Crimm the fisherman was a tough-looking man in his thirties. He sat in loose shirt and trousers, arms folded, legs outstretched, and he watched Pyxeas’ performance with a grin. ‘I got this stuff in my ear all the way back from Coldland. You wouldn’t believe he’s talking about sunshine, would you?’

Ywa seemed baffled. ‘Sunshine?’

‘Yes!’ Pyxeas cried. ‘The world’s spin is not unchanging, you see. The axis wobbles and nods, like a child’s top spinning on a table. Why the world behaves this way is not clear. The Greeks were always divided. Some said the whole cosmic apparatus is like an imperfect machine – rattling like a badly tuned steam engine. Others believe that consciousness suffuses the cosmos; perhaps the earth makes a deferential dance around the sun, nodding and bowing like a courtier of New Hattusa.

‘But the why is not important. The question is, what difference does this make to us? And yes, fisherman, the difference is the sunshine. No two years are identical. Because of these features of the planet’s orbit and spin, in this epoch year by year the world is getting less sunshine – or to be precise, the strength of the sunshine falling on a given spot on the world, say here at Etxelur, at a particular time, say yesterday, midsummer solstice—’

Ywa said, ‘So you claim the whole world is cooling.’

‘I could tell you that,’ Crimm said. ‘More bergs every year. And the ocean currents are changing too. Any fisherman will tell you. We have to go further and further south to find the warm water that the cod like. And as for the catch itself—’ He went to his chair, pulled a canvas sack out from underneath it, and produced dried fish. He passed them around the group. ‘This is all we’re bringing home.’

Alxa got hold of one, a fish as hard as a wood carving. Sometimes still called by its traditional name of Kirike-fish, this was the main produce of the Northland’s fishing fleets, cod caught in masses and quickly salted and dried. It would keep for a year or more, and, easy to transport, was the staple of Northland’s provision of food to the rest of the Continent. But the fish seemed small to Alxa, who had seen fishermen return immense specimens before, some as long as the fishers were tall; this was less than the length of her forearm.

Crimm said, ‘The point is, we’re having to sail twice as far to return half the yield. Before you Annids decide how much to dole out to our continental neighbours, you need to remember that.’

Now the debate on the Giving Distribution started in earnest.

‘We must keep what we have for our own people,’ said one man. ‘If the trends Pyxeas describes continue, if our water courses freeze, if our trees fail to produce fruit—’

Rina shook her head. ‘That’s short-sighted. There are always more farmers than us – and some of them are already here. Nestspills from their failed farmlands in Gaira and the Continent, even from the fringes of Albia. Our guard and the mercenaries might keep some of them out. Far better to buy them off with a little cod than have them come here and consume everything.’