“How much?!” This was fast becoming my Magalat mantra.

Every stall I visited the conversation went the same. First, they would draw me in. I would turn my nose up, naturally, at which point they would make some ridiculous, far-flung claim about how awesome their stock was. I would grudgingly ask the price. They’d quote some astronomical figure. I’d say my Magalat mantra and then, the best bit, I’d get some ridiculous half-baked justification for being ripped off.

“Best quality in town.” — Doubtful.

“They don’t grow on trees, darling.” — They do.

“You’ll not find cheaper in all of Tythia.” — I will.

“You won’t find another like it.” — It’s an apple.

“If you don’t like it, you can get lost.” — …I’ve got nothing. I actually appreciate the direct approach.

Many a year has ticked by where I found myself idle in the Braxus square, wishing I could just pay someone for my dinner, rather than toss a bunch of turnips at them until they relented. Now, I find myself missing that good, honest Braxus barter. As a rule, I don’t like to shower the elders with too much praise — especially what with my exile and all — but perhaps they had a point when it came to sitting on the sidelines of Tythia’s mercantile war.

Alicia hadn’t misled me too much. Osston’s Crannoc Market was at least a semi-manageable size. By this I mean that I could walk from one end to the other without breaking a sweat. It might take me half a day, what with all the jostling and dancing around shoppers I had to do, but it wasn’t massive size-wise. At a guess, there were around forty stalls.

The principle behind the market was pretty similar to our own quaint affair back in Braxus. This was a place for locals to exhibit their homemade or homegrown odds and ends; these weren’t big inter-city traders, who made their coin buying in one place and selling in another. Where Crannoc differed to Braxus was in, oh, just about every other way.

Back home I would lay out my goods for my neighbours to have a sniff at and then inevitably walk on by. If times were desperate, I might don the dreaded box — only ever at Alicia’s behest — and see if I could interest an indecisive shopper in some choice veg they may not have noticed before. In Braxus, that was considered a hard sell.

Here, I was bombarded with every bit of tat, every weedy carrot, every soiled washcloth, every limp celery stick. These were all waved before my face like the baron’s own flag. Nobody let me be. People shouted prices. They called out to me from across the square. They tried to stuff things into my hands. They were plain relentless, and they would not take no for an answer. I was goaded with goods. I was walloped with wares. I was castigated with commodities. It was exhausting.

The biggest difference between here and Braxus, though, was the quality. I would be embarrassed to put half of this rubbish on my stall back home. The vegetables looked like they were last year’s harvest. The fruit looked like it had been destined for cider, or brandy. Even the meat looked sad. It was as if all the farmers had decided to butcher their runts.

It really was a sorry offering, yet still the locals insisted on exorbitant prices for their “goods”. I was starting to suspect they’d pegged me as an out-of-towner. Maybe word had got around and they were conspiring to pull a fast one on me. I’m not sure if that would be better or worse than admitting it’d taken less than a day for Magalat to turn me into a cynic.

To Glade with it. There’s no way I can cook right now, anyway.

I found a vendor selling cooked meat on skewers. The lamb was pretty scant. It’d been bulked out with chives, some cheap spices, and — if my nose was as keen as I suspected — mugberry wort. It wasn’t a dish that would earn you a second date, but he was serving it with a limp, shredded salad and some flat bread. I figured that would at least be enough to fill our bellies.

“How much for three of these?”

The moustachioed man tapped a sign. “Times three,” he said.

I did a double take. Then I just plain ogled the sign. “Are you kidding me? Is that really the price?”

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“The sign hasn’t lied yet,” he said over his shoulder as he finished assembling a portion for the customer in front of me.

I looked into the purse and wondered what trick had made it shrink in my hand. “That’s almost half of what I have! This is supposed to last us a fortnight at least!”

“Sounds like it’s going to be a tough couple of weeks.” To be fair to the guy, it really wasn’t any of his business.

A woman next to me leaned over my open purse like a heron. “Pwaha!” she laughed verbally. “It’ll be a tough weekend, for sure. I wouldn’t worry about anything beyond that, though.” She closed her eyes and stuck her tongue out — the universal mime of playing dead.

What’s a weekend? “Listen, I’m sure we’ll figure out something soon. For now I’m just really, really tired, and I desperately need some food.” When nobody picked up on the cue, I was forced to ask, “Is there any way you could do me a discount?”

The vendor tossed a flatbread on the counter. “Half price,” he said.

Charming. “Could I pay you later, then? I can’t part with so much now, but perhaps when I have a bit more money?”

He actually laughed at me this time, and then moved on to the next customer. I suppose that’s fair.

“Listen, if it’s money you need then I can help you,” the woman said.

“Really? You can?”

“Of course! I can easily find work for a girl your age. My cut would be very reasonable.” She winked at me, dislodging a thick cascade of powder, that covered crow’s-feet you could run your nail through.

What is with this awful place? Do they think of nothing else? “I’ll find some other way to earn money,” I said flatly.

She hit back with a delicate little, “Hmph! Suit yourself, dear. But just so you know, I used to have a cute little country accent myself. It’s not so easy to keep your spotless little village morals in a place like this. You won’t think you’re better than us for very long.”

“I don’t think I’m better than you. I just—”

And she was gone.

“I don’t think I’m better than you.” Do I?

“Listen,” the cook said, not unkindly, “if you’re not going to buy something, you need to move on. I’ve customers I need to see to.”

I stepped back from the stall, and was swallowed by the crowd once more.

There was a stone sculpture off to one side of the square. It might have been a fountain once, but was now just an impractically large bowl. I propped my back against this and cradled my head in my hands. I’d give anything to make this day end.

“I can’t take it anymore,” I moaned into my hands. “I’ve been on my feet for years!”

“You talking to me? I couldn’t understand you,” Clive said.

“No, I w—” Wait a second, I’m not falling into that trap.

For an infinitesimally short moment I wondered why my dangerous habit of being able to understand animals was so erratic. Sometimes they understood every word I said, sometimes they didn’t. Even weirder, there didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to when I spoke to them in Tythian — and could be understood — and when I clucked at them like a deranged person. It was a question I’d asked before, but with the horrific saga in the woods I now had every reason to dig a bit deeper. The last thing I wanted was to slip into some state where I could understand every living thing every moment of the day. Especially embarrassing if I were reduced to hooting and bleating back at them.

Curious and terrifying phenomena indeed, but something that well and truly fell into the category of: “stuff I’m going to worry about after I finally get some sleep!”

That’s it. I’m going to the nearest stall and buying the first thing I spot.

I went to the nearest stall. I spotted a wilted bundle of spring onions that looked like the hair you fish out the drain.

“Fine produce, don’t you think? I’m especially proud of those,” an actually genuinely sweet looking lady in her mid-fifties said.

“They certainly have that home grown charm.” I smiled as best I could.

“Oh yes! Not easy to grow in Magalat, but I’ve got my tricks!” She leaned in conspiratorially. “Don’t think me daft, but I sing to them.” She giggled.

That was when I realised — and I kicked myself when I did — that Magalat had nothing but rubbish to offer, because we had all the decent food. The villages, set up by the barony to feed Magalat’s massive population, no longer paid their tythes. We were well with our rights not to, given how Magalat had squeezed us rural folk during the drought, but it hadn’t occurred to me that Magalat really couldn’t grow food for itself.

I thought about those rows upon rows of cramped houses, each one a family glued to the next with nothing but a flimsy bit of wood to separate them. I thought about the dusty streets, the stale air, the dark corners that the light never quite seemed to touch. You couldn’t cultivate anything here but mould. There was nothing the Anvil could teach us about working the land that could revive the spoiled land of this city.

Suddenly I understood why Iffan’s cabbage patch had been left unmolested. Food growing in a place like this must be sacred in a way even us fiercely devout farm-folk couldn’t fathom. If my guess was right, the looters had left the heads of cabbage to grow, and we probably upset someone’s dinner plans by arriving a couple of days before they were ready to be plucked up.

I could feel a plan starting to hatch. Was it hatching? Was it maybe cracking? Had I just broken an idea egg into a pan and started scrambling? Was I making an omelette?

Anvil, I need to eat.

Eat, and then sleep. Maybe both at the same time.

I cast my eye over the woman’s sorry stock one more time. It wasn’t so hard now to imagine her pride at having coaxed something green from this destitute, umber metropolis.

“You know what, miss? I will take your” — fiercely ugly — “spring onions.”

“Wonderful!” She clapped her hands together. “That’ll just be three silvers and suxpunce, dear.”

“How much?!”