Elen had just started in on the peppery tartness of the soup when the door to the outside opened. A man wearing a surveyor’s uniform entered. He went at once to Cavna. After speaking to her, he gave a show of spotting Elen and made his way over.

He looked windblown, hair back in a bun but strands flying everywhere. His uniform was rumpled and stained, as if he’d spent too many nights sleeping on the dirt. That wasn’t unusual for surveyors. What was unusual about him was the way he set down his pack, pulled out the chair opposite her, and sat, leaning toward her too eagerly.

“I heard you crossed Grinder’s Cut, even though Five Bridges is blocked.” He paused, shook his head as if to dislodge a fly in his brain, and added, “I’m Berri. Imperial Order of Surveyors, if you can’t tell. I hear you’re Deputy Courier Elen, out of Orledder Halt.”

“I am she.”

His grin was awkward. Elen couldn’t tell if his smiles were out of practice, or if he was faking it because he wanted something from her. “That’s Captain Jinyan there, still, right?”

Elen stayed on her guard. “It is.”

“I know her from way back.” He gave no specifics.

“What brings you to these parts?” Elen asked.

Berri pulled an oiled leather tube out of his pack and, to Elen’s astonishment, unrolled his surveyor’s map right there on the table beside her unfinished soup, which might splatter over it. The weights-and-measures officials didn’t notice or display any interest in this marvel, and a marvel the map was, heavily marked with years’ worth of signs and symbols that only surveyors could interpret.

“Can you show me where you got across?” he asked.

She had already spotted the wiggle of the great canyon, the split where the rope bridge could be unspooled, but she merely said, “I’m under the orders of the exalted highness and the Orledder intendant.”

He bobbed his head, looking disappointed. “Yes, I see. Of course. Can’t argue with that.”

Cavna came up and set a mug of honey beer down in front of Berri.

“You’re not eating?” Elen asked him.

“Oh.” The question stymied him. “I suppose I should.”

Cavna shared a look with Elen, a spark of fellow feeling, and the menial said, “I’ll bring him a plate. Not just ale, like he normally does.”

Berri was so intent on staring at the map that he missed the exchange.

As Cavna walked away, Elen said to Berri, “Have you been at this Halt long?”

“A bit. I’ve been under the weather.” He spoke the words evasively and took a nervous swig of beer. “I’m on my way back from Woodfall Province.”