Black Mould - Thirty - The Gutter-Side Market

Debra and I followed the river. Or at least the road on the river’s edge. There was a small half-wall right along the banks, preventing anyone from falling the half-dozen metres into the Gutter.

I suspected that the river was artificial. Its width was too exact, and there were large bricks making up both sides of the river, most of them stained brown by the splashing water, though those higher up along the edge were more of a cement-beige.

Big pipes poked out of the sides of the river, some of them disgorging a constant stream of brackish water. Others were quiet until they suddenly spat out some unidentifiable liquid.

Little islands of foam swam across the surface of the river, often getting caught next to the pillars holding up one of the bridges that crossed it.

If I was a betting person—and had money to bet with—then I wouldn’t put any on there being anything alive in that water.

“Where does this all flow to?” I asked.

“The ocean,” Debra said.

“Are we on a continent, or an island?” I asked.

Debra shrugged. “We’re in City Nineteen. I never saw why anything beyond that would matter.”

It was weird. On Earth, I’d kind of taken a lot of things for granted. I guess having TV and the internet for most of my life, as well as a somewhat decent education, made it easy to forget just how much information I was given so casually.

We continued on at an easy pace, ducking under a few pipes that led out into the river, from some factories just off the shore. It seemed like a popular place for them. I had to wonder what the city was producing so much of. There were hundreds of factories, most of them relatively small. What was it all in service of? If they were making cheap goods, then I expected to be able to see those.

I’d have to ask my mom and dad what they made at work. It had never come up.

The Gutterside market was, as the name suggested, next to the Gutter.

There were two rows of shops, boxed in by the river on one side and a busy street on the other. The space was a wide cobbled area, with stalls sprouting out here and there where lone salespeople hawked goods to potential customers.

There were lots of folk around, either navigating the rows of stalls or just milling around with the stuff they’d bought.

A tram car rang as it came to a stop just outside the market to unload a bunch of people.

There was a strange mix here; I saw folk like Debra and I, shoeless and in clothes so stained that no cleaning would make them nice, but there were also other people in dresses and suits, with hats on and who walked and talked with a strange formality to them.

It reminded me vividly of images of places like New York in the late 1800s. There was a very formal aesthetic among those who could afford it. It set them apart from the rest of us, though in this place at least, the common worker-type outnumbered the fancier sort.

I don’t even think they were necessarily richer. Not if they were all buying from the same place. Just a different class of people, maybe.

“You’re looking for a heater, right?” Debra asked.

“More like a portable stove,” I said. “I don’t think I have the money to buy anything yet, I just want to know how much it would cost. It’ll give me an idea of what to work towards.”

Debra nodded. “Well, someone here ought to be selling something of the sort. I’ll be by the side over there. I think I recognise a friend or two.” She gestured to a group sitting off to the side, just outside of the marketplace.

“Uh, alright,” I said.

This place didn’t have the same sort of aversion to having kids running all over the place without supervision as was normal back on Earth. Or at least my corner of Earth back before I ended up here.

I started to move around the stalls. They were set up in a rough zig-zag pattern so that someone could check all of them out fairly easily. The pattern opened up on the edges and in the middle of the courtyard where a fountain sat, currently inactive, though a few kids about my age were using the stone figures as a jungle gym.

I noticed that there were a few Bullies on the edges of the market, usually in pairs. They were minding their own business, though. A deterrent against thieves, probably.

Most of the things being sold were… normal things. Some clothing on racks, a lot of housing stuff too. One of the more popular stalls had pots and pans. Some had vegetables in angled boxes, with the stall owner putting things in bags for people to take away.

I paused a little ways in at one of the stranger stalls. This one had a bunch of boys lingering around it, though there were a few girls too. Big, glass-fronted cases held all sorts of weapons. There were knives, short swords, axes, and some armour pieces on dummies made of wire mesh.

Sometimes it was easy to forget that this was a fantasy world.

I approached, eyeing some of the knives. It looked like they came with little sheathes. I was kind of tempted, at least until I saw the prices next to them. That was… way too high.

A sign hanging from the stall’s awning caught my eye. Burnwhistle’s Weapons and Armour. And below that, ALL BUYERS MUST HAVE PERMITS.

Frowning, I looked around for the stall owner, then noticed someone leaning against the side. Had he been there the entire time? He was a wiry man in normal clothes. Faded colours though, the sort that blended in well with the background. He was also wearing a pretty heavy coat, and it was obvious he was armed.

“Excuse me,” I said

He raised an eyebrow and glanced down at me. “Yeah?”

“What kind of permit is that talking about?” I pointed to the sign.

“Delver permit, or soldier’s permit. One or the other,” he said. “Can’t carry steel without one.”

“Oh, thanks,” I said. So weapon ownership was somewhat restricted in the city? That was good to know. I’d need to be careful in the future. Would my more poisonous mushrooms be considered a weapon?

Something to consider.

I moved on, past a few more interesting stalls, but I kept my focus on looking for something like a stove.

Finally, near the middle of the marketplace, I found an older man selling oil lamps and such. “Hello, sir,” I said. I needed to get onto the tips of my toes to see him properly.

“Hello little one,” he said after eyeing me for a bit. “Need something?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m looking for an oil stove. Something to cook with.”

“An oil stove?” he asked. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen one before.”

“All I need is a flame to warm up a metal plate, really,” I said. “Like a bunsen burner.”

“Never heard of that brand,” he said. “We’ve got Rederic’s here. Good, handy things, with glass flutes. They’ll light up a room as good as anything.”

I noticed a little sign that said he did lamp repairs. “If I ordered a lamp turned into a stove, do you think you could do it?” I asked. “If I bought one off of you and all?”

He frowned, but there weren’t any others at his stall, and judging by the amount of stock he had left, he wasn’t selling much. “I think I could tinker something like that up,” he said.

“How much would it cost, you think?” I asked.

He named a price, which was considerably more than what a lamp cost. I pointed out that I didn’t need any glasswork. He’d get to keep that part, and I bet it was the most expensive one too. He conceded the point and lowered the price by a couple of pence.

“How long do you think it would take you to make something like that?” I asked.

“‘Bout a week, I suppose. I come over here once a week.”

“Okay,” I said. “How about I come back here next week, and then we’ll see about that commission. I want some time to think about it, and you’ll probably want the same too, in case it proves trickier to make than you first think.”

He harrumphed at me, but we agreed to see each other in a week.

I was pretty happy. The price was… a bit steep, but not unaffordable.

I started to look for other things I’d need. I would need a small table of sorts. Garlic too. That I found at one of the stalls near the back. It was a bit green on the edges, and had some sprouts poking through, but it was cheap. Maybe I could grow my own after a bit? It would save on some overhead.

Then my attention was caught by some chanting.

“Don’t tax us, tax the fog!”

“A black eye for black lungs!”

Well, that was interesting.

***