Iron Winter (Northland 3) Read Online Free PDF

incursion of German bandits.’
    Rina murmured to Alxa, ‘Just as in the south we have German soldiers kicking out Frankish nestspills, but don’t tell this fellow that.’
    Before the man’s dignity, Alxa was faintly repelled by her mother’s cynicism.
    Everybody seemed relieved when the old Gairan at last bowed and withdrew. But the next supplicants, more from Gaira, then from the German nations south of the great forest, had much the same
story to tell: of years of rain, failed harvests and famine, and now the cold. The dismal accounts began to have a cumulative effect on Alxa. Was nowhere spared?
    Now there came a Carthaginian, a worthy of some kind called Barmocar. He was a man of about forty with hair that looked suspiciously deep black to Alxa, and he wore a robe of heavy cloth dyed
richly purple, a shade much envied in the fashion houses of the Wall but which remained a Carthaginian secret. Alxa had met Barmocar’s wife, an elegant if arrogant woman called Anterastilis.
She wondered what relation Mago was to Barmocar – a son perhaps, or a nephew. The Carthaginians were an empire of merchants who didn’t have kings and princes like other farmer-nations,
like the Hatti, say. But just as in Northland, in Carthage family ties were everything when it came to the distribution of power.
    And Barmocar spoke, not of rain as in the northern lands, but of drought in the once-fertile plains of North Africa.
    ‘Years of it. I doubt you can imagine the consequences. The earth itself cracks and dries, and the soil blows away on the wind. The cattle lie in the heat, too listless to brush away the
flies swarming around them. And the children too, their bellies swollen, whole communities ravaged by diseases. Yet despite our own privations, we of Carthage ensure that our neighbours do not
suffer, if we can aid them . . .’
    Rina whispered to Alxa, ‘I never liked Carthaginians. Arrogant, bullying and manipulative. I’ve been warned about the sophistry this one’s to come out with. He’ll
make a case that Carthage is a great nation, a giving nation, all the while wheedling under his breath for fish and potatoes, so he has it both ways – oh, I can’t listen to
this.’ She stood and said loudly, ‘With your permission, Cousin Ywa. Good Prince Barmocar, I am confused.’ Her words were hastily translated into Barmocar’s own thick
tongue. ‘This tale of woe you recite – are you here to beg for bounty? Begging like these others, the Franks and Germans and the rest, these “poor rudimentary farmers”, as I
have heard you describe them? And a bounty from us, whom I have heard you describe as “a thin godless smear of ignorance and incompetence on an undeveloped landscape”?’
    Barmocar glared, his face suffused with red.
    Ywa sighed. ‘Sit down, Cousin. The man is an ambassador.’
    Rina complied. But Alxa could see from the look on her face that she was satisfied with the work she had done.
    Barmocar continued, ‘On the contrary, madam. If you had not interrupted me I would have explained that we are here solely to offer what succour we can to our neighbours and allies.’
He smiled, arms open in generosity, and spoke on about gifts and giving.
    But Alxa, relatively innocent in this kind of duelling, saw that her mother had forestalled whatever subtle request for assistance he had intended. His humiliation was apparent, as was the
barely concealed gloating on the faces of the Hatti, long-time rivals of the Carthaginians. Alxa wondered how many children in Carthage would go hungry because of this nasty little exchange.
    Nelo whispered, ‘Good old Mother, she always has had a tongue like a poison dart.’
    Still the delegates came forward with their tales of agony, one after another. Pyxeas made endless scribbles, and his pile of notes grew to a heap of papers and slates under his seat.
    Only the gruff Albians sat unmoving, massive men in furs of bear hide, neither pleading poverty nor boasting of