The smallest table in Vale’s kitchen had one short leg. Iven discovered this when he lifted it, and the leg stayed behind.
“You said I could carry a small one,” he told Vale.
“I did. I didn’t promise it would arrive in one piece.”
She was standing at the door with a basket of onions, watching volunteers arrange stalls along the covered walkway. The night market would start after the evening heat adjustment, when workers came off shift and the lamps were lit. Until then, everyone seemed to be carrying something that belonged on the opposite side of the street.
Iven set the table upside down and examined the broken joint. The leg had been repaired before with a nail driven through the side. The nail had split the wood. He pulled it out with his hammer and found a sound section farther up the leg.
“Can it be fixed?” Vale asked.
“Yes.”
“Tonight?”
“Also yes.”
He cut the damaged end square, fitted a small wooden block into the corner of the frame, and secured the leg with two screws placed far enough apart not to split the grain. The repair shortened the leg slightly. He trimmed the other three to match, then turned the table over and pressed on each corner. It stayed level.
Vale put down her basket. “You’ve made it shorter.”
“The floor is farther away now.”
“Will that help people reach it?”
“Only if they were having trouble before.”
She set the onions on the table. “Then carry it to Asa.”
He lifted one end. The other was taken by a girl who had come to help at the kitchen. Together they carried it through the doorway, around a cart of folded blankets, and into the walkway. Asa was arranging bowls at a stall under a strip of blue cloth. She pointed to an open space beside her.
“There. Not too close to the lamp. I don’t want onion skins catching fire.”
The girl set down her end and went back for another load. Iven placed the table where Asa indicated, then checked that it did not rock on the uneven boards.
“You’ve improved it,” Asa said.
“I’ve made it lower.”
“Then it’ll be easier to see over.”
She handed him a bowl of soup before he could ask for one. It was thick with roots and meal. He ate standing beside the stall while she counted cups and told three different people where to put three different baskets. She gave the same instructions without sounding as if she expected anyone to fail them.
Neri arrived with Dessa and Jem carrying a narrow workbench. They set it near the repaired stairs, where the light would be good enough for small jobs. Neri hung a sign above it: MENDING AND ADVICE. ASK THE PRICE FIRST.
“Advice has a price?” Iven asked.
“Bad advice costs more.”
“Who decides which kind it is?”
“The person whose roof stays up.”
Jem unpacked a box of nails, hinges, and small brackets. Dessa spread a cloth over the bench. Their first customer was a man with a child’s shoe whose sole had come loose. Neri directed him to the tailor two stalls away. The second brought a kettle with a broken handle. Iven helped Jem fit a new pin while the customer waited.
The market filled gradually. A baker set out loaves from the previous day at reduced prices. A woman traded soap for cooking oil. A pair of sisters sold small cloth bags of dried herbs and argued over whether the labels should be tied to the bags or displayed on a board. Brin moved among them with messages, occasionally stopping to taste something offered by a cook who wanted an opinion.
“Your qualifications?” Iven asked when he caught him accepting a pastry.
“I’m hungry.”
“A strong foundation.”
Brin broke the pastry in half and offered him a piece. It contained mashed beans and spice. Iven ate it and decided Brin was qualified.
Near the end of the walkway, a family had set up a stall with repaired toys. A wooden animal rolled on four mismatched wheels; a cloth bird had one wing made from a different color of fabric. A small boy held the animal while his mother bargained for a blanket at the next stall.
The animal’s front wheel came off and rolled toward the stair. Iven caught it with his boot before it reached the edge.
“Your horse is escaping,” he said.
“It’s not a horse.”
“What is it?”
“A Marcher.”
The toy had a broad back and a head that might once have had horns. Iven crouched and handed the wheel back. The axle pin had worn smooth, allowing the wheel to slide off.
“Can you mend it?” the boy asked.
“Do you have permission?”
The mother returned with a folded blanket under her arm. She inspected the toy and nodded. Iven took a thin piece of wire from his coat, bent it into a retaining loop, and fitted it through a small hole in the axle. The wheel turned. It stayed on when the boy pulled it.
“Does it walk?” Iven asked.
“It rolls.”
“Then it has better manners than most Marchers.”
The boy pushed it across the boards. One wheel squeaked, but all four stayed attached. He followed it through the crowd, making room for it with great seriousness.
At Asa’s stall, Vale had begun distributing meal to households on her list. People who could pay bought portions; people who could not received them from the relief stock. Vale did not announce which was which. She checked names, asked about missing neighbors, and sent Brin to one room with food for a woman who could not leave her bed.
Iven saw him receive the packet and start toward the stairs. He followed with a jug of water.
“You don’t have to come,” Brin said.
“I know. The jug looked lonely.”
The woman lived on the third floor of a narrow building whose stair leaned toward the street. Neri’s crew had inspected it and marked the safe side of each landing with chalk. Brin knew which boards to avoid. He knocked at the door and waited until a voice invited them in.
The room smelled of clean linen and medicine. A woman lay beneath a blanket with her leg supported on folded clothes. Her grandson, a boy younger than Brin, was mending a shirt by the window.
“Your grandmother said she’d eat,” Brin told him.
“She says many things,” the boy replied. “I wait to see which ones happen.”
The woman accepted the food and asked where the water had come from. Brin named the kitchen cistern. She tasted it, nodded, and asked after Vale’s shoulder.
“She’s carrying onions,” Brin said.
“Then she’s pretending it doesn’t hurt.”
On the way down, Iven asked whether Vale’s shoulder was injured.
“Old strain. She won’t stop working.”
“Have you told Sera?”
“Vale has told Sera. Sera told Vale to rest. They both seemed satisfied that they’d done their part.”
Back at the market, Neri had a line of customers. A woman wanted advice on a cracked window frame. A porter needed a strap buckle replaced. A man carrying a folded drawing waited at the end, watching Neri measure the window piece.
When his turn came, he introduced himself as a representative of the public overhaul crew. Cage Seven and several nearby loading points were due for an inspection and replacement of worn lifting parts. He wanted Neri’s cooperative to bid on the structural work.
“Who supplies the parts?” she asked.
“Krail Haulage has the main delivery contract.”
“And who inspects them?”
“The overhaul crew.”
“Before they’re installed?”
“Yes.”
The answer came quickly. Neri did not look reassured.
Iven recognized the folded drawing as a list of work locations rather than a detailed design. It included the cage landing, two guide assemblies, and a loading rail near the lower market.
“Are these all being done at once?” he asked.
“Over three days. We have to keep at least one route open.”
“Who decides which?” Tavin asked. He had arrived while they were talking, carrying a tray of cups for Asa.
“The transport office.”
“Then I want the schedule before anyone closes my cage.”
The representative gave him a copy. Tavin read it, pointed to a line, and said, “That day won’t work. The clinic has deliveries.”
“We can move the delivery window.”
“Not if the medicine comes in the morning and the patients need it by noon.”
Neri took the schedule and turned it toward the lamp. “We can inspect the lower guide first, then move to the rail. The cage remains open while the rail work is isolated.”
The representative considered. “That may be possible.”
“Ask the crew before you promise,” she said.
He left with the revised order marked in pencil. Tavin watched him go.
“Krail again,” he said.
“Krail supplies half the district,” Neri replied. “We check what arrives.”
Iven looked at the list. The overhaul would give them a chance to inspect the parts before they carried passengers. It would also put the cage out of service if the work went badly. He folded the copy and handed it back to Tavin.
“Let me know when the parts arrive.”
“You’re volunteering?”
“I’m protecting my route to the clinic. Sera knows where I live.”
A little later the toy seller called for help. Her stall lamp had gone out, and the spare wick would not draw oil. Iven found a kink in the narrow feed tube, loosened the fitting and straightened it against the edge of a block. The lamp lit, then smoked badly. The seller looked at him over the rising black plume.
“I thought you repaired lamps.”
“I do. I haven’t finished this one.”
He adjusted the wick lower, cleaned a crust of old oil from the vent, and tried again. This time the flame burned clear. The seller offered him a cloth bird in payment. He declined until she pointed out that it had been made from scraps too small for anything else and that taking it would let her close the account.
He chose the one with mismatched wings and gave it to the boy with the wheeled Marcher. The boy examined both toys and announced that the bird would guide the Marcher through the market. He then spent several minutes making sure the bird did not fly faster than its companion could roll.
The seller watched him go. “He’ll lose the bird.”
“Probably,” Iven said. “But the Marcher will know where it went.”
She laughed and turned the lamp so its light fell on her remaining toys. Two customers came over to examine them.
The lamps came on one by one along the walkway. Someone began playing a small stringed instrument near the baker’s stall. The tune wandered, found itself, and wandered again. People laughed when the player missed a note, including the player.
Asa gave Vale a bowl and insisted she sit down. Vale accepted after checking that the last household on her list had received food. She sat at the repaired table, whose short legs placed the bowl exactly where she wanted it.
“You’ve made something useful,” she told Iven.
“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said about a table today.”
“It’s the only thing anyone’s said about a table today.”
Neri came over with two cups of tea. She offered him one and kept the other. They stood near the rail, looking down at the lower street where a few late workers were climbing toward the light.
“You don’t have to take the overhaul,” Iven said.
“I know.”
“Krail may not like you inspecting his parts.”
“Krail doesn’t have to like it.” She took a sip. “My crew needs the work. The district needs the repairs. I’d rather be there when the parts are checked.”
He nodded. That was a better reason than his own desire to see whether the company had learned from the cage housing.
A small gust moved through the walkway, carrying the smell of hot metal and fried onions. Neri caught the edge of the blue stall cloth before it could blow against a lamp. Iven tied it to the rail with a short knot. She tested the knot, then left it alone.
“Will it hold?” he asked.
“Until someone unties it.”
“High praise.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
The music grew steadier. Brin returned from the upper rooms and accepted another pastry, this time without claiming it was for professional evaluation. Iven finished his tea and went to help Tavin carry the empty cups back to Asa.
Tomorrow there would be a schedule to argue over, parts to measure, and a cage to keep safe. For the moment, the people in the walkway had found a way to share a meal and keep the lamps from setting the onions on fire. Iven thought that was enough work for one night.