The guild's man had to wait while Orlena found a bowl for a customer who had brought his own spoon and nothing else.
“There's bread under that cloth,” she told the customer. Then she turned back. “Say it again.”
He laid the notice beside the bread. The merchant guild had bought the wharf. It wanted the cookshop for storage, along with the sheds on either side, and would take possession at sundown the day after tomorrow.
Lutrel put down the onions she was peeling. “We can pay more.”
Her grandmother looked at her. They could not pay much more. Behind the guild's man, three carters were sharing two portions of beans, and Orlena had been about to send Lutrel over with a third.
“They won't renew at any price,” he said. “The carts need to come straight from the boats.”
“Half the men in here have just walked off those boats,” Lutrel said.
“I know.” He drew the notice away from a spreading patch of gravy. “I'm sorry. I'll be back for the keys.”
Lutrel followed him out. Beyond his shoulder the great arches of Kelvra crossed the river, carrying whole streets towards the green opposite bank. Sun caught the windows of houses stacked above houses. There had to be somebody in all those rooms who could stop this.
The man gave her the guildhall's address, though she knew it, and repeated that the purchase was complete.
By the time she returned, Orlena was serving beans. Lutrel served beside her, watching her grandmother's hands: the old burn, the bent finger, the portion of bread left beside a bowl where someone could take it without asking. Forty years of this, and a man could arrive before lunch and tell them to leave.
After the customers had gone, Orlena reached beneath the counter. She brought out a book so swollen that the string round it would no longer tie.
“Find these people,” she said. “Tell them I need a favour.”
Lutrel opened it. Names, meals, tiny sums; a pressed leaf; an address crossed out three times. Beside one entry Orlena had written wife called him something else. Lutrel had worked beside her grandmother for twelve years, but most of these names were strangers to her. Some had eaten here before she was born.
“How much do they owe you?”
“I don't know. Some brought things. I never put those down.”
There was a woman who had eaten here through a winter with a broken leg, a caravan driver who had lost his wagon, traders whose stock had been stolen or spoiled. Lutrel found Brisken beneath a greasy thumbprint. She knew him; he worked the grain boats now.
Farther back, Dorbett: nine suppers, boots by the fire had been underlined twice.
“Dorbett too?”
Orlena took the onion bowl. “Start with whoever's nearest.”
Brisken was buying boots beside the lower stair. One new boot was on his foot; the other hung from the seller's hand. When Lutrel opened the book, he began pulling the new one off.
“No,” she said quickly. “It's not a bill.”
He stopped with his heel caught. “Then why have you brought it?”
She explained the notice, and the wharf, and the storage carts, and asked whether he knew anyone in the guild who might speak for them. She could hear herself giving him too many things to answer.
“Your gran sent you?”
Lutrel nodded.
Brisken looked towards the cookshop, though the stair tower stood between them and it. “She fed me for eleven weeks when they dropped that bale on my leg. You were little. Used to bring me the pepper and then stand there till I sneezed.”
“I don't remember doing that.”
“I do.” He thumped his heel into the boot. “Where are you moving?”
“We aren't. I mean, we haven't anywhere. I thought perhaps you could help us stay.”
“I can carry your tables.”
The seller bent to feel the boot across his toes. Brisken waved him away, then apologised and stood still. His purse lay open on the stool, with scarcely enough in it for the boots.
“That's kind, but until we know—”
“My eldest has a cart. Tomorrow at noon, before our shift. I'll get the boys.”
“Tomorrow may be too soon.”
“Day after's too late to start.” He paid, picked up his old boots and hurried away in the new ones, walking as if he distrusted the ground.
Lutrel wrote noon beside his name. It was the first mark she had made in the book. She stared at it for a moment before climbing the stairs.
She spent the rest of that afternoon following addresses. A knife-grinder had gone upriver. At a lodging under the high crossing, a woman answered through the door that her husband still had no money. Lutrel couldn't make her hear the rest. At a shuttered spice stall, a younger woman read her mother's name and told Lutrel the spice seller had died two winters ago. She held the book for a while and returned it with three small coins tucked inside. Lutrel tried to explain that she hadn't come for money.
“I understood,” the woman said.
At dusk a cloth seller told her Fodric had his own shop now, up beside the crossing, and opened early.
She returned with the coins, sore calves, and four promises to visit. Orlena had saved her supper in the oven. Lutrel ate standing up while she described the unsuccessful calls; her grandmother listened until she said that no one important had been at home.
“Did you find Brisken?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then.” Orlena pushed a stool against the backs of her knees.
By morning Lutrel had decided what to say to Fodric. She forgot most of it when she entered his shop. Bolts of cloth stood shoulder-high against the walls, and he was showing a length of blue wool to two customers in fur-trimmed coats.
“My grandmother's Orlena. From the wharf.” She opened the book at his name. “You ate with us when—”
“Yes. Yes, I remember.” He laid the wool down and came out from behind his counter. “Let's go through here.”
He took her into a back room so narrow that they could not stand facing each other without trapping the door. There was a heel of bread on his desk, still wrapped from breakfast.
“I would have paid her,” he said.
“That's not why I'm here.”
“She wouldn't take it. I had to buy stock, she said. Then I stopped coming. It's a long way down for lunch.” He looked at the book. “How is she?”
“Being put out.”
This time she told it briefly. Fodric listened with his thumb pressed into the blue chalk stain on his cuff.
“I can't get them to give up warehouse space. But there's a dining room to let up here. You'd need a loan. I could manage one, if she agreed to charge properly.”
“She does charge.”
“Everyone, I mean. You couldn't fill it with men waiting for work. The rent's too high.”
Lutrel looked through his window. Between the projecting houses she could see a patch of the river, very far below, with a loaded boat turning slowly in the current. An hour for lunch, if you were lucky. You could spend half of it climbing here.
“They wouldn't come,” she said. “And she wouldn't.”
“Then I don't know what to suggest,” Fodric said.
“I know. I'm sorry. I'm asking badly.” She moved aside so one of his assistants could squeeze through for the measure hanging on the wall. The girl glanced at Fodric's untouched bread.
“What if we brought lunch here?” Lutrel asked. “For your people. Would you pay ahead?”
“How far ahead?”
“Ten days. Six bowls a day?”
“Eight. The lads downstairs eat too.”
They worked out a sum at Orlena's usual price. Lutrel would bring two covered pots before the dockworkers' rush, and his lads would return them at closing. She could accept the advance without agreeing to turn anyone away. Fodric would pay as soon as they had a place to cook. When she asked about rooms near the wharf, he pointed down through the window.
“Dorbett has the old bakehouse under her rooms, below the tower. I sell her curtain cloth. Your grandmother knows her.”
“They had a falling-out.”
“Go all the same. She asks after her.”
Dorbett was beating a rug outside the bakehouse when Lutrel arrived. Beyond her, boats passed under an arch so high that their sails looked like scraps caught between its stones. She stopped with the stick raised.
“Is your gran ill?”
“No. It's the shop.”
Lutrel told her. Dorbett let the stick hang against her skirt.
“And she sent you?”
“She gave me this.” Lutrel showed her the book.
Dorbett searched for her name with a cracked fingernail. “Nine suppers. I was stranded near a month.”
“Perhaps you paid for the others.”
“Perhaps.” She read the line again. “Boots by the fire. My feet were in a terrible state that winter.”
Lutrel waited. When Dorbett said nothing more, she asked about the bakehouse.
“It's empty. The baker moved to his son's. Hearth's sound.”
“Would you let it to us?”
“I'd let it to a tenant who paid the rent.”
“She always pays rent.”
“I know she does. Come and look.”
The room was smaller than the cookshop and smelled of cold flour. An oven filled one corner; beside it stood a hearth broad enough for Orlena's cauldron. Dorbett knelt with a grunt, lit a twist of paper and held it inside. Smoke rose cleanly. Lutrel found herself measuring the walls with her strides.
Outside, the public cart road curved past the wharf entrance towards the lower houses. Four minutes from the old shop, perhaps five carrying bowls; no tower steps, no toll, no guild gate to pass. A boatman could see the door as he left work. Lutrel walked as far as the wharf entrance and back. She was almost afraid to go inside and ask the price.
“How much?”
Dorbett named a monthly rent a little below their old one. She needed it; the baker's last payment had gone on winter fuel. She usually asked a quarter in advance. For Orlena, one month would do, but she could not give them the room.
Lutrel counted silently. Half Fodric's advance must stay aside for ingredients. With what remained, the coins from the spice seller's daughter and their own small reserve, they could pay the first month and still buy firewood. After that they would need their paying customers back.
“She'll take it,” Lutrel said.
Dorbett brushed ash off her skirt. “Will she?”
The card-game quarrel had been three years ago. Lutrel remembered the cards scattered across a wiped supper table, Dorbett saying Orlena had counted a trick twice, Orlena telling her to empty her sleeves. They had managed thirty years of rough friendship before that evening and not one civil word since.
“I'll bring her to look.”
“Do that.” Dorbett held out the book. “And don't tell me she sent her love. I won't believe you.”
At the cookshop Brisken and his sons had lifted the longest table on to their cart. Six customers were eating from bowls balanced on their knees.
“We needed that,” Lutrel said.
“We'll need it at the other end,” said Brisken. “Where are we going?”
“Nowhere yet. Gran, there's a room—”
“Whose?” Orlena asked.
“Dorbett's.”
“Put the table back.”
Brisken's sons looked at their father. He looked at Lutrel, who nodded. They unloaded it in silence except for the scrape of wood.
Orlena began collecting bowls. Lutrel followed her behind the counter, furious with the weight of the book under her arm and with everyone who expected her to know what happened next.
“I've been all over Kelvra. Fodric will pay us ahead for lunches. The room's near enough for everyone. I can't get us the wharf back.”
“I didn't ask you to.”
“Then what am I supposed to do with her offer?”
Orlena set a bowl inside another. “I told that woman I'd never take anything from her again.”
Lutrel nearly said something about a stupid game of cards. Then she saw that her grandmother was fitting the bowls into the shelf by touch, looking instead at the row of marks cut into the counter's end. Lutrel's height, summer by summer, until she had grown taller than the counter. Orlena had never let anyone plane them out.
“I don't want to leave here either,” Lutrel said.
Orlena rubbed a thumb along the counter. Outside, Brisken was loudly telling his sons that nobody could carry a table like them, even if they did have to carry it twice.
“We could look,” Orlena said. “After the washing-up.”
They went at four. Lutrel expected Dorbett to make her grandmother ask, but she simply unlocked the door and stood aside. Orlena inspected the hearth, the oven, the cupboards and the back room where they could keep provisions. Then she went out and walked towards the wharf until Lutrel could no longer see her. Dorbett leaned against the doorpost and waited.
When Orlena came back, she asked the rent. Dorbett gave the same figure.
“You'd want that at the beginning of every month?”
“Yes.”
“And you wouldn't object to the people I feed?”
“If they break a window, you'll mend it. The rest's your business.”
Orlena looked up at the bare nail over the door where the baker's board had hung. “We'll need the key tonight.”
Dorbett unhooked it from her belt. Orlena held out her hand. For a moment neither of them let go.
“I didn't have a card up my sleeve,” Dorbett said.
“I saw you put your hand there.”
“Yes. I was scratching.”
Orlena gave the key a tug, and Dorbett released it.
That evening Lutrel went up to Fodric's again and came down with the advance tied inside her coat. She kept the provision money separate before paying Dorbett. Brisken promised the cart again for the following afternoon. Other people arrived with sacks, old packing cloths, a promise of bread. Lutrel stopped trying to refuse offers before she knew what they were.
On the third morning Orlena served everything that would not travel. The man who had brought his own spoon returned with two baskets, and stayed to wrap bowls. One of the drivers Lutrel had failed to find arrived with a cousin and a sack of turnips. Someone wanted to know whether there would still be cabbage on the day he liked it. Lutrel stood in the doorway, repeating the directions until she began to give them to people who were bringing things back from the bakehouse.
At noon Brisken came back and announced that his feet were bleeding. His sons put him on the cart beside the flour and told him to hold the sacks. He directed the entire move from there, audible above the wheels.
The longest table caught in the new doorway. It had to go in on its side, with one of the sons crawling underneath to keep its legs clear, and by the time it was down everyone involved had a different account of whose idea that had been. Orlena carried the cauldron herself with Lutrel at the other handle. They stopped twice along the road; neither suggested putting it on the cart among the shifting furniture.
Back at the old shop, Lutrel took the last jars from the high shelf. Her hand went automatically to the warm patch of wall beside the oven. It was cooling. She had leaned there every winter morning of her working life.
Orlena stood in the doorway until Lutrel was ready. Then they took the book and went out together.
The guild's man was waiting. Lutrel handed him the keys. Already two carts of baled wool stood behind him, their drivers eyeing the cleared floor. She turned away before the first bale went in.
At the bakehouse someone had hung the old sign crookedly. Lutrel left it. Smoke was coming from the chimney; she could smell onions, and something sweet beneath them.
Inside, the tables were set. The spice seller's daughter had come with a pot. Fodric's two lads had carried down bread after closing and were eating the ends. Dorbett stood beside the oven in the patched apron she had worn driving caravans through Kelvra.
“What's all this?” Orlena said.
“Supper.”
“I have beans soaking.”
“For tomorrow, then.” Dorbett opened the oven. “Mind your elbow.”
Orlena moved out of the way of the hot dish. It was a pear pie, its rim dark and crumbling. She watched Dorbett carry it to the table.
“You used to burn those.”
“I used to cook them over a fire beside the road.”
“You burnt one in my oven.”
“Once. Sit down.”
But Orlena remained standing until Brisken called her name. He had taken off his boots beneath the bench and set a bowl opposite him.
“Come here. I can't reach the bread.”
She carried it over, sat to cut it, and someone put stew in front of her. Then Lutrel was called back to the door by a young carter. He looked at the laden tables and started to explain that he had been told there were meals here even if—
“There are,” Lutrel said. “Come in. Find a space.”
When she got back, Orlena was eating the stew. Across the room the spice seller's daughter was watching her. Orlena nodded to her with her mouth full.
Dorbett brought the pie to their end of the table. She cut Orlena a corner with more crust than fruit, the portion Lutrel had always seen her grandmother keep for herself when no one was looking. Orlena broke off a piece. Flakes fell down her apron.
“You remembered,” she said.
Dorbett began cutting the next portion. “I like the middle. We never fought over that.”
Brisken leaned across to ask what they had fought over. Dorbett began with the cards; Orlena interrupted to say it had started long before that, with a mule and a sack of plums. Lutrel had never heard about the plums. She pulled her stool closer, and her grandmother, still talking, reached for the pie dish and took another piece of crust.