Xree and Ywa spoke of efforts to find fuel sources in the Wall itself and its environs. Even the wooden frames of buildings like this house of Thaxa’s might be sacrificed, the inhabitants taken into the growstone womb of the Wall. The Wall would have to consume itself to stay alive, thought Thaxa.
‘Then there’s the problem of the Archive,’ Xree said.
Ayto looked puzzled. ‘The Archive?’
‘It is rather exposed,’ Ywa said. ‘It is housed in chambers built into the forward face of the Wall. It was done that way, by our predecessors two centuries ago, to provide a light and airy environment for the scholars to work in. Now we’re working through a programme of moving the Archive back into older housing deeper within the Wall, the growstone core.’
Xree said brightly, ‘And we’re taking the opportunity to convert some of the more fragile records to permanent forms. On baked clay for instance.’
Ayto leaned forward in his chair. ‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this.’
Crimm said warningly, ‘Ayto-’
‘People are starving, freezing to death, dying out on the sea, all over. And you’re worried that your famous Archive might get a bit of damp?’
Xree bristled. ‘The Archive is at the centre of our cultural identity.’
‘Will you have folk eat words?’
Crimm sighed. ‘Take it easy, man.’
Ayto looked at him sternly. Then he said, ‘Can I have a word with you?’
Crimm hesitated. Then he stood, nodding apologies to the Annids, to Thaxa. The two fishermen left the room.
Xree and Ywa talked on about their Archive project. And Ontin, the doctor, spoke slowly and patiently to Aranx, who, realising he was going to lose a limb, was beginning to weep.
Ayto led Crimm through a smaller, windowless parlour that ran off from the back of the room they’d been in, took an oil lamp from the wall, and then went on through another dusty door, down a darkened passageway, and into another sitting room, or office. There was a desk piled with curling paper, a smell of must and dust, and an unlit hearth like a gaping black mouth.
‘I did some exploring back here earlier, before you showed up with Aranx.’
‘It’s not too cold in here,’ Crimm observed.
‘We’re already inside the Wall. Old Thaxa’s property goes on further into the growstone. I don’t think anybody knows how deep these old chambers go, or how much Thaxa actually owns. But according to Moerx, the servant, there should be another door at the back here. .’
The rear wall was covered by a tapestry bearing stylised Northland icons, concentric circles with stabbing radial lines. Ayto pulled the tapestry down to expose a heavy wooden door. This wasn’t locked, but was stuck in its frame, perhaps the wood had swollen, and it took the two of them to shift it.
Then another corridor. And another room and corridor, and another.
And they emerged into a much larger space. Ayto lifted the lamp high. The walls were just rough growstone, the floor bare and roughly laid, the roof so high it was almost out of sight, but Crimm saw that it was well constructed, of vaulted domes of growstone. He thought he saw a glimpse of daylight from the roof. He pointed. ‘An air vent?’
‘I think so. Moerx said there was a hearth — look, over there.’
Crimm walked a bit further, away from the circle of light cast by the lantern. The hearth looked very crude, just a heap of bricks in the corner, set up under the vent. There were shadowy heaps in the corners and by the walls: bits of canvas maybe, wooden pallets. And Crimm made out stains on the walls, greenish-grey, that ended in a band some distance above his head.
‘Must be an old warehouse,’ said Ayto. ‘Something like that.’
‘No, I don’t think so. Look at those stains. It looks as if water was kept here. It’s some kind of huge cistern. Or was. Maybe the system it was part of was abandoned. And then it’s been reused, by somebody camping here — whoever built that hearth.’
‘That might have been a long time ago. And then it was forgotten, and the Wall has sort of grown out around it. Moerx told me about it because I asked him how deep the house went into the wall. Just being nosy. He’s looked around before — well, you would, wouldn’t you? When he described this place it gave me an idea.’
‘Hmm. I don’t always like your ideas, Ayto.’
‘We could use this place.’
‘There’s certainly some firewood we could use-’
‘No.’ Ayto walked over to him, his footsteps echoing in the empty space. ‘You’re not thinking big enough, my friend. Listen to me. You heard the rubbish the Annids talked back there. Rations that are going to run out. How they can’t even keep out the Gairans and the Albians and other useless stomachs. How they’re wasting time copying old tide tables onto clay tablets.’
‘What’s your point?’
‘The famous Annids can’t cope. Like you, they aren’t thinking big enough. That’s obvious. This is Northland! That’s what they think. The whole world speaks our language, and accepts our scrip. We won’t be beaten by a few flakes of snow! But we will be beaten, my friend, when the cold closes in and the food runs out. The Annids can’t face it, the reality.’
‘And what’s that, according to you?’
‘When people get hungry enough they’ll rip each other apart, and the Wall.’ He shrugged. ‘You know it as well as I do. And after that there’ll be no food left for anybody, and we’ll all die.’
‘So. .’
‘We can’t save everybody. So we save ourselves.’
‘In here?’
Ayto glanced around, at the doors leading off from all the walls, the air vent. ‘Think of it as a fortress, like the Carthaginians would build. We bring them in here.’
‘Who?’
‘Our families. Friends, lovers. Whoever we want — up to a limit. We’d have to work out what that limit is. We bring in enough food to see us through the winter.’
‘You mean steal it.’
‘Just our share. Salted fish, dried vegetables, stuff that will keep. And water — we’d have to think about that. Storage tubs, or maybe there’s a working pipeline, if you’re right that this is an old cistern. Firewood. Everything we need to stay alive. And weapons. We establish some kind of perimeter, out from here, in all directions. Barricade it, defend it when they come.’
‘Who?’
‘The starving mob. We fight them off, until they die of cold or hunger.’
‘You’re talking about Northlanders.’
‘Northlanders can grow hungry. And when they do, they’ll behave like everybody else. It’s this or die,’ Ayto said.
Crimm, overwhelmed, felt as if he was having some waking dream, in this dry, echoing place, by the light of the single lamp, talking like this while just a short walk away the Annid of Annids, his lover, was drinking nettle tea and discussing the preservation of old books. But this was Ayto, who always had been a much tougher thinker than Crimm, always the first to call the warning about the coming storm, when the rest wanted to carry on for just a little more catch. Even so. .
‘It seems dishonourable.’
Ayto shrugged. ‘Thaxa’s wife has already cleared off to Carthage, without telling anybody. How honourable is that? And she’s not the only one, by the way. Look, we don’t have to do this yet. It’s a fallback, that’s all. Every smart man has a fallback. Are you in, or not?’
Crimm wondered if he could betray Ywa. She was Annid of Annids; he could not discuss this with her. ‘I need to think.’
‘Don’t take too long.’
‘Or what?’
‘Or you might find yourself on the other side of the barricade, my friend.’ And Ayto began to prowl around the old cistern, sniffing, scattering dust, peering up at the walls.