With her usual escort, Mai walked down the track, dodging carts pushed up by workmen, into what was already being called the lower town, although it looked more like a camp with many square tents and larger barracks built of hempen canvas tied over scaffolding. In the Barrens, wood was precious, so most of the building was in brick, and those few structures whose walls reached full height had canvas slung taut for a roof.

This early, Qin soldiers strolled the market lane, many gathered by the noodle sellers to eat before they began their training or patrolling for the day.

“A little bland today,” she said as she and Priya sampled a cup from one of the stalls. She smiled at the young woman who wielded the ladle. “Running out of spice again, Darda?”

“But there’s plenty of fish!” replied the girl cheerfully. She was young, strong, with a wide smile that displayed a full set of teeth. Good health mattered. Mai had been careful to favor women who looked robust and energetic. “I’m hoping the next boat brings more spice. Wish I could get shoots, but it’s not worth the coin to ship them in, can’t turn a profit, and they rot. The edible kind don’t grow out here. That girl Avisha in your household told me she means to plant a garden when the fields go in. I’ve already told her what I’d buy.”

“Hear any news of your family?”

Her brows furrowed. “It’s kind of you to ask, verea, but I don’t suppose I ever will. Even if they got away safely and made it to my kin, it’s not likely they could go all the way to Olossi to ask after me. It’s kind of you to think of keeping a list at the compound for those who do come looking.”

“I lost an uncle that way. It’s hard not to know what happened to him.”

The girl sighed. “It’s my younger brother I worry about most. I suppose he is dead, that he might be better dead than suffering, but then I must hope he will walk up alive and tease me like he used to do.” Her frown transformed abruptly to a brighter smile, lamp-lit as the songs called it. A Qin soldier, an older and very steady man, came up with his bowl to buy his morning’s meal.

Mai retreated. “I sense an interest there,” she said to Chief Tuvi as they paused to look in on a tailor’s shop, a weaver’s shed, a rope and braid maker, and a pair of shops whose proprietors shaped household items out of clay.

“You have a talent for finding skillful women,” said the chief as he eyed a young woman who had thrown down a square of cloth beside the thoroughfare and, shading herself under an umbrella propped up between stacked bricks, was doing a brisk business with needle and thread repairing torn taloos, tunics, trousers, and other items of clothing. She was so intent on her mending that she did not look up as they passed, only paused as their shadows altered her light, then started up again with neat, even stitches.