extinguished her lamp. Oil cost money, and there had been many nights when she
had had to do without it.
Wallu, a tall skinny sagging-breasted woman of fifty, with gaunt deeply-lined
features, kissed her daughter on the cheek. Her breath was sour with sleep and
goat’s cheese. But Masha appreciated the peck; her life had few expressions of
love in it. And yet she was full of it; she was a bottle close to bursting with
pressure.
The light on the rickety table in the corner showed a blank-walled room without
rugs. In a far corner the two infants slept on a pile of tattered but clean
blankets. Beside them was a small chamberpot of baked clay painted with the
black and scarlet rings-within-rings of the Darmek guild. .
In another corner was her false-teeth making equipment, wax, moulds, tiny
chisels, saws, and expensive wire, hardwood, iron, a block of ivory. She had
only recently repaid the money she’d borrowed to purchase these. In the opposite
corner was another pile of cloth, Wallu’s bed, and beside it another thundermug
with the same design. An ancient and wobbly spinning-wheel was near it; Wallu
made some money with it, though not much. Her hands were gnarled with arthritis,
one eye had a cataract, and the other was beginning to lose its sight for some
unknown reason.
Along the adobe wall was a brass charcoal brazier and above it a wooden vent. A
bin held charcoal. A big cabinet beside it held grain and some dried meat and
plates and knives. Near it was a baked clay vase for water. Next to it was a