Iron Winter (Northland 3) Read Free Page A

Continent, this Giving was no formality, however joyous, but a hard-nosed negotiation over vital
food supplies. The weather was odd too, for all Rina dismissed Uncle Pyxeas and his foolishness about worldwide weather changes. There was ground frost in the summer mornings, and a strange
drabness in the land: this spring and summer you rarely saw a flower in bloom, or a butterfly.
    And now, on top of all that, the steam caravan was late. For months communications had been disrupted by drought, famine, and petty banditry. But this was yet another thread dangling loose, and
Rina did not like dangling threads, and as time wore on she could sense the dignitaries’ impatience slowly growing.
    Now, at last, far to the east, Rina made out a white plume of steam, a caravan like a chain of glittering toys crawling along the track. But even before the caravan reached Etxelur, runners on
horseback delivered the message that the Iron Way had brought nobody from Cathay this year.
    ‘Then we must proceed with the Giving negotiations without them,’ Rina murmured to Thaxa. ‘The Mongol princes of Daidu were only a ceremonial presence anyhow.’
    ‘That’s not what Pyxeas says,’ Thaxa pointed out. ‘Your uncle claims that the Cathay scholars have information which—’
    ‘Information, information!’ she snapped. ‘What good is that? Can you eat it? Dried fish, however, you can eat, and that’s what matters. Let’s get these people back
inside the Wall before that breeze gets any sharper and they start complaining even more loudly.’ She pulled her tunic closer around her and made for the Carthaginian party, smiling fixedly
as she prepared her apology.

 
     
     
     
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    Alxa was faintly surprised to find that one of the Carthaginian merchant princes, called Mago – the man-boy who had been staring at her chest the whole afternoon –
knew one of the younger Hatti delegates, called Arnuwanda, a prince it seemed, or some relative of the current King in New Hattusa. And now, while her mother Rina led the other foreigners back into
the warmth of the Wall, these princes, restless, bored, wanted some sport. They wanted to wrestle. Apparently they had come up against each other at a royal wedding party in Greece, where such
sports were common among the guests, and fancied another crack.
    Alxa spoke about this to her father, Thaxa.
    ‘Go with them,’ he said. ‘Take your brother too. You can keep them out of trouble. And having Nelo around might keep that Carthaginian brute from giving you any
trouble.’
    ‘I can handle the likes of him.’
    ‘I’m sure you can. But if you’re to be an Annid, child, you have to learn that the best way to deal with trouble is to avoid it in the first place . . .’
    So Alxa and her brother took the princelings down the growstone staircases to one of the better gymnasiums, an airy room cut into the growstone with neatly plastered walls and a large
stained-glass window shedding splashes of colour across the wooden floor. Alxa and Nelo sat on a bench as the princes stripped off their finery, showered, and coated their skin with powder. The
Carthaginian, Mago, made absolutely sure Alxa could see everything there was to see about his nude body.
    The princes stalked to the middle of the floor. They were both around twenty years old. They faced each other, bowed – and launched themselves at each other. The Hatti got the first break;
with his head down he got his shoulders under his foe’s belly and flipped him so he landed hard on his back. But in an instant Mago was up and at his opponent again.
    Alxa murmured, ‘They look so alike, especially without their clothes. Warrior boys, bred for a life of fighting.’
    ‘They’re not quite mirror images,’ Nelo said. ‘Look, the Hatti has Jesus symbols tattooed on his back – the fish, the palm fronds. And the Carthaginian’s the
one that’s been drooling over you.’
    ‘Hush. I think they’re talking about