At first light the canal had left a line of blue dye across the gate keeper’s front door.
She stood examining it with a cup of tea in one hand. The mark was level with her waist, a wavering band that crossed the wood and continued along the wall into the street. A child had already added a chalk fish beneath it.
“That’s higher than the water reached,” Neri said.
“The dyers say it splashed when the big wave came through.” The keeper took another drink. “I haven’t asked which of them is responsible for the fish.”
Her name was Pellin. Iven had learned it the previous evening after helping close her gate, when she had been too busy counting the people still missing to be introduced. Now she led them down the sloping lane toward the bypass. Strips of wet cloth hung from upper windows. A group of neighbors had spread ruined rugs over the market paving, and the pear seller was sorting the fruit that had escaped into a basket.
Iven stopped to pay for the pear still in his coat. The seller refused the coins.
“You paid yesterday.”
“I put them on your stall. The water took the stall.”
