Bronze Summer n-2

by Stephen Baxter

  Tibo found these obscure words tremendously exciting. ‘What kind of opportunity?’

  Qirum grinned easily. Then the sunset flared brighter, and he turned west to face it.

  The sky had cleared a little, and was full of colours. Above a yellowish band around the position of the sun itself, a green curtain smeared high into the sky, fluted and textured, like a tremendous swathe of dyed cloth. The green faded eventually into red, which towered ever further into the sky as the sun descended, deepening to a bruised purple.

  ‘It changes as you watch it,’ Qirum said, the exotic light glaring from his polished breastplate. ‘Every night different. It’s why I come up here at this time. The gods are angry, my friend, but even their anger is beautiful. Do you know, the other night I saw a moon, glimpsed through the clouds, that was as blue as a midsummer sky? Think of that.’ He eyed Tibo. ‘Have you ever fought?’

  ‘Only with fists.’

  ‘Maybe it’s time you learned. Here.’ He tossed him his sword, making it spin in the air, coming at Tibo hilt first.

  Tibo astonished himself by grabbing the handle without slicing his fingers off.

  ‘Come at me,’ Qirum said. Tibo saw he was armed only with a short stabbing dagger. ‘Come on. Don’t be afraid.’

  ‘I’ll cut your head off.’

  Qirum grinned again. ‘I’ll take the risk. Come. And when I’ve got the blade off you I’ll teach you to wrestle. Always my favourite when I was your age, wrestling.’

  Tibo considered, and raised the blade, and charged.

  So it began.

  26

  The Year of the Fire Mountain: Midwinter

  Everything had changed at Etxelur after the Hood’s eruption, both for the Northlanders and for the dignitaries who had come from across continents and oceans for the Giving. As the cold clamped down and harvests faltered in the farming countries, travel became problematic — it was never wise to cross countrysides full of hungry, desperate people. Kilushepa and Qirum were not the only Giving guests to linger at the Wall, some of them keeping in touch with their homes by courier messages, talking, negotiating, as the world struggled to recover from the great shock it had suffered.

  In the end, as an early autumn turned into a harsh winter, travel became impossible altogether.

  Milaqa knew that Qirum, ever energetic and restless, had walked far, exploring Northland and the Wall and its Districts, sometimes in Milaqa’s company and sometimes not. He showed no interest in the countryside below the Wall. But Kilushepa, during her pregnancy, was content to stay in the relative luxury of Great Etxelur. Here she had met and talked, hosted parties and attended them, endlessly weaving nets of contacts and alliances. But when her baby was delivered she changed. She seemed restless for escape, even though by now it was the heart of the winter.

  Since midsummer Teel had told Milaqa to stay close to Kilushepa and Qirum, to find out what they were thinking, what they were up to. And that included volunteering as an escort when Kilushepa asked for a walk along the Wall.

  So this cold morning Milaqa, bundled in her cloak, pushed her way out of Hadhe’s house at the foot of the Wall. The door blanket crackled with frost, and the deep night cold had frozen over yesterday’s snow so that her feet crunched through a fine crust and into the compressed dry, powdery stuff underneath. For once the sun was visible, low in the sky to the south-east, and she cast a shadow. In the pale sunlight the snow drew all the colour from the landscape save the occasional green splash of ivy, leaving only black and white and the blue of the long shadows, and it picked out details, crags on the hillsides and wrinkles and ridges on the uneven ground that were invisible in warmer times. By a watercourse she saw movement, fleet, furtive: an otter dragging the half-chewed carcass of a fish. The wintry land was beautiful, a consolation. But, only days away from the solstice itself, this was the coldest time of the hardest winter she could remember.

  Cold or not the day’s work had to be done. A party of adults and older children was gathering, bundled up in fur cloaks and hats and boots, their breath steaming around their heads. They carried knives and rope, and would soon be setting off inland to harvest the willow stands by the waterways. But Milaqa wouldn’t be joining them. She hitched the pack on her back; laden with food and water for the Tawananna, it already felt heavy.

  ‘They look busy.’ Qirum came up to her. He was wrapped up in a heavy leather coat and leggings and bearskin hat, borrowed from Deri and cut and shaped to fit, and he slapped hands encased in huge mittens. He had his sword in its scabbard on his back.

  ‘Willow,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’re off to cut willow trees. The people over there. This is the best time to do it, midwinter, to get the fine shoots we use to make baskets and backpacks.’

  He grunted and turned away, bored already.

  That was the reaction she’d expected. He irritated her as much as he fascinated her. ‘At least they’re doing something useful.’

  ‘I thought you were the great rebel. The wild spirit who doesn’t fit into this stuffy place. Now you’re going on at me about useful work?’

  ‘You’ve got absolutely no interest in people, have you? Nobody except the big folk, the decision-makers. You care nothing for people who actually do things.’

  He considered that. ‘Metal-workers, perhaps. I need to be able to rely on my sword. And bar-keeps, and brewers. And whores. Ha! And you are the same. Admit it, little Milaqa. You could go off and harvest willow twigs or whatever it is they are doing — but you do not choose that, do you? Instead you walk with me and the Queen of the Hatti. Of course you are blessed with freedom, here in Northland. In my country, no woman is free, no woman owns property, save for princesses. There are no princesses in this strange country, yet you are free to choose, aren’t you? And because of that, like me, you too believe you are special, better than the rest. Perhaps it is simply having the courage to believe so, to think this way, that elevates our kind.’

  ‘And if all the words you spouted were flakes of gold, Trojan,’ said Kilushepa, walking stiffly towards them now, ‘you would be rich indeed.’

  Qirum laughed, admiring. ‘There, Milaqa, what was I saying? As I believe I am better than your twig-cutting uncles over there, so this one believes she is better than me. Even though, strictly speaking, I own her.’ He rubbed his mittened hands together. ‘So — are we to make this walk?’

  Kilushepa wore a hat of white winter-fox fur on her head, and was shrouded in a thick cloak of black-dyed fur, given her by Raka, the new Annid of Annids, in whose house she was staying. But she shivered, a long, drawn-out shudder that afflicted her whole body. ‘By the Storm God’s mercy, your land is cold, Milaqa. And to think I used to complain about draughty palaces in Hattusa!’

  It was only a few days since she had given birth, after a short, difficult pregnancy. Under her naturally dark skin Milaqa thought she sawa bloodless pallor. Milaqa plucked up the courage to speak. ‘Tawananna — you don’t look strong.’

  Kilushepa looked down at her, surprised, perhaps amused. ‘Oh, you are an expert in medicine, are you, little girl?’

  ‘No. But I’ve been there when my mother gave birth. And my cousins. I’ve seen how hard it is-’

  ‘Lead us to the Wall, child, and hold your tongue,’ Kilushepa said without emotion. She stalked away, heading north towards the looming face of the Wall.

  Qirum’s grin widened as he fell into step beside Milaqa. ‘You got that about as wrong as you could.’

  ‘I was speaking as one human being to another-’

  ‘Kilushepa isn’t a human being! Haven’t you listened to anything I have said to you? Oh, she does have her frailties. Since the birth of the child she’s been obsessively cleaning herself. Did you know that? Bathing and scrubbing, and douches and enemas. The Hatti are a funny lot who believe that any form of sexual contact leaves you unclean, and unfit to be in the presence of the gods. So you can imagine how it was for her to fall into the han
ds of the soldiers who used her — and into my hands, come to that. Now that the baby’s out of her she’s washing and washing and washing, trying to make herself pure again.. But none of that matters. She’s not weak, Milaqa. She’s a queen! She’s the Tawananna! Mark my words — we’ll be the ones who will have to hurry to keep up.’

  Milaqa led her party to one of the Wall’s grander staircases. This was a sweeping flight cut into the growstone face, with broad treads and a facing wall inscribed with the names of Annids going back many generations.

  Kilushepa and Qirum followed her up the stair. Kilushepa, lifting her robe to reveal booted feet, concentrated on each step. Qirum had been this way many times, but he looked around with interest as he always did, at the detail of the staircases, the growstone surface, the small doorways that led off to chambers cut deeper into the Wall’s fabric. Milaqa wondered what a warrior made of Northland and its Wall.

  They climbed up a final set of shallow steps and emerged onto the Wall’s roof: grey ocean to the left, the black-and-white snow-covered landscape of Northland to their right, the Wall itself arrowing to infinity ahead and behind. The Northern Ocean was flecked with ice floes, and the dark shadows of boats, all the way to the horizon. In this winter of privation the Northlanders had fallen back on the generosity of the little mother of the sea, but fishing in deep midwinter was always a hazard.

  Milaqa stepped forward cautiously. The surface was swept clear of snow daily, and the central track was ridged, for better footing. She led them along the Wall, heading east. The air was mercifully still, but bitterly cold, and they all pulled their cloaks tighter.

  Qirum studied the ridges as he walked, his eye caught by that small detail. ‘It must have been the labour of years to carve all these fine lines in the stone, along the mighty length of this Wall.’

  ‘Oh, no. You do it when the growstone is wet. You can just comb it in — literally, like combing your hair. When it’s wet you can shape growstone with your bare hands. And the furrows stay when the growstone hardens.’

  ‘Remarkable,’ the Trojan said. He knelt, took off his mittens, and rapped the surface with his knuckles. ‘A rock you can mould like clay!’

  Soon they were over Old Etxelur itself. The circular ridges of the Mothers’ Door, the grand old earthwork, were coated by snow, the profile of Flint Mountain and the densely populated Bay Land gleamed with frost, and the great watercourses were frozen solid. In the misty distance she saw huge herds move across the land, like the shadows of clouds. Deer, perhaps, maybe even aurochs, the wild cattle that the farmer folk found so fascinating.

  Kilushepa looked down on the Door, contemptuous. ‘How ugly. It reminds me of the palace of the Goddess of Death in the netherworld, which is surrounded by rings of walls in a desolate plain, just like this.’

  ‘This is the very heart of Northland,’ Milaqa said. ‘Old Etxelur itself, where the Wall, or the first part of it, was built to expel the sea.’

  ‘And all of this was sea bed, you claim,’ Kilushepa murmured. ‘I believe that’s a stand of oak down there. Everybody knows oak takes centuries to grow.’

  ‘But the Wall is more than centuries old, queen,’ said Qirum gently. ‘Older even than the most ancient cities of the east, older than Ur and Uruk. This was around when they were nothing but collections of shepherds’ huts. You know the saying. ‘‘Everything comes from the west.’’ And this is the heart of that west, Kilushepa.’

  They moved on, walking past monoliths and monumental stone heads set up in their lines along the Wall roof. Milaqa tried to tell them something of the stories of the Annids commemorated here, but they weren’t interested in Northland history, and she gave up. She said, ‘We will walk until the middle of the afternoon, perhaps. We will arrive at a dock where my uncle Deri will meet us in his boat; we will be rowed back. We have food in the packs, and there are sheltered places. Or we can always duck down into the Wall; there are many places to eat.’

  ‘And drink,’ Qirum said loudly. ‘We’re walking due east. Aren’t we heading towards the Scambles?’ Kilushepa looked quizzical. ‘A District within the Wall, Tawananna. It’s rather interesting. You’d think the Wall is one great uniform mass. But it isn’t. The character changes, quite markedly. I’ll tell you one pattern I’ve observed. These Districts, their miniature towns-in-a-town — the centres tend to be a half-day’s walk apart, or a little more. Just too far to walk there and back in day, you see. So a natural separation grows up.’

  Milaqa, faintly disturbed, realised that she’d never seen that pattern for herself.

  ‘As for the Scambles — well, it’s quite unlike Etxelur, though often you’ll find the grand folk in the taverns and music houses and brothels-’

  ‘We won’t be going there,’ Milaqa said hastily.

  ‘Then I hope you’re carrying beer on that back of yours, girl!’

  They came to a place where a tremendous scaffolding of long Albian oak trunks and cut planks had been built up against the landward face of the Wall. On its platforms stood huge wooden vats full of ground-up rock, dust, and frozen-over water. Up here on the roof, wooden panels had been set up to shelter those who supervised the work on the scaffolding below. Nobody was working today, though one man sat bundled up in furs, watchful, to ensure there were no accidental fires.

  They paused in the lee of the supervisors’ shelter. Milaqa opened her packs and passed around dried meat and fish with hazelnut paste, and water and beer.

  Qirum was fascinated by the scaffolding. ‘It is like a tremendous siege engine.’

  ‘They are working on the Wall,’ Milaqa replied. ‘The Beavers and their assistants. They make growstone from crushed limestone, fire-mountain ash and other ingredients in those great vats. But you can see the water is frozen, and the growstone itself would be too cold to mix properly. So the work is abandoned for now. They work on a given section for years at a time. People come for the work, and others to support those who work. They live here. The site becomes a community, a village. Children may be born and grow up on the scaffolding, before the time comes to move on to another section of Wall.’

  ‘Rather magnificent,’ Qirum murmured to Kilushepa.

  ‘The magnificence of the insane,’ she said, chewing delicately on a piece of pickled cod. ‘The same pointless task repeated over and over. The Wall is a monument of idiots.’

  Qirum shrugged. ‘I suppose I wouldn’t want my children to be growing up on a bit of scaffolding. Where is your daughter today, by the way? Little Puduhepa.’

  ‘With her carer. A woman called…’ She frowned, and glanced at Milaqa.

  ‘The wet nurse is called Bela,’ Milaqa said. ‘You know her, Qirum. A friend of my cousin Hadhe.’

  Kilushepa said, ‘The woman is to be more than a wet nurse. I have given the baby over. And I have given instructions that a new name be found for the child. A Northlander name. I thoughtlessly gave the brat a Hatti name — a royal name, in fact. I was in pain, barely conscious, addled by the potions your priest doctors gave me, Milaqa. There is no purpose in the Hatti name, for she will be raised as a Northlander.’

  ‘But she is your child!’ Qirum said, aghast. ‘How can you give her up? Is this because of your Hatti obsession with cleanliness, woman? Is the child just some impurity that has now been flushed out of you?’

  ‘The child hardly matters. She is the product of a rape.’

  ‘As I was!’

  ‘And now she is abandoned. As you were.’ She seemed amused by the observation.

  Qirum stood stock-still. Milaqa could see the muscles clenched in his neck. For a heartbeat Milaqa thought he might strike Kilushepa. Then he pushed out of the shelter and strode back the way they had come, and ducked down a staircase, perhaps looking for a Scambles tavern.

  Kilushepa had finished her fish. She wiped her fingers and mouth delicately on a small cloth. ‘Well. That seems to be the end of the walk.’ She stood and staggered.

  Milaqa held her arm. ‘Let me help you.’
>
  The Tawananna snatched back her arm. ‘Do not touch me.’

  When they emerged from the shelter snow was falling. Her hood up, her head down, Milaqa led Kilushepa east along the Wall, towards the dock where Deri waited. They did not speak again.

  27

  The First Year After the Fire Mountain: Spring

  Bren and Vala landed on Kirike’s Land, stepping onto a shore of black sand. The rest of the boat’s crew jumped out and hauled up the craft, its skin hull scraping.

  Bren staggered up the beach to an outcrop of rock, and sat down. With his delicate-looking fingers the Jackdaw picked at his leather leggings, stained with salt and piss and puke, and pulled his cloak tighter around his body. He’d been ill throughout the journey and had been all but useless in the boat, and he seemed dizzy and disoriented now he was back on the land. He didn’t even look around at their destination, after so many days on the breast of the sea.

  Vala shivered in a breeze coming off a land choked by ice and snow. Home again, she thought. At first glance this bay, the Ice Giant’s Cupped Palm, seemed unchanged from when she had last seen it — at least as it had been in the days before the Hood. There was the broad sweep of the water, there the ice-tipped mountains on the horizon. She made out houses at the head of the beach, beyond the waterline. Smoke rose up, so at least there were people here — people alive, when there were some in Northland who had doubted there would be a living soul left on Kirike’s Land after the events of last summer.

  But there were still scummy rafts of pale rock floating on the bay water, and washed up on the strand. On the land itself, which should have been turning green at this time of year, the ice still held sway. She thought she smelled ash in the cold air. And the world was much too quiet. She listened for the braying of seals, the cries of the birds who should be nesting by now. There was only the lap of the sea, and the gruff voices of the men as they wearily hauled their gear from the boat.