When the snow started to come down Mago was taking a walk along the Wall Way, the broad track that followed the foot of the Wall. There was some flooding here — had been for days, it seemed, maybe the big mechanical pumps the Northlanders boasted about weren’t working so well — and you had to watch where you walked.
But the Wall itself loomed above him, busy as ever, crowded, complicated, a vertical city that stretched to left and right as far as he could see. Today was some kind of market day, and stalls had been set up before the row of shops, manufactories and warehouses along the Wall’s lowest run, just wooden posts fixed into slots in the growstone walls and then draped with big awnings of cloth or leather, a simple way to increase selling space. And now, even though the whole area was stuffed with nestspills — pathetic little groups of them, whole families sitting in the dirt, empty hands held out in the cold — the grand folk of Etxelur were out shopping for jewellery and shoes, and dishes and cutlery and pots and pans, and knick-knacks brought here by traders from across the known world.
Mago had been in Northland for four months now, and since his uncle Barmocar had taken so long to close his negotiations over supplies to Carthage of Etxelur’s disgusting salted fish, it looked as if the weather was going to close in and they would be stuck in this dismal lightless hellhole for the winter. Well, Mago wasn’t going to be intimidated by the mighty Wall, even though he knew intellectually that you could take all of Carthage and its environs, wad it up and stuff it inside the Wall’s great carcass, and it would be utterly lost. For, he had learned, the Wall wasn’t quite the symbol of smug unity some Northlanders would have you believe. The Wall was so vast that you had to think of it as being many communities, several cities with separate traditions, even separate customs and dialects, all joined in this one giant structure. And at least once, he had heard it murmured, there had been an intramural war when one of these culturally distinct blocks had defied the will of the rest — a War of the Districts — but you wouldn’t find any reference to that in Northland’s official histories.
The snow fell suddenly, just dropping as if somebody had emptied a tremendous bucket over his head.
Shielding his eyes and looking up, he saw that it was coming from the north, the ocean side, big fat flakes swirling over the Wall’s parapet and billowing down in sheets to the ground below. Already it was gathering on the ledges and protrusions and buttresses of the Wall’s upper surfaces, and on the roofs of the structures below. And Mago had come out without a hat.
He ducked into the nearest shelter, a wide, heavy awning over one of the market stalls. It was no warmer, but it was a relief to have the snow stop falling on his head and trickling down his neck. The awning was wide enough to shelter quite a number of people, and the traders under here were selling some kind of art, he saw, paintings set on stands. He recognised one of them, the kid Nelo, gawky brother of a cuter sister who had, briefly, been assigned to provide Mago with some company during the summer.
Mago wasn’t alone in seeking shelter. Some of those hapless nestspills were filtering in now, old and young, a skinny mother carrying a scrawny baby, people with faces and clothes the colour of the dirt they had been sitting in. One trader, a fat Northlander in a rich fur cloak, tried to block their way. Nelo, the kid, stepped forward, had a quiet word and the man stood aside. A couple of the traders pulled a sheet across the open stall front to keep out the snow. Somebody lit a lamp. The nestspills started to settle to the muddy ground, squatting in little groups. They seemed to be used to squatting, waiting on events, on somebody noticing them and helping them.
The awning above all their heads bulged and creaked softly. A mass of snow was evidently gathering there already.
Mago walked up to Nelo. ‘Please don’t turn me out in the snow,’ he said in a mock whine, using his limited Northlander.
Nelo looked at him, and walked back to his paintings. ‘You’re funny,’ he said in toneless Greek.
‘I’m just teasing you. You did a good turn back there. Of course if that sister of yours — Alxa? — ever fancies doing a Carthaginian a good turn-’
‘Shut up.’
‘All right, all right.’ Mago, trying not to shiver despite the cold that probed at his bare arms and scalp, inspected the paintings. They were just a jumble to him, figures and shapes of all sizes and positions. He squinted at the nearest canvas. ‘Ouch.’
‘What?’
‘You’re the artist, are you?’
‘Of some of them,’ said Nelo, withdrawn, defensive.
‘Let me guess which. This one, with the great big pig and the little tiny horse?’
‘You’ve no idea what you’re looking at, have you? What do you know about art?’
Mago shrugged. ‘I like a nice drinking cup. Do you do drinking cups? With a few warriors going at it, and maidens fiddling with each other’s titties. That’s real art. Chuck in a few swords and lutes and laurels and so forth-’
Nelo snorted. ‘This is art, you Carthaginian ox. A new kind of art, neither the abstraction of our own tradition nor the simple representation of you easterners. Look again. That’s not a “little horse”. It’s further away — further from you, the viewer, than the animals in the foreground. And see the lines of the barn — the edges of the road, the way they converge. . It’s a new technique called look-deep. Pioneered by Pythagorean scholars here.’
Mago tried to see what he meant, and for a heartbeat he thought he got it — it wasn’t so much a painting as a window into another world, with depth beyond the surface — yes, he saw it. But then the illusion faded, as quickly as it came. ‘Well, it’s not for me. But I dare say there will be people who’ll buy this stuff.’
‘Not enough of them. But I’m hopeful about the future. This is what I want to do with my life.’
‘Paint horses?’
‘Not just horses. . But if Uncle Pyxeas is right it’s not a paintbrush I’ll be wielding in the future, but a snow shovel.’
‘Hmm. Mind you, all I was ever good at was fighting and screwing, and the world will always need those skills.’ The awning creaked again. ‘Speaking of the snow. .’
He went to the front of the stall and tried to pull the curtain back. It was heavy, stiff with frost, and weighed down by the depth of snow outside. He dragged it aside, using his strength. Outside the snow lay deep, already halfway up his shins. He kicked his way out into it. Once more the flakes fell heavily on his bare head, his neck. It was soft, light stuff, oddly not too cold, but it was hard work wading through the settled snow. The world had been transformed, the sudden layer of white softening every shape, from the great earthworks of Old Etxelur to the detailed texture of the ground. Through it people struggled, slim dark shadows, dimly seen. And the snow still fell heavily from a silver-grey sky.
He turned and looked back at the stall. The snow heaped up on top of the awning was just as deep as on the ground, and the heavy cloth sagged, pregnant. He called, ‘Hey, artist. I’m from Africa. What does snow weigh?’
Nelo came to the front of the stall and reluctantly stuck his head out. ‘How much?’
‘That much, say.’ Mago pointed up at the loaded awning.
At that moment a support beam gave way, a tree trunk snapping like a twig. Mago grabbed Nelo’s jacket and pulled him out into the open. The awning collapsed, the snow falling with a rush. It was sudden, shocking, normality gone in an instant.
‘My paintings!’
‘Never mind that,’ Mago growled in Greek, ‘what about the people?’
They strode forward together and began to drag at the fallen awning. It was frozen and heavy with ice, and the snow slid awkwardly around their legs as they tried to work. But people started pushing their way out from under it, the vendors and the sheltering nestspills, struggling and sprawling in the cascading snow. There were injuries, and blood splashed the snow, brilliant red on white.
Then the screaming started, from under the very centre of the awning. The woman with the baby, Mago remember
ed. She had gone right for the centre of the stall, where it had been warmest. He began hauling harder at the awning. ‘Help me.’ He repeated, louder and in Northlander, ‘Help me!’
The others gathered around, Nelo, the vendors, the bewildered nestspills, pawing at the wrecked stall with their bare hands, trying to reach the woman and her child.
15
When Crimm had come back to Ywa’s house that morning, after he’d given up on the idea of taking the Sabet out, they had considered making love. It was a kind of unspoken negotiation. They knew each other too well to need words.
But it was cold in Ywa’s house, this snowy morning, cold in the home of the Annid of Annids, and it was likely to get colder yet. The house was an old design, one of seven roundhouses on its flood-defying mound, a structure of oak beams and thatch and wattle of the kind Ana herself might once have lived in eight or nine thousand years before. The house was an honorarium for the Annid of Annids and a living memory of Northland’s heritage, but it was not warm. Meanwhile, Crimm might have had a day off, but Ywa had a lot of paperwork to get through, after the latest meeting of the Water Council, which had seen yet more arguments about ration allowances and the guard draft. So they just draped blankets over their shoulders, and huddled together over the central hearth where the smoke seeped up to the thatched roof, and drank bitter coffee, a gift of the Jaguar folk from across the ocean, and talked softly.
‘I should probably go back to the Wall,’ Ywa sighed. She glanced over the mounds of scrolls on the carpeted floor, the slates and books open on her desk. ‘It’s just that I get so much more done if I squirrel away in here.’
Crimm grunted. ‘Maybe you ought to get back before that snow gets much deeper.’
‘Surely it will stop soon. .’
The wind picked up, and the house creaked, a deep wooden groan.
‘When you go I’ll walk with you. Can’t have the Annid of Annids stuck in a snowdrift with her arse in the air.’
‘I’m sure I can feel a draught,’ she said, and pulled her blanket closer.
‘The snow will pass,’ he said, trying to reassure.
‘But a blizzard like this, so soon in the year. How will we cope?’
Crimm thought he knew how she felt. Ywa felt she bore the burden of all the Northlanders’ fates on her slim shoulders, just as he felt responsibility for his crew on the Sabet, in the middle of storms, or when becalmed. Mind you, in his opinion her fellow Annids should have been doing more to help, his cousin Rina especially, Rina just back from a pointless jaunt to Hantilios with old Pyxeas, Rina who seemed more concerned with politicking and feathering her own nest than the welfare of others. He shuffled up and put his arm around Ywa. ‘You’ll get through this.’
Briefly she relaxed, and let her head drop to his shoulder. ‘I’m lucky to have you. Lucky — funny word. It took the loss of your wife and baby to bring us together. What kind of luck is that?’
‘Lucky for me, in the end,’ he murmured. Lucky that he had found something drily comforting in the strength of this woman, a distant cousin older than him, widowed a decade ago, her only son long grown and left. Even though they both felt it was best to keep the relationship as private as possible. He kissed the top of her head, the greying unbrushed hair. ‘We’ll still be here in the spring-’
The house groaned again, and there was a snap, of wood splitting. They both sat up. From beyond the walls came a crackling crunch, like a tree trunk breaking, then a softer collapse. Cries of anger and pain.
They looked at each other. ‘We need to get out of here,’ Crimm said.
It took only moments to pull on their cloaks, hoods, boots, mittens. Crimm kicked dirt over the hearth, damping down the fire. Ywa glanced once at her papers, but she didn’t need Crimm to tell her there was no time to pack them up.
They pushed their way through the door flap and out into the open. The snow was nearly up to their knees, Crimm saw with shock. How could so much have fallen so quickly? And so early? And still it came down. When they stepped out of the lee of the house the snow, blasting on a wind straight from the north, came at them horizontally, thick and hard, heavy flakes stinging as they slapped Crimm’s face. He staggered, and reached for Ywa’s mittened hand.
A few steps away from the house they looked around. Ywa pointed. ‘There. It was Canda’s house.’
The house, or the wreck of it, was barely visible. Crimm saw supporting beams, some broken, sticking out of the heaped snow like snapped bones. But already fresh snow was covering over the wreckage.
‘We should help them.’
‘No.’ He pointed to figures plodding through the rush of snowflakes. ‘They’re already heading for the Wall. They must be all right.’
She hesitated, then nodded, and they set off.
There was a shortcut to the Wall, a diagonal path, but they were walking through a uniform whiteness. Wary of getting lost Crimm led Ywa to the Etxelur Way, the main road that ran south to north directly to the heart of the Wall. The Way was cambered and lined with poles where banners flew on festival days; following the poles they couldn’t get lost. He put his arm around Ywa’s waist, and they pulled their furs up over their mouths, and pushed their way through snow and wind.
When Kia wanted to be nice to Thux, she would tell him she had two sons, him and Engine Seventy-Four. But on a day like today, with her engine struggling, there was no hiding the fact that there was only one true priority in her life. Still, in a corner of her heart she thanked the little mothers for giving her a son like Thux: smart, strong, flexible, and even handy with a wrench. He was young yet, but already one of the true mechanikoi, like herself; it must be in the blood.
Now the two of them stood in the engine room, watching the labouring of their steel beast with some anxiety.
This chamber, with its rough plastered-over growstone walls, was entirely embedded within the body of the Wall, not far below its parapet. Shelves were cluttered with the paraphernalia of their profession: precision screws, gears, transmission chains, camshafts, pistons, valves. The engine itself was a massive cylinder that filled the room. Its big rocking arm converted the heat of good Albian coal to motive force, the force that helped keep the ground by the face of the Wall pumped dry, and worked elevators within the Wall, and lifted cargo cranes on the sea-facing side. The whole apparatus was surrounded by condenser pipes and feeds that kept the engine working to its best theoretical ability, and bled steam and hot water off into the body of the Wall to keep its inhabitants in the warmth and comfort to which they had been accustomed for centuries, even in the hardest winter. Engine Seventy-Four was dumb, but it was big and strong and reliable — just as Kia liked to say of her son, not inaccurately. But today it was in trouble. You didn’t need to read the liquid-level gauges showing pressure and temperature and steam output and all the rest to know that; you could feel it, standing in this growstone pen before the labouring beast.
As Kia and Thux stood there bewildered, a few flakes of snow came drifting down the ventilation shafts from the outside world, quickly melting in the heat of the engine room.
‘It’s overheating,’ Kia said.
‘I don’t understand,’ Thux replied. ‘I know it’s snowing-’
‘I’ve never known it to snow so hard before, I have to say. Certainly not this early in the winter.’
‘But the loops should be too hot to be affected by the frost.’ Big radiator loops were embedded in the Wall’s outer surface, to enable the engines, buried in the body of the Wall, to lose heat. ‘In fact,’ Thux said, ‘the colder it is outside the better the heat loss. Right? What then, Mother? Owl’ A mass of snow came tumbling down a shaft, straight onto his head and shoulders. Splashing onto the floor it quickly melted, leaving a shallow puddle. As Kia tried not to laugh, Thux brushed the residue off his hair and shoulders. ‘How could that happen? It’s impossible.’
Kia peered up the shaft. ‘Not if the snow’s falling fast enough. Maybe ice is forming on the protective grilles
. .’ She snapped her fingers. ‘That’s it. The exhaust shafts must be blocked by ice and snow. Our baby’s choking. One of us will have to go up and clear it. I’ll go,’ she said immediately.
‘No,’ he snapped.
‘You’ve never seen conditions like this before.’
‘Well, nor have you. My job, Mother. I’m younger than you. And it wouldn’t cost as much to replace me.’ He went to a locker and began to pull out his kit.
‘All right. With weight like mine I’d probably break the ladders anyhow. But make sure you suit up properly. Scarf, peaked hat, mask, heavy gloves.’
‘I know.’ Struggling, he pulled a tight coverall lined with gull feathers over his regular work clothes.
Kia went back to her gauges. She wasn’t about to say it, in fact she didn’t really trust herself to say anything, but today, at forty-three years old, she felt unreasonably proud of her only son. And of herself, she admitted, not to mention Engine Seventy-Four. People had always looked down on the House of the Beavers, Northland’s engineers, even though it was as old as any of the nation’s ancient guilds — and their nickname of the mechanikoi showed they had absorbed as much of the tradition of the learned Greeks who had once flocked to Northland as any of the more academic Houses. After all, without the Beavers’ work on the Wall and the various other sea-defence measures in the very beginning, Northland would not even exist, it would all have been lost under the sea before Ana was cold in her stony tomb in the Wall, probably. And these days the Beavers, equipped with new skills, worked harder than ever. The sages, nodding in deference to their inspirational founder Pythagoras, might lecture the world about the principles of heat flow and mechanical advantage, but it took a Beaver, one of the humble mechanikoi, crawling about in the dark and smoke and steam and sweat, to make it all work.
Iron Winter n-3 Page 8
