Free Troubled Waters by Sharon Shinn Page A

know the booth where you bought this.”
    Zoe felt herself smiling again, just a little. “I was. I bought a lot of things there, but the candy might be my favorite.”
    Calvin waved his hands toward the mats on the ground. “Sit, sit, sit! Everything is almost ready. Did you bring your own cup with you?”
    “I don’t have one.”
    Annova gave Calvin a reproving look. “We have extras,” she said. “But it is common, along the flats, for people to carry their own.”
    Because there was so little room for anything except the barest necessities. Because it would be rare for people to have enough for anyone but themselves. “I’ll get one tomorrow,” Zoe said.
    Soon enough they were all seated and sipping water. Annova served a simple dish of seasoned rice sparsely flavored with small chunks of meat. Potatoes and spiced apples completed the menu.
    “What impulse brings you to the city, Zoe?” Calvin asked when they had all had a few bites and complimented the cook. “And when did you arrive?”
    “Yesterday afternoon,” she said. And I did not come here on any whim of my own. Impossible to say that, of course. “It seemed like time to look for a new life. My father died a little more than a nineday ago, and the grief seemed too great back in the house I shared with him.”
    Annova nodded sympathetically. “It is best to turn your back on tears,” she said, “once you have shed enough of them.”
    “Still, to arrive in the city without a plan—and with no friends to advise you—that can be a tricky road,” Calvin said. “You are lucky you found your way to the river. There are parts of the city that are much more dangerous for a young woman alone.”
    “Not luck so much as memory,” Zoe said. “My father and I lived in Chialto years ago. Part of that time we spent down here on the flats.”
    That intrigued Calvin. “How long ago? Perhaps I remember you from that time.”
    She hesitated, but, really, would it matter if this man remembered her—or her father? Would it matter if he knew she was Zoe Ardelay? Did he have acquaintances up at the palace to whom he could sell the information? Would he even recognize the Ardelay name, if she was foolish enough to pronounce it?
    “Ten years ago,” she said.
    He shook his head. “No, that was before we took up residence on the flats.”
    She didn’t ask what reversal of fortune brought them here; she didn’t want to be asked for her own story in return.
    “I was only thirteen then,” she said. “I thought it was a marvelous place.”
    Calvin laughed. “I still believe that, and I’m no child.”
    “But now that I’m here,” she said, “I’m not sure what to do next.” She gestured at the dented metal plate lent by her hosts. “How do I earn enough money to eat? I don’t require much, but I must live on something.”
    Calvin nodded. “Some of the people on the flats go begging—you’ll see them at the Plazas, or the shop district, or along the Cinque. But many of them work. Some travel with the caravans for a season or two before returning here until their money runs out again. Some take day jobs at the warehouses. Some work at the factories south of the city. The Dochenzas have been hiring a lot of people to build those new smoker coaches you might have seen driving around.”
    Zoe took the last bite of her rice. “You mean some of those vehicles that don’t need horses?” she said. “I saw some on the Cinque. I’d be afraid to ride in such a thing.”
    “I’m not,” Calvin said, so earnestly that both Zoe and Annova laughed. “I’m not! I ride one every chance I get. Stick my head out the window and grin like a fool.”
    “I think they seem dangerous,” Annova said. “There was an explosion not long ago at the well where they get their gas. One of these days there will be an explosion in one of those factories, too, just wait and see.”
    “I don’t think factory work is for me,” Zoe said.
    “Sometimes there are jobs in