‘First of all there was the Rus. I can tell you this, it’s Palla who’s been the leader among the priests in our dealings with them. He’s worth ten of that flabby drunken fool Angulli. And then this business of the great walk. As soon as I floated the idea, he was immediately able to come up with the analogy with Jesus. He’s a sharp man, for all his mild looks — a man who knows how to use his religion for the good. I think he could be priceless in the months, the years to come. But you have his life in your hands, and he knows it.
‘I understand how you feel. Well, I don’t, it’s never happened to me. You want him dead. And you know what — I want him dead, in a way. Cheating on a serving soldier is despicable. But look, Kassu, you’ve done your duty in the past. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Not just in the lines, but taking on your farm too. If we had a thousand like you maybe we wouldn’t have to move at all. Now I’m asking you to think about your duty again, before you decide what to do about the priest.’ He stepped back. ‘All right? Good man.’ He clapped Kassu on the shoulder, and turned to walk back to the pavilion.
Kassu had to ask one question. ‘Sir — will the walk happen? Will we leave Hattusa? Has it been decided?’
Himuili looked back at him. ‘Ah. If we don’t have to walk you’ll be free to get the priest topped. Is that what you’re thinking? We resolved to wait until the spring. If it looks like a good season, we’ll stay and make the best of it. If it’s bad. .’ He grinned. ‘I suppose Palla will be praying to Jesus for the snow. Now get on with it.’
‘Thank you, sir-’
‘Shut up.’
TWO
22
The Second Year of the Longwinter: Spring Equinox
All across the northern lands people watched for the end of a terrible winter. The scholars examined their almanacs, the farmers eked out the last of their stores, the hunters prepared for the migration of the animals they preyed on, and the warriors sharpened their blades in advance of the new campaign season.
But this year was to be like none that had gone before, not for ten thousand years. This year the growing masses of ice on land and sea, cloaked with cold air, would significantly divert the currents of air and moisture that flowed over them. This year the spring winds would not come from the balmy south-west, but from the chill north. There was a spring equinox. The planet’s orbital geometry mandated it. But there was no spring.
As the cold endured, all across the northern hemisphere, people began to look to the warm, to the south. Only to find, usually, that there was already somebody there.
23
The river rose, and rose. Walks In Mist, standing by the warehouse, drenched by the rain that had lashed down for days, watched in astonishment as the cargo ship lifted on the rising water until it stood high over its jetty.
This was the busiest inland port on the greatest river in the continent of the Sky Wolf. She had goods on that boat, cotton, a load of copper brought up from the south. She was supposed to be signing for them. The unloading hadn’t even begun. And still the ship rose up, as the river swelled with run-off. People stood around laughing at the sight. Even on the ship itself the crew were laughing, standing by the rail, watching the world descend beneath them. One man mockingly clambered on the rail, arms spread wide in the rain. Every one of them was soaked to the skin, dark hair plastered flat, clothing heavy with the wet; she couldn’t hear their voices over the hiss of the rain in the standing water.
Walks In Mist had never seen such a sight. She had an odd, sharp memory, of sitting in a bar in the Northland Wall with her friends, with Xipuhl and Sabela, both of them far away now. A midsummer evening when the wind had turned chill, and people had laughed at that too.
Now, with a great creak of strained wood, the ship tipped. The laughter grew uncertain.
The man who had been clowning on the rail fell. Tumbled in the air, arms waving as if he was trying to swim. Hit the jetty with a sound like a sack of meat dropped onto growstone. Didn’t move.
For a heartbeat people stood there, shocked to silence. Then some of the bystanders ran forward.
And behind them the ship tilted further, rolling out of its basin towards the dock. The strain on the hull was increasing: wood groaned, and ropes parted with a crack. The people who had gone to help the fallen man moved back, uncertain. A main mast snapped like a toothpick.
Walks In Mist saw what was to come, with terrible clarity.
She ran from the river, through the rain. She jumped back on her cart and ordered the driver to take her home, fast. The llamas trotted away, bleating in complaint at the rain that lashed into their eyes.
Behind her, wood cracked noisily, and there was a groan like a falling giant, and screams. Walks In Mist did not look back.
Her family home was just outside the great wall that contained the heart of the River City, a ceremonial district studded with holy mounds. The house was small and neat with a steep, thatched roof, and plastered walls painted red and white. Walks In Mist had always liked its modesty; it was far more expensive, far more well built than its deceptively simple design would suggest. But this spring the small fenced garden was coated with the dust that had blown in during the long summers of drought. The solitary chestnut tree was withered. The plasterwork was faded by the relentless sun of the drought years, and stained by windblown dust.
And now, the rain had come. Walks In Mist had lived in this place all her life. She knew the weather. Every summer it rained; every summer the rivers rose — every normal summer anyhow. But the summers had been dry for years. Now, at last, the rain came, but this was spring, not summer, and never had she known such rain.
The River City was close to the confluence of several great rivers, including the mighty Trunk that ran all the way to the ocean in the south. The city’s wealth came from the rivers and the trade goods they brought through this place, copper and mother of pearl from the south, buffalo and elk hide from the north, more exotic goods from over the oceans. But anybody who had grown up here knew that the rivers were also a danger, when the rain came heavily. And the rain had never been as heavy as this.
She approached the house at last. Through a curtain of rain she could see the Mountain of the Gods looming beyond — not a mountain at all, of course, but man-made, the greatest of more than a hundred mounds in the ceremonial district, an artificial mountain built on a flood plain to celebrate the divine generosity that had produced such a rich country as this. The view of the Mountain of the Gods inside its walled compound was one of the house’s best features. But today water was pouring down the mound’s stepped slopes, and as she watched a chunk of one face broke away, disintegrating. Flood-plain clay was not an ideal material for building mounds, she had once learned from a visiting Northlander engineer; now he was proven right.
The cart pulled up by the house. She told the driver to wait, and ran to the door. Her children were both inside, she found to her relief, Bear Claw and Yellow Moon, fifteen and ten. They were playing chess on the cotton carpet, with the expensive set she had brought back from Northland last year. The rain hammered on the thatch roof.
‘Where’s your father?’
Yellow Moon glanced up, her pretty face pulled into its usual pout. They had named the child for the colour of the moon in the dry, dust-storm spring in which she had been born. ‘Out,’ the girl said. ‘Mother, you’re dripping on the carpet.’