The dock office had a back door that opened onto a concrete stair running down from the apron to the river lane below, where the freight carts waited, and when Halvek’s clerk opened it to let Mara out the back way, away from the crowd, Tavin was coming up the stair.
He came slowly. Mara saw it from the top step before he saw her. He was taking each step one at a time, his bad knee first, then his good one, a hand on the iron rail, pausing every few steps. His face was grey with the effort. He was wearing his good coat, the dark one he wore to tithe meetings and funerals, and his cap. He looked older than he had looked eleven days ago, at the gate, kneeling with his oil can on the stuck bolt. Or perhaps she had never looked at him from above before.
Pell was behind him, carrying Tavin’s bag over one shoulder and a flat leather case of papers under his other arm. And behind Pell, a woman Mara had never seen: tall, in a plain dark coat, with spectacles and a folder open in her hands, reading from it as she climbed, her lips moving.
