Iron Winter

‘But, scholar?’

‘But the tidy patterns break down! Centuries, millennia back, you can see it. The world should have got colder, quicker. The longwinter should already be here! I had long suspected this, from historical accounts, anecdotes. Now, after intensive study, I have assembled quantitative proof.’

‘Then there is another agent, acting to postpone the longwinter.’

‘Yes. Good! And that agent is?’

Avatak considered before answering; he had fallen into Pyxeas’ verbal traps before. He said carefully, ‘You suspect that the agent has something to do with the various airs Bolghai was studying.’

‘Yes! Especially the fixed air, which holds back the heat. Good. But how? And why? That is the question I wrestle with. And I still can’t see it, I can’t. Though I suspect I edge closer to the truth.’ He glared at Avatak. ‘Suppose I fell over the side of this wretched tub tomorrow. Would you be able to communicate all this to the scholars of Etxelur?’

‘No,’ Avatak said frankly.

Pyxeas nodded. ‘And could they progress the work without me? No! Those dolts in Etxelur have always been too busy questioning me and my methodology rather than listening. Than thinking. Very well! I, Pyxeas, must resolve this planetary conundrum, or go insane in the attempt. Yes?’

‘Yes, scholar.’ Avatak took a moment to pop his biscuit into the sack of beer, hoping it would soften a bit more, before he bent with Pyxeas over the tablets, scrolls and books.

63

Nelo saw it all, that fateful day, the day that everything changed, for Fabius, for Carthage — for everybody Saw it all from beginning to end. Drew it all, and remembered.

It began before dawn, on another chill late summer’s day. Nelo, in his barrack, was woken by a shake from Gisco, unexpectedly gentle, not the usual boot in the back. ‘Out you get, aurochs,’ he murmured. ‘Got a special job for you. But keep quiet about it. No need to disturb the other cock-pullers in their slumbers. You too, Suniatus.’

‘Sergeant-’

‘What did I say?’ Gisco snapped, in a whisper. ‘Keep that mouth of yours shut.’

The barrack room was dark, with only a single sputtering lantern burning in one corner. After another night in here the air was thick with beery farts, the acid stink of rotting feet. Only Nelo and Suniatus were moving; the rest of the troop slumbered on.

Suniatus pulled on socks and boots. ‘Just us, Sergeant?’

‘Just you.’

‘Why? I mean, why me and that?’ He jerked a thumb at Nelo.

‘Because I can trust you two. Yes, you as well, Northlander, I know I can rely on you to follow an order while keeping your mouth shut, and you can do this little job for me and still be free to scribble your drawings for the rest of the day. This army of ours is full of useless Libyans, and useless sods, and useless Libyan sods, and two reliable men are hard to find.’

Suniatus grinned. ‘Hear that, aurochs? You’re reliable.’ He picked up his sword in its scabbard. ‘So what’s the job, Sergeant?’

‘To save Carthage.’

‘What, again?’

‘Just get on with it.’

Nelo grabbed his weapons and satchel and made for the door. Suniatus couldn’t resist clowning; he walked on exaggerated tiptoe and shoved Nelo in the back, trying to make him stumble. But they got out of the barracks without disturbing anybody else.

They emerged onto a silent street. The sand that had blown in from the desert scraped on the cobbles under Nelo’s boots. Gisco had left a lantern by the barracks door; he raised this now and scrutinised a bit of paper. Nelo saw it was a list of addresses, all in Megara. This barracks, by the city wall, was on the periphery of the suburb.

Suniatus glanced over the sergeant’s shoulder. ‘I know the first address, sir. That street anyhow. There’s a whorehouse where they have these Balearic women who-’

‘All right, Suni. Just lead the way.’

The soldier strode confidently through the darkened streets. With experience Suniatus was becoming a good soldier, Nelo realised, for all his bullying and bluster. The word in the barracks was that he would already have had a few promotions if not for his habit of punching out his comrades when drunk.

The sky was a lid of cloud, the city all but pitch-dark save for the occasional gleam of a lantern in the houses and shut-up shops and shrines. Nelo wasn’t sure what time it was, but these were the hours of the curfew the suffetes had imposed months before, and the streets were empty — silent save only for distant soft whistles, the signals of the patrolling guard. One of Fabius’ iron rules was that the streets had to be kept clear, there could be nobody sleeping out in the open, in alleyways or doorways, as had become common since the city had filled up with nestspills. The rule seemed to be working well. Occasionally you would hear a scurrying in the dark, a rustle, perhaps footsteps, a rat or wild dog, or maybe some human scavenger. But Nelo, eyes wide open, saw nothing.

Once they passed a cart hauled by a couple of beefy-looking Libyans, perhaps slaves, and led by a soldier in a dark cloak, his face hidden. The cart’s load was covered by a thick, bloodstained cloth, and Nelo did not need too much imagination to know what was under there. The deaths continued in a steady trickle, from hunger, from the blood plague and other diseases that swept like fires through the city’s crowded tenements. Nelo had found these deaths horrific when he had first come to live inside the city walls. But Fabius had once told him that cities were always like this, even in the good times, even with plentiful food and water. It made Nelo sharply homesick for the wide, empty, orderly landscape of Northland, where people did not die like this.

They came to a darkened property that had once, according to a faded sign over the door, been a manufactory of jewellery. Now the frontage was scarred by fire, and the door had been broken down.

Gisco checked his bit of paper. ‘This is the one.’ He gestured to Suniatus. ‘No need to knock.’

Suni grinned, drew his sword, kicked the door in, and led the way inside.

If this had been a manufactory it had long been stripped bare, the contents looted. Now in two, three, four ground-floor rooms people huddled, whole families crammed into one corner or another, mothers clutching infants, cowering back from Gisco’s light. There was a complicated stink of milk, piss, shit, sweat, and deep ingrained dirt. Gisco, without a word, stalked through the rooms, blade in hand, holding his lantern so he could see faces. Eyes gleamed bright from heaps of rags. He still hadn’t told Suni or Nelo what he was looking for.

‘Not here,’ he said once they had gone through all the rooms. He saw that Suniatus had grabbed a bit of bread from some wretch, and was biting into the hard crust. ‘Oh, give that back, Suni.’ Suniatus cast the fragment over his shoulder, and the huddled forms scrambled for it. Gisco looked around. There was an upper floor, but the ceilings of the rooms were flimsy and cracked, and the dawn sky showed through, a reluctant grey.

‘Nothing up there, Sergeant,’ Suniatus offered. ‘I saw from outside. Top floor pulled down, for the wood to burn, I guess.’

‘All right.’ Gisco stalked through the rooms again, ignoring the people who had to shrink back out of his way. At length he found a hatch in the floor. ‘Aha! A cellar.’ He gestured at Suni, who found an iron ring fixed to the hatch, and hauled it up. Gisco held up his lantern over the hole. Nelo glimpsed a wooden ladder, a floor of packed earth beneath.

Gisco nodded to Suniatus, his finger to his lips. ‘You first, Suni. Quiet, now.’

Suni grinned, settled into the hatch, and let himself down the ladder one-handed. Gisco passed the lantern. Suni looked around, then headed off determinedly to one corner, moving out of sight.

Nelo waited with Gisco. Somewhere an infant murmured, and was hushed. Nelo wondered what happened to these people when it rained, under that roof. But then it rarely rained in Carthage nowadays.