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.

50

On the battlefield south of Carthage, Nelo was in the reserve. He and the rest of his unit were kept back while the main phalanxes stood firm against the last ragged charge of the Libyan rebels, and then when the Carthaginian cavalry was unleashed at the enemy.