‘Where did he go? Did he say?’
‘He might have gone to the fields.’ The family owned stretches of the maize fields around the central city.
She heard a noise now, beyond the hiss of the rain. A dull roar, like the breaking of a wave on an ocean shore. It was a sound she had grown used to in Northland, but in River City, in the heart of the continent the Northlanders called the Land of the Sky Wolf, she could not be further from the ocean.
‘Up,’ she snapped. ‘On your feet.’
‘What?’
‘We’re leaving, now.’
‘After the game,’ said Yellow Moon.
‘Now!’ Walks In Mist grabbed her hand and hauled her to her feet. ‘For once will you do as you’re told?’
The girl started to cry.
Bear Claw got to his feet, eyes wide. He was tall for his age, with a fine black stripe painted down the centre of his face. ‘You’re frightening her.’
‘Good. Come on.’
Bear Claw followed slowly. ‘What about our stuff? I’ll get our cloaks-’
‘No!’ And she took his hand too, and dragged them both out through the door.
Outside the rain still fell hard and vertical, and that roaring noise was louder, coming from the north. People were emerging from their houses to see, curious, some in hooded cloaks, most with bare heads, all peering to the north, shouting questions to each other.
Walks In Mist thanked the gods of sky and earth that the cart was still there, that the miserable-looking driver hadn’t driven away, or run off. She shoved her children aboard, and clambered up herself. ‘Go,’ she snapped at the driver.
‘Where to?’
‘That way!’ She pointed. ‘South! Just drive south, as fast as you can.’
The cart rolled off, the wheels sticking in the muddy ground. They made faster progress once they were on the hardtop main track. They hurried south, heading for the open fields away from the ceremonial district, clattering past more neat houses, mounds bearing shrines and gifts for the deities. People were leaving now, grabbing bundles of possessions, dragging children, pulling cloaks over their shoulders, loading carts. Soon, Walks In Mist feared, all fifteen thousand people in the town, said to be the largest city in the Continent, would be fleeing, or trying to. Probably most would leave it too late. She wished she knew where her husband was.
And now Bear Claw pointed back, the rain running down his face. ‘Look!’
Water was breaking over the city’s northern wall. It spilled across the flat countryside, pink and muddy, washing around the holy mounds. Walks In Mist saw people fleeing, crying out, falling before its advance. Swarming like ants, before the water that rushed over them.
Walks In Mist clung to her daughter, who had been crying since being taken away from her chess game. ‘Go,’ she yelled at the driver. ‘Go, go!’
24
It was still snowing on the morning of Rina’s appointment with the Carthaginian noble Barmocar, in his apartment in Old Etxelur. She walked alone to the old town, with a hood over her head. She’d tried to keep this assignation secret. She was, after all, intending to betray her fellow Annids, cousin Ywa, and most of her family.
As she walked the snow fell steadily, as it had for days, not like the Autumn Blizzard and the storms that had followed, but a slow, unending, dispiriting fall that gathered relentlessly on the ground. Her cloak wrapped close, she passed workers laboriously clearing away yet another night’s fall from the paths. You could see where the new snow was piled up on top of the old, some of which, dirty and layered with muck, hadn’t melted since the early autumn.
When she reached Old Etxelur she looked back at the Wall, where people were working steadily to repair the damage the winter had done. The Hall of Annids was a huge wreck on its rows of supporting pillars, open to the air. All across the Wall, vast sections had been abandoned as people retreated to core areas and revived older, more robust systems, digging out chimneys, repairing ancient rainfall-trap water supply systems. This was spring! They had all waited for the equinox, and marked the end of winter with lavish celebrations — well, as lavish as possible. And all it had brought was yet more snow, yet more cold, as if the world itself had lost its way.
She turned, pulled her cloak tighter, and walked on.
In the anteroom to his lavish rented apartment in Old Etxelur, Barmocar received her graciously enough. His wife Anterastilis was at his side, the two of them resplendent in purple cloaks. The household was in turmoil, however, as the merchant prince’s servants packed everything up in preparation for the long trip back to Carthage, postponed for half a year since Barmocar had been caught by the early snow, like so many others.
He was clearly surprised when she asked him to dismiss his servants, and more surprised when she made her blunt request.
He actually laughed. ‘You’re serious. You want me to take you to Carthage. You, and who else?’
‘Just my children — the twins, Nelo and Alxa, you know them.’ This of course meant the abandonment of the rest of her extended family. Ywa herself was a distant cousin. But to take more would have been like pulling a thread; the whole tapestry would unravel. No, just herself and her children, for now. Not even Thaxa, her husband, would come, not this time; he would follow later, they had agreed. And if things changed — well, the future would have to take care of itself.
‘And when we get to Carthage, we will take you into our home.’ Anterastilis was a heavy, expensively coiffed woman. Her Northlander was stilted, but her tone was sharp as an icicle. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’
Rina squirmed; the woman was clearly enjoying this, and was going to make her suffer. ‘Perhaps initially. Give us somewhere we can live, at least at first. A start in your society. Work for my children, a place for me.’
Anterastilis actually laughed at her now. ‘“A place.” You could join the Tribunal of One Hundred and Four, perhaps!’
‘I can pay my way-’
‘Perhaps you can. Perhaps not.’ Barmocar turned to his wife. ‘My dear, you made a note of what this lady of Northland said to me at the Giving last year. Would you mind reading it back? You know the part I mean.’
Anterastilis took a piece of paper from a desk and unrolled it carefully. ‘“Good Prince Barmocar, I am confused. This tale of woe you recite — are you here to beg for bounty? Begging like these others, the Franks and Germans and the rest, these ‘poor rudimentary farmers’, as I have heard you describe them? And a bounty from us, whom I have heard you describe as ‘a thin godless smear of ignorance and incompetence on an undeveloped landscape’?’”
‘I recall what was said,’ Rina said precisely.
‘Then you recall mocking me. In front of the Giving gathering — in front of the whole world.’ He did not sound angry, merely analytical.
She didn’t bother to deny it.
‘And now you sit before me, begging me for shelter.’
‘I do not beg. I can pay you for your trouble. It will be worth your while.’
‘Are we to haggle, as if over a box of your disgusting salted fish? Tell me, then. Tell me what you have that I could possibly covet.’
‘My family owns extensive lands in Northland. Also properties in New Etxelur, and in the Wall. Many of these are in my own name. I could transfer-’
Again he laughed, cutting her off. ‘Madam, I am not the fool you take me for. You are abandoning Northland yourself! What value do you imagine your property has?’
‘Other forms of wealth, then. Gold. Silver.’ In fact she hadn’t expected him to take property, and had already been converting some of her holdings into portable wealth — at ruinous prices, for she wasn’t the only one with the same idea.
Now he nodded. ‘Well, that’s a start. You can discuss precise quantities with my clerk later.’ He leaned forward. ‘But the world is full of gold and silver, madam. What else can you offer me? Something special. Something unique.’ And, even though his wife sat right beside him, he allowed his gaze to wander over her body.