Iron Winter

‘Are you going out again?’

‘That’s my business,’ she snapped. ‘Just don’t miss the ship.’ She went to the door and gathered her cloak. ‘And finish the journey. For, you know, it might be a journey no one else will be able to make, not for many generations. That’s something to tell your grandchildren, isn’t it?’

She did not return that night, despite the curfew.

The next day he waited almost until noon. Still she did not come back. When he went into her room, he found her sparse luggage gone — all save the quilted coat, with its sewn-in treasure.

He donned the coat, and began to get Pyxeas ready for the sea voyage.

56

A month after the first Hatti landings on the African shore, Fabius suggested to the councils of Carthage that the time was ripe for an attempt at negotiation. He kept Nelo at his side during his sessions with the councils, so the boy could sketch the scene, the general in his Roman-purple cloak standing before the Tribunal of One Hundred and Four in their chamber on the Byrsa, or in a private office in deep discussion with the two suffetes. Nelo’s crayon captured expressions and body postures in rapid, silent sweeps.

‘I will lead the party myself. Let us show these Hatti that we are strong and determined. Honour must be served. They tread on our sacred land-’

‘It’s not your land, Roman.’

‘My apologies. And already blood has been spilled.’

‘Yes, because you failed to drive them off.’

‘We could not defend the entire coast. And the Hatti are a mighty host.’

‘A host of locusts.’

‘If we must fight them to the finish there will be a great war — the kind of war which both sides lose, a veteran of too many wars might say. If we can turn them away with words we may be spared great destruction.’

‘He is a soldier who would sue for peace. And a Roman too!’

‘The Hatti want Carthage. We know that. They want to destroy us so they can gorge on Egyptian wheat. They won’t accept peace, they won’t accept anything short of our obliteration.’

‘But it’s worth a try, brother. Talking may buy us time for the siege that is sure to come.’

‘Well, you may be right. What have we to lose? We can spare a Roman and his Northlander runt. .’

The great men of Carthage, Nelo quickly learned, were very suspicious of their generals, even as they relied on them to fight and die on their behalf. It was the way the Carthaginian system worked, with a split of powers between the civilian and the military, neither one dominant. The Tribunal of One Hundred and Four particularly was charged with keeping the soldiers on a tight leash. In history, it seemed, it had not been unknown for generals to win famous battles, against the Romans or the Persians or the Muslims or the Mongols, only to return home to face trial for a lack of loyalty or other perceived crimes, with the penalty often being execution, which was traditionally by crucifixion. They were especially suspicious of Fabius, because he was brilliant, popular, and a Roman. But he was the best they had.

‘You may proceed, General. One of us will travel with you. But go with caution. And don’t make any promises.’

‘I understand. Come, gentlemen; come, Nelo.’

On a late spring morning the mission to the Hatti formed up outside the city gates: Fabius and his officers, one of the suffetes, a man called Carthalo, with his own advisers, and a small squad of soldiers as guard. They gathered under a banner especially made for the occasion, an ornate image of Jesus Sharruma, Son of Teshub Yahweh, the Storm God of the Hatti, with the crescent moon sigil of Baal Hammon over his head: a gesture of peace, the gods of Hattusa and Carthage intertwined. The details had been agreed by ambassadors exchanged between the two nations.

The party was slow in forming up, the horses being harnessed and saddled, a few wagons loaded with rations and water, the soldiers checking their boots. The day was fine, bright, and though the winter snow was long gone nothing but scrubby grass and weeds grew away from the roads. Another hungry summer was coming, Nelo thought gloomily.

Sergeant Gisco was here, to add to his burden. And then he learned that the escort as a whole was under the nominal command of a man Nelo knew: Mago, nephew of Barmocar, a scion of one of Carthage’s great families appointed to lend a bit more weight to the party.

Mago soon spotted Nelo. He was more grandly dressed even than Fabius himself, with a spectacular crimson plume on his helmet. ‘Ha! When I heard the general had adopted a Northlander runt who could scribble a bit, I thought it must be you.’

Nelo thought it was a long time since the two of them had worked together in the aftermath of the Autumn Blizzard in Etxelur. As soon as he was back home, the worst of Mago had come to the fore once more. ‘What do you want?’

‘What do you want, sir.’ Mago stalked around Nelo, inspecting his quilted tunic and light mail coat and cloak, his pouch with his paper and crayons for the sketching. ‘Treats you well, does he, the general? I don’t hold with the rumours that he’s bumming you, though Romans are notorious for it. Greek influence, you see. No, you’re not pretty enough. You’re his little pet, though, aren’t you? Feeds you on scraps from the table, does he? And how’s your mother? And that tasty sister of yours-’

Nelo faced him. ‘My sister’s dead.’

They faced each other, eyes locked.

Mago sneered, contemptuous, arrogant. ‘You’re no soldier.’

‘I agree.’

‘What?’

‘I agree. Sir. I never asked for it. I do my best.’

‘And it’s a poor best from what your sergeant’s told me.’

Something in Mago’s arrogance struck Nelo in that moment, his complacency, his absolute certainty about his place in the world. Nelo had been around Fabius long enough to see the Roman’s point of view, to believe it: whatever was to come this campaigning season, the world was changing, utterly and irrevocably. He had a sudden vision of Mago in two or three or four years, standing in the frozen ruins of Carthage. How arrogant would he be then? How complacent? He tried to think how he could capture this insight on paper.

Mago seemed to sense there was something going on inside Nelo’s head that he couldn’t reach, couldn’t touch. ‘Pah! You are a waste of grain, you Northlander cur. And if the protection of your precious general ever wavers, I will make sure you are cast down where you belong.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

Fabius said they would travel north along the coast roads. He wanted to see again where the Hatti had first landed, he said — and where they were landing still, according to his scouts — and then they would come upon the city the Hatti were building on African soil. And, he told Nelo, he wanted his artist to see it too, for even the landing was an exercise on a scale never before seen in the history of the world.

The march was easy. The weather was cold but calm, and the breeze fluctuated between a wash off the sea and a drier breath from the interior. The little traffic on the road cleared at the advance of Fabius’ party under its banner; there wasn’t much, a few mean carts pulled by skinny donkeys or bullocks. The road was lined by farms, but the ground was parched and lifeless. And as they passed the people would come out and run alongside, skinny wretches in rags, hands out, begging. Fabius allowed his troops to give them bits of silver, but none of the party’s own rations. This was the breadbasket of the city, Nelo reminded himself. These starving beggars were supposed to be supplying Carthage with its food, not the other way around.

Then the wind shifted again, coming from the south, whipping up grains of hard sand. The soldiers muttered complaints and covered their faces with their cloaks. Nelo had heard the soldiers talk of vast empty deserts to the south, nothing but bone-dry sand. If the country kept drying out, maybe the desert would wash up and cover Carthage itself.