Free On by Adam Roberts

on market shelf hoping for work – think of it! There were several new faces there.’
    ‘They came along this ledge late yesterday,’ said Akathe, ‘trying to begwork directly from the traders – as if that was the way it works! They really don’t understand the way it works.’ He shook his head sagely.
    ‘Who are they?’
    Akathe shrugged. ‘From Smelt, I think. They’ve made their way upwall to Heartshelf and then to us.’
    ‘Why come to us?’
    ‘Who knows. I suppose work is thin in Smelt, and in Heartshelf as well. So they come here because this is where the Doge lives. And the Priest and the Prince too,’ he grinned and made a little mock-obeisance with his head in Tighe’s direction, ‘but it’s mostly the thought of the Doge living here that brings them. But there’s no work here. Mostly we have animal tending and this is too valuable to trust itinerants with. The rest of us serve the goatmongers. They’ll get no work with us.’
    ‘So what will they do?’
    ‘Hang about the ledges getting thin,’ said Akathe. ‘How do I know? They can go jump into the sky for all I care.’ He fiddled with something and then plucked the eyepiece from his face. It made a faint popping noise. ‘Now that they know there’s no work here I guess they’re just trying to raise enough money to pay for the toll ladder up to Meat. That’s the biggest town in this part of the wall, so they’re more likely to find something up there.’
    ‘But if they can’t get work they won’t be able to buy food, let alone pay for the toll ladder.’
    Akathe shrugged again. ‘I dare say, if they get too close to actual starvation, the Doge will let them pass and climb her ladder, if only to stop them messing up the market shelf with their dying. Or maybe she’ll let them die so we can burn them and put their ashes to fertilise our gardens.’ He grinned as he said this, but Tighe shuddered, wondering if he were half-serious.
    Tighe wandered back down to the shelf and watched the newcomers for a bit. A bone-worker passed and recruited one of the loiterers; presumably she had some stripping and rendering she needed doing, hard smelly work that an itinerant could manage. But the bone-worker (a short, hunch-shouldered woman called Dalshe) of course hired one of the village’s known tramps. It went without saying that she was going to give the work to somebody she knew. The faces of the newcomers rose as she approached; they forced smiles, stood a little straighter. But as she left their faces tumbled again and they slouched or sat gracelessly back on the ground.
    Bored, Tighe climbed down to Old Witterhe’s, but the dawn-door was shut and nobody answered his calls. He climbed back up and made his way back to Akathe’s booth.
    ‘You again? You’re not here to buy anything, are you, you wastrelPrinceling. You’re just here to loiter, like the spoilt boy-boy you are.’ Akathe grinned. ‘If your grace don’t mind me saying, you’re worse than an itinerant.’
    ‘It’s sad,’ said Tighe, watching those newcomers. They’re going to be hungry tonight.’
    ‘I wouldn’t waste your energies on worrying about them,’ said Akathe. ‘I’d worry about your own kind first. There are people from the village who will be hungry tonight, and I worry about that. Your own Princedom, think of it that way. Because that could be me in a few weeks.’ He sighed, and clambered out of the booth to stretch his legs on the ledge. ‘People don’t buy clocks or clockwork when times get hard. My pahe is worried.’
    ‘You’ll be all right,’ said Tighe unconvincingly.
    ‘As if you know anything about it!
You’ll
be all right. People always need goats.’
    ‘But we lost that goat,’ said Tighe, eager not to be outstripped in the misery game. ‘Don’t forget that.’
    ‘No,’ said Akathe, sucking his lower lip. ‘I suppose that’s true. I heard your pahe was working on old Musshe’s house up on top ledge. He may be Prince, but he