“It’s true I’ve favored women with skills, and ones who are interested in establishing shops. That way they can maintain their families and grow their clans, while leaving their husbands free to fight and herd. All of which suits Anji’s purpose.”

Chief Tuvi nodded. “It’s a good site. Isolated. Hard for an invading army to attack us here without ruining their own supply lines and running out of water. We are scouting the routes up into the mountains, looking for fallback positions, a defensible refuge, better water sources.”

“Yet it will be prohibitively expensive to ship in all our foodstuffs, even with the trade in oil of naya. We can’t flood the market with a commodity that is currently high-priced because it is so hard to obtain.”

“There’s plenty of fish,” said Tuvi, and they both laughed. “We’ll run sheep and goats in the uplands. It’s decent grazing land. If O’eki and the engineers can construct the conduit, we will have a steady supply of water and be able to maintain fields for the locals to work. Then the settlement will be viable beyond the spring in the gully. We could stay here a good long time.”

“Have you picked out a wife, Tuvi?”

He sighed. “I left a good wife at home. It’s hard to think about taking a new one when I think of her wondering what’s become of me. Still, that Avisha is a pretty girl.”

Mai shook her head. “No, Tuvi. You’ll get bored of her. And you intimidate her. Let her go to someone who will enjoy her chatter.”

“Hu! That’s telling me! Do you have someone in mind for me, then? Or must I bide a bachelor for the rest of my days?”

“I’ll keep an eye out. For you, Tuvi-lo, someone special only.”

He laughed.

The noodle-maker came out to greet Mai, her face whitened with flour dust. Mai nodded toward the laborers out in back, muscular men stripped to their kilts and wearing faded caps to protect their eyes from the sun. They were adding on a second room out of brick.

“Expanding already?”

“I’ve had to hire on four more workers to keep up with the demand. But I’ve had some trouble with men drinking and fighting.”

“Bring your complaint to the next assizes.”

“I will, verea. As it happens, I’m hoping to send for my auntie and cousins. With your permission, verea.”

“I’ll be pleased to see them here if they are as industrious as you.”

“You’ve offered us a chance to change our circumstances, verea. We won’t forget it.”

Priya stayed behind to haggle over a delivery of noodles to the captain’s house, while Mai and her escort walked on. At the lower gate, she stood in a patch of shade as she surveyed the alluvial fan that spread toward the bay, its darker earth cut by shallow streambeds from the seasonal flow. A brickyard spread mountainward, sun-drying bricks laid in ranks. On the coastal side, fish racks stretched as far as she could see. Children crouched where women filleted caught fish, stringing fish heads. Where stonework marked the end of the underground channel, the color of the soil had darkened in a wide skirt.