Her path did not lead her down into the city, for the Concourse had been built on a low hill that overlooked Bingtown. Her journey took her past many of the Traders’ estates. The open gateways and wide carriage roads up to the properties now were barricaded, and frequently men with weapons stood guard at the closed gates. No home was safe from the roving bands of thieves and looters. The guards watched her go by with unfriendly stares. No one called a greeting or even nodded to her.

Ronica was the first to arrive for the Council meeting. The Concourse itself had suffered as badly as Bingtown. This old building was more than just a structure where the Traders met. It was the heart of their unity, a symbol of who they were. Its stone walls would not burn, but someone had managed to set its roof alight. Ronica stood for a time staring up at it in dismay. Then she braced herself against what she might find, and climbed the steps. The doors had been broken open. She peered past them cautiously. Only one corner of the roof had burned, but the smell of smoke mingled with the damp to make the whole hall reek. The weak light of late afternoon came in through the breached roof to illuminate the empty hall. Ronica pushed past the broken-latched door and advanced cautiously. The gathering hall was cold. The moldering decorations from the Summer Ball still trailed down the walls and stirred in the trespassing wind. Garlands had degenerated to bare branches on the door arches and rotting leaves on the floor. Tables, chairs and the raised dais were still in place. There was even a scattering of dishes on some of the tables, though most had been looted. Dead bouquets were rotting beside broken vases. Ronica gazed about herself with a growing dismay. Where were those who were assigned to prepare the hall for the gatherings? What had become of the Traders appointed to caretake the hall? Had everyone abandoned every responsibility save to care for their own welfare?

For a time, she simply waited in the chill, dim hall. Then the clutter and disorder began to clatter against her calm. In her younger days, she and Ephron had served a term as hall-keepers. Almost every young Trader couple did. With a strange twinge of heart, she recalled that Davad and Dorill had served alongside them. They had come early to the Council meetings, to fill the lamps and set the fires, and stayed afterward to wipe down the wooden benches with oily cloths and sweep the floors. Back then it had been simple, pleasant work, performed in the company of other young Trader couples. Recalling those days was like finding a touchstone for her heart.

She found the brooms, candles and lamp oil where they had always been kept. It cheered her a tiny bit to find that the storage room had not been looted. That meant that slaves or New Traders had done the other thievery, for any Trader family would have known where to look for the hall supplies. She could not restore the hall completely, but she could begin to set it right.

She needed light first. She climbed on a chair to fill and light the wall lanterns. Their flames flickered in the breeze, and illuminated more clearly the leaves and dirt that had blown in with the fallen bits of charred roof. She gathered the scattered dishes into a washing tub and set it aside. She pulled down the damp banners and denuded garlands from the walls and bundled them into a corner. The broom she chose next seemed a puny weapon against the littered floor of the great hall, but she set to with a will. It felt good, she suddenly decided, to set herself to a physical task. For this small time, at least, she could see the results of her effort and her will. She found herself humming the old broom song as she moved a line of litter rhythmically across the floor. She could almost hear Dorill’s sweet alto swinging the repetitive refrain.

The rasp of her broom covered the scuff of footsteps. She became aware of the others only when two other women joined in with brooms of their own. Startled, she halted in her sweeping to stare around her. A group of Traders huddled together in the entry. Some looked at Ronica with hollow eyes and sagging shoulders, but others were moving past those who only stared. Two men came in bearing armloads of firewood. A group of youngsters united in gathering up the smelly banners and dragging them out of the hall. Suddenly, like a knot of debris yielding to the force of water, the folk in the entry flowed into the hall. Some began to move benches and chairs into their proper configuration for a Council meeting. More lamps were kindled, and a hum of conversation began to fill the hall. The first time someone laughed aloud, the buzz of voices ceased for an instant, as if all were startled by this foreign sound. Then talk resumed, and it seemed to Ronica that folk moved livelier than they had.

Ronica looked around at her neighbors and friends. Those who gathered here were the descendants of the settlers who had originally come to the Cursed Shores with little more than land grants and a charter from Satrap Esclepius. Outcasts, outlaws and younger sons, their ancestors had been. With small hope of building or regaining fortunes in Jamaillia, they had come to try their luck on the ominously named Cursed Shores. Their first settlements had failed, doomed by the weirdness that seemed to flow down the Rain Wild River with its waters. They had moved farther and farther from what initially had seemed a promising waterway until they had settled here, on the shores of Bingtown Bay.