The man snorted. “‘Delayed’ implies it is coming.”
Darcy tilted his head. “Then where—”
“Bought up,” the butcher said. “Or spoiled before it ever reached me. I cannot say which.”
Darcy glanced at the hooks above the counter. Too many were bare.
“And your winter contracts?” he asked.
The butcher hesitated. “Being honoured. As far as may be.”
Darcy inclined his head and moved on, but the answer followed him.As far as may be.Not utter refusal. Not panic yet. Rationing—but rather sudden. Should not all the papers be full of it, if matters had gone this far?
At the far end of the market, a man had mounted a crate and begun to shout. “There are signs, I tell you! The land answers its own account—”
“Answerswhataccount?” someone called back. “Your tab at the gin shop?”
Laughter broke out, then was swallowed by more voices. A turnip struck the crate and split; another followed, less accurately thrown.
The man ducked, straightened, and pressed on, voice rising to meet the noise. “You mock because you are comfortable, but mark me! This is the price of pride. Too much ploughing, too much forcing. We have stripped the soil to bone and marrow—”
“It’s the war,” a woman snapped from the edge of the crowd. “Always the war. Everything goes to the army, and we get the scraps.”
“Rubbish,” another voice answered. “It’s the mills. Smoke spoils the rain. My cousin swears the fogs are thicker every year.”
“It’s God’s judgment,” the man insisted, thumping his chest. “You pave over fields, you pull hedges down, you think the earth will not sicken—”
Someone shouted back, “Sicken! Eh, who does he think he is? Last winter was mild as milk.”
“That’s how it begins,” the man cried. “Mercy first, then the reckoning!”
Something struck the crate hard enough to rock it. The man caught his balance, lifted his hands again, and kept talking, his words breaking apart under the din—sin, smoke, soldiers, grain, gold—none of it landing cleanly, all of it spoken at once.
Darcy did not need to hear more. What followed him was not belief—no, not yet—butattention. The kind that gathers when explanations fail, and people begin trying them on regardless.
By the time Darcyreached his next intended stop—a bookseller whose stock he knew as well as his own shelves—the list in his pocket had begun to feel less like an errand and more like a test.
“Ah, Mr Darcy! You are early this year,” the bookseller said, peering at him over his spectacles. “Most leave such purchases until the last possible moment.”
“Habit,” Darcy replied. “I prefer to avoid crowds.”
The man smiled thinly. “A wise preference. You may find fewer temptations than usual.”
Darcy scanned the shelves. Gaps again—here and there, but unmistakable. A space where a particular history ought to have stood. Another where pamphlets were usually stacked in careless abundance.
“Delayed printings?” Darcy asked.
“Paper,” the bookseller said. “Ink. Transport. Take your pick.” He tapped the counter with one finger. “Mere inconveniences, sir.”
Darcy selected a volume nonetheless, one he knew Georgiana would value for its quality rather than novelty.
As it was wrapped, he asked, casually, “Do you hear much talk?”
The bookseller glanced up. “Talk, sir?”
“Of shortages. I have just come from the market, and one can hardly find a potato for sale that is not blighted.”
The man’s mouth tightened with calculation. “Enough to sell certain titles more briskly than others.”
