When Livia rises the next morning, she finds Thomas still in the room assigned to him, curled into a blanket and radiating a clammy heat. He has not even taken off his boots. Livia watches Thomas, for longer perhaps than is decent, then accepts Grendel’s invitation to walk with him to the church. It is early, dawn not quite broken, the streets near-empty and free of Smoke. In the quiet, Livia notices how run-down the city is, how badly in need of repair. There is hardly a building untouched by decay. Walls have caved, window frames fallen, ceilings and floors collapsed; holes stoppered with rags, paper, rubbish. And yet every house seems teeming with life, each cellar hole vivid with the movement of bodies, clothed and not. Through the broken windows and doorless doorways a hundred lives stand open to perusal. A woman stripped to the waist, feeding her newborn. A gaggle of boys ringing a chamber pot, relieving themselves with the unselfconsciousness of a litter. An old man in heavy boots picking his way through the dozen sleepers, leaving between them a trail of dark mud. Grendel notices Livia’s staring and the ensuing blush.

“Too many people,” he explains. “Living on top of one another. And everyone’s always hungry. It darkens their Smoke.”

“Don’t they have work?”

“Why yes. Factory work, most of them. But the factory doesn’t pay for housing.”

“Then why don’t they leave this filth? Move into the country?”

Grendel’s voice is gentle when he answers as though he’s afraid that his words will embarrass Livia with her ignorance. It deepens her blush.

“It’s difficult, you see. When they go to a parish, looking dirty and hungry and full of sin, they get ‘pushed on.’ Concerned neighbours, rounding them up at dawn and marching them to the parish border.” Grendel grimaces as one familiar with the experience. “Of course there’s no law against going where you wish. But you can’t live without work. And there’s no work for strangers.”

Livia muses on this. “Then it’s the factories’ fault,” she concludes. “They should provide housing for the workers. Spread them out across the land. Who owns them?”

“Who owns the factories?” Grendel’s face is free of accusation. “People like your parents, I suppose. The gentry. But look, here’s our church. I better get going on that bell.”

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