Peace, it turns out, is a lot more work than war.
“You’re doing it wrong,” Widow Sun announces, watching me pack salt into a new batch of cabbage with the critical eye of a woman who has apparently appointed herself supervisor of my entire fermentation operation.
“Too much salt on that layer.
It’ll turn bitter.”
“I’ve made this before.”
“You’ve made it wrong before, clearly, if this is the ratio you’re using.”
I bite back my first three responses, all of which are considerably less polite than the situation calls for, and remind myself that an ally who nitpicks my cabbage technique is still infinitely preferable to an enemy actively torpedoing my scallion sales.
“Fine,” I say instead.
“Show me your ratio.”
She does, with the brisk efficiency of a woman who’s clearly been waiting her whole life for someone to finally ask her opinion on salt ratios, and I have to admit, grudgingly, that the batch we finish together smells considerably better than my last solo attempt.
“See,” she says, entirely too pleased with herself.
“Eleven years of market experience.
Not nothing.”
“I never said it was nothing.”
“You implied it, with your face, several times.”
The truce holds, mostly, through a combination of mutual benefit and Widow Sun’s apparent inability to stay genuinely annoyed at someone who keeps bringing her interesting new preservation techniques.
By the end of the week she’s stopped undercutting my prices entirely, started sending curious customers my way when she’s sold out of something I still have stock of, and taken to calling me “the garbage vegetable girl” with a level of affection that took me several days to correctly identify as affection rather than continued insult.
“You’ve made a friend,” Mei observes, watching Widow Sun wave cheerfully across the market square, an actual, genuine wave, the kind you give someone you don’t currently want to strangle.
“I’ve made a strategic alliance.” Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
“That waved at you like a friend.”
“Strategic alliances can wave.
It doesn’t diminish the strategy.”
Mei gives me a look that suggests she’s not remotely fooled by this distinction, and honestly, neither am I, if I’m being fully truthful with myself.
There’s something unexpectedly nice about having someone in this life who has absolutely nothing to do with conspiracies or princes or careful cover stories, someone who just wants to argue about salt ratios and complain about slow market days, plain and uncomplicated in a way most of my current relationships aren’t allowed to be.
Casimir, predictably, finds the whole situation deeply amusing when he hears about it that evening.
“You made an enemy into an ally using fermented cabbage,” he says, something warm and entertained working behind his usual composure.
“I made an enemy into an ally using diplomacy and a genuinely good preservation technique, the cabbage was just the delivery method.”
“I stand corrected.” He leans against the fence post, watching me sort the day’s remaining stock with the kind of easy attention that’s stopped feeling strange between us over the past few weeks.
“You have a talent for it.
Turning threats into resources instead of just defeating them outright.”
“Comes from spending years in situations where fighting everything head on gets you killed a lot faster than finding a workaround does.” I glance up at him, something warm settling in my chest at the quiet admiration in his expression.
“Besides, war’s exhausting.
I’d rather spend my energy building things than tearing them down.”
“A philosophy that seems to be working out for you so far.”
“So far,” I agree, knocking on the nearest wooden surface out of pure superstitious habit, because if this second life has taught me anything, it’s that things have a way of getting complicated right around the moment you start feeling comfortable.
The complication, this time, arrives through Widow Sun herself, three days later, delivered between customers in the low, careful voice of someone passing along something they’re not entirely sure they should be saying out loud.
“You hear the grumbling from the farmers two districts over?” she asks, not looking up from the scallions she’s bundling.
“Tax collectors squeezing harder than usual this season.
Word is one district’s paying nearly double what they’re supposed to, and the difference isn’t making it up the chain to the crown, if you follow me.” She glances around, lowering her voice further.
“My sister’s husband farms out that way.
Says half his neighbors are considering selling off land just to cover what they owe.”
I feel something cold and familiar settle in my chest, the same feeling I got listening to those two women complain about grain taxes weeks ago, the same itch that’s been sitting quiet and persistent in the back of my mind ever since.
“That’s a serious accusation,” I say carefully.
“It’s not an accusation, it’s just what my sister’s husband tells me over dinner.
Whether it’s true or not, well, that’s someone else’s job to sort out, not mine.” She finishes the bundle and hands it off to a waiting customer, brisk and businesslike, like she hasn’t just handed me a thread that’s been quietly tugging at the edges of this whole conspiracy since the day I first heard Tan mention thin rations.
“Just thought you should know.
You seem like the sort who likes knowing things.”
“I appreciate that about myself too.”
She snorts, unimpressed, and goes back to her stall, and I stand there for a long moment turning the new information over, feeling the shape of something bigger than sabotage and market squabbles starting to take form underneath everything I’ve spent the last month building.
Garden.
Trade.
Alliance.
Small, manageable problems I’ve been solving one at a time with dirt under my fingernails and stubborn confidence.
But farmers losing land to corrupt tax collectors, that’s not a small problem.
That’s the kind of thing that ends in real, lasting harm to people who never asked to be caught in whatever game the Dowager’s faction is playing.
I think about Casimir’s ledgers, about the money trail he’s already started tugging on, and feel the itch in my chest sharpen into something closer to purpose.
“Mei,” I call, already heading for the gate, mind turning fast toward the next problem worth solving.
“I think we need to have a longer conversation with Tan tonight.”