Nile Builder: The Architect from the East

Chapter 105: Chapter 11: The People’s Days Come Back — The Market Opens Again

On the first market day of the spring, Thebes woke earlier than the roosters — and the roosters, waking to find the city already stirring, crowed a second time, as if to catch up.

Before the sky was fully light, the sound of handcarts was already moving in the lanes of the north quarter — cart wheels on the newly leveled stone, the creak of axles that had not turned in four months, the low voices of people calling to one another in the dark. The date-seller pushed his cart along — the reed matting on it was new, and the dates had been picked over once more the night before. He stopped at the mouth of the market and looked in — the way a man looks into a room he has not entered for a long time, measuring it against his memory. The market was still the same market, but the ground had been leveled, the awnings were new, and the wooden frames of the two rows of stalls had been built by the craftsmen before the spring — post by post, standing straight in the morning light, each one as square as the next.

”We are back.” The old man said, to the market and to himself in the same breath. He pushed his cart in and set up his stall in the middle, at his old place — the place where the stone was worn by twenty years of his feet. He had held that place for twenty years; the siege had left it idle for four months, and now it was his again — his by the right of the worn stone under it, and by the right of the dates he had kept dry through the siege when half the city had nothing to keep.

”Uncle Liu!” A woman setting up her stall beside him called, and her voice had the particular brightness of a person speaking for the first time in a long while to a familiar face. ”Your dates — after four months, are they still the same dates?”

”Taste one.” The old man scooped a handful and passed them over. ”Four months of dates, sifted three times. The damp ones and the bad ones are all picked out. Of the hundred-odd jin left, every one is good.”

The woman put one in her mouth and chewed slowly, the way people chew a thing they are tasting for more than its flavor, and said: ”Sweet. Only — there is a little bitterness in the sweet.”

”That is the bitterness of the days.” The old man said. ”The dates are not bitter. From now on, as the days grow sweeter, the dates will grow sweeter too.”

On the night before the market reopened, half the city had not slept — the bakers were up, and the women of the Haven, and the smiths, and the carpenters making their last checks, and the old people who could not sleep for thinking about the morning.

The kitchen of the Haven of Settled Lives kept its fire from evening until the small hours, and the light of it shone through the door-curtains onto the packed earth of the yard, where the children who could not sleep sat in a row watching the steam. The women steamed date cakes, baked flatbreads, and salted vegetables — batch after batch out of the steamers, pan after pan set out to cool. Sister Wei minded the pots and said: ”Tomorrow the market opens — it is the first shot of our women’s stalls. The goods must be plentiful, and they must be good. Whoever’s cakes come out of the steamer fallen — they do not go on the stall.”

”They will not fall.” A woman said. ”This is a skill we learned in the siege — we steamed four months of rations for the whole city.”

”Then tomorrow, let the whole city taste something fresh.” Sister Wei said.

The smithy’s furnace had also burned past midnight — the furnace that had forged hooks and pry bars and axes through the war, and that had turned, in the space of a single tenday, to hoes and sickles and plowshares. The old smith quenched the last hoes and said: ”Tomorrow the market opens. When these tools go up on the rack, they are the face of our smithy.”

”Master,” the Bridgehead blacksmith said, reaching for the hammer — the hammer his grandfather had passed to his father, and his father to him, the hammer that had come down the river with him in three layers of rag. ”Rest a while. I will take it from here.”

”No rest.” The old smith said. ”Finish tonight’s work, and from now on, every night is a whole night’s sleep.”

Hapy, with two craftsmen, made the last check of the market’s stall frames by the light of a lamp carried from frame to frame — the lamp throwing long shadows over the new timber, and the three of them working the way the craftsmen of the wall had worked in the last nights of the siege. He went from frame to frame, shaking each to see whether it swayed, measuring each to see whether it stood level. When he reached the last one he said: ”Done. Tomorrow the market opens — if any stall collapses, it is on my head.”

”On your head?” A craftsman laughed.

”On my head.” Hapy said. ”These frames were built by my crews. If one is badly built, it is my craft that is not up to the mark. Tomorrow, thousands of eyes will be watching. We cannot lose face.”

As the sky turned grey — the grey that comes before the first light, when the shapes of the roofs are still soft — the wooden board at the market’s mouth was hung up.

The board carried two large characters: Market Open — written by the chief officiant’s own hand, the same hand that had written the peace boards through the war. Beside the characters, a little sun had been painted. Those who could not read saw the sun, and grinned. The people came pouring out of the lanes from every direction — carrying baskets, pushing carts, bearing loads on shoulder-poles, holding children by the hand, leading grandparents who had not left their houses in months — and where they gathered at the market’s mouth, they became a warm, steaming river, fed by every lane of the city.

”The market is open!” Someone shouted.

The stalls of the whole market, as if by agreement — or as if the cry had been waiting in every throat since the siege began — began to cry their wares at once. The wave of voices rose and shook the morning mist apart, and the sound of it carried into the lanes beyond the market, where the people who had not yet come out stopped what they were doing and listened, and smiled, and came. In more than four months, this was the first time the city had heard a sound so loud, so mixed, so full of spirit.

The reopening of the market had been decided before the spring — decided in the same council where the order of the rebuilding had been fixed, and given the same weight: a market is to a city what a hearth is to a house.

Lu Zhu had Hapy take crews through the market and put it in order — not with great works, not with ornament, but by the two words ”useful,” the two words that had governed every wall and granary and shelter of the rebuilding: the ground, hollows leveled and paved with broken tiles and sand; the awnings, torn ones patched and leaking ones replaced, all of them now fresh reed matting; the drainage, two small ditches opened along the sides of the market, running into the new channel of the east quarter. The most important thing was the stalls — the old stalls, each higher or lower, wider or narrower than its neighbor, had made the market a place where a buyer never knew whether he would be stooping or reaching. They were all rebuilt to one size: a table five feet wide, a frame one man high, two rows front and back, with a passage left down the middle — and the passage was wide enough for two baskets to pass without touching.

”This market,” Hapy said to the stall-keepers, and he spoke the way his teacher spoke when he was explaining a drawing, ”from now on, is like a house — it must have a shape. The tables all one height, and buyers do not stoop. The passages left wide, and no one is crowded. The water has its road, and the rain brings no mud.” He paused. ”Set up your stalls first. Wherever it is not convenient — say so. We will change it until it is convenient.”

”And the stalls themselves?” Someone asked. ”Is it still first come, first served?”

The work of changing the stalls took Hapy and his crews seven days — seven days of measuring and planing and fitting, while the market waited empty around them and the people of the lanes came to watch the work the way they had watched the wall go up.

The stall frames were made from the old timber of the lumber yard — wood from the dismantled camps, the bark planed off, oiled three times with tung oil. Frame was joined to frame with mortise and tenon, not a single nail. Hapy said: ”A stall frame is not lighter work than a house beam. A beam presses down a roof; a stall frame holds up goods. The goods press on it all day — if it is the least bit loose, it is not good enough.” He shook each one in turn. ”Do you hear that sound? The solid ones ring true; the hollow ones go back to the bench.”

The drainage ditches were opened by the method of the new channel in the east: one on each side, a span wide, graded at three fingers to the length. The ditch bottoms were paved with broken tiles, and the mouths stuffed with straw — ”to strain. The water of a market is mixed — vegetable leaves, fish scales, mud, all of it. Unstrained, the ditch is blocked in three days.”

”Master Hapy,” a stall-keeper said, ”you put more thought into this than into building houses.”

”The market is not a house.” Hapy said. ”A house belongs to one family. The market belongs to the whole city. What belongs to the whole city must be tended down to every ditch.”

”First come, first served.” Hapy said. ”That is the old rule Merchant Meru fixed. But there is one new rule — the widows and the childless old, the families of the soldiers, and those setting up a stall for the first time since coming back from beyond the city, take the front row.” He pointed at the places in the first row. ”These places — no one is to dispute them.”

”This rule is good.” An old man leaning on a stick said. ”My son held the city wall for four months. This stall of mine is set up for him.”

Meru’s building-materials firm opened its doors on the day the market reopened — and the opening of it, the market would say later, was the moment the rebuilding of the city stopped being a matter of crews and accounts and became a matter of households.

It was not so much a firm as a row of goods sheds at the west end of the market. The sheds held: mud-bricks, timber, lime, chopped straw, reed matting, hemp rope — everything a house-mender could need, not one thing missing. Before the sheds stood a great wooden board, and on the board the prices were written. They were open prices — one figure, no bargaining, and no raising.

”Look at this board, all of you.” Meru stood before the sheds and said. ”What is written here is the official price. Whoever mends a house buys by the figures on this board. Those who cannot afford it — credit. The credit is entered on the guild’s account, and paid at the autumn harvest.” He knocked out his pipe. ”In the war, the guild’s goods were carried for the city. Now they are sold for the households. What is carried for the city must never stop; what is sold for the households must never be dear.”

”Merchant Meru,” an old man from the villages pushed forward, ”I want to buy two cartloads of mud-bricks. But I have only half a cartload of money in hand.”

”Credit.” Meru said. ”Paid at the autumn harvest. Your village’s fields are planted — how can two cartloads of bricks not be paid back?”

”Then that is a fine thing!” The old man rubbed his hands. ”With the bricks, my house can be raised this spring.”

”Raise it.” Meru said. ”Raise it by the city’s drawings — the drawings that were paid for with four months of the city’s lives.” He paused, and his voice changed. ”When the house stands, the days can be lived in it.”

On the first day of the firm’s opening, a third of the stock went out. The people buying materials queued from the market to the lane mouth. Some bought bricks, some timber, some reed matting on credit. Meru stood at the door of the sheds, pipe after pipe, his eyes narrowed, watching the long queue the way a man watches a river that has begun to flow.

”Boss,” Shunzi came running up, ”the stock is running low. The goods on the West Bank must be urged.”

”Urge them.” Meru said. ”Send word to the West Bank — the next boats carry nothing but building materials.” He paused. ”This trade is more urgent than the siege. In the siege, the materials were for the walls. Now they are for the homes. The business of homes cannot wait one hour.”

The credits were all entered in a new register.

The register had been bound with Shafi’s help — yes, by the method of the hospital’s accounts. Meru put Shunzi in charge of it: which household had taken credit, how much, from which village, when it would be repaid. For every entry, the borrower pressed a thumbprint. Meru said: ”The thumbprint is not for fear that anyone will deny the debt. It is so that this account has a true shape. When the shape is true, everything can be spoken of plainly from now on.”

”Boss,” Shunzi asked, ”is this account the guild’s — or yours?”

”It is the city’s.” Meru said. ”What the guild lends is not money. It is hope. Hope, entered in an account, is more solid than hope carried in the heart.” He opened the register to the first page — the thumbprint of the old man who had bought two cartloads of bricks. ”Look at these pages. Every one of them is a person going home.”

”And if... someone truly cannot repay?”

”If they cannot repay,” Meru said, ”they repay another way — helping haul materials, helping load boats, helping mend houses. In this city, strength is money.” He knocked out his pipe. ”I do not fear that people cannot repay. I fear that people dare not even ask for credit. To dare to ask means a man still means to go forward. A man who means to go forward will repay, sooner or later.”

Nefer’s women’s stalls occupied a stretch at the east end of the market.

A dozen stalls in a row. Date cakes, dried meat, salted vegetables, cloth shoes, grass rope, reed matting. Behind every stall stood a woman of the Haven — in their washed-pale homespun, each stall tidied to order, each pile of goods squared away.

”Spirits up, all of you!” Nefer walked the row of stalls. ”The first day of business sells face. Whatever stall is untidy — I will not be polite.”

”Sister Nefer,” a young wife laughed, ”your voice carries louder than the sellers’.”

”Loud is right.” Nefer said. ”A stall that does not cry its wares does not open its business. The livelihood of us women hangs on our voices. Those whose tongues are slow — learn. Those whose voices are small — practice. Practice until the whole street can hear you, and then you have graduated.”

The young wife blushed, and tried a cry: ”Date — cakes — hot date cakes —” The first cry was like a mosquito’s; the second rose a little; the third carried half the street. Nefer beamed: ”That is the tune! Cry it sweet, and the sales come thick.”

The accounts of the women’s stalls were kept by Sister Wei.

Costs, selling prices, the day’s takings and outgoings — Sister Wei entered them every day. She said: ”We are not like the men. A man’s trade belongs to one household; ours belongs to the dozens of households of the Haven. If the accounts are not clear, when the shares are divided, it will be a tangle.”

”When the accounts are clear,” Nefer said, ”the workshop can be founded. Once the workshop is founded, you are not stall-keepers anymore — you are owners.”

”Owners?” A woman’s eyes went wide. ”We can be owners?”

”Why not?” Nefer said. ”In the four months of the siege, you steamed half the city’s rations and wove cloth for the whole Haven. That craft is your capital. The stall is the first step; the workshop is the second. When the workshop stands, every woman of the Haven has her own livelihood.”

The women looked at one another, eyes shining. The youngest of them said, low: ”Then I will save up and buy a new pair of scissors. For cutting cloth.”

”Save.” Nefer said. ”One copper a day can save up a future.”

Before noon, the date-cake stall sold out first. The buyers queued in a line. An old woman bought a package and did not leave; she stood before the stall and said: ”This date cake — in the siege, I dreamed of it. In the dream, the taste of date cake was longer than life itself.” She bit into it, and the tears came. ”Now that it is in my mouth, I know — it is still the same taste.”

”It is the same taste.” The woman selling the cakes said. ”The dates are still the city’s dates, and the fire is still the Haven’s fire. What has changed is the days.”

”The days,” the old woman said, ”have changed for the better.”

The shops of the market had opened, one by one.

The cloth shop opened first. The shopkeeper brought out the cloth he had stored through four months and hung it in the sun before the door — bright and many-colored, like a flag hung out. The buyers were many — all of them buying cloth to make new clothes for their families: ”The war is over; people must wear something new.” The tailor’s shop opened after it, its measures and cutting tables busy from morning to night. The grain shop, the salt shop, the sundries shop — all opened. And a dealer in old clothes set his stall at the corner of the street, crying: ”Old clothes turned new — three coppers a piece — patches already sewn!”

”An old-clothes stall?” Someone teased him. ”Now that there is new cloth?”

”New cloth is new cloth.” The dealer said. ”But some people still have to wear old clothes first. This stall of mine is for them. When they can all wear new — this old-clothes stall will close itself.” He shook out a garment thick with patches. ”Look at these patches. They are all good ones. A man may be poor, but his clothes must not be ragged.”

”Then that is a fine thing.” The man said. ”You are piling up merit.”

”Merit or not,” the dealer said, ”trade is trade. But when a trade, done honestly, happens to help people — then it is a trade worth doing.”

The cloth merchant’s name was Hu, and he was a careful man.

Through the four months of the siege, he had rolled his cloth, bolt by bolt, into oilcloth and hidden it in the cellar behind his shop. The rebels had searched the shop twice and found nothing. He had squatted in the shop, listening to the sounds outside, thinking: this cloth is for making clothes for the whole city. Better to go hungry myself than let the cloth be lost.

Now that the shop was open, he brought all the cloth out, unrolling bolt by bolt, checking for damp and for moths. As he checked, he said to the women buying: ”This cloth has not been spoiled at all. Buy it in peace, cut it in peace. The four months of disorder never touched it.”

”Merchant Hu,” a woman said, ”your shop is neater than it was before the siege.”

”Neat is right.” Merchant Hu said. ”A neat cloth shop means the people who wear its cloth go out looking decent. This city is going to look decent from now on.”

”Then that is a fine thing.” The woman chose a bolt of indigo. ”For my husband — a new jacket. He held the city wall for four months, and his clothes are in rags.”

”Make it.” Merchant Hu said. ”This indigo has spirit. Stand him at the foot of the city wall, and he will look like a new banner.”

The spice stall carried goods Meru had brought from the West Bank — and the smell of the spices, pepper and coriander and cumin and mint together, was itself a kind of news: the news that the far roads were open again.

The stall was small, but its stock was complete: pepper, coriander, cumin, dried mint — each kind in a small sack, each sack tied tight at the mouth. The keeper was an old hand of the guild, weighing the goods as he talked: ”The goods of the West Bank and the goods of Nubia are all moving again. These spices are the first batch after the war. From now on, one trip a month, and every trip brings something new.”

”Are the spices dear?” Someone asked.

”Two parts in ten cheaper than before the war.” The keeper said. ”Merchant Meru has said: spices are for adding flavor to the days. The days have only just recovered; the flavor must be added first.”

”Well said,” a woman buying spices laughed. ”Can spices really manage the days?”

”They can.” The keeper said. ”Go home and pinch a little coriander into the soup. The children smell it, and they know — peace is here, and there are good smells to eat again.”

Nefer and Kamon, this time, did not quarrel — which was, the people of the market agreed, one of the surest signs that the peace had truly come.

When the market was being put in order, Nefer asked for more stall frames than her share, and Kamon had the carpenters work on the market frames first. Nefer felt awkward about it and said: ”Is your work on the south wall not finished?”

”The market first.” Kamon said, and he said it with the flat certainty of a man who has spent four months deciding what may wait and what may not. ”The wall can wait two days and it will not fall. The market waiting one day means the mouths of several hundred households go one day longer without a livelihood.” He crouched by a stall frame and knocked his knuckles on it. ”Besides — a stall frame is carpentry too. My men, whether they build walls or build frames, are working with their hands. Hands must not be idle.”

”Then your carpenters,” Nefer said, ”how is their pay reckoned?”

”Reckoned to the city.” Kamon said, and he straightened up from the stall frame and looked along the row of new timber. ”This market is the city’s face. Who asks wages for working on the face of the city?” He paused. ”As for you — when the women’s stalls make money, do not forget to save a piece of date cake for each of my carpenters.”

”Only a piece of date cake?” Nefer laughed. ”I will save them two whole pots!”

”One pot is enough.” Kamon said. ”Any more, and they will be too busy eating to work.”

The two of them laughed — a laugh as loud as their old quarrels, but with a different meaning in it now.

Before the smithy, the crowd was the thickest.

They were not buying iron — they were watching. The old smith and the Bridgehead blacksmith had finished the spring farm tools — hoes, sickles, plowshares — and the tools hung in a gleaming row from the rack outside the smithy, each one tested, each edge true, the rack itself as straight as a rank of soldiers. A man from the villages pushed in and said: ”Master smith, I have brought a broken blade to exchange for a hoe.”

”Bring it here.” The old smith said.

The man handed over the broken blade. The old smith took it, weighed it in his hand, and said: ”Good iron. Just right for a hoe.” He threw the blade into the furnace and called to the men in the queue: ”Do not crowd. Old iron for new tools — no one is left out. This furnace of mine burns today, and it will burn tomorrow.”

”Master smith,” someone asked, ”your furnace has not rested in four months, and now it burns farm tools. Are you tired?”

”Tired.” The old smith said. ”But if this furnace stops, the hearts of the people go cold. A cold heart is harder to rekindle than anything else.” He pulled the bellows, and the flame leaped up with a roar. ”Burn on. Keep the fire of this world burning bright.”

The water-seller, A-Bu, had come back too — and his coming back, the old customers said, was as sure a sign of peace as any decree, for a water-seller only returns when there are people to be thirsty.

He set up his water stall under the old locust tree at the south mouth of the market. Thirty years, his water stall had stood under this tree — through good harvests and bad, through the quiet years and the loud ones; the tree had grown taller than the stall, and the stall had worn the ground smooth under the tree. In the four months of the siege, the stall had been folded away, but the man had come every day, carrying water to the wall and to the hospital and to the lanes where the wells had run short — in wartime, a water-seller is the busiest man in the city. Now that peace had returned, he carried his buckets back and set them in a row, each covered with a clean wet cloth.

”Uncle A-Bu,” an old customer came, ”your water stall is thirty years to the day.”

”Thirty years to the day is good.” A-Bu said. ”While the water stall stands, the days go on as before. You old neighbors — when you are thirsty, you stop at my stall, and one gourd of water down, and all your worries slide away.” He ladled out a bowl. ”Taste it. Water from the old well in the west of the city. Sweet.”

”Sweet.” The old customer drank, and said: ”Sweeter than the water of four months ago.”

”That is because your heart is sweet.” A-Bu said. ”When the heart is sweet, everything you drink tastes sweet.”

The knife-grinder had set up his kit at the door of the cloth shop.

His whetstone was a new one, thick and solid. He cried his trade like a song, the old cry of his craft that he had not used in four months: ”Sharpening scissors — honing kitchen knives —” and the cry itself brought people out of their doors, the way an old tune brings people to a window. After two cries, a woman came carrying scissors. The old man worked as he talked: ”I made a vow once, let me tell you. If this city ever truly got its hospital, I would sharpen ten pairs of scissors for nothing. Now the hospital is here, and the medical points are going out to the villages. So these ten pairs — I pay them off today.”

”Master,” the woman said, and she set the scissors on his board the way a patient sets a complaint before a doctor, ”then that is a fine thing. My scissors are just dull.”

”Dull is why they are sharpened.” The old man said. ”The craft of my whole life is sharpening scissors, and what it serves is the hearts of people. The hospital cures sickness; I sharpen scissors — both of them are for letting the days run smooth, one after another.”

At noon, at the south mouth of the market, a new stall appeared.

The keeper was a discharged soldier, with a washed-pale cloth band still tied on his arm — the band had been washed so many times that its color was almost gone, but he had not taken it off, and no one had asked him to. What he sold was straw sandals — braided by his own hands, braided solid. Someone asked: ”A soldier — selling straw sandals?”

”In the army, this craft was how I kept myself alive.” The soldier said. ”Now that the fighting is done, I go home to farm — and a farmer needs shoes. So I practice the craft first, braiding a few pairs to help the household.” He paused. ”And besides — the market should have something for the feet. Cloth shoes are well enough, but in the fields, straw sandals grip the ground better.”

”Then that is a fine thing.” An old man crouched to choose. ”Give me two pairs. The spring plowing is short of them.”

”Two pairs — count them as one and a half.” The soldier said. ”The spring is coming, and everyone longs to get into the fields. I braid sandals to put under the feet of the people going to the fields.”

For the management of the market, Meru had fixed several rules — and the fixing of them had taken him a whole evening, because he had wanted the rules to be the kind that a market would keep because it agreed with them, not because it was afraid of them.

They were pasted on the board at the market’s mouth, white paper and black ink. First: the stalls are divided by sections; each keeps to its own place; none may bully the market. Second: all sales at open prices; no cheating old or young; anyone who gives short weight leaves the market. Third: the water, the passages, and the lamps of the market belong to everyone; whoever dirties them sweeps them. And at the end, one line of small characters: ”The war is over; the rules are not. The market belongs to everyone. Whoever smashes the market’s signboard smashes the rice bowl of the whole city.”

”These rules,” Meru said, ”are not decrees of the government. They were agreed on among ourselves. In the siege, when I ran the trade roads, I believed one thing: a trade that lasts long rests not on goods but on trust. The market is the same — with trust, people dare to come; with people, the market lives.”

”Merchant Meru,” someone asked, ”and if someone does not keep the rules?”

”One who does not keep the rules: the first time, a word of advice. The advice is given in public, so that the whole market hears it — a warning to one is a warning to all. The second time, a fine. The third time —” he paused, ”— my pipe stops offering him a light. What a trader fears most is not a fine. It is that no one will trade with him.”

The whole market laughed — a laughter with a long-missed, down-to-earth warmth in it.

The days of the market kept their own hours — and the hours were as regular as the hours of the wall, which was fitting, the market-goers said, for a city that had learned to live by a schedule in the siege.

The morning market belonged to vegetables and fish — the two trades that cannot wait, that must move from the field and the river to the pot while the dew is still on them. The gardeners from beyond the city came before dawn, their loads of fresh vegetables spread over the ground, dewy and green. The fishermen of the river emptied their night’s nets onto the stalls, a glittering silver stretch of fish. The women shoppers, baskets on arms, picked and chose, bargaining in voices sharp and clear as sparrows quarreling in the branches.

”This fish,” a woman said, holding one up, ”is the first live fish I have seen in four months. In the siege, the river was sealed by the soldiers, and fish were dearer than grain.”

”Now it is open.” The fisherman said. ”The river is open, and the fish have come back. How many will you have?”

”Two.” The woman said. ”One for soup, and one to salt.”

The midday market belonged to food — the hour when the city’s stomach spoke, and the stalls answered it with steam. Steamed cakes, baked flatbreads, boiled soups — steaming and fragrant, the smell carrying half the street. The people who had worked through the morning came off their shifts and ate a bowl at the stalls, squatting by the roadside to rest. A-He, off his kitchen shift, also came to the market — not to buy, but to help cry the wares of the Haven’s date-cake stall. His voice was bright; one cry from him carried farther than any adult’s.

”A-He,” the cake-seller said, ”your crying is the signboard of the Haven from now on.”

”Then I will come every day.” A-He said. ”My mother says my voice takes after my father’s.”

The evening market was the lamp market — and of all the hours of the market day, the people of Thebes loved this one best, because it was the hour that proved the day had been worth living. When the sun went down, the stalls lit their lamps — not candles: oil lamps, one after another, flames the size of bean-flowers, joining into two rows that lit the market a warm yellow. The cloth-seller took his colored cloth inside, and the lamp-oil seller set his stall out; the children darted through the lamplight, and even the adults’ scolding carried laughter in it.

”This lamp market,” an old man said, ”is brighter than it used to be. In the old days it burned oil. Now it burns the life of the people.”

The grain shop’s fair-price grain was fixed by Mery — fixed in the same ledger where the siege rations had been fixed, and with the same care, because grain was the one thing he had never learned to guess at.

A portion of the official granary’s grain was moved into the market and set at a fixed stall. The price was the fair price — two parts in ten below the market price. Before the stall stood a board: ”Official grain at fair prices; three sheng per person per day, no more.” The buyers were mostly the people who had come back to the city and were not yet settled, and the people of the shelter grounds — the people for whom the fair-price grain was not a convenience but a floor under their feet. The clerk minding the stall scooped the grain with a steady hand.

”This grain,” an old woman said, hoisting her sack, ”is far more than the siege ration.”

”Far more.” The clerk said. ”In the siege, it was issued by lives. Now it is sold by days. When the days are better, the grain flows more freely.”

”And from now on,” the old woman asked, ”will this stall always be here?”

”It will.” The clerk said. ”Master Mery has said it: the official granary’s fair-price grain is to become a standing practice. From now on, when the price of grain rises, the official granary releases grain; when it falls, the granary takes grain in. Bought level and sold level — so that the common people can afford to eat at any time.”

”This method is good.” The old woman said. ”In sixty years of life, this is the first time I have heard of an official granary steadying the grain price for the common people.”

”From now on,” the clerk said, ”it will always be like this.”

Behind the fair-price grain stall, Mery came every day to look — and the stall-keepers had grown used to the sight of him standing at a distance, a young man in a plain coat, watching the grain the way a shepherd watches a fold.

He did not stand at the stall; he stood at a distance, watching the queue, the scales, and the cord of the official scale — whether it was wearing thin. When he had looked his fill he said: ”This stall is the first sprout of the ever-normal granary. When the law stands, every county in the country has such a stall. When the grain price runs wild, the grain of the official granary comes out and presses the pot steady.”

”Master Mery,” the clerk minding the stall said, ”this stall sends out several dozen sheng of grain a day. How is the account kept?”

”By the method of the official granary.” Mery said. ”How much in, how much out, at what price — one page a day. The same as in the war.” He paused. ”In the war, this account saved lives. Now it steadies prices. The same thing — a different sky.”

”A different sky.” The clerk clicked his tongue. ”Then from now on, we keep this stall by the wartime method.”

”Keep it.” Mery said. ”Not one grain out of place.”

When Lu Zhu inspected the market, he found one more piece of the craft.

He crouched by the drainage ditch, watching the water run — not fast, not slow. He watched a while, then stood and said to Hapy: ”This ditch takes more craft than the channel. The channel is out in the open — one look to the end of it. This ditch hides behind the stalls; if it blocks, no one knows. So the rule for cleaning it must be fixed at the same time — a small cleaning every three days, a thorough cleaning every ten. Who cleans which stretch — enter it in the market rules.”

”Entered.” Hapy said. ”I will speak to Merchant Meru tomorrow, and it goes on the board.”

”And one thing more.” Lu Zhu said. ”The stall frames, the ditches, the ground of this market — you have kept the drawings of the dimensions. From now on, the markets of other places are built by these drawings.” He paused. ”A market, like a house, must have a pattern. With a pattern, when a new market opens, it is built by the drawings — three days is three days.”

”The drawings are kept.” Hapy said. ”I have drawn the market twice — one copy for Merchant Meru, and one for the Chief Construction Bureau.”

”Good.” Lu Zhu said. ”These drawings, from now on, are worth more than many house drawings. A house belongs to one household; a market belongs to a whole city.”

Tia came to the market as well.

What she bought were things for a long journey: a pair of thick-soled shoes, a package of dried dates, a sheet of oilcloth. The shoe-seller recognized her — those shoes were the ones the women of the Haven had made. The woman said: ”Honored lady — these shoes — are you going on a long road?”

”A long road.” Tia said. ”To the new capital.”

”The new capital...” The woman lowered her voice. ”To make the law?”

”To tell the court about these four months of ours.” Tia said.

The woman said nothing more. She turned and, from under the stall, brought out another pair of shoes and pressed them into Tia’s hands. ”Take these too. Change into them on the road.” She paused. ”Carry our words to the court. We mud-footed people — from now on, we look to you.”

”It is not only me you look to.” Tia said. ”It is every cry of the wares on this market, every sale made here. The men in the court, if they will only lower their eyes and look at this market, will know whether the law should be made.”

”Then let them look!” The woman said. ”Let them all come and look!”

”They will come.” Tia said. ”This law grew out of this market. One day, it will grow back into this market.”

In the southeast corner of the market, a small medical stall had been set up.

Imset had ordered it. It sold no medicine and charged no fee — it only looked. Whoever had a headache or a fever came to ask; whoever had an old person coughing at home came for a prescription. The healer at the stall was a medicine-boy of the hospital, taking turns day by day. Before the stall stood a small board with four characters: Free consultation.

”This stall,” Imset said, ”asks for nothing else. Only that the people of this market know — seeing a doctor is not a hardship, and not a luxury. The door of the hospital opens to everyone.”

”Teacher,” Shafi said, ”this stall sees several dozen people a day. Can the medicine-boys manage?”

”They can manage.” Imset said. ”The light cases are seen on the spot; the serious ones are sent to the hospital. This stall is the hospital’s hand reached into the market.” He paused. ”When the law stands, every market in the country should have such a hand.”

”Then that is a fine thing.” The date-seller heard him from the side and put in: ”With the medical stall here, we stall-keepers feel safe in our hearts. A headache or a fever — turn around, and it can be seen.”

”That is exactly what it is for.” Imset said. ”The people of the market work from morning to night. The sicknesses their work breeds must have a place to be seen.”

Kamon’s guild had also set up a board at the edge of the market.

The board was simple — a few lines of characters: ”The Masons’ Guild undertakes house building and repair. Wages by the guild’s fixed rates. No cheating, old or young.” Under the board sat a young craftsman, a few samples of worked stone laid before him. The people who came to ask were many — all of them wanting houses mended. The craftsman noted the addresses, fixed the dates, and said: ”The house is seen first, then the price is fixed. When it is seen, a written agreement is made. The agreement states clearly: how many days to finish, how much material, how much in wages. Not one thing left vague.”

”This rule is good.” The man who came to ask said. ”Mending a house — what one fears most is having no certain numbers.”

”The guild’s rules are the certain numbers.” The craftsman said. ”Master Kamon has said it: from now on, all house work follows this pattern. If any household is cheated by a freelance workman — come to the guild, and the guild will see justice done for you.”

”And does your guild,” the man asked, ”take in new men?”

”It does.” The craftsman said. ”Men of good craft and honest conduct — all are taken in. Enter the guild, and you are one of the family. Every household’s house is the guild’s face.”

That day, A-He stood under the board at the market’s mouth and read aloud.

”Mar — ket — o — pen.” He finished and turned to grin at the people: ”I read it right!”

”Read it right.” A warden passing by said. ”A-He — how many characters do you know now?”

”More than fifty.” A-He said. ”The chief officiant teaches me. He says when I know a hundred, I can read the house drawings.”

”Read the house drawings?” The warden laughed. ”Do you want to build houses too?”

”I do.” A-He said. ”My mother says the houses of our village will be built by the city’s drawings. If I can read the drawings, I can build houses for our village from now on.”

”A good lad.” The warden patted him. ”Reading, drawing, building. That road of yours is the right one.”

”The right one.” A-He said. He raised his head and read the two characters once more — this time louder. ”Mar — ket — o — pen!”

The whole market heard it. Someone followed with a shout of his own: ”The market is open!” And the wave of voices rolled on — from the east end of the market to the west, into every lane, into the windows of every house.

But in the market, there were also a few empty places — and the emptiness of them was the one thing in the whole market that the liveliness could not cover.

Those places had once had stalls, and the stalls had names that the market still remembered, and the names were spoken less and less as the days went on, but they were never forgotten — the names of men and women who had cried their wares in these same places for years, and whose voices the older market-goers still half expected to hear. In the siege, the stall-keepers had died — some on the wall, some in the burning quarters, some of the hunger and the sickness that the siege had fed on. The places stood empty, swept clean with the rest of the market, and no one went to take them. On the day the market reopened, Meru had an empty bowl set in each of those places, with a small handful of dates in it. He said: ”These places are kept for the people who did not come back. From now on, when a household has got its days going again, let them come, take away the bowl, and set up the stall. The place will always be here.” He said it quietly, and the market heard him quietly, and no one asked whose places they were — everyone knew. The bowls stood through the first days like small monuments that no one needed to explain.

In the first days, no one touched the bowls. People walked past them as if they were the places of the dead — which they were — and the bowls of dates sat in the sun until the dates dried, and no one took them, because taking them would have been like taking something that was not offered. Then, on the fourth day, a young wife came. She came in place of her husband — her husband had died on the city wall in the last month of the war, and the stall he had kept, selling grilled fish at the river’s edge, had died with him. She came early, before the market was fully awake, as if she wanted to do the hardest thing of the day before the day could watch her do it. She stood before the empty place a long time, and the people who were setting up their own stalls nearby went quiet, one by one, the way a crowd goes quiet when something important is about to be said. Then she picked up the empty bowl and said: ”This stall — I will keep it going. I will sell the grilled fish my husband was best at.” She set up the stall and lit the fire, her hands steady on the fish-knife her husband had left her. Of the first batch of grilled fish, when the flames had done their work and the smell rose, she set one aside on the place where the bowl had stood: ”Eat. From now on, I hold this stall for you.”

The people beside her turned their faces away and wiped their eyes — the men as well as the women, though they would not have admitted it. But when the smell of the grilled fish rose over the whole corner of the market, they all crowded around again — ”Give me one!” ”Two for me!” The young wife smiled, red-eyed, her voice finding its way: ”Coming right up!” And the stall that had been an empty place with a bowl became, before the day was out, one of the busiest in the market.

At the old wall-foot in the east of the market — the wall-foot where the whitewash lines had been written on the morning the siege was lifted — a blind old soldier sat every day.

His eyes had been ruined in the siege — blinded by the smoke of the fire arrows, in the nights when the burning arrows came over the wall and the smoke lay thick along the parapet. He did not buy and did not sell; he only sat with his back to the old wall and listened — his face turned toward the sound of the market the way a man turns his face toward the sun. Listened to the cries of the wares, to the bargaining, to the laughter of the children, to the scolding of the mothers. Someone handed him a piece of date cake; he took it and said: ”This market is noisy again.”

”Uncle,” the child who had handed him the cake said, ”you cannot see. How do you know it is noisy?”

”I hear it.” The old soldier said, and he lifted his face a little, the way a man lifts his face to catch a sound. ”I can tell how many people there are by the sound. Four months ago, this market was so quiet you could hear the wind — and the wind was the only thing that moved in it. Now the wind is drowned out by the voices.” He bit into the cake. ”Good. This sound is worth more than anything.”

”Will you come and listen every day?”

”Every day.” The old soldier said, and he turned his face, sightless, toward the sound of the market as he spoke. ”These two eyes of mine went blind for this city. But these two ears of mine still listen for it. When the day comes that even a cough in this market is a happy one — then these ears of mine have not been wasted.”

The child did not fully understand. He only knew that the old man had said something important. He pressed his own half of the date cake into the old soldier’s hand as well, and the old soldier did not refuse it.

In the afternoon, Lu Zhu came to the market — alone, without escort, the way he had walked through the city in the worst days of the siege, when there had been no time for ceremony.

He walked among the people, listening to the bargaining, watching the comparing of goods — the way he had walked the city in the first days after the siege, looking at everything, missing nothing — and the people made way for him without noticing they were making way, the way a crowd makes way for a man who is known to belong to it. He stopped at the vegetable stalls and looked at the greens, judging their freshness the way he judged the freshness of materials on a worksite. He stopped at the fish stalls and looked at the silver piles. He stopped at the cloth shop and looked at the bolts hung out in the sun — and the cloth-seller, seeing him look, came out and unrolled a bolt of indigo for him to feel, the way a craftsman shows his work to a master. When he reached the building-materials sheds, he stopped and watched the queue of buyers for a while — the queue that still reached to the lane mouth. Then he said, with the pipe-smoke drifting between them: ”Merchant Meru — this trade of yours has opened at exactly the right moment.”

”What moment?” Meru asked.

”The moment when people want to go home.” Lu Zhu said. ”Four months — the war over, the first thought in every person’s mind is going home. And going home means mending the house. And mending the house means buying materials. Your building-materials firm is the first stretch of the road that takes people home.” He paused, and looked over the crowded market. ”From now on, this market will only grow livelier. When the market is lively, the taxes grow. When the taxes grow, the ever-normal granaries can be built. When the granaries are built, the next famine year cannot starve anyone. Look —” he pointed at the market, at the moving crowd and the rising smoke, ”— in this bustle is hidden the peace of the next ten years.”

”This account of yours,” Meru said, knocking out his pipe against the heel of his hand, ”is reckoned farther ahead than mine. And I am a man who reckons accounts for a living.”

”It is not far ahead.” Lu Zhu said. ”The four months taught me — reckon the account far enough, and the road is long enough to walk.”

The chief officiant came in the late afternoon.

He bought nothing; he walked through the crowd with his hands behind his back, the way he walked his rounds of the city — stopping here to ask after a grandchild, stopping there to admire a bolt of cloth, taking the pulse of the market the way he had taken the pulse of the city through the siege. Wherever he went, people hailed him: ”Chief Officiant!” ”Chief Officiant, taste these dates!” He answered with a smile, tasted a date, bought half a jin of salted vegetables, let a child show him the little clay horse she had bought with her own copper. When he reached the middle of the market — the exact middle, where the four passages met and the sound of the four quarters came together, and where, on the morning of the reopening, the date-seller had set up his stall — he stopped and looked around: eyes full of people, ears full of voices, nose full of the smoke of cooking fires, and the smoke of the cooking fires smelled, he thought, like nothing so much as the smoke of the incense burners, only warmer.

”This market,” he said to the warden following him, ”is warmer than the incense of the temple.”

”Chief Officiant,” the warden laughed, ”incense is for the gods.”

”That is what I used to think.” The chief officiant said. ”But these four months have shown me clearly — where is the god? The god is in this smoke of the cooking fires. When people are not hungry, not cold, have somewhere to go when they are sick, and have something to look forward to when they are poor — that is the sight the god most wants to see.” He paused. ”So from now on, on the first and the fifteenth of every month, I come and walk in this market. To look at the human world.”

”And the incense in the temple...”

”The incense in the temple still burns.” The chief officiant said. ”But in my heart, I honor the people of this market first. They are the true incense of this city.” He said it without any sense of having said something remarkable — the way a man states what four months have taught him — and the warden, who had served him through the siege, found himself nodding before he knew he had nodded.

In the evening, the market closed — not all at once, but gradually, the way a day closes: the cries thinning out, the last customers lingering, the lamps being lit against the dusk, and the closing of the market was as much a ceremony as the opening had been.

When the stalls were folding, everyone was reckoning their accounts — the oldest ritual of the market, older than the bargaining itself. The date-seller counted his date stones; the fish-seller emptied his baskets; the cloth-seller rolled his bolts; and the women of the Haven counted their coppers into neat piles, the piles that would be divided on the seventh day. The cries of the day had gone, and in their place was the softer sound of counting and the low talk of the day’s business. At the women’s stalls, Sister Wei counted the day’s takings three times — once for the coppers, once for the account book, and once for the pleasure of it — and when she finished she called to Nefer: ”Today — as much as a whole month of the siege!”

”The first day — it is only the novelty.” Nefer said. ”The real test is in the numbers that follow.” She paused, and looked over the stalls that were folding around them. ”But this first day’s number is worth something. It is worth this: it lets people see — this market can live.”

”It can live.” Sister Wei said, and she said it with the authority of a woman who had watched faces for a living through four months of siege. ”I watched the faces all day. There were smiling faces, and faces wiping tears, and faces gripping their money and unwilling to spend it. But there was not one afraid face.”

”Faces with no fear in them,” Nefer said, ”are the best trade of all.”

On the seventh day, after the market closed, the women’s stalls divided their money for the first time — and the division was done in the Haven’s kitchen yard, under the same roof where the four months of siege rations had been steamed.

It was not dividing the accounts — it was each woman taking her own share, the share that the account book said was hers, earned by her own hands. The women gathered in the Haven’s kitchen yard, where the lamps had been lit early. Sister Wei read out the account, and Nefer counted out the shares, person by person, copper by copper. Whoever took her share gripped it tight and did not let go for a long time. A woman in her forties took her share, and suddenly crouched down and buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking.

”What are you crying for?” Nefer said. ”You have earned money. This is the time to smile.”

”I...” The woman raised her head, her face half tears and half laughter. ”In all my life, this is the first time I have earned a share of money with my own hands.” She spread her hand — a few copper pieces, gleaming in the lamplight. ”This money — I will buy my daughter a pair of shoes. In all her life, she has never worn new shoes.”

”Buy them.” Nefer said. ”Buy them tomorrow. And there will be a second share, and a third, and a fourth. Your daughter will wear out the first pair and need another.”

”And...” The woman paused, and her voice dropped. ”I want to keep one piece, to burn incense for my dead man. To tell him — his wife and child can live.”

The whole Haven was still — the stillness of a yard where every woman present is hearing her own story told by someone else’s voice. After a long moment, Sister Wei said: ”Burn it. This incense should be burned.” She took one copper from her own share and pressed it into the woman’s hand. ”Count it as my offering. Let him see — we women who were left behind have got the days going.”

One after another, the women stepped forward and pressed a copper piece into her hand, until her two hands were full. The woman held the full handful of coppers, and the tears would not stop. But this time, her back was straight — straight the way a back goes straight when a person has found the ground under her feet.

The slanting sunset came in, gilding the half-empty stalls of the market with a layer of gold. The people who had folded their stalls went home in twos and threes, their voices low and easy after the long day. The children were unwilling to leave; they ran among the stalls, picking up the date stones from the ground where the sellers had swept them. One child gathered a big handful and said: ”Saving them. Tomorrow I will give them back to Grandfather Liu — he can sell them.”

”Silly child.” His mother laughed. ”Date stones cannot be sold.”

”Then they can be planted!” The child said. ”Plant them, and date trees grow, and there will be dates!”

His mother stopped laughing. She crouched down and looked at the handful of stones in her child’s palm, and said: ”Right. Plant them, and date trees will grow.” She took her child’s hand. ”Come. Let us go home. The seeds of the spring should be going into the ground too.”

The mother and child walked away, their shadows long behind them. The market gradually quieted — but the quiet was not emptiness. It was the full, warm quiet that follows a day of cooking smoke and voices, a quiet with the day’s warmth still stored in the stones of the ground. The wind came through the lane mouth, rolling a few date leaves in circles, letting them fall on the newly paved ground of the market.

Seven days later, the market had steadied.

Not the bustle of the first day — that bustle had carried a little of an unsteady excitement in it, the excitement of a thing testing whether it could live. The liveliness now was even, and deep, like a pot of soup boiled to its proper strength, or a fire that has caught and no longer needs urging. The stalls were full; the people were many; the prices were level. Even the empty places of the first days had new keepers setting up stalls — the bowls had been taken away, one by one, and the places had filled the way a mouth fills with teeth when the new ones come in. The blind old soldier still sat at the wall-foot every day. Someone asked him: ”Uncle — how is it today?” He said: ”Today’s sound is one part solider than yesterday’s. From now on, the days will be made solid, one part at a time.”

”One part at a time.” The man said. ”Made solid.”

Meru, these days, had sent the guild’s whole fleet out. The goods of the south went north, the goods of the north went south, the West Bank’s went east, and the new capital’s went west. Every boat that passed Thebes put in at the beach — the guild’s boats and the boats of the other traders both, for the river was open and the river was free. At the beach, the unloading, the loading, and the settling of accounts ran from morning to night without pause, and the tally-clerks’ brushes moved the way they had moved in the busiest days of the war, only now the cargoes were bricks and seed and cloth and salt instead of grain and medicine and lime for the walls.

”This river,” Meru said, standing on the beach with the water at his feet, ”is alive.”

”Alive.” Shunzi said. ”Boss — when is this river busiest?”

”It is busy from now on.” Meru said. ”The spring plowing must plant, the summer flood must be guarded against, the autumn harvest must be carried, and the winter needs its stores. In all four seasons, the river has its work.” He knocked out his pipe. ”When the river is busy, the people grow rich. When the people are rich, this country is truly standing.”

”And the guild?”

”The guild,” Meru said, ”is the boats on this river. The boats follow the water; the guild follows the days. Wherever the days are going, we go.” He said it without grandeur, the way a boatman states the rule of the current, and Shunzi, who had followed him through the war and the peace both, nodded as if the rule had been explained to him for the first time.

That night, the chief officiant walked his rounds once more.

When he reached the market, he stopped at its mouth. The market was closed, but the lamps had not all gone out — a few night-watch lamps swayed in the wind at the corners of the stalls, their flames small and steady. He looked at them a while and said: ”This market — by day it is the mouth of the city; by night it is the eyes of the city. The mouth eats its meals; the eyes watch the road. When the mouth and the eyes are both whole, the city is wholly alive.”

”Chief Officiant,” the man of the night patrol said, ”those words should be written on the peace boards.”

”Written for what?” The chief officiant said. ”The boards are for people to read. But some things need no writing — raise your head and look at these lamps; lower your head and listen to this quiet. The heart understands without characters.”

He raised his lamp and walked on. The lamplight swept over the ground of the market, over the stall frames, over the few night-watch lamps, and the light joined with the lights of the lanes beyond, point by point, until the whole city lay under one sheet of quiet light.

This city had come back to life.

(End of Chapter 11)