Yark the fuller went by with the cart again. This one was sloshing. “Last chance!” he said.
“Pots,” Rahi bellowed beside her, “pots! Buy pots! You, madam! Even a fish sorry-even a Beysib needs a pot!”
Mriga rolled her eyes and began to whet the new knife.
* * *
When Molin Torchholder let it be known that he was going to complete the walls of Sanctuary, the noise of merriment about the new jobs that would become available was almost as loud as Stormbringer’s fireworks had been. There were, of course, quieter conversations about what the old fox was up to this time.
Some dared to say that his sudden industriousness on the Empire’s behalf had less to do with his desire to keep Sanctuary safe for the Imperials, as to keep it safe from them. Some day, not too far off, when Sanctuary’s own trade was well enough established, when it had enough of its own gold, and was secure in its gods again… then the gates could swing shut, and Molin and others would stand on the walls and laugh in the Empire’s face….
Of course those who said such things said them in whispers, behind bolted doors.
Those who did not lost the tongues that had spoken them. Molin didn’t bother himself with such small business; his spies tended to it. He had too many things to take care of himself. There was his new god to placate, old ones to assist out of existence, Kadakithis and (in a different fashion) the Beysa to manage.
And there was the wall.
As an exercise in logistics alone it was trouble enough. First the plans, argued over for weeks, changed, changed again, changed back; then ordering the stone, and having it quarried; then hiring people enough to move such weights, others to work on the roughed-out stones, trimming them to size. Overseers, stonemasons, mortarers, caterers, spies to make sure everything was working….