Iron Winter (Northland 3) (23 page)

Still, Avatak was surprised that Pyxeas agreed to the stop readily. ‘But the timing is good,’ the scholar said. ‘Tonight the eclipse is due. Make sure you have the oracle
ready, boy.’

Uzzia, unpacking her own bundles, glanced over. ‘What eclipse?’

Jamil grunted. ‘What
is
an “eclipse”?’

‘An eclipse is a shadow play. When the world falls into the shadow of the moon, and the sun’s light is blocked out . . . or, as tonight, when the moon enters the shadow of the earth,
and turns the colour of blood.’ Pyxeas had been in good spirits for days, buoyed up by the thin air. Now it was almost as if he was drunk. ‘A world of shadow, a moon of blood!’ He
repeated the words in other, fragmentary languages: Uzzia’s Hatti, Jamil’s Arabic, even in broken phrases in the harsh local argot.

The men working at the horses glanced across at him, and then up at the sunlit sky, uneasy. Jamil, watching, shook his head, muttering about folk who had so much cleverness it drove the wisdom
out of their heads, and went back to unpacking his own tent.

The sun set and the moon rose, full and handsome. Sitting cross-legged with a blanket over his shoulders Pyxeas set the oracle on the ground before him, working its dials, muttering to himself.
Meanwhile he had Avatak set up the hourglass and record the hours since sunset.

The party had broken into groups: Pyxeas’ party, the two Arab travellers, and the local men who seemed particularly furtive tonight to Avatak, suspicious, watchful of the others. One of
them giggled frequently, a man who had never got over the effects of the high land. Uzzia, too, seemed more reserved than usual, watchful. As did Jamil, his eyes glittering as he glanced at the
others. Only the horses seemed unperturbed – and the mule, who cropped at the lush grass with an air of bored indifference.

Pyxeas, typically, showed no awareness of any of this tension. ‘Oh, I wish I had more light!’ he said, squinting at the oracle’s dials in the firelight. ‘But that of
course would ruin the seeing. Still, not long to go now, before the moon is snuffed out!’

Jamil glanced at the locals. ‘Play with that toy if you must. But keep it down, will you?’

‘Toy?’

Uzzia touched Pyxeas’ arm. ‘Hush, those men are alarmed about something, and we don’t want to scare them any further.’

‘Let them wallow in their superstitious fear. They are nothing. The eclipse is too significant, and I, Pyxeas, will capture it, and use it to determine my position on the curving belly of
the earth.’

Avatak could see that Uzzia was intrigued despite herself. ‘What are you talking about, scholar?’

‘Know that eclipses occur on particular days at precise hours, which can be calculated in advance – years in advance, at that. And that knowledge is encoded into the gears of my
oracle. You see? So I know an eclipse is due tonight – I know the exact time it will occur, by Northland’s clocks. Now, to determine my east-west position, all I have had to do is
observe the eclipse.

‘Here I have Avatak measuring the local time – the hour at this precise point. Suppose I see, from Avatak’s glass, that the eclipse happens at midnight for me, I mean some
particular aspect of it, the moon’s first entry into shadow, or the last exit. But the oracle tells me that the eclipse is scheduled for sunset at Etxelur, for example. Knowing the difference
between those two times, I can calculate my arc east-west around the world – do you see? As if I am using the world itself as a gigantic common clock.’

Jamil thought that over, frowned, and spat. ‘Lot of fuss to work out one tiny number.’

The scholar, predictably, grew angry. ‘But with such “tiny numbers” I, Pyxeas, map the heavens! Thus I know that eclipses happen, at full moon or new moon, just as the moon
crosses the sun’s path in the sky—’

‘Enough!’ Jamil clamped his hands to his ears. ‘You make my brain boil, old man.’

Uzzia glanced across at the bearers. ‘Our companions are looking fretful again. I think it is the scholar’s claim that he can predict the eclipse. As if he
controls
the moment
the moon is to be devoured by the wolf god, according to the local beliefs.’

‘But it is only a question of simple numbers—’

‘These men know nothing of your numbers, scholar. All they know is that their gods are angry with them. They must be, or else why would they send down drought and floods and rock falls and
tongues of ice? Now, perhaps they believe you are challenging the gods, angering them further. I think it would be better if you kept silent.’

‘Ah, but I’m not one for silence,’ the scholar said. He lifted his gaze from the oracle dials to the sky. ‘And as for the prediction—’ He pointed dramatically
to the sky. ‘There! It begins!’

Looking up, Avatak saw that a sliver had been cut out of the moon’s round dish, just a fingernail, sharp and distinct in the clear sky of this place. Avatak had been drilled for this
moment. He grabbed a stylus and began making a precise measurement of the time as recorded in the hourglass.

Pyxeas stood with a single lithe motion that belied his years, lifted his arms to the disappearing moon, laughed, and did a kind of jig of celebration – or desperation, Avatak thought, for
even now he thought he could see the bleakness hidden inside the old man’s bluff character.

But his antics were disturbing the rest of the party.

‘Sit down, you fool,’ hissed Uzzia.

Jamil muttered, ‘This isn’t good, this isn’t good.’

The other men were moving around them, dimly seen in the moonlight. Avatak put down his journal and stood up—

There was a tremendous slam, and the world fell away.

He was awake.

He was
alive.

He was lying on his back. He opened his eyes cautiously. He saw blue sky, the deep blue of morning. There was the moon, still full, still high though it was daylight. The eclipse must be over.
He had missed the moment of last shadow. Pyxeas would be furious. He tried to rise – but pain burst in his head, and he cried out. He managed to reach a sitting position, though the world
spun around him.

‘Take it easy.’ Somebody before him, a low, gentle voice. Uzzia. ‘Drink this.’

His vision seemed to pulse, as if his blood was pressing at his eyes. But he saw the mug before him, the glistening water. He took it, managed to lift it to his lips, drank. ‘What
happened?’

‘Well, you missed all the fun. Some protector you are. You didn’t even see the rock that knocked you down, did you? Good shot, actually.’

‘One of the men?’

‘No. A trader. That fellow Ogul. Never did trust him. At the moment of eclipse the locals went crazy. Ogul and his buddy took the chance to get rid of us, I think, and get their hands on
our stuff. Once you were down they rushed us, the traders and the bearers.’

He considered that. ‘Yet I’m alive.’

‘True enough.’

‘The scholar?’

‘Jamil saved him. Fought like a lion – Jamil, that is. Killed two of them before they overwhelmed him.’

Avatak had to work through this news step by step. ‘He’s dead. Jamil is dead.’

‘Yes. But he saved Pyxeas. Once Jamil was down they turned on me. I got rid of one – Ogul, actually, and good riddance – and I scared off the rest.’

‘How?’

‘I threw the oracle at them. It bounced off a fellow’s hard head and smashed to pieces.’

Avatak winced. ‘Pyxeas won’t like that.’

‘I’ll let you take the blame. The local men thought the god was broken, or something, and ran off for the horses. Pausing only to grab most of our goods.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘More or less.’

‘So we’ve lost Jamil. And the luggage?’

‘They took the blankets, clothing, trade goods, food, water, medicines. We still have the paper bundles, Pyxeas’ learning. So, we lost nothing important.’

Avatak actually laughed, but the pain in his head burst anew. ‘And no horses.’

‘No. But . . .’

Avatak heard a soft ripping sound. He turned and saw the mule cropping patiently, as if unaware of the devastation of the night.

‘They tried to take that mule. Kicked one of them so hard I’ll swear I heard a bone snap.’

Avatak laughed again. ‘So what now?’

‘Now we fix you up. We’ll put poor Jamil under a cairn.’

‘It will have to be a big cairn.’

‘He would have smiled to hear you say that. Then we’ll gather up what we’ve got left.’

‘And then what?’

‘And then on to Cathay,’ Pyxeas said. The scholar was sitting up, rubbing his head. ‘After all, there’s still a world to save. Well, don’t just sit there, boy, help
me up!’

Barmocar’s flotilla at last approached Carthage.

The passengers crowded on deck. The Carthaginians chattered excitedly, understandably glad to be coming home at last. The rest were more apprehensive, Rina observed, wondering what kind of
welcome waited for them in this formidable city.

From the ocean Rina could see little more than the blank face of a tremendous wall rising to seal off the shore, brilliant white in the watery sun. Behind the wall were low hills encrusted with
stone buildings. From one tall mound rose a slim pillar bearing the statue of a man, or a god, evidently a huge monument to be visible from so far away. The sea before this walled shore was crowded
with shipping; this close to land most of the ships had their sails trimmed, and she could see oars working along the length of their hulls.

The day was warm, though the sky was veiled by thin, misty cloud that softened the sunlight. This was the coast of Africa, she reminded herself. She had no idea what a ‘normal’
summer day here should feel like.

Pushing her windblown hair out of her face, Alxa pointed. ‘I think that pillar is at the top of the Byrsa, the old citadel. And the hero on the top is Hannibal, son of Hamilcar, conqueror
of Latium and saviour of Carthage.’

Nelo was silent, withdrawn, adding cramped little drawings to the corners of his overfull sketchbook. Alxa was more alive, Rina thought. Interested, engaged. ‘How do you know so much,
child?’

‘Because while you spent the journey sulking in our cabin, and my brother here has been scribbling, scribbling, I’ve been talking to people. Especially the Carthaginians. Finding out
stuff. Learning the language. Don’t you think it’s a good idea, if we’re going to spend the rest of our lives here?’

Of course it was. The problem for Rina was that she had lived all her life in a stratum of Northland society where people had been expected to learn
her
language, not the other way
around.

Nelo just stared at the city blankly. ‘It is a great stone tomb,’ he said. ‘Dead, where Northland was alive. It will swallow us up like a sarcophagus.’

Rina said, ‘We will find a way. You’ll see.’ On impulse she took his hand.

He looked at her, surprised. She wasn’t the kind of mother to make such gestures. He withdrew, gently, and there was an awkward silence.

Alxa just laughed and turned away. The boat sailed on.

They came to the entrance of the harbour. This close the white facade of the sea walls was dazzling, but Rina noticed a few blackened scars, the relics of the war and banditry that blighted the
age. The walls’ smooth surface looked like grow- stone: Northland engineering, probably, Etxelur growstone laid over an older core; everybody knew that Northlanders mixed the best growstone
in the world, and much revenue had been earned for the country by hiring out its expertise for such projects. The harbour mouth, a break in the walls, was guarded by a gigantic chain of which
only a few links showed above the surface, ready to be pulled up to block the way. The chain was fixed to elaborate structures on which stood lighthouses, tremendously tall, with polished mirrors
like staring eyes.

The harbour, once they entered it, was huge, overwhelming, like an inland sea lined by wharfs and jetties and warehouses and enclosed by the towering walls. The ships on the water were dwarfed,
toys in a pond. At the far end, a gap in the walls led to yet another harbour, perhaps even greater than this one, lined by a kind of circular terrace, two or three storeys tall, topped by shining
red tiles.

‘That one beyond is the military harbour,’ Alxa murmured. ‘One of the wonders of the world. So the Carthaginians say.’

Barmocar’s flotilla pulled up at jetties on the left-hand side of the outer commercial harbour. Rina saw elements of design in the utilitarian architecture, a touch of style, a portico
supported by slim columns that ran the entire length of the waterfront. As Barmocar’s boat reached a jetty an official approached, bearing a slate. He wore a long black robe and a mask over
his mouth. Barmocar disembarked and greeted the official with a smile and a formalised embrace.

‘Plague,’ Rina said. ‘They’re worried about plague, even here.’

Alxa, hanging over the rail, struggled to hear what Barmocar was saying. ‘The man wants us to wait on the ships. We may have to stand off at sea. For seven days! That can’t be
right.’

Nelo said, ‘They want to wait and see if we’re infected with anything. It’s sensible if you’re trying to protect a city.’

Another seven days on the ship! After the trials of the journey, that would finish her off, Rina thought.

But Barmocar and the man were smiling, and Rina saw Barmocar hand the official a small pouch of purple cloth.

Alxa raised her eyebrows at her mother. ‘Well, we won’t be held up.’

Rina smiled. ‘You’re getting terribly cynical for one so young.’

‘That’s stupid,’ Nelo said, visibly unhappy. ‘That man’s supposed to protect the city from disease! What use is he if he’s just going to let through anybody
who waves a bit of money?’

Rina was an Annid; she had plenty of practical experience of petty corruption. ‘Nelo, don’t worry. It’s just a rule being bent. If they were seriously concerned about plague
here that man wouldn’t be doing what he’s doing. He’d be thinking about his own family, his own safety – he probably wouldn’t let us land at all. Now come on,
let’s get our stuff together before we’re thrown off the boat . . .’