Iron Winter (Northland 3) (28 page)

It was a relief for Avatak to let the saddle-soreness seep out of his thighs. But he found it impossible to sleep indoors, in a box of mud. Something in him was drawn back to the huge emptiness
of the desert, and perhaps always would be. So he crept out of the house, to a small kitchen garden at the back, and laid out his roll under the stars.

The second night Uzzia came out to find him there. She crouched over him, her smile shadowed. ‘You’ve got an invitation.’

‘From who?’

‘From the woman in the house next door. Or rather, her husband. I know you’ve noticed her – she’s noticed you.’

Avatak knew who she meant. The woman, a good few years older than him, was taller, stockier than most in this country. She had a strong face with a sly grin, and broad hips, and a bust that was
heavy, if not firm. She filled her robes well as she went about her chores.

‘I know how that type appeals to young men like you. An older woman, evidently fertile, knows her way around a bed – seems to draw the seed out of you just by looking at
you.’

‘What does she want with me?’

‘What do you think?’

‘But you said, the husband—’

‘It is their way, in this country,’ she said. ‘To invite travellers into the beds of the women. This is a small place and isolated; there are probably people here who will live
and die never travelling as far as the next village. This is their way to make babies who are not the cousins of everybody else. Do you see?’

‘Oh.’

‘You would be doing them a favour. You will be asked to leave a token, a present, to prove that the deed has been done.’ She sighed. ‘I remember when you would be asked for a
flower, a bit of cheap jewellery. Now they ask for food, which changes the whole nature of the transaction, doesn’t it? But these are harder times. Well. We have the food, or can buy it. What
do you say?’

He thought about the woman, and felt a warm pressure in his loins. But he thought of his betrothed, and his lover, in far countries. And he glanced up at the cold, unmoving stars.

‘What’s wrong? Are you missing your betrothed?’

‘Not that.’ He lacked the language to express how he felt. ‘The desert.’

‘Hmm. I’ve seen this before. All right. But better to lose your soul between the thighs of a woman than to the emptiness out there. I will say you’re ill, so nobody’s
feelings are hurt. May I give her the food anyway?’

‘If you wish.’

‘Of course in
my
arms she would explode like a Northlander emptor. But I cannot give her a baby, and, for this one night, that is my deepest regret. Goodnight, Coldlander.’
She bent, kissed his forehead, and passed into the night.

So they moved on, leaving behind fearful guards and wombs not impregnated, and with a fresh horse, new blankets and saddles, and their surly mule trotting behind.

They headed ever east, into the Mongol empire.

Avatak’s feet, and his arse when he rode the horse, noted the better surface of the trail here, a straight and narrow track that arrowed to the east. But Pyxeas bewailed its condition.
‘This is one of the Khan’s post roads. He united his empire, and all of Asia, with roads straight and fast and true so that messengers could cross a continent as fast as a thought
crackles through your small head, Coldlander. Look at it now! Covered in dust from this desiccating farmland all around, and with the trees cut down – mighty trees they were, purposefully
planted along the route so a rider could never lose his way no matter what the weather – cut down for some peasant’s firewood, no doubt!’

The deeper they walked into Cathay the more densely it was farmed. But workers thin as shadows toiled at dried-up fields, there was only a scattering of green even though the harvest must soon
be due, and the bare ground was turning to dust that blew over the roads.

And, in the middle of the farming country, they came upon Mongol camps. These were not princes of Daidu and Karakorum, or traders, or border guards; these were common folk, herders like their
ancestors, with their horses and a few cows and fat-tailed sheep. They lived in yurts, battered houses with their door flaps all set to face the sun at midday, like rows of shabby flowers.

The travellers stopped one night, close to an extensive camp. The nomads showed respect for the
paiza
of the Khan, and the travellers were invited to stay in a yurt, but they declined,
wary of imposing on what might be a fragile hospitality. They sat by their own small fire, eating a bit of mutton and sheep’s tail they had been given by the Mongols, and watched the
conquerors of the world at play. The adults wore colourful clothes, trousers, tunics and hats. Their children ran around and shouted and fought as children always did. They seemed to have slaves,
plenty of them, skinny-looking folk of Cathay who went barefoot. Mostly the slaves cooked and cleaned, but Avatak glimpsed one girl writing something down, as dictated by her owner. As the night
drew in the adults gathered in a circle and danced, and sang, and passed around cups of drink and smoky pipes.

Pyxeas grunted. ‘This dancing, the pipes and the strong stuff they seem to be drinking – this is the old culture, when spirit men would talk to their sky god and the ninety-nine
junior deities he controlled. The spirits of the deep steppe, coming back again. When times are hard, people go back to what they know best. The Mongols own half the world, but even they are in
thrall to the weather.’

He was dismissive. But something in the way the Mongols celebrated their evening reminded Avatak of home, his own people, nomads too. He said nothing.

‘Once they would not have been here at all,’ Uzzia said. ‘They would have driven their herds to the summer pasture in the hills; it must be too cold up there this year. And
they would not have camped in farmland at all; this is not the steppe. But the land is so dry – it is as if the steppe itself is shifting south, and driving the people with it. There will be
conflict. Probably there is already. The farmers will lose, of course.’

‘And the city dwellers, in the short term,’ Pyxeas said. ‘But in the long term everybody will lose, when the Mongol empire turns on itself. Once, you know, a khan threatened to
obliterate Cathay altogether, and use the land to pasture his herds. Perhaps in time to come – and not very far in the future – that promise will at last be fulfilled. But the irony is
that nomadic herders will be far better suited to the conditions that will prevail than city folk, than civilisation.’

‘If war is coming to this place we must press on to Daidu.’

‘Mmm,’ said Pyxeas. ‘And will we find safety there?’

In the morning they moved on once more, working their way ever further east, passing towns and villages and more dried-out farmland. They had to use the scholar’s
paiza
to get past more layers of guards, more walls thrown across the roads, even this deep into the heart of the country.

Gradually the road grew busier, and Avatak noticed that much of the traffic was heading the same way they were, eastward – traders and merchants with wagons full of goods, but an
increasing number of ordinary folk, adults with children, old folk riding carts, horses heaped with furniture on their backs, even rolls of carpet. Nestspills, folk from failed farms or imploded
towns, all heading, Avatak supposed, in search of the succour of the emperor.

And at last, late one morning, they crested a rise and faced the formidable walls of Daidu.

Pyxeas leaned down from the mule’s back and murmured to Avatak, ‘Coldlander, to reach this place you and I have travelled almost a third of the world’s arc.
And
we got
here before the equinox – just. Quite an achievement.’

Uzzia snorted. ‘Just remember this mule has come almost as far, and he’s not bragging about it. Come now, let’s see if your magic
paiza
will get us through this last set
of gates.’ She gave the mule’s stirrup a tug, and let the animal lead the way towards the city.

The Second Year of the Longwinter: Autumn Equinox

At the Wall, more snow had fallen overnight, and indeed it was still falling as the morning broke.

Thaxa needed to see Ontin, to ask him to come treat some fishermen caught by the cold. The doctor’s lodge was only a short walk down the Etxelur Way from the Wall, but Thaxa wasn’t
going to try it until the snow eased. So he made himself comfortable in the linen shop that fronted his Wall-front home. He told his servant, Moerx, to let the fire in the hearth die down a little.
You were always aware of the need to save fuel, even kindling. The shop cooled quickly, and he wrapped himself up in layers, leggings and trousers and waterproofs, a couple of tunics and a heavy
sealskin coat, three layers of socks over which he would later pull his hide boots. Then he sat in a window seat in his house’s south-facing wall, and looked out, watching the snow fall.

The house was in one of the most prized neighbourhoods in Greater Etxelur. A modern stone structure backing onto chambers cut into the face of the Wall itself, it directly faced the big, rich
estates that in this age encrusted the old earthwork called the Door to the Mothers’ House – and of course, being south-facing, it was blessed with good light for much of the day. Rina
had always loved this house. It was a legacy of a favourite uncle and a place she had often visited as a child. She had spent an inordinate amount of time and money on it to make it a home for
their two children as they had grown, as well as an establishment suitable for one of the richest and most powerful couples in Etxelur. Yet it had been a lonely place for Thaxa this summer, since
his family had gone south.

Well, that had been the deal they had struck back in the spring, he and Rina, during those difficult, sleepless, guilt-ridden nights. She would get the children to safety; he would stay behind
and help prepare the Wall and Etxelur and all of Northland for the difficult days to come. That was the deal, a compromise between their primal need to protect their children and their wider duty.
Rina was, after all, an Annid. And if the weather didn’t let up next year, if Rina couldn’t come home, then Thaxa would make his own way south to join her. But after the summer
they’d had here, and now the horribly early winter, Thaxa was starting to wonder what would be left of the world by the spring, and whether he would ever be able to get as far as
Carthage.

And still the snow fell, big fat flakes of it from an eerie sky, a sky that glowed with a kind of silver light. Perhaps it looked so odd because the autumn sunlight was strong; he was used to
snow in the low light of midwinter, not at this time of year. He had loved snow as a boy, for it had been rare then. Close to the Wall snow would often not fall at all, for the great bulk of
growstone blocked the northern winds, and its heat warmed the land at its foot. Experts like Pyxeas said the Wall created its own weather. Yes, once he had loved the snow, when it was a rare treat.
Now he hated it, like the rest of Northland, he suspected. The only consolation was that the chill was never too deep while the snow was actually falling. It was in the clear nights between the
snowfalls that the cold really bit deep, and walls could crack and windows frost up and the piss in your night pot would freeze over, and old people and little babies would die in their beds.

Finally the snow relented, the fall dwindling to a few scattered flakes, that odd silvery glow fading from the sky. Thaxa dragged on his boots, checked the bone toggles on his coat, pulled up
his hood, stuffed his hands in his mittens, and opened the door. The new fall, about as deep as his kneecaps, came spilling into the house. He kept a snow shovel behind the door, an expensive tool
made from the scapula of a deer and an ash pole. He got to work shifting the snow from the doorway, lifting rough blocks of snow on the blade and dumping them to either side. It wasn’t so
difficult this time; this particular deposit of snow was powdery, and it was easy to slide in the blade. They were all getting used to the different kinds of snow that could fall depending on
minute differences in temperature and the dampness of the air. The worst kind was the slushy wet stuff that clung to your blade; that could be like shifting wet sand. But however it fell, if you
didn’t clear it, it would consolidate, setting at last to a layer of white ice over the hard ground, lumpy, hummocky stuff treacherously slick underfoot and hard as rock if you tried to break
it up.

As he worked, falling into a now-familiar routine of scoop and throw, scoop and throw, being careful to favour his back, he warmed up quickly, and he loosened the toggles of his coat. Of course
many of his neighbours left this sort of thing to the staff, but Thaxa liked to pitch in. For one thing he only had old Moerx as a permanent servant. And besides, this was Etxelur, not a land of
princes and rulers like Carthage or Hatti – a land of equals, in theory at least. But he tired quickly, he always did; there was never enough to eat, not even for the husband of an Annid,
never enough coal in the engine.

He didn’t have far to dig, however. There were already parties out clearing the Wall Way, the main road that ran along the foot of the Wall, men and women with shovels like his, their
voices oddly deadened by the blanket of snow. A team of bony horses, a rare sight in Northland, dragged a heavy blade that cleared great swathes of snow, dumping it in dirty banks by the road, just
as it was heaped up alongside all the main drags in Northland. All these people were out working for the state, back-breaking labour in return for a dole of salted fish and perhaps a little frozen
peat for the family fire.

He was relieved to see a guard patrol walking slowly along the road, bundled in fur-lined cloaks. Crime wasn’t as bad as it had been, the harsh penalties imposed by the Water Council
during the summer had seen to that, but there was always somebody desperate enough to loot an abandoned property for food, firewood, warm clothing, even snow shovels.

When he had cleared a path to the road he put his shovel back in the house, locked the door carefully, and followed the cleared road towards the heart of Etxelur, making for the junction to the
north-south Etxelur Way. The Wall itself loomed over him. Ice clung to buttresses and balconies, and gigantic icicles dangled. After every snowfall there were unusual forms, sculpted drifts, shapes
strange and unexpected, created by the wind swirling around the Wall’s complex frontage. The world was full of complexity, Thaxa thought, of pointless beauty that came out of nowhere, from
falling snow and moving masses of air and a growstone wall. Nelo’s artistic eye might have been caught by these strange winter visions. But there were uglier sights too, great scars in the
growstone core where the frost had got into it. It had been a long time since it had been safe to send up repair crews, and even when they tried the growstone wouldn’t mix or set properly in
the cold.