The Fourth Year of the Longwinter: Autumn Equinox
At last word came that ships had been seen, on the eastern horizon.
The three women stood in the shade of Xipuhl’s house, here at the heart of the city called the Altar of the Jaguar. Xipuhl took Sabela’s hand, and Walks In Mist’s, and the three of them stood together as they had that night in the growstone bar in the Wall, three summers ago. Three women, two of them widows now, for Walks In Mist had lost her husband in the flood that had driven her and her children out of the River City, and Xipuhl’s husband had succumbed to the plague last year — and Sabela might as well have been a widow, for Deraj had been dead to her since his betrayal of her with the nestspill girl.
Sabela, a guest here, had already called the twins and packed her bags. And when Walks In Mist arrived she’d had only one question. ‘Are they Northlander ships?’
‘We don’t know yet,’ Xipuhl said gently. ‘They are too far away. And they are very late, if it’s them — midsummer has long gone-’
‘They have come,’ Sabela said firmly. ‘I knew they would, late or not. Come, let’s go to the shore.’
Walks In Mist glanced at Xipuhl, and they shrugged, and made ready.
Sabela would not be sorry to see the last of the Altar of the Jaguar, thankful though she had been for Xipuhl’s hospitality when she had fled north from Tiwanaku with the twins.
The city was set on a high plateau, dominating a river basin. The heart of it was a raised platform on which sat temples, courtyards, the houses of the very rich — and monuments, gigantic stone thrones and carved heads as tall as she was, their ancient faces eroded and pitted. The big faces made the twins cry. The city had its own deep history; it had been the capital of an empire that, according to its own legend, had been the first civilisation west of the great ocean, and would also have been the first to have fallen long ago if not for links with Northland across the sea. Well, in the years since, the Empire of the Jaguar had waxed and waned. This age had seen a fragmentation of states under the pressure of drought and heat, and there had been endless petty, wearing wars. The Altar was much reduced from its eerie pomp. But you wouldn’t know it from the way the rulers and the rich paraded around the city in their finely woven skirts, and their upper bodies adorned with bangles, necklaces, pendants, and big mirrors of polished stone. And they were deformed, their heads misshapen from their skulls being bound up when they were infants, and grooves worn into their teeth. Xipuhl said this was part of a revival of ancient customs; facing an uncertain future, the people of the Altar were reaching back to a more secure past.
Now, in any event, Sabela was seeing her last of it.
The three women, with their children and baggage, were loaded onto a couple of carts driven by Xipuhl’s servants. As they rolled out of the city towards the coast, they were not alone; Sabela saw a steady trickle of vehicles, and foot traffic too, heading out to greet the first ships to be seen from across the ocean all year.
Xipuhl had sent servants ahead to rent a small property on the edge of the coastal town, and there they spent a restless night. Sabela’s twins had trouble sleeping this close to the sea; they had been born into the clear, dry, thin air of the mountains, and sometimes they found the clinging humidity of the lowlands unbearable. In the early morning they gathered by the harbour, watching the dawn gathering over the ocean, waiting for their first glimpse of the ships. The children quickly got bored. Walks In Mist had brought her Northland chess set, and Sabela’s twins settled down to a game.
And then the ships emerged from a bank of mist, tall shadows on the horizon. There was a ripple of applause from the waiting people.
‘Here they come,’ murmured Walks In Mist. ‘But why now? Too late for the midsummer. I suppose they could have been delayed — difficulties with the journey, with ice on the sea. .’
Sabela was not listening. ‘I knew they would come. Before the winter we will be drinking again in that funny little tavern in the Wall, and our troubles will be behind us.’
But Xipuhl said now, ‘We know nothing of conditions in Northland. Or anywhere across the ocean. What if they are fleeing here?’
And Walks In Mist said, ‘There seem to be rather a lot of ships.’
Now Sabela could see there were many vessels — she counted seven, eight, nine, and more emerging from the mist behind the leaders — a tremendous fleet, soon too many to count. The Giving transport usually numbered only three or four vessels. She felt a stab of doubt.
Walks In Mist raised her hands to her eyes. ‘They have tubes sticking out of their sides. I see it clearly. Tubes of iron. And the sails. There is a design on the sails.’
‘A design?’
‘A man. Painted huge. His hand upraised. And crossed palm leaves across his chest. .’
The crowd on the quay were falling silent, as they gazed into the eyes of Jesus Sharruma, and watched the Hatti armada approach.