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“Then what’s irregular about your situation? Because the way you spoke, there must be something.”
Jayla nodded, and her face because even more serious. “I’ve become responsible for the welfare of a young girl. She’s maybe seven or eight years old. I met her as we tried to cross into Corcannon on the day the northern bridge fell down—”
“Oh, you were one of those poor stranded travelers at the Chibani crossing?” Reese asked. “That sounded miserable.”
“It wasn’t so bad. But during that time, Aussen came into my care. The woman she was traveling with died on the road, and there was no one else to watch her. My hope is to eventually find her family but—it’s tricky. She’s Zessin, and she only knows a few words of Cordish. I haven’t been able to learn enough about her to know where to place her safely. But I can’t abandon her. So any job I take has to allow me to bring her with me.”
Of all the things Jayla had done and said since Madeleine laid eyes on her—from vanquishing her oversized opponent to coolly assessing the risks that her potential client might face—this was the thing that made Madeleine like her the best. She matter-of-factly explained her situation, didn’t try to glamorize it, didn’t complain about it, didn’t promise to get it resolved as quickly as possible so her new employer wouldn’t be inconvenienced. She just said,This is who I am and this is what I bring with me,and waited to see what would happen next.
“I can’t think that would be a problem,” Madeleine said. “The girl could sleep in your room. If she can understand directions, maybe she could work in the kitchen. That would keep her out of trouble, anyway.”
“If your father won’t allow her to stay, I could find a place for her,” Reese said.
“No,” said Jayla. “She’s been through too much and I don’t want her to be separated from me. Ifshecan’t come,Ican’t come.”
“And my father isn’t the one who oversees the servants—I do,” Madeleine said. “He won’t even notice that she’s been added to the household.” She took a deep breath and addressed Jayla. “So let me go home and tell my father I have found the person I would like to engage to be my guard. I hope very much that you will have found a place for yourself in my house.”
Chapter Seven:
Pietro
Pietro stood with the other volunteers behind the long wooden table and handed out loaves of bread and wrapped rounds of cheese. At nearby tables, other workers were distributing jars of milk, containers of honey, and bags of fruit. There were strict rules about how much food to give to any one petitioner—a solitary man got a single loaf, a small jar; but a woman with three children clinging to her arms would receive as much as she could carry.
Pietro didn’t always follow the protocols. If he was approached by a hollow-cheeked teen, he bundled up extra portions and whispered, “Go outside and eat what you want, then come back through the line and I’ll give you more.” This distribution center was operated by the temple, and Pietro knew Cordelan could afford to give away twice this much food and never notice the cost.
It was the kind of occupation that was virtuous enough to be rewarding, but endless enough to be wearying. There was so much need; there were so many hungry mouths. How could everyone be fed? How could everyone be cared for?
When he had lived in the city ten years ago, he had rarely done a stint at the distribution centers. He had preferred the more intimate ministries—the one-on-one sessions with those who were sick in spirit, gravely ill, or broken-hearted.It is with people that I feel my calling,he had explained to Harlo once. And not with Cordelan himself.
Of course, people had been his downfall.
Well, Harlo had been his downfall.
He could not resume his priestly duties, but he still felt impelled toward service, so he had settled on handing out food. It didn’t satisfy him, but it did quiet that restless, questioning voice in his head that kept asking,What are you doing here? Why did you come back?
He honestly had no idea.
“It’s not so bad in the mornings,” said the woman who had been working on his right-hand side since they both arrived three hours ago. “But it gets so hot in the afternoon. And there are so many people, all needing so much. It gets harder to stand here and feel like you’re doing any good.”
Pietro glanced up at the high ceiling, where thin lines of sunlight showed through the imperfect join of broad wooden slats. They were in an old storeroom on the border between the Quatrefoil and the warehouse district. The building was completely empty except for the tables, the supplies, and the people, so it should have felt roomy and comfortable. But instead it felt cramped and dreary.
“I imagine there’s the opposite problem in the winter,” he said. “It’s drafty and cold.”
“It’s worse,” she agreed. “But fewer people venture out, so it’s not as crowded.”
He glanced surreptitiously at the bracelets on her bare arms. On her left wrist she wore a band that proclaimed her a teacher; on her right, circlets that marked her as a woman married to a woman, the mother of two daughters and a son.
“Do you come every week?” he asked.
“I try to. Usually my oldest daughter accompanies me, but she had other plans today.” She shrugged, but her face showed disappointment.
“She might be at an age where she finds it tedious to tend to others—she wants to laugh with her friends and not think about all the sadness in the world,” Pietro said in his most soothing voice. “But if she has been coming here with you for any length of time, she’ll remember the lesson. She’ll feel it continue to pull at her—that desire to make life better for those whose need is so much greater than her own.”
The woman’s face relaxed into a tired smile. “I hope that’s true. We try so hard to set good examples for the children, and then one of them does something cruel and shallow, and we wonder, ‘How can we have failed so miserably?’”
Pietro handed two loaves of bread to a petitioner who couldn’t have been more than twenty, who carried a baby in a sling over her shoulder and held a toddler by the hand. The woman next to him carefully wrapped two rounds of cheese and tucked them into the mother’s bag.
“You provide the foundation,” he said, still in that gentle voice. “You show them how to build their houses. But they forage for the material themselves, and they build their dwellings out of plaster or wood or wild variegated stone, and you cannot stop them and you cannot change them and you can only help them if they ask for your assistance.”
