Read Online Troubled Waters by Sharon Shinn - Free Book Online Page A

what she needed in the shop district, since most of these merchants catered to the wealthy. But since she had to travel past the shops to get to the Plaza of Women, she let herself idle as she strolled by the open storefronts and eyed the merchandise inside.
    The shops were like a beggar’s children, crowded shoulder to shoulder along the sidewalks and shouting for the attention of the rich passersby. Most were about the same size, maybe thirty feet by thirty feet on the bottom story, and built of a sandy brick or mortared stone. Most of them featured a second story—sometimes a third—where the owners lived. Almost every shop had a colorful awning that stretched from the front window to the edge of the street, so that even on rainy days, patrons could travel a whole block and not feel a drop.
    Boys and girls, young men and young women, stood in the doorways or perched on the sills of the open windows and called out to the steady stream of traffic. Fine wool! Fine silk! Best prices in the city! Or, Shoes made of the softest leather! Fancy boots for men and women! Or, Watches! Bracelets! Rings for your loved ones! Shop here, best quality!
    Zoe eyed the fine bracelets, sighed over the apricot silk, but her feet rarely stopped for long. These wares were too dear for her circumstances. On to the Plaza of Women.
    In shape and size, it was nearly identical to the Plaza of Men, but there was an entirely different feel to it. Where the Plaza of Men possessed a buzzing kind of energy, a sense that at any point someone might start shouting or jostling or brawling, the Plaza of Women was at once more purposeful and more playful. First, there was more commerce—this was the place everyone came when they needed an item and couldn’t afford shop prices—so there were dozens of little kiosks crammed together, selling cheap fabric, secondhand clothing, and worn but serviceable shoes.
    Second, there was more camaraderie. Mothers and daughters strolled through the marketplace together, picking out flowers for a dinner party or a family wedding; friends and neighbors gossiped as they shopped, and vendors and patrons shared stories and recipes and news. There were very few men at the Plaza of Women. Zoe remembered that her father claimed he never felt so out of place as he did there. I’m too big, too loud, too awkward, too mute. How is it that women always know what to say to each other? But it had been the place that Zoe and her mother most liked to visit together, back when her mother was alive.
    And that had been more than twelve years ago . . .
    Zoe shook her head and began a slow, pleasurable stroll around the Plaza. It was Quinncoru, and before long it would be Quinnahunti; she could probably make do with a couple of pairs of lightweight trousers, two or three tops, and an overrobe in some neutral color. She spent a long time picking through an assortment tumbled together on three short tables, holding the items up to her neck or her waist to see how they would fall, debating how practical each piece was. Would the dye run out the first time she washed the black trousers in the cold waters of the Marisi River? Could she wear the loose blue trousers with both the pink tunic and the cropped red top? Should she choose the sensible overrobe of gray or the prettier one in patterned blue?
    In the end, she was only a little frivolous, buying just one item that wasn’t eminently practical. The shirred, close-fitting top of purple silk was not the sort of thing she would wear as she made camp on the river flats, yet it was so pretty and so cheerful that she could not pass it by. She supposed that, after the nineday she had just had, she deserved to buy something simply because it made her happy.
    Or perhaps she was still operating under the blessing of surprise.
    A sleeping mat, a blanket, and a carrying sack were much quicker purchases to make, and then she paused at food booths to pick up staples that would last a couple of days. She