The transit from Bastion Two to the South Barbican was a study in town smooth speed.
Giles Croft walked briskly along the covered low roof wall walkway. He was flanked by Captain Kenneth Drake and Inquisitor Malric Ostrander, their heavy wool coats pulled tight against the freezing crosswind.
Below them, District Two hummed with disciplined, purposeful activity.
Inside the four-story concrete insulae blocks, five thousand five hundred refugees were sheltered behind twelve-inch volcanic cement party walls.
Through the glazed casement windows, Giles could see children sitting peacefully on the warm flat stone slab floors, heated from beneath by the district hypocaust chimney pipes.
In the central courtyard, Mistress Pippa the Fermenter stood over a pair of two-hundred-gallon copper cooking pots, ladling steaming malted barley broth into wooden bowls for the volunteer stretcher-bearers and water-haulers.
There was neither panic nor disorder. The settlers moved with the calm confidence of people who had seen stone walls withstand the worst the mountain could throw.
“They don’t cower,” Inquisitor Ostrander observed, looking down into the courtyard with genuine wonder. “In the provinces, the mere rumor of two thousand royal soldiers would have caused a wild stampede toward the hills.”
