Bronze Summer n-2

by Stephen Baxter

  Tibo asked, ‘Why?’

  Xivu looked at them blankly. ‘Forgive me. I forget how little you people can know. When the sculptor completes the head of the King, he is laid in a pit in the ground, and the monument is placed over the pit… It is obvious why this must be so. Hands that have carved the face of a king could never be used for other purposes. But it is clearly essential that the successor should be in place first. In this case, unfortunately, the orderly process was disrupted.’

  ‘Disrupted by what?’

  ‘Factions within the master’s family. Each pushing a favoured rival. Even poison was used, or so it was suggested. Murders!

  ‘Caxa was surely the most gifted of her generation. She has produced model heads, I have seen them, which… disturb. She was in fact the daughter of the master. But she was so young, and so difficult. However, by the time the infighting was done, none was left standing, or without blood on his hands. None save Caxa. Her mother had died some years before — she only had her father-’

  ‘Who she saw buried alive under a stone head,’ Deri said grimly. ‘A fate that will be hers, some day.’

  ‘After she returns from Northland, having performed her duty, and after she carves the face of the King. After a lifetime of duty and privilege. Let’s hope her children aren’t quite as cracked! You can see why we’re reluctant to let her travel to Northland.’

  ‘But she must come. It has been the custom for generations. Perhaps if her family came with her-’

  ‘She has no family left.’

  ‘Her guards then, her priests. You yourself, Leftmost!’

  ‘ Me? ’

  While they argued, Tibo stepped forward, curious about this slim girl on whose shoulders rested the expectation of two cultures. She wasn’t pretty, her face was too narrow, too unhappy. She didn’t even seem to see him. Something fell to the ground, from her right wrist. A drop of liquid, bright red.

  ‘She’s bleeding.’ Without thinking Tibo grabbed her hand. There was a neat slash across the wrist. He searched the girl’s face. ‘Did you do this?’

  She gave a small cry, pulled her hand away, and ran off.

  Tibo found himself running after her, despite his father’s calls and Xivu’s protests.

  10

  The Year of the Fire Mountain: Spring Equinox

  On the morning of the spring equinox — Family Day — Milaqa walked with Hadhe and her children to Hadhe’s home, a community south of the Wall called Sunflower. They were going to spend the day dredging a canal, for their spiritual benefit. Well, Milaqa had spent the night in the Scambles, and as a result she had been catastrophically slow getting ready this morning. Hadhe, one hand hanging onto little Blane, sternly disapproving, missed nothing.

  The grand avenue leading to Sunflower was a dead-straight avenue twenty paces wide, lined by willows carefully coppiced and shaped, the earth packed hard by walking feet and swept scrupulously clean. Looking ahead Milaqa could soon see the track leading to the broad hearthspace that was the centre of the community. It was a grand prospect. But this particular avenue had been designed as a tribute to the sun of the spring equinox, and was aligned to salute the position of the sun at noon on that day — and it was nearly the equinox, and nearly noon, so the sun was right before her and blasting straight into her pounding head, and the thought of spending the day dredging a canal with aunts and uncles filled her with dread.

  North of Sunflower, Teel was waiting for them. He wore a floppy leather hat over his bare head, an old tunic that stretched over his ample belly, and long leather leggings. ‘You took your time, didn’t you? Ximm’s being patient enough, but there’ve been a few comments.’

  ‘There are always comments. That’s what our family does best, isn’t it? Comment, comment, comment. I don’t care what they comment.’

  Teel glanced at Hadhe, amused. ‘What’s wrong with her?’

  ‘Drunk.’

  ‘No,’ Milaqa said. ‘I was drunk.’

  Teel laughed again, took Milaqa’s other arm, and with Hadhe escorted her the last few paces into the hearthspace. ‘Traders, I suppose?’

  ‘A bunch of Dumnoes. Met them in the Scambles. Tin traders from Albia-’

  ‘I know Dumnoes. They know how to party, don’t they?’

  ‘I can still taste the honey from the mead.’ She couldn’t actually remember much. She didn’t even remember getting back from the Scambles. This was the District nearest to Great Etxelur, to the east. To the west, in the direction of the austere forest-land of Albia, lay the Holies, a realm of temples and religious academies; the east was the way to the Continent and the farmers, and perhaps as a result of the attraction of that spiritual pole the Scambles was a cheerful mass of taverns, inns, music houses and bawdy shops that got plenty of business from the grand folk of Etxelur, and indeed from the Holies and the grand Embassy District further west… Suddenly anxious, she fumbled at the tunic at her throat, and felt the dull, heavy shape of the iron arrowhead she wore around her neck. Not lost, then, or stolen.

  ‘Ximm’s not a bad sort,’ Hadhe said. ‘He won’t mind.’

  ‘It’s his wife that’s the problem,’ said Teel. ‘ “You want to keep away from those cattle-folk and their swill of rotting wheat…” ’

  The high-pitched impersonation made Milaqa laugh, and then she wished she hadn’t.

  They reached the hearthspace of Sunflower. Jaro and Keli, Hadhe’s older children, ran ahead. The big houses with their dark green seaweed thatch were spaced evenly around this circular area, dominated by a flood mound topped by the big communal house, and before it the common hearth that smouldered fitfully. Everything was clean and neat — even the midden heaps were tidy, the broken tools, animal bones, and spare scraps of cloth and other bits of discarded rubbish waiting for a fresh use. This big clear space was the hub of Sunflower, which was actually a network of connected communities. From here you could see down the avenues that radiated away to north-east and south-west, links to smaller satellite settlements. The avenues were separated by stands of willow and alder, carefully tended and coppiced.

  A bird flying high overhead, Milaqa thought idly, would have seen concentric bands of trees and hazel scrub surrounding this central hearthspace, a map like the classic Etxelur circles-and-bar symbol, like the ancient earthworks of the Door to the Mothers’ House that stood beneath the Wall itself. The whole of Northland was like a map, a landscape Northlanders had written on all the way back to the divine Ana who, it was said, had first refused to allow the sea to overwhelm her coastal homeland.

  And today all of Northland seemed to be full of her cousins and aunts and uncles, all adults judging her, or so it seemed, while the children and the dogs swarmed in the spring sunshine, flocking like birds.

  ‘Here comes trouble,’ Teel murmured.

  Ximm was approaching them. He was a short, stocky man, older than most at somewhere over forty, and though he wore sensible working clothes he had a cap of polished black leather on his head, indicating his membership of the House of the Beetle. Behind him his wife Enda was glaring at Milaqa, harsh and judgemental.

  And, trotting up beside Ximm, Milaqa saw Voro, the young Jackdaw.

  ‘Oh, by the mothers’ milk, not Voro. Not today. If he does all that puppyish stuff…’

  Teel laughed. ‘It’s not his fault he likes you. I think he’s here to talk to you about your induction prospects. He’s doing well, you know, the Jackdaws tell me-’

  ‘I’ll throw up over him.’ Milaqa was serious.

  ‘ Don’t do that. Look, Hadhe — I see Riban over there.’ Riban, another remote cousin, was in the House of the Wolf, training to become a priest. ‘Maybe he can give her something for her head. And her gut.’

  ‘Ah,’ Hadhe said. ‘Good idea. Not that she deserves it. Come on, little one.’ Hadhe jogged away, trailed by Blane.

  Ximm and Voro came up. Voro, twenty years old, was lanky, clumsy in his ill-fitting tunic. ‘Hello, Milaqa.’

  Milaqa looked away.<
br />
  Ximm had thick red hair, a family trait, frosted now with grey. His face was broad and kindly, but his look was sharp. ‘You’re very welcome, niece.’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘Well, you were supposed to have been here not long after sun-up.’

  ‘She hadn’t even gone to bed by sun-up, by all accounts,’ Teel said.

  Ximm held out his arms and beamed. ‘But never mind. You’re here! And it’s your day, Milaqa, the Family Day in your sixteenth year. The day the clan comes together, to celebrate the House choice you are to make.’

  She shrugged. ‘If I could make a choice.’

  ‘Well, it’s not easy for everybody.’ He winked. ‘And I’ve swum in a few buckets of mead in my time too. But we’re proud of you even so, Milaqa. Proud of what your mother achieved — to become the Annid of Annids! And her with a grandfather who hunted seals on Kirike’s Land. Why, I dare say there hasn’t been such a step up since the days of Prokyid. We’re going to celebrate you today, no matter how you feel about it.’

  Family Day was a loose Northland tradition centred on the spring equinox, when a clan would come together to commemorate their origins with a day of honest work. And in every family, Milaqa thought sourly, you’d find someone like Ximm, coming to the fore on such a day as this. The forgiver. The jolly one. The growstone that held the family together. Ximm had been born in Kirike’s Land, and though he had left that remote island at the age of five she thought she could still detect the twang of a Kirike accent in his voice. She imagined how the House elders back in the Wall would laugh at him if they could hear him speak. He was a good man, but he was also a walking reminder of the family’s humble roots.

  He was waiting for her reply, she realised.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said.

  ‘Here.’ Hadhe returned with a small leather pouch, stopped with a bit of bone. ‘Riban got it from a trader from the east.’

  Milaqa took the pouch, opened it, sniffed and recoiled.

  Hadhe said, ‘It’s made from the bile of a-’

  ‘Never mind,’ said Teel sternly. ‘Just drink it.’

  Milaqa braced herself, lifted the pouch, and poured the thick liquid into her mouth in a single swill. It burned her throat as it went down, and she coughed, her stomach heaving as if she would throw up after all. But then a warmth started spreading through her belly.

  Ximm had gone back to the centre of the hearthspace, and people were forming up around him, bearing tools of wood, stone and bronze, buckets of leather, water bottles, food packs. Any children old enough to walk had to carry their own little burdens; the older kids, above eight or nine, would be expected to work with the adults.

  ‘Well, we’re starting late,’ Voro said to Milaqa. ‘But we can still put in a few hours. Can I walk with you? If you’re not feeling well. Look, I even brought you a shovel.’ It was slung on his back, a willow shaft with a blade shaped from a reindeer scapula.

  She wanted to laugh at him. ‘Let’s go dredge that canal.’ She set off after Ximm, tailed by Voro.

  Teel followed her, while Hadhe called for her children.

  They were heading for a branch of one of the five great canals that dominated the landscape, named for the three little mothers and for Ana and Prokyid. The day was bright and warm, though an edge of coolness in the shadows was a reminder of the winter just over. As she walked, her arms and legs working, her lungs pumping, Milaqa began to feel better, though whether because of the air and sunlight or Riban’s potion she couldn’t have said.

  And today the butterflies were showing, she saw, yellow-green, or spectacular black and orange. In open water frogs croaked greedily as they mated. Early flowers like celandine and dead nettle peppered the grasslands, vivid yellow and red, and bees buzzed, preparing for their own long work season. This was the point of Northland’s grand design. Within the network of the roads and canals, a frame had been necessary to save this landscape from the sea, the wild was allowed to flourish.

  A hare bounded across the track, and children scampered after it noisily.

  Voro walked beside her. He said abruptly, ‘You could do worse than be a Jackdaw.’

  ‘Oh, what now, Voro?’

  ‘I know you’re having trouble with your House choice. Come into the Jackdaws. I’ve suggested it before. Look, we’re traders. We travel far. You’d enjoy that. I’ve drunk mead with tin miners too, but I went to Dumno itself to do it. A bit further than the Scambles!.. Maybe you’re like me, Milaqa.’

  ‘I do not think so.’

  ‘A wanderer, I mean. Restless. As I always was.’

  That surprised her. ‘You? I never thought of you as restless.’

  ‘Then you got me wrong,’ he said mildly. ‘And I’m not doing so badly at it either. Ask anybody. I’ve even made a trip to Gaira with Bren himself.’ Bren was among the most senior in his House. ‘Look, Milaqa, I know you think I’m some kind of idiot. But when we were kids, when we were growing up — you were a bit younger than me-’

  ‘Nothing was ever going to happen between us,’ she snapped. Then she regretted it; her hangover kept making her say things she shouldn’t. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘That’s not what I’m trying to say. I always thought we had a lot in common. I thought we might be allies. If something deeper had developed — well, fine. But you were always too…’

  ‘Arrogant?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that.’

  But he didn’t need to. Had she really misjudged him so badly, over the years? After all — look at him now. He had made his life choice, and evidently a good one.

  He said, ‘I think you genuinely don’t know what you want, do you?’

  She sighed. ‘No. I just know I don’t want this.’ And she opened her arms to indicate the carpet-like landscape of Northland, the people marching with their shovels, the laughing children. ‘I keep thinking there must be more to life. Even getting drunk with some greasy Dumno miner with wandering hands is different.’

  ‘Then be a trader,’ he said. ‘See the world. See Hattusa and Mycenae, see Egypt…’

  Ximm looked back. ‘Serious talk’s for tomorrow,’ he said briskly. ‘Today we’ve got a canal to fix — and here we are.’

  Before them, the people were spreading out along the bank of a drained canal, dropping their packs of food and water, taking their shovels from their backs.

  Irritated, Milaqa snapped, ‘Oh, give me that shovel, Voro, and show me where to dig.’

  11

  They were to be supervised by a senior of the House of the Vole, the water engineers, who unrolled a complicated map drawn in red and black on a sheet of bark. The canal system had been dammed and diverted at some point upstream from this stretch, which was a branch of the main canal called the Sky. The duct here had been left to drain and dry out for the best part of a month, ready for the family to take it on.

  So, with Ximm and the others cheerfully calling out orders, the adults and older children grabbed their shovels and buckets and clambered over the banks of hardened mud and earth down into the empty channel. Though it had been drying out for some time the mud at the bottom was wet and deep and clinging and cold. Milaqa, up to her calves in it, wondered how long it had taken this thickness of muck to build up — how long since this particular stretch had been dredged, five years or fifty?

  The people got their bearings quickly. They formed up into rough lines, the adults and older kids in the deeper mud of the bottom, the smallest children and nursing mothers and old folk walking along the banks, looking down and calling encouragement. They began to dig away at the mud with shovels of bronze and bone, passing it up by a bucket chain. The glistening stuff was dumped to add another bit of height to the banks that lined the canal — and indeed, it was this endless digging-out that had created the banks in the first place.

  There were a few surprises. They turned up broken pots, what might have been a child’s doll of wood and bone — even a broken bronze sword. Offerings to the gods, to the little mother
of the sky, to Ana and Prokyid. You were supposed to make such offerings by one of the five great canals, but people driven by sufficient hope or despair would make their small prayers wherever they could. Ximm always made sure that such finds were pressed back into the deeper mud, to be covered over and lost again. Then some of the children got excited at the sight of a sunken boat, a few hundred paces further down the channel. They ran off to investigate, followed by cries of exasperation or envy from the toiling adults.

  Milaqa had Hadhe and Teel to either side of her, Ximm just ahead, and Voro hanging around somewhere just behind her. She threw herself into the work. There was no real choice; this was what Family Day was all about. And she didn’t want any comments about how hard she worked, or not. Besides, though the mud was heavy and sticky, she found the simple repetitious work warmed her muscles up. Somebody began singing, a rhythmic comic song about the only ice giant who didn’t like fighting. People joined in, up and down the stretch of the canal, as they dug and lugged their way through the mud, growing steadily filthier.

  ‘This is the life,’ Teel said, working beside Milaqa.

  She eyed him sceptically.

  ‘Good honest work. Building the world, spadeful by spadeful. The way it’s been since Ana’s time. It’s the Etxelur way. When our family came here from Kirike’s Land, this work was all we could do, all we could understand. But we were welcomed into the House of the Beetle, and we worked hard, and did it better and better. And look at us now!’

  ‘What, still up to our knees in muck?’

  He grinned, his face a muddy mask. ‘I felt the same way when I was your age. Younger, probably.’