered me, said I’d been kind when she came to the master’s house. But I think she’d have helped me anyway. Got me a bed in a house, outside the walls, but that’s all right.’

‘Alxa did all that? How?’

‘Ask her yourself.’

They had come to a tavern, an open door, a counter fronting the street, a dingy interior behind. The wall bore a hand-scrawled sign in chalk:

NO ALE. NO WINE. NO WATER. NO FOOD.

NO OUT-OF-TOWNERS.

NO SEWAGE WORKERS.

NO DOCTORS.

‘ALWAYS A FRIENDLY WELCOME AT MYRCAN’S!’

‘Hello, Mother.’ Alxa came forward from the shadows of the tavern.

Rina rushed to her, and hugged her daughter. Through layers of much-patched clothing, she could feel Alxa’s shoulder blades.

Alxa led her to a table at the back of the tavern. It was a dismal cave, Rina thought, which must have seen better days with a location this close to the Byrsa. But despite the chalked denials outside, a barman produced a jug of wine and two pottery mugs. ‘Always we serve the Ana,’ he murmured, pouring the wine.

Rina sipped the wine. It was sour, the grape crops had evidently been awful for years, but it was the first mouthful she’d taken in months — servants in Barmocar’s home didn’t drink wine. ‘Ah, that’s good. Thank you. So — “the Ana”?’

Alxa seemed much older than when she had come to Carthage, her face lined, her once-habitual smile gone. She was still just sixteen. ‘It’s a long story, Mother. But first, Nelo? I’ve not heard a word since the army took him.’

‘Nor me. From what I can tell from overhearing Barmocar’s conversations, they’re anticipating a clash with the Hatti, but it’s not come to that yet.’

‘Maybe he lives,’ Alxa said grimly. ‘As long as disease, hunger, or the sheer stupidity of the military haven’t killed him yet.’

‘We have to hope.’

‘Here’s to hope.’ Alxa raised her mug, and touched her mother’s.

‘I’ve heard nothing from home either, incidentally,’ Rina said now. ‘From your father. Which is why the note you sent was such a shock.’

Alxa grinned wickedly, suddenly seeming more like her old self. ‘It evidently worked. My ruse, I mean. Maybe I’d make a good spy, do you think?’

‘You’ll earn me a whipping.’

That wiped away the smile. ‘They whip you?’

Only once. . She changed the subject quickly. ‘So now you’re the Ana, are you?’

Alxa shrugged. ‘Carthaginians have trouble pronouncing “Alxa”, believe it or not.’ All- sha. ‘They’ve only heard of one Northlander, most of them, who is Ana, who they think lived a hundred years ago and built walls on the seabed by hand. So now I’m “the Ana”.’

‘What have you been up to, Daughter? The last time I saw you, you were doing translation for a member of the Tribunal of One Hundred and Four.’

‘That didn’t last long. I made a couple of mistakes. . There are so many people flooding into Carthage, you can find whatever skills you want, if you just look. Lawyers, doctors, even priests. It wasn’t hard for my boss to replace me with someone better and cheaper. And prettier,’ she said with a grimace.

‘You should have come to me.’

‘Oh, Mother, that’s ridiculous. What could you have possibly done? No, I found my own way.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Nothing too terrible, don’t worry.’ On impulse she took her mother’s hand. ‘I’m still a maiden of Etxelur. Still chaste.’

With great care, Rina showed no reaction.

‘But I got to know Carthage. I mean, the real city. Not as it exists in the imagination of the suffetes and the elders and the tribunes. Not even the priests know what’s going on, I don’t think. Mother, the bread ration, such as it is, doesn’t reach half the people it’s supposed to. There’s a whole population who have been simply abandoned. Yet they’re still there — many of them in a huge slum city outside the walls beyond the western gate. There is terrible corruption out there, terrible cruelty.

‘But most people are decent. I started to see the ways they help each other. One has room to take in an orphan, and does so. Another has a sort of food that her own child can’t eat because it sickens her, so she gives it to the family next door. There’s no fresh water but for a couple of dried-up springs, and even they are polluted by sewage, but they get organised, and dig latrines and sewage channels. Now we have doctors and nurses who can at least advise the sick. Of course it all depends on food, and there’s a dwindling supply of that, and in the end. . Well, I suppose it’s best not to think about the end.’

‘So this is what you’re doing. You’re in the middle of this network of — of helping.’

‘I’m educated, Mother. I can organise things on a bigger scale than most. Write things down, work out the numbers. And I’m a Northlander. I’m not in any of Carthage’s factions or cliques. That helps, I think.’

She had become a woman Rina barely knew, so much had she grown just in the few months they’d been in Carthage. She was still not seventeen. ‘Oh, Alxa! The risks you must run, of disease, of robbery. .’

Alxa smiled. ‘Mother, there’s always a risk. But people know me. I’m the Ana. If anybody tried to hurt me there would be a hundred to step in and protect me.’ Alxa patted Rina’s hand, as if she was the parent, Rina the child. ‘Besides, what choice is there?’

‘The family would be proud of you. But I wish I could spare you this!’

Alxa pulled back and stood up. ‘What would you do, hide me in a broom closet? I wanted to tell you — well, that I’m fine. Now you must go. Himil told me about your demanding boss.’

Rina could barely bring herself to stand and leave her. ‘Give my love to Nelo if-’

‘If I hear from him, I will.’

They embraced again, and it was over. Rina let Himil lead her out of the tavern and back up the hill towards Barmocar’s residence.

It was only then that it occurred to Rina to wonder why Alxa had arranged to see her now, and not before.

Rina returned to the Barmocar property without being spotted. She presented herself on time at Anterastilis’ bathroom, where a maid had already filled the mistress’ deep sunken bath with hot water sprinkled with salts and balm. Anterastilis herself was not yet present. Rina took the time to change into the sheer shift she used for this work, and to wash her face and neck.

Anterastilis bustled in, staggering slightly, evidently drunk. ‘By Melqart’s left ball, that rabble on the council go on and on. And the way they drink! Oh, help me with this, you dozy woman.’

Rina clapped her hands to dismiss the maid, who closed the door behind her, and helped her mistress loosen her robes, held in place by pins and buttons. Soon the folds of hugely expensive purple-dyed cloth slipped to the floor, and Anterastilis stood revealed in the girdle of bone and linen that held her figure in something like the shape it had been when she was younger, Rina thought cattily, with a prominent bosom and tight waist. Now this garment