Bronze Summer (21 page)

Deri stood up. ‘Where is everybody? I never saw so few people on the land, working the waterways and wetlands. Even half the houses seem empty.’

Hadhe stood up in turn. ‘It’s the weather. We’ve had no sunlight.’

‘Yes,’ somebody said, a gruff man’s voice. ‘Not since your fire mountain spewed up all that cloud into the air.’

Your
fire mountain. The phrase made Tibo flinch. It wasn’t
his
mountain. It had killed his grandfather. But nobody else reacted, and the moment was lost.

Teel answered calmly, talking about the weather. After the fire mountain it had been cold, bitterly so for the summer, and hail and rain had lashed the land. Plants had been battered flat, trees had lost their leaves early and had brought forth wizened nuts and fruit, and animals had become skinny or had starved altogether as they had nibbled at the sparse grass.

‘This is why we came to Northland,’ called the man, Barra. ‘We had a farm on the north coast of Kirike’s Land. We weren’t badly affected by the fire mountain itself, but the early hail flattened our crops, which weren’t growing anyhow. We could have starved over the winter.’ He had a weather-beaten face, and looked like a practical man, a man of common sense. ‘Crops must be failing all over, if the cloud extends right across the Continent, and I haven’t heard anybody say that it doesn’t. The Greeks, the Hatti, the Egyptians – what about them? They already had drought and famine, so I hear. I can’t imagine what it will be like if their summer is as bad as ours.’

A priest stood up, in a loose cloak of wolfskin. It was Riban, the cousin who had treated Tibo’s burns. ‘He’s right. The Swallows and Jackdaws have brought back reports to confirm it.’

‘And you Wolves,’ called out a man, ‘ought to be in your houses smoking your strange weeds and praying to the little mother of the sky to spare us.’

‘Believe me,’ the priest said, ‘we are.’

Teel stood. ‘To answer your question, Deri, this is why there are so few people around in Etxelur. People are out in the country, fishing, hunting, trawling the rivers for eel, looking for decent stands of hazelnut and acorns . . .’

This was how people lived here. They didn’t farm; they didn’t raise crops or livestock. They lived off the land, off Northland itself, and there were few enough of them to be able to do that. And when hard times came they just journeyed a little further into their bountiful country, dug a little deeper into its wealth of resources. At least they had a chance to survive a few bad seasons, where farmers would have none when their reserves were gone.

Soon the discussion turned to the future of the nestspills. Listening, Tibo got the impression that everybody was saying: ‘You are welcome
but
. . .’
But
we have to feed our own children first.
But
you can’t have my job, as a Beaver or a Vole or a Swallow or a Jackdaw.
But
the fire mountain was on your island, on Kirike’s Land, and maybe you should have stayed there and dealt with the consequences rather than come here and take up our space.

‘Our grandmothers started out as Beetles, the whole lot of them,’ one woman said earnestly. ‘There’s always work there. Scraping the canals . . .’

Tibo had had enough. He muttered an apology to Milaqa and Deri, stood, and walked out.

He emerged from the last stair onto the roof of the Wall itself. The western sky flared red, a sunset gathering despite the invisibility of the sun itself. This upper surface was empty save for a line of monuments – and one man some paces away, stocky, gesturing, exercising with a sword.

To the south, Tibo’s left, Northland stretched away, the ground maybe fifty paces straight down. And to the north there was the restless ocean, its surface only a few paces beneath him. Standing on this Wall that divided two elements, the mass of the ocean looming over the peaceful land, the world seemed unbalanced to Tibo. Suddenly he felt as if the whole Wall was tipping, and he staggered.

‘Careful.’

Tibo looked around. It was the man who had been exercising; his sword was a long blade of beaten bronze.

‘What?’

‘
Careful
. Is that word not right? My Etxelur-speak is still poor. Don’t fall off the Wall. One way, you drown. Other way, you crack your skull like an egg.’ He laughed.

He was older than Tibo, perhaps in his twenties. He wore a tunic under a bronze breastplate. His accent was thick, his words barely understandable. Tibo had never met anybody like this man in his life. ‘What are you, a Greek?’

The man looked at him long and hard. Then he spat into the sea, over the rim of the Wall. ‘I like you. That’s why I won’t cut off your ears for that insult. I am no ugly Greek. Can’t you tell? I am Trojan. And you? Northlander?’

‘I was born on Kirike’s Land.’

‘Where? Oh, the fire mountain island.’ He eyed Tibo gravely. ‘Was it bad?’

‘I am alive. My name is Tibo. I have come to be with my family here.’

The Trojan nodded. ‘I am Qirum. I have come to do business with the Annids. How is my Etxelur talk?’

‘Better than my Trojan.’

Qirum boomed laughter. ‘You don’t seem happy to be with your family. Why?’

‘They keep calling me a nestspill.’ He had to explain the word to the Trojan.

‘What’s wrong with that? You
are
a nestspill.’

‘In our Etxelur tongue the word is also used for a baby bird that has fallen from its nest.’

‘Ah,’ said Qirum. ‘Something helpless that you would pity – or crush under your heel.’

‘Yes. And I’m not helpless,’ Tibo said.

Qirum looked him over. ‘I can see that. So what do you want, nestspill?’

He said fiercely, ‘Not to scrape the muck out of canals, that’s for sure.’

‘Ha! Nor would I. Good for you.’ He returned to his exercising. He struck a pose, legs apart, worked the sword in a slash and vertical chop – then spun around and faced imaginary assailants coming from behind.

‘So why are you here?’ Tibo said.

‘I told you. Business.’

‘What business?’

‘Not sure yet. Everybody’s waiting. It’s all been changed by the fire mountain.’ He looked up at the grey sky. ‘No sun, you see. If it’s the same at home, then there will be trouble, even worse than before. Famine. People moving, whole populations. Towns emptying, cities being sacked. Maybe even Hattusa, Troy – what’s left of it. Difficult times for trade. Northland will be affected too,’ Qirum mused. ‘But Northland was divided anyway.’

‘Divided?’

‘Somebody killed the Annid of Annids.’

‘She was my relative. My aunt. I think.’

‘Was she?’ The Trojan shrugged. ‘The man who got her killed was exposed. Now he’s disgraced. Gone. But the woman
he
put in to replace your aunt – she’s still there! And nothing’s happening. No decisions being made. Everybody’s just waiting under the cold sky. So I don’t know what my business will be. But,’ he said, eyeing Tibo, ‘this is a time of opportunity, for a strong man, a clever man. When cities are falling at one end of the world, and the great power at the other end is locked in a struggle with itself.’

Tibo found these obscure words tremendously exciting. ‘What kind of opportunity?’

Qirum grinned easily. Then the sunset flared brighter, and he turned west to face it.

The sky had cleared a little, and was full of colours. Above a yellowish band around the position of the sun itself, a green curtain smeared high into the sky, fluted and textured, like a tremendous swathe of dyed cloth. The green faded eventually into red, which towered ever further into the sky as the sun descended, deepening to a bruised purple.

‘It changes as you watch it,’ Qirum said, the exotic light glaring from his polished breastplate. ‘Every night different. It’s why I come up here at this time. The gods are angry, my friend, but even their anger is beautiful. Do you know, the other night I saw a moon, glimpsed through the clouds, that was as blue as a midsummer sky? Think of that.’ He eyed Tibo. ‘Have you ever fought?’

‘Only with fists.’

‘Maybe it’s time you learned. Here.’ He tossed him his sword, making it spin in the air, coming at Tibo hilt first.

Tibo astonished himself by grabbing the handle without slicing his fingers off.

‘Come at me,’ Qirum said. Tibo saw he was armed only with a short stabbing dagger. ‘Come on. Don’t be afraid.’

‘I’ll cut your head off.’

Qirum grinned again. ‘I’ll take the risk. Come. And when I’ve got the blade off you I’ll teach you to wrestle. Always my favourite when I was your age, wrestling.’

Tibo considered, and raised the blade, and charged.

So it began.

26

The Year of the Fire Mountain: Midwinter

In the end, as an early autumn turned into a harsh winter, travel became impossible altogether.

Milaqa knew that Qirum, ever energetic and restless, had walked far, exploring Northland and the Wall and its Districts, sometimes in Milaqa’s company and sometimes not. He showed no interest in the countryside below the Wall. But Kilushepa, during her pregnancy, was content to stay in the relative luxury of Great Etxelur. Here she had met and talked, hosted parties and attended them, endlessly weaving nets of contacts and alliances. But when her baby was delivered she changed. She seemed restless for escape, even though by now it was the heart of the winter.

Since midsummer Teel had told Milaqa to stay close to Kilushepa and Qirum, to find out what they were thinking, what they were up to. And that included volunteering as an escort when Kilushepa asked for a walk along the Wall.

So this cold morning Milaqa, bundled in her cloak, pushed her way out of Hadhe’s house at the foot of the Wall. The door blanket crackled with frost, and the deep night cold had frozen over yesterday’s snow so that her feet crunched through a fine crust and into the compressed dry, powdery stuff underneath. For once the sun was visible, low in the sky to the south-east, and she cast a shadow. In the pale sunlight the snow drew all the colour from the landscape save the occasional green splash of ivy, leaving only black and white and the blue of the long shadows, and it picked out details, crags on the hillsides and wrinkles and ridges on the uneven ground that were invisible in warmer times. By a watercourse she saw movement, fleet, furtive: an otter dragging the half-chewed carcass of a fish. The wintry land was beautiful, a consolation. But, only days away from the solstice itself, this was the coldest time of the hardest winter she could remember.

Cold or not the day’s work had to be done. A party of adults and older children was gathering, bundled up in fur cloaks and hats and boots, their breath steaming around their heads. They carried knives and rope, and would soon be setting off inland to harvest the willow stands by the waterways. But Milaqa wouldn’t be joining them. She hitched the pack on her back; laden with food and water for the Tawananna, it already felt heavy.

‘They look busy.’ Qirum came up to her. He was wrapped up in a heavy leather coat and leggings and bearskin hat, borrowed from Deri and cut and shaped to fit, and he slapped hands encased in huge mittens. He had his sword in its scabbard on his back.

‘Willow,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘They’re off to cut willow trees. The people over there. This is the best time to do it, midwinter, to get the fine shoots we use to make baskets and backpacks.’

He grunted and turned away, bored already.

That was the reaction she’d expected. He irritated her as much as he fascinated her. ‘At least they’re doing something useful.’

‘I thought you were the great rebel. The wild spirit who doesn’t fit into this stuffy place. Now you’re going on at me about
useful
work?’

‘You’ve got absolutely no interest in people, have you? Nobody except the big folk, the decision-makers. You care nothing for people who actually
do
things.’

He considered that. ‘Metal-workers, perhaps. I need to be able to rely on my sword. And bar-keeps, and brewers. And whores. Ha!
And you are the same
. Admit it, little Milaqa. You could go off and harvest willow twigs or whatever it is they are doing – but you do not choose that, do you? Instead you walk with me and the Queen of the Hatti. Of course you are blessed with freedom, here in Northland. In my country, no woman is free, no woman
owns property
, save for princesses. There are no princesses in this strange country, yet you are free to choose, aren’t you? And because of that, like me, you too believe you are special, better than the rest. Perhaps it is simply having the courage to believe so, to think this way, that elevates our kind.’