Iron Winter n-3

by Stephen Baxter

  ‘We have to hope.’

  ‘Here’s to hope.’ Alxa raised her mug, and touched her mother’s.

  ‘I’ve heard nothing from home either, incidentally,’ Rina said now. ‘From your father. Which is why the note you sent was such a shock.’

  Alxa grinned wickedly, suddenly seeming more like her old self. ‘It evidently worked. My ruse, I mean. Maybe I’d make a good spy, do you think?’

  ‘You’ll earn me a whipping.’

  That wiped away the smile. ‘They whip you?’

  Only once. . She changed the subject quickly. ‘So now you’re the Ana, are you?’

  Alxa shrugged. ‘Carthaginians have trouble pronouncing “Alxa”, believe it or not.’ All-sha. ‘They’ve only heard of one Northlander, most of them, who is Ana, who they think lived a hundred years ago and built walls on the seabed by hand. So now I’m “the Ana”.’

  ‘What have you been up to, Daughter? The last time I saw you, you were doing translation for a member of the Tribunal of One Hundred and Four.’

  ‘That didn’t last long. I made a couple of mistakes. . There are so many people flooding into Carthage, you can find whatever skills you want, if you just look. Lawyers, doctors, even priests. It wasn’t hard for my boss to replace me with someone better and cheaper. And prettier,’ she said with a grimace.

  ‘You should have come to me.’

  ‘Oh, Mother, that’s ridiculous. What could you have possibly done? No, I found my own way.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Nothing too terrible, don’t worry.’ On impulse she took her mother’s hand. ‘I’m still a maiden of Etxelur. Still chaste.’

  With great care, Rina showed no reaction.

  ‘But I got to know Carthage. I mean, the real city. Not as it exists in the imagination of the suffetes and the elders and the tribunes. Not even the priests know what’s going on, I don’t think. Mother, the bread ration, such as it is, doesn’t reach half the people it’s supposed to. There’s a whole population who have been simply abandoned. Yet they’re still there — many of them in a huge slum city outside the walls beyond the western gate. There is terrible corruption out there, terrible cruelty.

  ‘But most people are decent. I started to see the ways they help each other. One has room to take in an orphan, and does so. Another has a sort of food that her own child can’t eat because it sickens her, so she gives it to the family next door. There’s no fresh water but for a couple of dried-up springs, and even they are polluted by sewage, but they get organised, and dig latrines and sewage channels. Now we have doctors and nurses who can at least advise the sick. Of course it all depends on food, and there’s a dwindling supply of that, and in the end. . Well, I suppose it’s best not to think about the end.’

  ‘So this is what you’re doing. You’re in the middle of this network of — of helping.’

  ‘I’m educated, Mother. I can organise things on a bigger scale than most. Write things down, work out the numbers. And I’m a Northlander. I’m not in any of Carthage’s factions or cliques. That helps, I think.’

  She had become a woman Rina barely knew, so much had she grown just in the few months they’d been in Carthage. She was still not seventeen. ‘Oh, Alxa! The risks you must run, of disease, of robbery. .’

  Alxa smiled. ‘Mother, there’s always a risk. But people know me. I’m the Ana. If anybody tried to hurt me there would be a hundred to step in and protect me.’ Alxa patted Rina’s hand, as if she was the parent, Rina the child. ‘Besides, what choice is there?’

  ‘The family would be proud of you. But I wish I could spare you this!’

  Alxa pulled back and stood up. ‘What would you do, hide me in a broom closet? I wanted to tell you — well, that I’m fine. Now you must go. Himil told me about your demanding boss.’

  Rina could barely bring herself to stand and leave her. ‘Give my love to Nelo if-’

  ‘If I hear from him, I will.’

  They embraced again, and it was over. Rina let Himil lead her out of the tavern and back up the hill towards Barmocar’s residence.

  It was only then that it occurred to Rina to wonder why Alxa had arranged to see her now, and not before.

  Rina returned to the Barmocar property without being spotted. She presented herself on time at Anterastilis’ bathroom, where a maid had already filled the mistress’ deep sunken bath with hot water sprinkled with salts and balm. Anterastilis herself was not yet present. Rina took the time to change into the sheer shift she used for this work, and to wash her face and neck.

  Anterastilis bustled in, staggering slightly, evidently drunk. ‘By Melqart’s left ball, that rabble on the council go on and on. And the way they drink! Oh, help me with this, you dozy woman.’

  Rina clapped her hands to dismiss the maid, who closed the door behind her, and helped her mistress loosen her robes, held in place by pins and buttons. Soon the folds of hugely expensive purple-dyed cloth slipped to the floor, and Anterastilis stood revealed in the girdle of bone and linen that held her figure in something like the shape it had been when she was younger, Rina thought cattily, with a prominent bosom and tight waist. Now this garment was unlaced from the back and discarded. Anterastilis, who was a little over forty and perhaps ten years younger than Rina, was full-breasted but flabby, with folds of flesh rolling from her belly, and sagging buttocks and thighs dimpled with fat. Not for her the privations suffered by the rest of Carthage, Rina observed, not for the first time.

  Anterastilis stretched, yawned, belched, and allowed Rina to lead her by the hand to her bath, where she climbed down the steps into the hot water, sighed and settled back. Rina took sponge and pumice stone and rubbed at her flesh. Rina could smell spiced meat on her breath, and wondered what the meat could possibly be. Dog, perhaps?

  ‘That rabble on the council,’ Anterastilis murmured sleepily. ‘Only come here for my husband’s cellar, I’m sure of it. And because he lets them fight. .’

  The way the young dominated life in Carthage had been among the most profound shocks for Rina on arriving here. Back in Northland she’d known the theory, of course. Farmers routinely died young. The women died of backbreaking toil and relentless child-bearing, the men died in the course of hazardous sports like hunting, or of fighting in wars, and everybody just died of famine or the diseases they caught from their animals. Even in the cities, even in the long-gone good times, more had died than were born, and the population depended on immigrants from the countryside. The result was a city that felt to fifty-one-year-old Rina like a playpen full of squabbling children. Even their councils fizzed with youthful aggression. Barmocar, in fact, was among the most elderly still serving-

  ‘Ow!’ Anterastilis slapped her face with a wet palm, hard enough to sting. ‘You pinched me, you useless sow!’

  ‘I am sorry, sorry,’ Rina mumbled, head lowered. Concentrate, Rina — concentrate! For if you earn enough disfavour you will be banished from here, and then how will you live?

  With the bathing done, Rina helped Anterastilis out of the bath. Rina took special care, wary of the woman’s drunkenness; a fall would be disastrous, for Rina. She walked Anterastilis to the massage table. This was a slab of marble heated from beneath by a system of furnaces and pipes that circulated hot steam — a primitive contraption by Northland’s standards, but effective enough. Anterastilis lay on her back, a pillow under her head, naked, and closed her eyes.

  Rina warmed her hands on the slab, and took oil jars down from the shelf. These were exotic products from the mysterious countries of the east, and even now Rina had no real idea what most of them were, but she had quickly learned which her mistress preferred, and how they were to be applied. She began with handfuls of a gelatinous oil applied to Anterastilis’ heavy stomach, Rina’s strong hands kneading the flesh. Then another handful for Anterastilis’ collarbones, and then the breasts themselves, which sagged to either side as if deflated.

  This was the moment when Anterastilis would let her know how she
wanted the session to proceed.

  Sure enough Anterastilis pushed Rina’s hands away, and as she massaged her own heavy breasts, Rina moved down to her thighs, which parted softly Rina worked the oil into the flesh of the thighs, teasingly, slowly moving up to the folds of her sex.

  Rina had no idea if this was merely sexual, if Anterastilis was a woman unsatisfied by her husband who demanded such services from all her maids, or if it was the kind of power display Rina had endured from Barmocar. Anterastilis’ motives made no difference to Rina. She had to perform these hateful acts anyway, for it was that or the street. She was an Annid! But the sheer repetition of it had taken her to a numb space beyond degradation.

  Anterastilis seemed tired, as well as drunk. The session was proceeding more quickly than usual, and maybe she wanted to get it done before she fell asleep. Rina was relieved. There were times when her mistress asked her to use a variety of aids, expensive items carved of ivory, applied to her vagina or anus. Now, as Rina pushed her fingers inside her, Anterastilis moaned, and reached up to grab Rina’s small breast, squeezing it painfully through her thin shift.

  Then Anterastilis yelped, slapped Rina’s hands away and sat up, the oil glistening on her bare flesh. ‘You scratched me!’

  Rina cringed. ‘Madam, I promise-’

  Anterastilis pulled at her crotch, her legs akimbo. There was a slight red line on the inside of her right thigh. ‘Look at that! By Tanit’s mercy, I am bleeding.’

  There was a stinging cleansing lotion on the shelf. Rina reached for that.

  But Anterastilis grabbed her wrists so the bottle fell and spilled on the floor. ‘Show me your hands. Show me!’

  It took her only a heartbeat to discover the nail Rina had broken on the wall.

  ‘Look at that claw! Look at it! How dare you bring that anywhere near my body? And these nails! They are filthy. What have you been doing, woman?’ She peered at Rina’s face, and abruptly grabbed her neck. She was surprisingly strong. Rina resisted for a heartbeat, she couldn’t help it, then suppressed her instincts and yielded. Anterastilis dragged Rina’s face to hers, and sniffed noisily. ‘Wine! I can smell it on your breath. Where does a woman like you get wine from? From whoring — is that it, Northlander?’ She released Rina.

  ‘Madam, please-’

  ‘Out.’ Anterastilis began throwing jars at Rina’s head. They were too solid to smash, and rolled noisily to the floor. ‘Out! You will be whipped for this. Wait until my husband hears of it. Flayed! Get out, woman, out!’

  Rina fled, in no doubt that Anterastilis meant every word she said.

  45

  Her punishment was delivered by the head of house: ten strokes of the whip. She had suffered three the time before, delivered by a former soldier who seemed to enjoy punishing non-compliant women. She forced herself not to cry out, not to weep — not to beg.

  Later Thuth, the Libyan cook, rubbed in a solution of salt and unguents that she said would help the healing and maybe reduce the scarring, all the while berating Rina for her stupidity in fouling up such an easy job.

  She had the evening to recover.

  But when she showed up for work with Anterastilis the next day, the head of house sent her away. Instead she was put to menial work, sweeping floors, clearing the courtyard of the debris of yet another dust storm. It was harder than her work for Anterastilis, but not so degrading. And the steady labour might or might not help her back heal.

  She slept little, those first nights after the whipping. She had to lie on her front, or try to sleep sitting up. The lack of sleep gave her time to think. You had very little time to think as a servant of the Carthaginians; your workload was heavy, your sleep and rest times short, the patterns of your days chaotic. Now she had time to reflect back on her brief meeting with Alxa, those unimaginably precious moments, worth ten times the whipping she’d suffered as a consequence. And time to puzzle out again exactly why it was Alxa had chosen to contact her mother at just the moment she had.

  It was when she overheard grim reports delivered to Barmocar of authenticated cases of the blood plague not far from the city that she began to suspect the truth. Alxa had wanted to see her because she knew, from her own network of informants, that the plague was coming. And Alxa, following her own self-appointed mission, was not going to stay away from the afflicted.

  It was a month since her meeting with Alxa. One night, while her bed was still occupied by the snoring night maid, Alxa once more pulled on her cloak, and her Northlander boots, about the only worthwhile possession from home she had left, picked up a small purse with a few treasured Carthaginian coins, and slipped out through the grounds. That gap in the external wall had been roughly patched up, but the dry stonework was loose — mortar was in short supply like everything else this dismal winter — and she easily pulled a few stones loose, clambered over the wall, and slipped away into the dark. There was an abandoned property not far away, a small warehouse, used by some of the younger staff for love-making. Tonight it was empty save for the scuffling of rats.

  She sat, favouring her back, wrapped herself in her cloak, and waited for dawn. It wouldn’t be long until her absence was discovered. The night maid who shared her bed might tell on her; she was the kind who liked to win favours that way. One way or another Rina would be in for another whipping, or maybe this time just a chucking-out to join the starving in the streets. Well, what came next didn’t matter. She had to see Alxa again; she had to know.

  When the light of the African morning was strong in the sky, she slipped out of the warehouse and walked down the narrow street.

  She soon came to Myrcan’s tavern. He was just opening up, throwing open the doors, sweeping half-dried vomit into the street, setting out his chalkboard of exclusion and welcome.

  ‘The Ana,’ she said to him in Carthaginian.

  He eyed her cautiously. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Forgive me. My speaking is poor. I am her mother. . I was here. You remember? You gave us wine, a month ago.’

  He nodded, still cautious. He probably thought her accent was oddly upper crust, since she’d learned it from Barmocar and Anterastilis. Was she a spy, here to check up on black markets in food rations? ‘Why do you want her?’

  ‘I am her mother.’ She longed to shake him, to make him understand. ‘Is she here?’

  ‘Not for days.’

  ‘Then where, where?’

  He shrugged. ‘Out of town, maybe.’

  ‘Outside the walls?’

  ‘Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. You look.’

  The western gate. Alxa had said there was a big community of the excluded outside the western gate.

  She nodded her thanks and hurried on down the hill, following one of the main drags that ran radially away down the Byrsa, and headed straight for the western gate.

  It wasn’t hard to get out past the guards and through the gate. It might be harder to get back in. Well, she would use her bit of money.

  She was shocked by what lay beyond the city wall. Once again this was something she had known about intellectually from Alxa’s descriptions, from complaints from Barmocar’s guests about the grubby crowds they had to pass through on their way into the city. The reality of it was astounding. It was another city, she saw, grown up out of nothing, a ramshackle metropolis built from spare stone and sagging bits of canvas and piled-up turf blocks — no wood, for that had all long gone to the hearths. Smoke rose up from desultory fires of peat or dung. Everywhere she looked she saw men moving listlessly, mothers holding silent infants, children playing in odd, aimless ways. Gaunt faces and stick limbs and swollen bellies. It was quiet. There was nothing like the noise you would have expected from such a crowd. But flies buzzed everywhere, and carts moved along the rough tracks that threaded between the hovels, carts towed by skinny men with their faces masked and bearing heaped-up bodies.

  She felt a stab of anxious fear. But she must find Alxa.

  She strode forward boldly, asking everybody she met if
they knew about the Ana, the Northlander, Alxa. She got a few replies, listlessly given. They all pointed her away from the city, away, further out. The shanty town stretched out along the main road out of the city — the result of beggars competing to be first for the cash of arriving visitors, perhaps. She followed the road until the shacks and hovels began to thin out.

  She came to a kind of compound, set aside from the road, marked by a loose ring of stones, a scratched mark in the earth. A handful of huts stood here, and smoke curled up from a central open fire. She saw men in masks and heavy gloves digging a pit.

  As she was about to cross the line into the compound, a man limped over. ‘You don’t want to come closer,’ he called, his accent a thick country brogue, obscured by his mask. ‘Not unless you’re ill yourself.’

  ‘I’m looking for somebody,’ she said as clearly as she could. ‘The Ana, they call her. The Northlander.’

  Above the mask his eyes narrowed, suspicious. ‘Who wants to know?’

  ‘I am her mother. Please, if she is here — tell her I have come.’

  He hesitated. ‘Wait here.’ He hurried off to one of the huts. Not running, nobody living outside the city walls seemed capable of running any more.

  Here came a slight woman, walking stiffly, with mask and gloves and heavy brown clothing that covered most of her skin, her neck and arms and legs, her face. It was Alxa. Rina would have run across the boundary, taken her in her arms.

  But Alxa stepped back. ‘Don’t, Mother. We don’t know how it passes from one person to the next. It may be by touch, or by fluids, blood and spit and snot. .’

  ‘The plague. You’re talking about the blood plague. That’s what you’re doing here.’ Rina had guessed as much but the thought still filled her with horror. ‘Tending to the victims of the blood plague.’

  ‘Tending. . Yes. We serve a double purpose,’ Alxa said wearily. ‘We take in the afflicted. At the city walls they are simply cut down, you know. Here we allow families to die together.’ She seemed to stagger slightly. ‘And we keep the city that bit safer. For it is a terrible illness, Mother. There are two manifestations. The first is a fever, and a spitting of blood. That can kill in less than a day. The second is less vicious, but it kills just as certainly in a few days. If you catch this plague you die, either of the first manifestation or the second. Your only hope of survival is not to catch it in the first place. If it got loose in the city-’