Stephen Baxter - Iron Winter

Mago wasn’t alone in seeking shelter. Some of those hapless nestspills were filtering in now, old and young, a skinny mother carrying a scrawny baby, people with faces and clothes the colour of the dirt they had been sitting in. One trader, a fat Northlander in a rich fur cloak, tried to block their way. Nelo, the kid, stepped forward, had a quiet word and the man stood aside. A couple of the traders pulled a sheet across the open stall front to keep out the snow. Somebody lit a lamp. The nestspills started to settle to the muddy ground, squatting in little groups. They seemed to be used to squatting, waiting on events, on somebody noticing them and helping them.

The awning above all their heads bulged and creaked softly. A mass of snow was evidently gathering there already.

Mago walked up to Nelo. ‘Please don’t turn me out in the snow,’ he said in a mock whine, using his limited Northlander.

Nelo looked at him, and walked back to his paintings. ‘You’re funny,’ he said in toneless Greek.

‘I’m just teasing you. You did a good turn back there. Of course if that sister of yours — Alxa? — ever fancies doing a Carthaginian a good turn-’

‘Shut up.’

‘All right, all right.’ Mago, trying not to shiver despite the cold that probed at his bare arms and scalp, inspected the paintings. They were just a jumble to him, figures and shapes of all sizes and positions. He squinted at the nearest canvas. ‘Ouch.’

‘What?’

‘You’re the artist, are you?’

‘Of some of them,’ said Nelo, withdrawn, defensive.

‘Let me guess which. This one, with the great big pig and the little tiny horse?’

‘You’ve no idea what you’re looking at, have you? What do you know about art?’

Mago shrugged. ‘I like a nice drinking cup. Do you do drinking cups? With a few warriors going at it, and maidens fiddling with each other’s titties. That’s real art. Chuck in a few swords and lutes and laurels and so forth-’

Nelo snorted. ‘ This is art, you Carthaginian ox. A new kind of art, neither the abstraction of our own tradition nor the simple representation of you easterners. Look again. That’s not a “little horse”. It’s further away — further from you, the viewer, than the animals in the foreground. And see the lines of the barn — the edges of the road, the way they converge. . It’s a new technique called look-deep. Pioneered by Pythagorean scholars here.’

Mago tried to see what he meant, and for a heartbeat he thought he got it — it wasn’t so much a painting as a window into another world, with depth beyond the surface — yes, he saw it. But then the illusion faded, as quickly as it came. ‘Well, it’s not for me. But I dare say there will be people who’ll buy this stuff.’

‘Not enough of them. But I’m hopeful about the future. This is what I want to do with my life.’

‘Paint horses?’

‘Not just horses. . But if Uncle Pyxeas is right it’s not a paintbrush I’ll be wielding in the future, but a snow shovel.’

‘Hmm. Mind you, all I was ever good at was fighting and screwing, and the world will always need those skills.’ The awning creaked again. ‘Speaking of the snow. .’

He went to the front of the stall and tried to pull the curtain back. It was heavy, stiff with frost, and weighed down by the depth of snow outside. He dragged it aside, using his strength. Outside the snow lay deep, already halfway up his shins. He kicked his way out into it. Once more the flakes fell heavily on his bare head, his neck. It was soft, light stuff, oddly not too cold, but it was hard work wading through the settled snow. The world had been transformed, the sudden layer of white softening every shape, from the great earthworks of Old Etxelur to the detailed texture of the ground. Through it people struggled, slim dark shadows, dimly seen. And the snow still fell heavily from a silver-grey sky.

He turned and looked back at the stall. The snow heaped up on top of the awning was just as deep as on the ground, and the heavy cloth sagged, pregnant. He called, ‘Hey, artist. I’m from Africa. What does snow weigh?’

Nelo came to the front of the stall and reluctantly stuck his head out. ‘How much?’

‘That much, say.’ Mago pointed up at the loaded awning.

At that moment a support beam gave way, a tree trunk snapping like a twig. Mago grabbed Nelo’s jacket and pulled him out into the open. The awning collapsed, the snow falling with a rush. It was sudden, shocking, normality gone in an instant.

‘My paintings!’

‘Never mind that,’ Mago growled in Greek, ‘what about the people?’

They strode forward together and began to drag at the fallen awning. It was frozen and heavy with ice, and the snow slid awkwardly around their legs as they tried to work. But people started pushing their way out from under it, the vendors and the sheltering nestspills, struggling and sprawling in the cascading snow. There were injuries, and blood splashed the snow, brilliant red on white.

Then the screaming started, from under the very centre of the awning. The woman with the baby, Mago remembered. She had gone right for the centre of the stall, where it had been warmest. He began hauling harder at the awning. ‘Help me.’ He repeated, louder and in Northlander, ‘Help me!’

The others gathered around, Nelo, the vendors, the bewildered nestspills, pawing at the wrecked stall with their bare hands, trying to reach the woman and her child.

When Crimm had come back to Ywa’s house that morning, after he’d given up on the idea of taking the Sabet out, they had considered making love. It was a kind of unspoken negotiation. They knew each other too well to need words.

But it was cold in Ywa’s house, this snowy morning, cold in the home of the Annid of Annids, and it was likely to get colder yet. The house was an old design, one of seven roundhouses on its flood-defying mound, a structure of oak beams and thatch and wattle of the kind Ana herself might once have lived in eight or nine thousand years before. The house was an honorarium for the Annid of Annids and a living memory of Northland’s heritage, but it was not warm. Meanwhile, Crimm might have had a day off, but Ywa had a lot of paperwork to get through, after the latest meeting of the Water Council, which had seen yet more arguments about ration allowances and the guard draft. So they just draped blankets over their shoulders, and huddled together over the central hearth where the smoke seeped up to the thatched roof, and drank bitter coffee, a gift of the Jaguar folk from across the ocean, and talked softly.

‘I should probably go back to the Wall,’ Ywa sighed. She glanced over the mounds of scrolls on the carpeted floor, the slates and books open on her desk. ‘It’s just that I get so much more done if I squirrel away in here.’

Crimm grunted. ‘Maybe you ought to get back before that snow gets much deeper.’

‘Surely it will stop soon. .’

The wind picked up, and the house creaked, a deep wooden groan.

‘When you go I’ll walk with you. Can’t have the Annid of Annids stuck in a snowdrift with her arse in the air.’

‘I’m sure I can feel a draught,’ she said, and pulled her blanket closer.

‘The snow will pass,’ he said, trying to reassure.

‘But a blizzard like this, so soon in the year. How will we cope?’

Crimm thought he knew how she felt. Ywa felt she bore the burden of all the Northlanders’ fates on her slim shoulders, just as he felt responsibility for his crew on the Sabet , in the middle of storms, or when becalmed. Mind you, in his opinion her fellow Annids should have been doing more to help, his cousin Rina especially, Rina just back from a pointless jaunt to Hantilios with old Pyxeas, Rina who seemed more concerned with politicking and feathering her own nest than the welfare of others. He shuffled up and put his arm around Ywa. ‘You’ll get through this.’