Sect Year 4 · eighth month · night of day 6 · the thirty-ninth life: a delta market town, Bessim’s nineteenth year
The market well stood behind the bread stalls, a round ring of stone as high as a man’s chest, with a wooden crane above it and a rope that had been replaced so many times its knots were black. The council’s bench stood under the arcade across the way. On any morning when the bread was out on the trays, three old men sat on that bench with their hands folded over their sticks, and they watched the apprentices come and go with the water.
Bessim had passed them every working day for five years. In all that time they had asked his opinion of nothing but the weights.
He had a tin cup in his hand now. It was a plain cup, dented at the rim, the kind the market kept on a nail beside the crane for anyone who wanted a drink. He let the bucket down on its rope, drew it up slowly so that the water did not slop over the lip, and dipped the cup at the surface and drank.
The water was cold and tasted of stone and rain. Under that, at the back of the tongue, the grit came up. It was in every mouthful, a fine sand taste that sat against the teeth and would not wash away. At the bottom of the bucket, where he tipped the last of…
