Iron Winter

49

The woman was waiting for Sabela under the Gate of the God of Light.

Situated next to the Exaltation of the Sky Waters, a square-cut pyramid that was the greatest monument in Tiwanaku, the Gate was only nominally an entry to the city. Not attached to any wall, the Gate was the frame of a door that led nowhere. Yet this was traditionally where supplicants came to ask for residence in this holy city, the highest city in all the world, enclosed by its finely cut stone walls and surrounded by raised, carefully irrigated fields of maize.

This was the High Country. The day was bright, the lake, a day’s walk away, was a plane of brilliant blue under the sky, and the snow-capped mountains beyond gleamed. The city was a jewel set in the great mountain chain that stretched down the spine of this southern continent.

And here was this woman, round-shouldered, her clothes layers of grubby rags, a clutch of children around her, the oldest a boy who might have been fourteen, a couple of little girls, an infant in arms, all of them staring at Sabela. One of the girls was labouring, having trouble breathing. Sabela had no idea how old the woman was. Younger than she was, probably. Broken down from toil, child-rearing, and maybe years as a nestspill.

Sabela held out the note she had been sent, written on reed paper, scrawled in a soldier’s hasty hand. It had found her eventually at her mother’s home on the other side of the city, where she had been visiting with the twins. ‘You sent me this? Your name is — C’merr.’ The click in the back of the throat, characteristic of lowlander tongues, was alien to Sabela’s own language.

‘C’merr — yes. And you are Sabela, wife of Deraj.’

‘You claim we offered to take you in.’

The woman frowned, perhaps puzzling at her speech. ‘Yes. Not you. Husband, Deraj.’

Sabela found that hard to believe; Deraj, busy running a wool business that spanned swathes of the highlands and thousands of llamas and alpacas, was not given to making sentimental gestures to unfortunates like this nestspill. Especially not to a grubby, unprepossessing — ugly — woman like this one. Deraj, for better or worse, had always had an eye for beauty. ‘You understand that the city is crowded.’

‘Crowd — yes.’

‘Many people come here for refuge.’ It had been a one-way flow from the lower lands for years. ‘We have no room.’

‘Deraj. He say.’

Sabela said coolly, ‘We never spoke of it.’

‘Deraj say.’

Sabela studied the woman. Her features were nondescript, the tone of her skin hidden by dust and the stains of sweat. ‘Where are you from? Were your family alpaca herders?’

‘No. Fisher folk.’

‘From the river valleys?’

‘Ocean.’

Sabela was shocked. If that was true, it was no surprise the little girl was having trouble breathing; not everybody born by the sea adapted well to the thin air up here. ‘You lost your living there.’

‘Fish died. Years ago. Only one baby then. We moved, and grew beans.’

That would have been in the river valleys, above the coast, marginally richer land where folk grew beans and squash and cotton, in farms irrigated by summer meltwater from the mountain glaciers. ‘And then?’

‘No water. No rain. No rivers in summer.’ Because the summers had got so cold the glaciers stayed frozen, and there was no meltwater. ‘Then more babies. We grew potatoes.’ In the mountain foothills, probably. ‘Not bad.’ She grinned, almost wistfully. ‘Grew fat, one summer. But then, no water. Then came here.’

‘Where’s your husband?’

‘Died. Fighting in war.’

Sabela had no idea which war she might be talking about; the whole region, the mountain country, the coastal strip, even the borders with the forest nations to the east, had been convulsed by raids and petty wars for years. So, after fleeing step by step from her home by the ocean, climbing gradually into the highlands, the woman had ended up here, at the summit of the world, the home of the gods, like so many others.

‘C’merr — I’m sorry for your troubles. But Deraj never said anything to me about you.’

‘Met him in. .’A name Sabela couldn’t make out, so thick was her accent. ‘He came to trade, wool for potatoes. Deraj say,’ said the woman stubbornly. The boy nudged her, whispered something. The woman dug into her grimy coat and pulled out another scrap of paper, handed it to Sabela.

Sabela took it reluctantly; the woman wore skin gloves from which blackened fingernails protruded. When she opened the paper she saw it was a note in Deraj’s handwriting. ‘Why didn’t you give me this straight away?’ C’merr had no reply. Perhaps she was not used to written notes, Sabela thought. It hadn’t occurred to her.

The note was scribbled on a bit of reed parchment that was stained in one corner by what looked like spilled wine. Sabela’s heart sank. Her husband got drunk a lot these days. Much of his export business was with the Sky Wolf nations, to the north, and times were hard there — tremendous forest fires, drought, whole cities buried by dust storms, so the travellers said. And he had a way of making deals when drunk that he later regretted. But the note was in Deraj’s hand, undoubtedly. And it promised C’merr and her family refuge in Tiwanaku as long as they needed it.

She studied the woman, the grimy, tired face, the fixed eyes. Why would he do this? How could a woman like C’merr have possibly bought refuge from a man like Deraj?

‘You’d better come with me,’ she said. ‘We’ll find Deraj and sort this out.’

The nestspills goggled as they walked through Tiwanaku.

Today the city was as busy as ever, with crowds of reed boats working the lake waters beyond the jetties, the streets jammed with street-sweepers and porters, bearers leading llamas laden with goods or drawing carts. A temple was being torn down, one of the grandest in the city. There was always building going on somewhere in Tiwanaku, a cycle of demolition and construction as the city endlessly renewed itself to attract the next season’s pilgrims, who came to worship the God of Light in his citadel in the sky. If anything the pace of life here had got more frantic in the last few years — and of course the place was ever more crowded with nestspills. Sabela sometimes thought it was like the frenzied last dances at the parties she used to go to when she was young, everybody working harder to squeeze out the last bit of enjoyment before the cold light of morning.

For every year the winter was harsher, the summer shorter. Today, this spring day, sheet ice still lay on the lake waters, and frost blighted the maize fields. And while the likes of C’merr and her family came washing up from the lowlands like a rising tide, so the ice on those beautiful mountains on the horizon was creeping down to the plain. It was as if Tiwanaku was being crushed between two great fists, from above and below. No wonder people danced.

So why, in such circumstances, would Deraj have promised a nestspill family refuge in their home?

The answer, when she got home, was immediately obvious.

The girl might have been fifteen, no more. She lay naked on the thick llama-wool carpet in the middle of the room, pale body limp, legs folded to one side, arms lying loose. She looked barely awake; perhaps she was drunk, or drugged. She was none too clean, but she had good breasts, wide hips, a full mouth. The type Deraj had always liked. She even looked a little like Sabela, at that age.

And here came her husband, naked too, his penis limp and glistening, a skin of wine in his hand. He started when he saw Sabela standing there, and the nestspill woman behind her — obviously C’merr was the girl’s mother. But he was too drunk to be guilty. ‘Shut the door, by the god’s shade, you’re letting all the heat out.’

Sabela pushed past the nestspill woman and stormed out.

Deraj came to the door, naked, the wine in his hand, and called after her. ‘Sabela, wait! Where are you going?’

To the twins, she thought, at her mother’s home. That was where she was going. And then away from this place. Where, though?

Far from here. To the friends she had made that had nothing to do with Deraj. To the River City to see Walks In Mist, or the Altar of the Jaguar where she would find Xipuhl. She would go all the way to Northland, perhaps. She would wait for the ships with her friends as they had promised, and go back to that little growstone bar in the Wall, at the heart of the greatest civilisation in the world, where she had drunk potato spirit from Asia. Where she had been happy. Where she would be safe again.

Deraj continued to call after her. Neighbours were laughing at his nudity and drunkenness. She broke into a run, to get away.