“Excuse me,” she said, and it was still strange to hear her voice. The man looked up from his pies to give Ariel his full attention. There was a streak of flour in his red hair and a tired but pleasant smile in his eyes. So much plainer than Eric…but still, so much more interesting than a merman!
“How much are the…” She fought for the right word to speak aloud, which had no equivalent underwater. “That?” she pointed.
“Onion and cheese pie’s a real,” the man said.
Ariel held out her coins.
The man looked at her, raised an eyebrow, then carefully chose a single green coin.
Ariel tried to memorize it: the size, the color, the smell. One real. Made of the metal that tastes like blood.
The baker, still mystified but too polite to say anything, picked out a good-looking pie and handed it to her.
“Thank you,” Ariel said, trying to make her words sound normal.
Then she bit into the pie.
It was all those tastes she remembered from before. Fatty, doughy flour crust. Cheese. Spices and flavors that spoke of foreign Dry World places. And, she supposed, the overwhelming taste of onion. Green, and not unlike certain seaweeds. But stronger.
The baker just watched her as she chewed and enjoyed.
Ariel stopped. Didn’t people eat the things they paid for?
She looked around and saw that no one else was gulping down their treats immediately. There went the old Ariel again. Impulsive.
“Ah, this is wonderful,” she said quickly, sounding interested; as if she were eating it only to compare with other pies she had in the past. “Very unusual.”
“It’s my pickled cal?ots,” the baker said triumphantly. “It is the wrong time of year for those—so I preserve them in the early spring, when they are harvested. A special treat, for an…unusual lady. I haven’t seen you around the market. You must not be from Tirulia?”
“No, I’m from…farther south.”
“The ocean, then?”
She began to choke—possibly on an onion. Or cal?ot.
But before she could come up with a suitable reply the baker was already talking again. “One of the islands, or the continent of Alkabua, I suppose.”
“Oh, but I’ve been here before,” she said smoothly, as if he were right in his guesses and therefore it didn’t merit more discussion. “Tirulia has changed a bit since the last time I visited. There seem to be a lot more soldiers.”
“Oh, aye.” The baker’s look soured. “Prince Eric—or should I say, Princess Vanessa—is much more hungry for war than the king and queen ever were. Of course there’s always been the fight over water rights or passes through the mountains or a particularly fine hillside for vineyards…But this is a whole new cursed thing, and it’s bad business, I don’t mind saying.”
“Why are you so against what the princess is doing? Specifically, I mean?”
The baker looked at her as if she were mad. “War is war. Fighting and death and more food for the soldiers and less for everyone else. Twenty-three Tirulian boys are dead and buried already. And still more boys flock to join the insanity, lured with promises of pretty uniforms and gold for their families. Have they been coming around and spending their new pennies on pies for their sweethearts? Certainly! Win for me! But rather less of a win for their dead comrades.”
“Oh…” Ariel began, unsure what to say.
“And that won’t be the end of it, I’ll bet you reales to sweet buns, sister. There are already shortages because the trade routes are getting cut off. And we will lose more than our fair share of soldier boys, families, mothers, fathers, babies when the other countries decide to hit us back.”
Ariel studied the baker: what was his age, really? He seemed young, but spoke with a strange authority on the subject. Like a mermaid suddenly made queen.
“You seem to know a lot about war,” she ventured.
“My parents moved here from up north, where those kingdoms are always fighting. Kings and queens and princes and princesses like a giant bloody game of chess where no one cares about the pawns.
“I got out. I was nine. My oldest brother didn’t. Enjoy your pie—and treasure peace, while it lasts. You won’t miss it until it’s gone.”
And with that, the pie maker turned his back on her.
Ariel was a little flummoxed. She was queen; no one ever turned his, her, or its back on her. To someone who couldn’t speak aloud, that was the most effective—and devastating—way to end a conversation with her.