Rina snorted laughter. ‘Everybody in New Hattusa says they’re of the royal line.’
‘Perhaps they are,’ Uzzia said evenly. ‘Our dynasty, my family, is thousands of years old, the only dynasty ever to have ruled the Hatti empire. After so long, yes, perhaps every Hatti save the slaves has royal blood. But in my case, the divergence from the root stock is only a few generations back. My grandmother was Tawananna, which is a word that means senior queen. She was pushed aside by enemies at court. We remember, my family.’
‘And you would have your place back,’ Rina said, sneering.
Uzzia kept her gaze on Pyxeas. ‘You say you are a man of learning. I have read history, and I have learned the story of a previous Tawananna, called Kilushepa, who more than two thousand years ago was pivotal in a stratagem that saved the Hatti, and indeed Northland.’
Rina frowned. ‘You speak of the Trojan Invasion. Yes, Northland was saved. Yes, otherwise my ancestors would have been enslaved, Northland ploughed up for crops. But we were saved through a terrible act we call the Black Crime. It is a history that shames us.’
‘Then you should be glad your ancestors were stronger-minded than you are, madam, or you would not be here to indulge in that shame. As for the Hatti, we venerate Kilushepa. She is remembered as a hero; she made the Hatti great again, where we might have been forgotten. Erased. And at her side was a warrior princess called Mi, said to have been a Northlander. Imagine that!’
‘And you want to be a new Kilushepa — is that it?’
‘Not that. But the Hatti kings have little contact with Cathay. Who knows what might come of such a venture, especially at times like this? Ambition is easily mocked, but times of crisis are also times of opportunity. What one must do is to seize that opportunity when it comes along. And I sense,’ she said, turning to Pyxeas, ‘that in you that opportunity might have come knocking on my door.’
Pyxeas smiled. ‘On Xavu’s door, strictly speaking.’
‘Now your turn,’ she said bluntly. ‘You are an old man, yet you want to make a journey halfway around this hazardous world of ours. You must want to achieve something very badly.’
‘I do.’
‘Tell me what that is.’
And he began to speak of the weather.
Avatak recognised Uzzia’s expression; she was like a student struggling to keep up in one of Pyxeas’ classes. ‘And why must you go to Daidu to pursue this?’
‘Because the scholars in Cathay — and they have managed to continue their work under the Mongol dynasty — have been making complementary studies to mine. Measurements of other aspects of the world, the atmosphere — oh, it is too much to explain without my scrolls! Suffice it to say that I believe that putting together my studies with the science of Cathay, specifically of a scholar called Bolghai with whom I have corresponded-’
Uzzia held up a hand. ‘Tell it more simply. Tell me why you want to go to Daidu. The real reason, the core of it.’
He thought for a moment, baffled by the question.
Avatak said, ‘He wants to save the world.’
They were all staring at him, Rina open-mouthed, Pyxeas oddly moist-eyed.
And Uzzia — Uzzia was excited. The Hatti woman leaned forward. ‘When can you leave?’
‘Mad,’ Rina said. ‘You’re all mad. Do you have any more of that mulled wine? The sooner I’m back home in Etxelur the better, though the mothers only know what the weather must be like there. .’
14
For Crimm, as for most people, the day of the Autumn Blizzard started normally, like any other day With no warning of what was to come.
That morning, when Crimm got to the dock on the Wall’s ocean face, Ayto, his navigator, was already waiting, with, Crimm counted, only two missing of the Sabet’s ten-man crew, their gear at their feet, a heap of provisions on the growstone ledge beside them. Not a bad turnout for a blustery, blowy autumn morning. At least there hadn’t been any frost, for once, and up here the growstone footing was always sound.
The Sabet herself looked solid enough, but she had had to be tied up outside the shelter of her berth, a deep notch cut into the Wall growstone, for the level of the sea had now dropped so much that she would have grounded at low tide if they’d tried to take her in. The engineers were talking about hacking into the growstone to deepen the berths, but that was only worth doing if the sea level wasn’t going to rise again — or indeed if it didn’t fall further. Well, Sabet had brought Crimm and the crew, and Uncle Pyxeas, safely back across a berg-strewn sea from Coldland, and had been out almost daily in the months since then. Crimm would have been happier if she could have had a spell in dry dock, but it had been a tough summer, and Northland needed as much cod as could be hauled in, so here they were. This morning, in fact, most of the fleet was already out on the deep ocean.
Ayto, bundled up in a heavy fur, was glaring out to sea. He was over forty years old, about five years older than Crimm, and his face, weathered, scarred by his years on the ocean as well as his boisterous life on land, was crumpled with suspicion. Crimm, respecting Ayto’s experience, stood by him, inspecting sea and sky. The ocean was the colour of steel, flecked with white where it churned under the wind. Waves broke against the impassive Wall, throwing up spumes of spray over the fishermen. The wind itself, coming straight from the north, was not exactly warm, though not as cold as it had been. But the northern horizon was obscured by mist and a bank of thick grey-black cloud that seemed to churn as Crimm watched.
Ayto moistened a finger and lifted it to the wind. ‘Northerly. Wet.’
‘Yes.’ Crimm looked up. There was an odd, translucent quality to the air, something silver about the light. ‘That’s a snow sky, I think. Early for snow. Not even a month after the equinox!’
Ayto shrugged. ‘Not unheard of. It’s been a funny year from start to finish, thanks to your uncle’s famous longwinter, no doubt.’
‘We’re not going out in that.’
Ayto nodded curtly. ‘Let’s make her secure and get into the warm. At least that’s what I’ll be doing. While you’ll be getting into your famous Annid of Annids.’
‘You’re just coarse. Jealous, and coarse.’
Ayto laughed.
So they called the crew together, those who had turned up, and they got to work on the boat, taking down the two big sails and the main mast, lashing her tight to her berth. They worked fast and efficiently, a competent team. Much of this drill was what they’d go through if a storm approached at sea.
And then, quite suddenly, the first snowflakes came billowing out of the northern sky, big, moist, sticky. The snow clung to the men’s furs and their beards, falling so thick and fast that it quickly started building up on the decking and the berth. The wind picked up, becoming colder, and ice coalesced on the rigging. Crimm worked on, the snow blasting in his face, hands rubbing raw as he hauled at the thick rope, debating whether to dig his heavy mittens out of his coat.
It was universally agreed that the single most spectacular location on the Iron Way east of Northland, if you discounted the run along the parapet of the Wall itself, was the viaduct that spanned the great estuary of the World River. On this viaduct now, heading back west towards Northland, Alxa could peer out of the thick glass windows of her cabin and look north over the ocean, or south over the mighty river itself, its broad body studded with shipping, its banks clustered with docks and towns, the country beyond incised with fields and drainage ditches. But this morning Alxa couldn’t appreciate the view at all.
For one thing the caravan had been stuck here for an hour, right in the middle of the viaduct. The officer who had come to check on her steam-fuelled heating box had told her that the engineers had decided to stop and fit snowblades. Snowblades, this early in the season! What a waste of time — so she’d thought. And yet she had to admit the engineers had been right, for even while the caravan had been waiting the clouds had bubbled up from the north, and the first big fat flakes had come swirling in to slap against the small panes of her windows.