Finally Found

Chapter 15 - Emilia

"It's..." I can't find the right words to fully describe the market so I have to settle for, "Wonderful." Looking around I try to take everything in but there's so much happening it's impossible, there seems to be anything you can imagine for sale here. Fabrics, jewellery, food even furniture there are more items for sale here than in the entirety of Stowu.

Just as excited as I am Bel grabs my hand and we start darting from stall to stall. Lilas and Kor follow at a slower more controlled pace but still fast enough to keep us in sight, although we'd be able to find Kor easily as he's tall enough to be spotted over the crowd. No matter what the stall we look at is selling if I seem to linger on an item for too long Bel will end up buying it, even when I try telling him not to.

Anything Bel buys he quickly passes back to Kor for him to carry but he's buying so quickly that it isn't long before Kor is struggling to hold it all at the same time. It's funny to watch but it does prompt us to take a break, finding a porter who'll take everything to the palace for us. With his hands freed Kor takes hold of Bel's hand preventing him from rushing off to buy more so we can walk calmly focusing now on food stalls.

All of the food for sale is easily eaten with our hands so we can continue walking as we eat. There is so much to try, different meats, cakes and pastries not to mention all the different sweets available although Lilas keeps reminding me not to eat too much and make myself ill. Still wanting to try everything we compromised by splitting one of whatever we're trying between the two of us.

We keep browsing the market until mid-afternoon, needing to send another two porters back to the palace with our purchases. Many of the sellers had started calling out to us, often using me as bait proclaiming that they had the perfect thing to suit me and it worked best on Bel who ended up picking out most of what we sent back. Kor and Lilas on the other hand only picking out a few things, mainly jewels and books respectively while I'd picked out some more embroidery threads.

"So, what should we do now?" Bel asks near enough jumping up and down as though he'd eaten a lot of sugar even though he couldn't eat any of the sweets earlier. I couldn't help giggling at him although it's nice to know that he wants to spend more time together on their day off.

"Perhaps we could go to the stables, they're not too far away." Lilas suggests which we all agree to not wanting to head back to the palace just yet. It's been a nice day so far and none of us are ready for it to end.

Just as Lilas said the stables aren't far from the market, we only have to head out of a nearby gate and take a short cut that they know before we're outside the city walls where the stables are located. As we get closer I can see some horses already outside grazing in the fields and some of them aren't as big as I thought they would be.

There are only a few horses in Stowu belonging to the richest farmers and were only used to pull ploughs and carts. Those horses were quite big and broad well suited to pulling what was needed but the horses here seem smaller more suited to be ridden. At least that's what I thought until we actually got inside the stables.

Inside we're greeted by the sight of many horses looking at us over the stable doors and these horses are more similar in size to the ones I've seen before. They seem massive, tall and well-muscled but better looked after than the ones in Stowu, then again there are various people here clearly employed to look after the horses every need. Whereas the horses I've known before only received basic care between their work, just enough to keep them strong and healthy enough to keep on doing the farm work they'd been brought for.

"War horses." Kor states seeing me watching the horses in here nervously as we walk further into the stables. I suppose that explains their size they'll need to be able to carry soldiers and their weapons easily and with their size they can be counted as a weapon as well as I'd seen a horse kill before when a few young teenagers snuck behind one of the farm horses and one of them ended dying after being kicked in the head.