up. But then, Nelo was learning, soldiers always grumbled, if things stayed the same or if they changed, at the prospect of action or the lack of it. And the wise old heads predicted it could all change again when the suffetes or the Tribunal of One Hundred and Four decided that Fabius was nothing but an upstart Roman after all, and kicked him out in favour of some other strutting tin hat who would turn everything upside down once more.
For Nelo the best part of each day was the evening, when the soldiers gathered by their fires in the open air and prepared their bread for the evening. Following an ancient tradition Carthaginian armies on the march carried grain, not finished bread, and every unit had its own grinding stone. Fabius had insisted on the same discipline in camp, even though they were not far from the walls of the city itself. So you would grind out your barley by hand — and it was always barley these days, though this was looked down on by proper Carthaginians who preferred wheat — and you would knead up the meal in a scrap of leather with a little wine or oil if you had it, then flatten it into wafers. You roasted it quickly on the fire, and ate it quicker, for it was unleavened and would set hard as rock if you left it to cool. But the fresh, hot bread at the end of the day on an empty stomach, along with a little meat or cheese and wine if you were lucky, was always delicious, and the soldiers, gathered around their fires, kneading and roasting and eating their own bread, were at their most companionable. Even Suniatus tonight, who sported a ridiculous plumed helmet he had looted from the corpse of a Libyan officer, left Nelo alone for a while.
After the meal, as the dusk drew in, Nelo took himself off to a corner by the wall of a barracks house, dug his paper and crayons out from his satchel, and started to sketch. Soon the face of the Iberan he had killed took shape on the paper. The grimacing mouth, the eyes oddly defiant though he must have known death was near. Nelo had long ago given up his formal experiments, though when he drew larger scale scenes he still tried out his look-deep techniques. Now he just tried to capture the immediacy of the moment. The extraordinary experience of risking one’s life, and taking another man’s.
‘Nelo.’
The voice startled him, and he scrambled back into the shade, clutching his sketch to his chest. He had had enough of his work being trashed by Suniatus and his cronies. But the man who stood before him, silhouetted against a sterile, cloudy sky, was portly, swathed in a grimy tunic, stooped slightly. And the accent, when he had pronounced his name, had been Northlander. ‘What do you want?’ Nelo asked in his rough Carthaginian.
‘Don’t be alarmed.’ Northlander words. The man came forward and squatted in the dirt. His scalp was bare of hair, and he was old, Nelo saw, fifty or sixty at least. He had a leather pouch slung from his shoulder. His tunic and upper arms were splashed with blood, but his forearms and face were washed clean. ‘Do you remember me? My name is Ontin. I used to treat your family. Your mother knew me well. I’m a doctor, you see.’
‘I remember you, I think.’
‘I came down to Carthage after your mother pioneered the way. Left it a bit late — didn’t leave until the autumn, and we were lucky to get through — but it seemed the sensible thing to do. Imagined I would set up a practice like the one I had at home. Instead, I was drafted straight into the army. Strange, isn’t it? Here we are, Northlanders both, you serving in Carthage’s army, and me patching up its wounds, which is why I’m such a mess by the way. Trauma wounds are so much less
‘I don’t know. I mean, we’re not allowed into the city. My mother writes. I don’t hear from my sister, and my mother doesn’t mention her.’ Which made Nelo fret that something bad had happened to his twin. It was strange to hear himself speak Northlander again; his own voice sounded odd in his hearing.
Ontin nodded. ‘I’m not surprised they keep you out of the city. It’s overfull as it is, stuffed with famine and fear. The last thing the city needs is a bored army roaming the streets looking for trouble.’
He spoke quickly, almost anxiously, as if he was relieved to have someone to talk to as an equal. Doctors weren’t much respected in the Carthaginian army; they could even be killed by the companions of a wounded man if they botched a job. But Nelo could think of nothing to say to the man, and the silence between them stretched.
Ontin pointed. ‘Is that your art? I remember that about you, always scribbling as a child.’
‘What about it?’ he said defensively, clutching his drawings.
‘It’s not a secret, is it? I mean, your sergeant knows all about it. Can I see?’
Nelo forced himself to calm down. This was just some old doctor his mother had known at the Wall. He opened his arms and handed over the sheaf of drawings.
Ontin flicked through them. ‘Very vivid. Not that I know anything about art.’ He turned around one image of an amputation, the doctors and their slaves holding down a writhing man. ‘You’ve even got the details of the instruments right. You should be proud of this, not hiding it in the dark.’
Nelo took his pictures back. ‘There are lads in my barracks who would wipe their arses with them. Or wipe
Ontin stared, and laughed. ‘Well. I suppose an army isn’t the place for a budding artist. You mustn’t let them grind you down, you know. Reduce you, as you crush your grain on the quern. Remember who you are, Nelo. You are a Northlander. And you always will be-’
‘What do you want?’
Ontin was nonplussed. ‘Ah. So, to business.’ He looked oddly regretful. ‘I have something for you.’ He opened his leather pouch. ‘Do you know a man called Pyxeas?’
The name came out of a mist of memory. ‘He’s my uncle. Or maybe he’s my mother’s uncle. He’s the one my mother took to Hantilios.’
‘One of our greatest minds, my boy. I mean Northland’s. In this or any age. He’s far from home too. Well, he, or rather one of his students, gave me letters to bring to your family, if and when I got to Carthage.’ He dug a packet of papers out of his pouch, and glanced around before handing them to Nelo. ‘Taken me a rather long time to deliver it, I admit, but it hasn’t been too easy to find you, boy — and I can’t track down your mother and sister at all. But I’ve had fair copies made, for your mother and sister when I find them, and other exiles from home. Best not to tell anybody about this, I mean nobody outside the family. Something of a Northland secret, or it has been so far.’
Nelo opened the papers and scanned the neat writing. It was boldly addressed ‘To My Family’, and signed as ‘On Behalf Of Your Loving Pyxeas, May the Blessed Mothers Protect You In Your Exile.’ The rest of it was densely written in long convoluted sentences. There were no headings, no summaries — no pictures, which Nelo would have fallen on immediately. He was aware that Ontin was watching him. He picked out a few words: ‘ “Hazel or alder or willow. . sulphur from the volcanic pools of Kirikland. . scrapings from the urine-soaked floors of barns and latrines. .” Latrines?’
‘That’s where you collect the solve stone. And the wood types are the best kind for making the charcoal that’s needed.’
‘Needed for what?’
‘No, it’s not clear, is it? Ah, these academics. So poor at expressing themselves, for all their wisdom. Mind you, I suspect Pyxeas is too wily to say it straight out. I’m only guessing myself, Nelo. I was never in Pyxeas’ confidence after all. But I’ve had to read it through to have it copied, and I think I know what it’s about.
‘Look, boy — have you ever heard of the House of the Crow? One of our more secretive orders, who kept their knowledge hidden in chambers deep within the Wall. Knee-deep in espionage they were. And hidden programmes of study and scholarship, too, out of sight of the rest of the world — indeed the rest of Northland. I think this is one of their secrets.’
Nelo found a more comprehensible passage, about making some kind of great barrel. ‘ “In the absence of cast iron, for none in the world between Etxelur and Cathay have that secret, have the craftsmen take iron rods and hammer them flat around a wooden former, and then bind them with white-hot iron bands which will contract when cooled, gripping tightly. Then remove the former. The barrel should be thick-walled at its base. .” ’ His imagination caught, he immediately began to sketch the iron device, as best he understood it. ‘What kind of secret?’
‘A devastating secret. A destructive secret. A secret that Northland has gathered to its growstone bosom for millennia, to be kept from the rest of the world to avoid harm being done — and, frankly, when necessary, to be used to save us. So it was in the time of the Cursed Milaqa, it is said, and so, perhaps, it is now. Look, Nelo, even if I never find your mother, you must take this knowledge and use it. Talk to other Northlanders. Find an engineer — you know, someone who used to work on the Wall pumps or the Iron Way engines, who will understand all that about making the barrel. There must be some here.
