Part of Your World (Twisted Tales)(36)

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.

Then she remembered her voice.

“Your pie was delicious. I will think over your words. Have a nice day.”

The pie maker waved over his shoulder: not upset, just busy. He was speaking his mind to a customer who would listen and held nothing against her.

Ariel wandered away with mixed feelings. On the one hand, everything the baker said was troubling.

On the other hand, she was exploring a whole new world—successfully—by herself. She was getting to observe a completely different way of life, and it wasn’t just about breathing air; it was how families and people worked, and how food was made, and customs and actions and habits, and it was all fascinating.

Of course she knew that a ruler’s actions had an effect on the people—but up until now, she had thought only of the direct effect. She wouldn’t send merguards to storm Eric’s castle, for instance, because she didn’t want to put their lives at risk. But…would she have thought of how sending soldiers into battle might impact bakers, down the line? Was this something her father understood, and which had tempered his own decisions?

Father.

She hadn’t forgotten her quest; she had just become distracted for a moment.

She ate her pie and made her way back through town, heading once again toward the beach. She passed the cart with the puppet show she had rudely interrupted years ago; sitting in the back was the man who made the puppets, carefully painting a lush set of eyelashes onto one of his manikins. Fascinating.

Of course merfolk had plays and costumes and costume balls, and dolls and temple figurines that boys and girls played with, making them “talk.” But nothing was as rehearsed and polished as what the human did. Why didn’t the mer have that art? Were the two peoples so different?

For there were obvious similarities between them that could not be denied. The tendency toward ridiculous monuments that commemorated unlikely events, for instance. The mer had a mural the size of a reef illustrating the division of the two worlds, embedded with gems and bright coral that hurt the eyes to look at. The Tirulians had an ugly fountain in the square where she and Eric had once danced. Neptune was carved into the face of the bowl, along with some utterly unrealistic dolphins. The Tirulians believed that the sea god had a fight with Minerva over who would be the patron god of Tirulia, and that he had won by creating this font of undrinkable salt water that was somehow channeled up from the sea.