‘Plague,’ Avatak said simply.
Pyxeas grunted. ‘It would take a brave king to put his people at such risk for the sake of stocking up a few hungry sailors. Well, the spread of plagues is to be expected — I wrote it down in my notes some years ago, you can check it. When people are stirred up and on the move, and animal populations too, plagues are carried from their natural reservoirs, even carried between continents. It’s about time al-Quds sacrificed a few of those prize cattle down in the holds to feed us. I must have a word with him, I must. .’ He gazed at the biscuit, picked it up, then set it down again, as if puzzled by its very presence. Then he glanced at Avatak. ‘The numbers, boy — it’s all in the numbers. It always was.’
‘What numbers?’
Distracted, the scholar cast about, shifting in his chair, and brought together lists of numbers, either in the hand of a scribe or his own spidery writing, some set out neatly on scrolls or books, some scrawled on scraps of paper and parchment. ‘Thank the mothers Bolghai was good enough to have his results translated into the Northlander system. Here now — can you see?’ He pointed to two lists of numbers.
‘See what? I’m sorry, scholar.’
‘Of course you won’t see it, of course not, it’s been staring me in the face for years, it still is, and I can make no firm conclusion, not yet. . Look! What drives the weather, I mean the grand changes like the coming of a longwinter?’
‘The sun in the sky,’ Avatak said promptly; he had absorbed that much.
‘Yes. Good. The world bobs about like a duck on the Khan’s ornamental ponds in Daidu. The higher the sun is at midsummer, the warmer the world is that year. But how high, how warm? We Northlanders have been keeping records of the weather for millennia. And in those records I, Pyxeas, have found a good measure of that changing warmth.
‘Look here — this is a list of years, and this is a list of solar elevations at Etxelur at midday on midsummer day on each of those years. And these dates, Avatak, record the last spring frost of each year and the first frost of winter. Pieces of information easily and unambiguously recorded, and though they vary with circumstance the overall trend is clearly related to the warmth of the year. Can you see the correlation between the two? Oh, it takes a trained eye. Avatak, these tables show conclusively that the elevation of the sun drives our climate, as indicated by the span of the frost. But.’
‘But, scholar?’
‘But the tidy patterns break down! Centuries, millennia back, you can see it. The world should have got colder, quicker. The longwinter should already be here! I had long suspected this, from historical accounts, anecdotes. Now, after intensive study, I have assembled quantitative proof.’
‘Then there is another agent, acting to postpone the longwinter.’
‘Yes. Good! And that agent is?’
Avatak considered before answering; he had fallen into Pyxeas’ verbal traps before. He said carefully, ‘You suspect that the agent has something to do with the various airs Bolghai was studying.’
‘Yes! Especially the fixed air, which holds back the heat. Good. But how? And why? That is the question I wrestle with. And I still can’t see it, I can’t. Though I suspect I edge closer to the truth.’ He glared at Avatak. ‘Suppose I fell over the side of this wretched tub tomorrow. Would you be able to communicate all this to the scholars of Etxelur?’
‘No,’ Avatak said frankly.
Pyxeas nodded. ‘And could they progress the work without me? No! Those dolts in Etxelur have always been too busy questioning me and my methodology rather than listening. Than thinking. Very well! I, Pyxeas, must resolve this planetary conundrum, or go insane in the attempt. Yes?’
‘Yes, scholar.’ Avatak took a moment to pop his biscuit into the sack of beer, hoping it would soften a bit more, before he bent with Pyxeas over the tablets, scrolls and books.
63
Nelo saw it all, that fateful day, the day that everything changed, for Fabius, for Carthage — for everybody Saw it all from beginning to end. Drew it all, and remembered.
It began before dawn, on another chill late summer’s day. Nelo, in his barrack, was woken by a shake from Gisco, unexpectedly gentle, not the usual boot in the back. ‘Out you get, aurochs,’ he murmured. ‘Got a special job for you. But keep quiet about it. No need to disturb the other cock-pullers in their slumbers. You too, Suniatus.’
‘Sergeant-’
‘What did I say?’ Gisco snapped, in a whisper. ‘Keep that mouth of yours shut.’
The barrack room was dark, with only a single sputtering lantern burning in one corner. After another night in here the air was thick with beery farts, the acid stink of rotting feet. Only Nelo and Suniatus were moving; the rest of the troop slumbered on.
Suniatus pulled on socks and boots. ‘Just us, Sergeant?’
‘Just you.’
‘Why? I mean, why me and that?’ He jerked a thumb at Nelo.
‘Because I can trust you two. Yes, you as well, Northlander, I know I can rely on you to follow an order while keeping your mouth shut, and you can do this little job for me and still be free to scribble your drawings for the rest of the day. This army of ours is full of useless Libyans, and useless sods, and useless Libyan sods, and two reliable men are hard to find.’
Suniatus grinned. ‘Hear that, aurochs? You’re reliable.’ He picked up his sword in its scabbard. ‘So what’s the job, Sergeant?’
‘To save Carthage.’
‘What, again?’
‘Just get on with it.’
Nelo grabbed his weapons and satchel and made for the door. Suniatus couldn’t resist clowning; he walked on exaggerated tiptoe and shoved Nelo in the back, trying to make him stumble. But they got out of the barracks without disturbing anybody else.
They emerged onto a silent street. The sand that had blown in from the desert scraped on the cobbles under Nelo’s boots. Gisco had left a lantern by the barracks door; he raised this now and scrutinised a bit of paper. Nelo saw it was a list of addresses, all in Megara. This barracks, by the city wall, was on the periphery of the suburb.
Suniatus glanced over the sergeant’s shoulder. ‘I know the first address, sir. That street anyhow. There’s a whorehouse where they have these Balearic women who-’
‘All right, Suni. Just lead the way.’
The soldier strode confidently through the darkened streets. With experience Suniatus was becoming a good soldier, Nelo realised, for all his bullying and bluster. The word in the barracks was that he would already have had a few promotions if not for his habit of punching out his comrades when drunk.
The sky was a lid of cloud, the city all but pitch-dark save for the occasional gleam of a lantern in the houses and shut-up shops and shrines. Nelo wasn’t sure what time it was, but these were the hours of the curfew the suffetes had imposed months before, and the streets were empty — silent save only for distant soft whistles, the signals of the patrolling guard. One of Fabius’ iron rules was that the streets had to be kept clear, there could be nobody sleeping out in the open, in alleyways or doorways, as had become common since the city had filled up with nestspills. The rule seemed to be working well. Occasionally you would hear a scurrying in the dark, a rustle, perhaps footsteps, a rat or wild dog, or maybe some human scavenger. But Nelo, eyes wide open, saw nothing.
Once they passed a cart hauled by a couple of beefy-looking Libyans, perhaps slaves, and led by a soldier in a dark cloak, his face hidden. The cart’s load was covered by a thick, bloodstained cloth, and Nelo did not need too much imagination to know what was under there. The deaths continued in a steady trickle, from hunger, from the blood plague and other diseases that swept like fires through the city’s crowded tenements. Nelo had found these deaths horrific when he had first come to live inside the city walls. But Fabius had once told him that cities were always like this, even in the good times, even with plentiful food and water. It made Nelo sharply homesick for the wide, empty, orderly landscape of Northland, where people did not die like this.