Barnaby Holt slammed an empty wicker basket onto the cedar veranda with a hollow clatter.
The woven reed rim cracked against the timber planks.
“Six shops,” Barnaby roared, his face mottled red under his gray beard. “Six respectable apothecaries on High-Willow Street slammed their iron shutters right in my teeth. They wouldn’t even sell me dried fennel for a toothache.”
Kaelen Vance sat on a three-legged wooden stool by the edge of the courtyard pond.
He wore a loose hemp tunic and held a five-foot bamboo pole. A thin strand of green silk thread dangled into the clear water, weighed down by a smooth river pebble. There was no iron hook, no bait, and no bobber.
“Fennel causes gas anyway, Old Barnaby,” Kaelen said mildly, not turning his head. “You should drink warm ginger water. It settles the liver.”
“I don’t care about my liver,” Barnaby shouted, waving his wooden ladle in the air. “Orson issued a formal guild decree at dawn. Any merchant caught selling Tier 3 Ash-Lotus Roots to our courtyard loses their merchant badge and gets their stock impounded.”
Barnaby paced across the porch, his heavy boots thumping against the boards.
