“I’m telling you,” said the first man. “They’re making it themselves. They’re cooking something up. Those ...women.”
There was a collective moment of loathing and longing as everyone thought aboutthose women.I took a slurp of my soup.
“Haven’t seen one of them for weeks either,” continued the bearded man.
“Because they don’t need us anymore.”
“They’ll always need us.” The bearded man lowered his voice. “For hearts.”
The room seemed to darken, shadows closing in from the corners, and the men scraped their chairs in close to the table and lowered their voices.
“They get those from the outer villages,” said the bald man. “They don’t trouble us.”
“They used not to,” said the blond man at the adjoining table. “Because we grew their food. But now,” he took a swig of ale, “they don’t need our crops any longer, apparently, or soon won’t.”
“They wouldn’t,” said the first man, sounding more sober. “We’ve had this arrangement for a century. Longer. My great-grandfather told me on his knee. They don’t take hearts from us because we grow their food, and they don’t take them from the city folk either.”
“And how long will that last, d’you think?” said Baldy. “All they need to do is sign another fancy bit of paper, and we’re done for.”
“Maybe they’ve found something else to use instead of hearts,” said the blond man, without much hope.
I felt a tug under my own heart, as if to remind me of my purpose. I got up and walked over to the men, ignoring their looks of embarrassment, their edgy glances at one another. Lucky for them, propositioning them was the furthest thing from my mind.
“I overheard you,” I said, “and I’m not from around here. You were talking about the magic-workers.”
“No, we weren’t,” said the bearded man automatically.
“Yes, you were,” I said. “You were saying they usually order their vegetables and such from you ...”
The bald man gave in to the inevitable, shrugging at the others as if to say,what does it matter?
“Usually,” he admitted.
The tension released. They relaxed their postures a little, moistened their mouths, ready to talk. “We grow the food,” said the bearded man who had first spoken. “The villages close by. They don’t make anything in the city but fine clothing and mischief.”
“Someone signed some bit of paper a hundred years ago or more,” said the bald man. “Said they wouldn’t take from us except in dire need, if we supplied the city.”
“And a good thing it was too,” said the bearded man.
“Did the ladies come themselves? To collect them?” I asked.
He snorted. “Of course not. They sent their servants.”
All the men looked at me as if I was a simpleton.
“Where are you from?” asked the bearded man.
I named my village.
“I had an aunt from out that way,” he said. “Things are different out there, farther from the center. You’re pretty close to the border.”
“Not that close,” I said, remembering the eerie border village I had visited just a few nights before. “And the sorceresses don’t buy from us. Nothing but herbs from the goodwife, that is. They just come to ...”
“Harvest,” said the bald man. All three exchanged glances.
“They go out to you for one thing and to us for another. They rarely ...take... from here. That’s the bargain. They take from the border towns, mostly.”
Was that why it had felt so dangerous there? I had heard that living closer to the city was safer, and now I had an idea as to why.
