The Cry of the Icemark

15



Maggiore Totus had spent a good part of his time since Thirrin and Oskan had left making sure the people of Frostmarris were settled in comfortably. Wherever possible they’d been housed within the Hypolitan city, but there was no way to squeeze the entire population from one very large settlement into the walls of a much smaller one, especially when the original population was still living there.

An overspill camp had been built just outside the walls, and Maggiore himself had supervised its construction, making sure that the streets were wide enough and that enough latrines had been dug, and appointing citizens to the task of clearing away garbage. He moaned and groaned about the work to anyone who’d listen, but secretly he relished it. It was almost like designing and building an entire new city from scratch, allowing him to test several theories he’d developed over the years, and he was very pleased to say that most of his ideas had worked.

There’d been one or two disasters. Nobody had wanted to join the district choirs, which he’d started as a means of quickly encouraging and developing a community spirit in the new settlement. And in the end he was quite philosophical when a football league spontaneously sprang up between the districts. But then he’d realized that the overspill camp was beginning to function like a city in its own right, and he became positively joyful when several shops sprang up.

But now the camp had begun to run itself, with several citizens being appointed as a committee to supervise the various functions, and Maggiore had resigned his post as city planner. For a while he’d busied himself finding space for the huge numbers of people that were beginning to flock to the city in answer to the calling of the fyrd. But the army had soon taken that in hand, and several new districts had been added to his overspill camp.

At one point he’d begun to wish he’d gone with Thirrin; after all, he was the one with the experience of life and the correct manners needed for diplomatic missions. But deep down he knew he’d never have been able to stand the cold of a winter’s journey in the Icemark. Even in the Hypolitan city, sitting next to a blazing hearth, he felt cold, so he was almost certain a journey in the wilds would have killed him. Besides, he’d lately found a project that had finally engaged his clever mind.

He was now sitting in his room with the shutters firmly closed on the snowstorm that was howling over the city. His fire was banked high with logs, and a glass of wine was close at hand while he put the last notes he’d taken into order. Primplepuss was curled up comfortably on his knee, and he absentmindedly stroked her as his pen scribbled across the page. When the war was over, he hoped to be able to write his notes up into a scholarly work on the origins of the Hypolitan. Not that anyone would read it, he supposed, but at least it kept his mind active and ready for when the Queen returned from The-Land-of-the-Ghosts and the spring thaw allowed the war to continue.

He was waiting now for Thirrin’s uncle, Olememnon, to arrive. With his help Maggiore had been compiling the notes he needed for his history, and so far he’d been a fascinating source of information, on top of which Maggiore found he enjoyed the huge man’s quiet company. He had a dry sense of humor, and his deep and gentle voice could say the most outrageous things with such a sense of seriousness that it often took Maggiore several seconds to realize what he’d said. Also, as the Basilea’s consort, Olememnon had the highest status of any man in the province, and apart from fighting in the Icemark’s wars he had no other duties, so he’d been a brilliant ally in hunting down State papers and manuscripts to help in their research. No door was locked to him, no archive out of bounds, so Maggiore only had to mention that he had the approval of Olememnon and all objections melted away.

So far, the little scholar’s studies had confirmed what was generally known, that the Hypolitan were not originally from the north. Today, he hoped to get to the more interesting bits of his investigations and find out exactly where on the Southern Continent this fascinating people had first come from. Maggiore was just savoring the idea of the investigation when a gentle knock sounded at his door.

“Come!” he called in his best schoolmaster’s voice, and the door opened.

Into the room stepped one of the biggest men Maggiore had ever known. Olememnon was even taller than King Redrought had been, and was easily as broad, and yet his shaven face gave him the appearance of an overgrown boy. To Maggiore, whose own scholar’s beard almost reached his waist, a clean-shaven man was still an odd sight, especially since all the men in every other part of the Icemark grew beards as soon as they could. This was just one more difference between the Hypolitan and the other citizens of the Icemark.

The big man smiled in greeting, his face and eyes lighting up as he strode forward.

“Ah, Olememnon! Sit down, sit down. A glass of wine?” Maggiore asked, pouring the drink before getting an answer. “Are you ready for our little chat? Have you remembered any folktales and legends I haven’t recorded yet?”

“I’m not sure. Perhaps. It depends what you want to hear,” Olememnon answered, his deep, soft voice filling Maggiore’s large chamber to capacity.

“Well, let me see,” the little scholar said, picking up his notes and balancing his spectoculums on the end of his nose. “Ah yes! We were about to discuss the genesis of the Hypolitan. The land of their origin and the reason for their migration.”

“Well, that’s easy. War, and a need to escape a power that wouldn’t let us live as we wanted,” said Olememnon, sipping his drink and settling back into his creaking chair. Primplepuss had looked up when the huge man came into the room, and now hopped down from Maggiore and walked across the floor to take up residence on the new lap. Perhaps there was something about the Basilea’s consort that reminded her of another special man who’d filled a room in the same way, and this was her way of honoring his memory. Olememnon stroked her as soon as she settled onto his lap, and to the accompaniment of her purring, looked expectantly across at Maggiore, who waited with pen poised.

“Fine, fine. Well, tell me what you know from the beginning, while I take notes,” said Maggiore, who knew the big man was a natural storyteller.

“Well, now, let’s see …” began Olememnon. “The Hypolitan once lived in the mountains of the Southern Continent, many hundreds of years ago. They were, even then, a fierce people who lived by hunting and fighting. But the other people around respected them and learned to revere the Great Mother Goddess, sending offerings to the warrior-priestesses who served her in her mountaintop shrines.”

“Aha!” said Maggiore as he scribbled away. Some of his guesses had been right. In his own land there had been legends of warrior women who had served the Goddess of the Moon.

“For many generations life was good for the Hypolitan, but then a threat of war arose, and a great movement of people came from the east. Their armies were huge, and after many battles the Hypolitan retreated to the sanctuary of their mountain shrines.

“Our soldiers fought a long and bitter war but knew they couldn’t win. The enemy was massive and sent army after army against our strongholds. But the Basilea of the day, Queen Athenestra, devised a plan. When the Blessed Moon was dark, the warrior-priestesses and the fighting men would carve a wide swathe through the besieging armies to allow our people to escape to other lands and find peace again.

“And this they duly did, taking the enemy by surprise and bursting through their lines. So began a great trek, taking us through many nations, until at last we came to lands we felt were home. This country had mountains and winters as fierce as those we had known in our citadels built in the clouds.

“The land was, of course, the Icemark. But here the people were the strongest we’d met since the war with the eastern invaders. We fought long and hard, never winning, never losing, neither side able to gain the final victory. Until at last the King of that time, who was called Theobad, called for a truce, and after long talks agreement was reached. Queen Athenestra would acknowledge the King of the Icemark as her overlord, and we, in return, would be allowed to stay in the lands we now hold. And ever since that day, the Hypolitan have been loyal subjects of the Icemark and her greatest ally in times of war.”

Olememnon fell silent and sipped his drink while Maggiore faithfully wrote down his words in the special shorthand he had devised for his study notes. At last he laid down his pen and smiled. “Well, that’s quite a tale. Some of it I’d guessed already, of course, but the details are quite fascinating. I’ll need to verify and corroborate some of the finer points, but overall you’ve given me a wonderfully concise framework from which to expand my studies.”

“One thing, Maggie,” Olememnon said as he stretched his long, thickly muscled legs toward the fire. Primplepuss jumped lightly down and began to wash. “Thinking about these old tales has brought something to mind…. There’s a similarity between the descriptions of the invading people who drove the Hypolitan out of their homeland and the Polypontian Empire.”

“Really?” the little man asked. “In what way?”

“Well, mainly their method of fighting. The way they just overwhelmed the opposition with the size of their army. The way one defeated force would simply be replaced with another and then another until all opposition was ground down.”

“Yes, I see what you mean. But it’s probably just coincidence. After all, we’re not talking subtle tactics here, are we? Really, it’s just the method of a bully who’s bigger and stronger than everyone else and uses his brute force to get what he wants. In the past, it was your invaders and today it’s the Polypontians.”

“Perhaps. But as far as I can make out, the Empire started in the south and over the years has expanded northward — particularly in the last twenty years or so while Scipio Bellorum has been the commander in chief of their army. But from where in the south did they come? How far south? Do you know?”

Maggiore had to admit that he didn’t. It was an interesting point, and one he’d follow up.

“And as for the Polypontians being bullies,” Olememnon went on, “well, you’re right. And that was more than enough to get them an empire. But with General Scipio Bellorum their bullying strength is allied with a clever tactical brain, and that’s a difficult combination to fight.”

“Yes, I know,” the little scholar said, abruptly and painfully reminded of the war that waited for them beyond the spring thaw.

“If we’d just been fighting their army without the general, we might, just might have had a chance. But with him …?” The big man shrugged, then stood to leave. “But that’s defeatist talk. And I’ve got a fyrd to help train. I’ll see you tonight at dinner, Maggie.”

And with the suddenness of the changing wind, Olememnon was gone. Maggiore had gotten used to this rapid change of pace and mood in his big friend, but any room he’d been in seemed unbearably empty for a moment, as though he’d left a vacuum behind him. Primplepuss felt it, too, and meowed plaintively, but then with the poise and balance typical of any cat, she quickly adjusted to it and meowed again to remind Maggie it was her dinnertime.

He put aside his notes and stood to fetch her bowl, noticing as he did so that the little animal was no longer a kitten. Her legs had grown and her head was losing its baby roundness as it developed the sleek lines of an adult cat. Thirrin would notice a difference when she got back from her travels.

His thoughts turned again to the young Queen and her mission. So much depended on her success, and so much could easily go wrong. It wasn’t that he lacked confidence in her. In the last few weeks she’d matured at a terrifying speed; circumstances hadn’t allowed anything else. But she was trying to make an alliance with the Icemark’s oldest enemy. There were centuries of bitterness and hatred to overcome. And if she failed, they’d all die. He shrugged. There was nothing he could do to help her; he’d just have to hope and wait like everyone else.