Well, then, what was its purpose?
She turned to the ‘amendments’. The Northlander script would have been utterly incomprehensible to the head of household. He must have judged that the additions were minor enough not to pose a problem. But his judgement had been wrong, for the message they picked out had nothing to do with the nonsensical ‘news’ from Etxelur:
‘Mother. Go to the back wall now. Alxa.’
Rina was scarcely able to breathe. She had not seen her daughter for months.
She did not hesitate. She got out of bed, used the room’s communal piss-pot, washed quickly with what was left of the jug of water on the nightstand, and changed into her day clothes, the cleanest of the two sets of the uniform-like tunic and skirt Anterastilis ordered her to wear. She ripped up the note and fed the pieces to a small lantern that burned high on the wall.
Then she pulled her cloak over her shoulders and slipped out of the room.
She knew a way to the compound’s back wall that she could take without being seen. Every servant in the household knew of such routes. You learned to live like a rat, in such circumstances as these. The house’s servants, staff and slaves had a covert life of their own that went entirely unnoticed by Barmocar and Anterastilis and their circle — and no doubt the same had been true of her own household in Etxelur, she ruefully realised.
She did check the time on one of the big Greek water clocks. She had a couple of hours free. Today Barmocar and Anterastilis were hosting members of the overlapping assemblies that governed Carthage, the Tribunal of One Hundred and Four and the Council of Elders, no doubt debating such crises as the rationing, the plague, and the growing rumours of a vast Hatti horde on the way. These sessions, crowded with drunken young men, were always raucous affairs lubricated by generous helpings of Barmocar’s wine. A greater contrast with the grave councils of Northland, which tended to be dominated by older women like herself, could scarcely be imagined. Rina would not be needed during the session, but afterwards Anterastilis would no doubt require her ‘special comforting’. All that for later.
The estate’s back wall was a crude affair, just heaped-up blocks, hastily improvised in the early autumn. Hurrying along it, Rina soon found a gap that even an old woman like herself could easily step through.
Waiting on the other side was a young man she faintly recognised, dressed in a tunic and trousers that might once have been smart. He grinned and beckoned. ‘This way, lady.’ He spoke in crude Northlander.
She stepped through the wall, taking his hand for support — but she caught her fingernail on a jagged stone and snapped it painfully. Biting it to neatness, she hurried after him as he made his way along a narrow street down the slope of the Byrsa. The way was lined by the homeless, ragged bundles slumped in doorways, outstretched skeletal hands. Troops would come through later in the day and clear the track, but the people would return later, or others of their kind would, filling up the empty spaces like mercury settling in a cracked bowl; you could move them around but you could never get rid of them.
Meanwhile the rising sun caught the fronts of the grand buildings of the Byrsa, and from his column at the summit Hannibal hero of Latium stood proud, surveying his decaying city.
Rina remembered who this man was. ‘You’re Jexami’s servant. That’s how you know Northlander.’
He shrugged, grinning easily. ‘Easier for me to learn the master’s tongue than for him to learn mine, though he would beat me if he heard me saying it.’
‘I’m sorry. I don’t remember your name.’ Nobody remembered servants’ names — nobody of the class to which Jexami belonged, and herself, once.
‘Himil. My name is Himil.’
‘Thank you for coming to get me, Himil. How do you know Alxa?’
‘Who, sorry?’
‘My daughter. I suppose you remember her from our arrival in Carthage.’
‘Not so much. She helped me. The master threw me out.’
‘He did? Why?’
‘Heard there was blood plague in my family.’ The Carthaginians were terrified that the awful infection they called the ‘blood plague’, which had left scars in their history before, was on its way back to the city, brought by the endless nestspill flows.
‘He threw you out just for that? And was there plague? In your family, I mean?’
‘No. Father died. Not plague. Just died. Hungry, got sick. I had nowhere to stay. Got work cleaning sewers, and bought food for the family, little brothers and sisters, but still nowhere to stay. Sleeping in streets, like these folk. Then I heard a rumour about the Ana.’
‘Who?’
‘Your daughter, mistress. The Ana was helping people find places to live. I went looking, I asked and I asked, found the Ana and she remembered me, said I’d been kind when she came to the master’s house. But I think she’d have helped me anyway. Got me a bed in a house, outside the walls, but that’s all right.’
‘Alxa did all that? How?’
‘Ask her yourself.’
They had come to a tavern, an open door, a counter fronting the street, a dingy interior behind. The wall bore a hand-scrawled sign in chalk:
NO ALE. NO WINE. NO WATER. NO FOOD.
NO OUT-OF-TOWNERS.
NO SEWAGE WORKERS.
NO DOCTORS.
‘ALWAYS A FRIENDLY WELCOME AT MYRCAN’S!’
‘Hello, Mother.’ Alxa came forward from the shadows of the tavern.
Rina rushed to her, and hugged her daughter. Through layers of much-patched clothing, she could feel Alxa’s shoulder blades.
Alxa led her to a table at the back of the tavern. It was a dismal cave, Rina thought, which must have seen better days with a location this close to the Byrsa. But despite the chalked denials outside, a barman produced a jug of wine and two pottery mugs. ‘Always we serve the Ana,’ he murmured, pouring the wine.
Rina sipped the wine. It was sour, the grape crops had evidently been awful for years, but it was the first mouthful she’d taken in months — servants in Barmocar’s home didn’t drink wine. ‘Ah, that’s good. Thank you. So — “the Ana”?’
Alxa seemed much older than when she had come to Carthage, her face lined, her once-habitual smile gone. She was still just sixteen. ‘It’s a long story, Mother. But first, Nelo? I’ve not heard a word since the army took him.’
‘Nor me. From what I can tell from overhearing Barmocar’s conversations, they’re anticipating a clash with the Hatti, but it’s not come to that yet.’
‘Maybe he lives,’ Alxa said grimly. ‘As long as disease, hunger, or the sheer stupidity of the military haven’t killed him yet.’
‘We have to hope.’
‘Here’s to hope.’ Alxa raised her mug, and touched her mother’s.
‘I’ve heard nothing from home either, incidentally,’ Rina said now. ‘From your father. Which is why the note you sent was such a shock.’
Alxa grinned wickedly, suddenly seeming more like her old self. ‘It evidently worked. My ruse, I mean. Maybe I’d make a good spy, do you think?’
‘You’ll earn me a whipping.’
That wiped away the smile. ‘They whip you?’
Only once. . She changed the subject quickly. ‘So now you’re the Ana, are you?’
Alxa shrugged. ‘Carthaginians have trouble pronouncing “Alxa”, believe it or not.’ All-sha. ‘They’ve only heard of one Northlander, most of them, who is Ana, who they think lived a hundred years ago and built walls on the seabed by hand. So now I’m “the Ana”.’
‘What have you been up to, Daughter? The last time I saw you, you were doing translation for a member of the Tribunal of One Hundred and Four.’
‘That didn’t last long. I made a couple of mistakes. . There are so many people flooding into Carthage, you can find whatever skills you want, if you just look. Lawyers, doctors, even priests. It wasn’t hard for my boss to replace me with someone better and cheaper. And prettier,’ she said with a grimace.