The woman groaned. “Then we’re stuck here for a while at least. I hope we don’t run out of water.”
The two of them turned away and were quickly replaced by two teenage boys, eager to talk to the city man. Jayla edged closer to listen.
“How’d you do that?” one of the boys demanded. “Walk across that rope like—like it was just something you’d do every day?”
The man laughed. “I’m courier in the city, so I do run along the cables a lot,” he said.
The boys looked blank. “What cables?” one of them asked.
“There’s a gridway—a cable net that hangs over the whole city. It provides the power for all the light and all the transportation in Corcannon.”
“And you’re a courier?” the other one said. “What’s that?”
“I carry messages and packages. The faster the better. When traffic is slow or there’s no direct route from one place to another, sometimes I’ll run across the power net instead of along the streets.”
“And you never fall?”
“Haven’t so far.”
“Maybe I’d want to be a courier,” one of the boys said.
The city man held out his left wrist, where the bracelet was suitably dazzling. “It’s a good life.” He dropped his hand. “What are you coming to Corcannon for?”
One of the boys shook his head. “Our dad died. Our mom’s got folks here. She’ll be looking for work. I guess we all will.”
A little nervously the other boy said, “We’ve never been out of Chibain before.”
“Well, I’ve never been out of the city,” the courier answered. “Never saw a reason to leave.”
Before the boys could ask more questions, a woman’s voice called to them above the ongoing murmur of the crowd. Without a word of farewell, they spun on their heels and darted off.
The city man watched them for a few seconds, then pivoted directly toward Jayla and smiled. She disciplined an instinctive desire to step backward, out of his line of sight. She hadn’t realized he’d even known she was there.
“And what about you?” he asked. “Why are you coming to the city?”
She came nearer, since she didn’t feel like shouting. This close, she could see the color of his eyes, a clear blue almost as bright as the gems in his bracelet. “Like everyone else,” she said. “Looking for work.”
Making no attempt to be subtle about it, he dropped his eyes to check out the bands on both her wrists. “Soldier?” he asked, glancing up at her again. He didn’t comment on her other bracelet, plain silver edged with a thin line of gold. A woman who preferred men.
“That’s right,” she said.
Now he gave her a more thorough inspection, as if noting her practical clothing, her soft leather boots, her visible weapons. Maybe assessing her strength and skill, though she wouldn’t think a courier would be particularly good at making such judgments. “Doesn’t seem like an easy life,” was all he said.
A small smile came to her lips. “I haven’t noticed too many lives that are easy,” she replied.
He laughed. “Well, that’s the truth of it. Maybe life is easy for rich folk, but I know a couple of those, and they have troubles of their own.”
“I’ve worked for a few,” she said. “And I agree.”
“Where are you from? By your looks I’d say Oraki, but your accent is more southern Marata.”
She nodded. He was quick, this young man, and restlessly observant. Traits she admired, because she possessed them herself, but it was disconcerting to be the one who was observed and analyzed. “Born in Oraki, but spent a lot of time in Marata.”
“I’m Cody, by the way,” he said.
“Jayla.”
“Did you bring family with you, Jayla? Meeting family there?”
She shook her head and gave the briefest possible answer. “On my own.”
He looked like he wanted to pursue that line of questioning but read the clear warning in her guarded reply. So he merely nodded and asked, “Assuming they manage to rebuild the bridge, what kind of job will you be looking for in Corcannon?”
“I don’t know that I’m going to be too picky,” she said. “As long as the work is honest and the pay is reasonable, I’m open to anything. Not sure where to start looking, though.”
“There’s a training yard I can recommend run by a couple of men who used to be part of the temple guard,” Cody said. “You have to pay a fee to work out there, but it’s a decent place—everyone knows it—and that’s where a lot of the rich folks go to hire their personal guards. There’s a kind of cachet to being found there.”
She gestured to indicate her slim figure, her plain clothing. “And would you say I have enough cachet?”
He grinned. “I know the owners. They’ll let you in.”
She met his eyes directly, her own a little hard. “That’s a kindness to do for an absolute stranger.”
But his own expression was relaxed and easy. “That’s a courier for you,” he said. “We make friends everywhere. Pays off a lot more than making enemies.”
“I don’t look to make enemies,” Jayla said coolly. “But it takes me a while to make friends.”
He glanced around at the small camp, busy with resigned travelers trying to settle in for a long wait, and grinned again. “Looks like we’ll have all the time we need.”
The first items that came rocking over the chasm were casks of water lashed to mesh cocoons that dangled from the pulley in a precarious fashion. The casks were followed by lumpy bundles of food containing staples like bread, fruit, and dried meat. The travelers who had appointed themselves pulley-masters carefully unclipped the barrels and bags and lined them up on the bank before turning their attention to the next items snaking their way across the gap. Clearly, they didn’t figure it was up to them to manage equitable distribution of the goods.
“This might get ugly,” Jayla said under her breath as the first casks were commandeered by a group of Maratan traders. The men were burly and efficient, and it wasn’t hard to imagine them appropriating everything that made it safely over the canyon, then calmly setting up a booth to sell supplies to the hapless travelers. Well, hapless until thirst or hunger or boiling discontent led to a sudden confrontation.
“I was just thinking that,” said a voice over her shoulder, and she glanced back to see who had spoken. She recognized the tall, thin Cordelano man who had worked beside her at the infirmary. Pietro. That was his name. “Somebody needs to organize the allocation of assets.”
“If you start, I’ll help,” Cody offered.
Pietro glanced at Jayla with a smile. There was something about him she couldn’t quite place—not an air of command, exactly, not like the captain of a guard or the steward of a great household—but an ease with authority, as if he was used to shouldering burdens and showing people the way. Maybe he was a teacher or a politician, fallen on hard times. His worn clothes were so drastically simple he could have been mistaken for a beggar, but his bracelets gleamed with high-alloy metal. She’d noticed both of them this morning. On his left wrist, a carved and coiled silver band that marked him as a wanderer. On his right, a lustrous gold circlet made of woven strips of hammered gold. Man who preferred men.