The man who stormed through the door was as dark as Kit, though perhaps a few years younger. He wore mud-splashed riding clothes.
“I am Kit Meinem of Atyar.”
“Jenner Ellar of Atyar. Show it to me.” Silently Kit handed the cartel to Jenner, who glared at it before tossing it onto the table. “It took long enough for them to pick a replacement.”
Might as well deal with this right now, Kit thought. “You hoped it would be you.”
Jenner eyed Kit for a moment. “Yes. I did.”
“You think you’re the most qualified to complete the project because you’ve been here for the last—what is it? Year?”
“I know the sites,” Jenner said. “I worked with Teniant to make those plans. And then Empire sends—” He turned to face the empty hearth.
“—Empire sends someone new,” Kit said to Jenner’s back. “Someone with connections in the capital, influential friends but no experience with this site, this bridge. It should have been you, yes?”
Jenner was still.
“But it isn’t,” Kit said, and let the words hang for a moment. “I’ve built nine bridges in the past twenty years. Four suspension bridges, three major spans. Two bridges over mist. You’ve done three, and the biggest span you’ve directed was three hundred and fifty feet, six stone arches over shallow water and shifting gravel up on Mati River.”
“I know,” Jenner snapped.
“It’s a good bridge.” Kit poured two glasses of whiskey from a stoneware pitcher by the window. “I coached down to see it before I came here. It’s well made, and you were on budget and nearly on schedule in spite of the drought. Better, the locals still like you. Asked how you’re doing these days. Here.”
Jenner took the glass Kit offered. Good. Kit continued, “Meinems have built bridges—and roads and aqueducts and stadia, a hundred sorts of public structures—for Empire for a thousand years.” Jenner turned to speak, but Kit held up his hand. “This doesn’t mean we’re any better at it than Ellars. But Empire knows us—and we know Empire, how to do what we need to. If they’d given you this bridge, you’d be replaced within a year. But I can get this bridge built, and I will.” Kit sat and leaned forward, elbows on knees. “With you. You’re talented. You know the site. You know the people. Help me make this bridge.”
“It’s real to you,” Jenner said finally, and Kit knew what he meant: You care about this work. It’s not just another tick on a list.
“Yes,” Kit said. “You’ll be my second for this one. I’ll show you how to deal with Atyar, and I’ll help you with contacts. And your next project will belong entirely to you. This is the first bridge, but it isn’t going to be the only one across the mist.”
Together they drank. The whiskey bit at Kit’s throat and made his eyes water. “Oh,” he said, “that’s awful.”
Jenner laughed suddenly, and met his eyes for the first time: a little wary still, but willing to be convinced. “Farside whiskey is terrible. You drink much of this, you’ll be running for Atyar in a month.”
“Maybe we’ll have something better ferried across,” Kit said.
Preparations were not so far along on this side. The heaps of blocks at the construction site were not so massive, and it was harder to find local workers. In discussions between Kit, Jenner, and the Near- and Farside masons who would oversee construction of the pillars, final plans materialized. This would be unique, the largest structure of its kind ever attempted: a single-span chain suspension bridge a quarter of a mile long. The basic plan remained unchanged: the bridge would be supported by eyebar-and-bolt chains, four on each side, allowed to play independently to compensate for the slight shifts that would be caused by traffic on the roadbed. The huge eyebars and their bolts were being fashioned five hundred miles away and far to the west, where iron was common and the smelting and ironworking were the best in Empire. Kit had just written to the foundries to start the work again.
The pillar and anchorage on Nearside would be built of gold limestone anchored with pilings into the bedrock; on Farside, they would be pink-gray granite with a funnel-shaped foundation. The towers’ heights would be nearly three hundred feet. There were taller towers back in Atyar, but none had to stand against the compression of the bridge.
The initial tests with the fish-skin rope had showed it to be nearly as strong as iron, without the weight. When Kit asked the Farside tanners and rope-makers about its durability, he was taken a day’s travel east to Meknai, to a waterwheel that used knotted belts of the material for its drive. The belts, he was told, were seventy-five years old and still sound. Fish-skin wore like maplewood, so long as it wasn’t left in mist, but it required regular maintenance.
He watched Meknai’s little river for a time. There had been rain recently in the foothills, and the water was quick and abrupt as light. Water bridges are easy, he thought a little wistfully, and then: Anyone can bridge water.
Kit revised the plans again, to use the lighter material where they could. Jenner crossed the mist to Nearside, to work with Daell and Stivvan Cabler on the expansion of their workshops and ropewalk.
Without Jenner (who was practically a local, as Kit was told again and again), Kit felt the difference in attitudes on the river’s two banks more clearly. Most Farsiders shared the Nearsiders’ attitudes: money is money and always welcome, and there was a sense of the excitement that comes of any great project; but there was more resistance here. Empire was effectively split by the river, and the lands to the east—starting with Faside—had never seen their destinies as closely linked to Atyar in the west. They were overseen by the eastern capital, Triple; their taxes went to building necessities on their own side of the mist. Empire’s grasp on the eastern lands was loose, and had never needed to be tighter.
The bridge would change things. Travel between Atyar and Triple would grow more common, and perhaps Empire would no longer hold the eastern lands so gently. Triple’s lack of enthusiasm for the project showed itself in delayed deliveries of stone and iron. Kit traveled five days along the Triple road to the district seat to present his credentials to the governor, and wrote sharp letters to the Department of Roads in Triple. Things became a little easier.
It was midwinter before the design was finished. Kit avoided crossing the mist. Rasali Ferry crossed seventeen times. He managed to see her nearly every time, at least for as long as it took to share a beer.
The second time Kit crossed, it was midmorning of an early spring day. The mist mirrored the overcast sky above: pale and flat, like a layer of fog in a dell. Rasali was loading the ferry at the upper dock when Kit arrived, and to his surprise she smiled at him, her face suddenly beautiful. Kit nodded to the stranger watching Valo toss immense cloth-wrapped bales down to Rasali, then greeted the Ferrys. Valo paused for a moment, but did not return Kit’s greeting, only bent again to his work. Valo had been avoiding him since nearly the beginning of his time there. Later. With a mental shrug, Kit turned from Valo to Rasali. She was catching and stacking the enormous bales easily.
“What’s in those? You throw them as if they were—”
“—paper,” she finished. “The very best Ibraric mulberry paper. Light as lambswool. You probably have a bunch of this stuff in that folio of yours.”
Kit thought of the vellum he used for his plans, and the paper he used for everything else: made of cotton from far to the south, its surface buffed until it felt hard and smooth as enamelwork. He said, “All the time. It’s good paper.”