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She sighed and then she laughed. “You speak as if you have some experience, but—” She gestured at his hands. The right wrist bare of any family affiliations. The left wrist with its single twisted band. “I’m guessing you don’t have children of your own?”
“No. I have spent some time working as a counselor, that is all. Though for the past ten years, I have been a professional wanderer.”
“And did you find what you were looking for in your travels?”
Pietro glanced again around the large, depressing room. He had been here almost every day for the past two weeks, and it still didn’t feel welcoming or familiar. “I don’t think so,” he said. “But I’m not sure what I’m looking for.”
“Do you think you’ll find it in the city?”
“I hope so,” he said. “It’s the only place I haven’t tried.”
The woman left about an hour later, but Pietro stayed until the last battered supplies had been handed out—the loaves of bread flattened in the bottoms of the baskets, the clusters of grapes so crushed they were one good squeeze away from being wine. The big building was truly a furnace by now, so the last visitors moved lethargically through the lines and the few remaining workers served them in dazed silence.
It was a relief when the priest who had been overseeing operations all day finally called a halt to the proceedings. “Thank you for your service,” he said to the volunteers drooping at their posts. “If ever you feel called upon to join us again, we’ll welcome you.”
The volunteers responded with a few unintelligible murmurs and drifted toward the exit. Pietro gathered up all the baskets he could find and carried them to the door to be collected and refilled overnight by another army of workers.
“Thank you—most appreciated,” said the priest as Pietro added to the growing piles. “It’s the kind of work that’s never done. There is always one more task.”
“Ah, well, that’s the nature of life,” Pietro said. “We come to resting points, but very few true endings.”
The priest laughed. His round, cheerful face made him look youthful, but Pietro guessed him to be in his forties. His ruddy complexion and dark hair defied easy categorization, so Pietro supposed him to be of some complex mixed heritage. The bracelet on his right wrist was hidden by the long sleeves of his tan robe. The band on his left wrist showed him to be a mid-ranked priest with perhaps five or eight years of experience. Exactly what Pietro would expect from someone performing this particular function, since few senior priests were willing to put in the long, grueling hours supervising the distribution center. It was what Pietro had counted on when he began volunteering a week after he arrived in the city. Because of course any priest with ten or more years of experience instantly would have recognized him.
“Well, I suppose there’soneending point we all reach, but we shouldn’t be in a hurry to get there,” the other man replied in a genial voice. “I’m Stollo, by the way.”
“Pietro.”
“You’ve been here three days this week, at least that I have noticed,” Stollo said, spreading his hands. “The temple thanks you for your service. And if you’re hungry,Iwould thank you for service by treating you to dinner.”
The casual gesture had lifted his trailing sleeves and revealed the single band on his right hand. Gold, fluted with alternating swatches of gold and silver. A man who was attracted to both men and women. Not that it mattered to Pietro, who was not looking for a romantic partner, especially one so young, and who was not stupid enough to ever get involved with another priest even if he was. Still, he tugged on his own bracelets, just in case Stollo wanted to see them, just in case the other man wanted to assimilate a few bare facts about Pietro’s life before they sat down to a meal.
“I’m hungry enough to take you up on the offer,” he said. “Do you know someplace good to eat?”
They stayed near the warehouse district, ending up at a snug little alehouse only a few blocks away. The ceiling was low, the lighting was patchy, and the smells of meat and onions were delicious. Most of the other patrons appeared to be working men and women who didn’t care who else was there as long as no one bothered them. It seemed like the ideal spot.
While they waited for their food, Stollo and Pietro talked idly and sipped mugs of beer. Pietro hadn’t exactly sworn off of alcohol, but he’d indulged in it only rarely in the past few years. He had forgotten how good the rich, bitter brew could taste.
“So, your bracelet,” Stollo said as they dug into their main course. “You’re a sojourner? On any specific kind of pilgrimage, or simply wandering?”
“Wandering, it seems.”
“Where have you been?”
“Almost everywhere, I think. Chibain to the islands, and even as far as Oraki.”
“And what did you discover?”
Pietro thought about that while he finished a bite of food and chased it with another swallow of beer. “Both that people are very similar and very different,” he said. “Their customs vary. Their rituals. Marriage ceremonies differ from place to place, for instance, yet people always join up in some kind of unit for the joys and rewards of companionship. Attitudes about death change from group to group, and yet everyone mourns a personal loss. I think those were the two things I saw everywhere I went—the capacity to feel love and the capacity to feel pain.” He gestured. “And I also witnessed the extremes of kindness and cruelty, which seem to attend love and pain wherever they can be found.”
“You are a philosopher,” Stollo observed.
“Not so much. A student of humanity.”
Stollo grinned. “It’s the same thing.”
“What about you?” Pietro asked. “What brought you to the priesthood?”
Now Stollo was the one who took time to think over his answer. “I came to it late in life,” he said at last. “In my twenties, I was a banker. I was married to a good woman. I was a dutiful son. Eventually none of these roles satisfied me.”
