"Two things which everyone knows about the Cities are that the indigenous population never stop talking and that the economy is geared around trade. The latter fact exists in a curious way. People come from hundreds of miles to trade in the Cities, but they rarely buy goods made in the Cities. The area, Forgar especially, has intense levels of production and huge workshops containing some of the most sophisticated methods and machinery ever created. However, they are geared around producing vast amounts of pap, short-lived goods only ever bought by locals. Not that such pap doesn't generate gargantuan profits, and to an extent the Cities is actually self maintaining. Workers at the Brayhatch and Sons bakers wear the cheap cloth stitched at the Sardacs textile workshop and swill the watery beer of Ayreson's Brewers. Printers at the Ocheverry Works pause in their task of assembling smudged volumes of foolscap to buy the hard loaves of Brayhatch; and so it goes on. But the extra push, which has lifted the region into the realms of real prosperity, comes from trade and the hundred spin-offs from being the market place of the world. Purchase taxes and excise duties fill Council coffers, landlords line their pockets with warehouse fees and small boys guide newcomers to the brothels. Middlemen traders buy halberds and rare furs from a sunburned Kakranfan caravan party and exchange them for a crate of wines and a nice profit with a group of exotically attired ocean-hopping merchants from the lost continent of Ellniss (lost spiritually, not physically). Chefs prepare menus with berries from Astmad, mangoes from south Erenland, ginger from Zabrial and Eastern Ocean turbot. Stable girls house and water mares raised on plains from all across the continent. Trade begat money and money begat money and money begat money. And everyone has a share of it, with the progressive economic system creating the famous "splash down" effect. Moreover, the country-crossing caravans are simply the vivid sheen on the great river of people who pass through the Cities. Farmers come to sell their wares and restock with luxuries. Writers come to court the great printing houses. Actors come for the Domes, students for the libraries; smiths, bards, coopers, musicians, wizards, herbalists and whores all come to peddle their various wares. The Cities lies like a spider in the tangled mass of Christoté's roads and all signposts, as they say, point to it.
"And this has come from no accident of nature either, no geographical connivance of deep water harbours and sheltering cliffs. The climate is admittedly largely congenial, if occasionally melodramatic, but lying in the middle of some plains isn't a draw in itself. People come to the Cities because of the character of the place and the character of the impossible and wildly successful nation which it rules. It offers the merchants a chance to buy all these far-flung goods at a point both conveniently central and lacking the dangers of the countries of origin. Banditry on the Central Plains, though rife in the wild Civil War times, has been extinct for centuries. No mad aristocrat is going to seize power and celebrate by imprisoning all foreign merchants and impounding their cargo. Foreigners are also safe from Cities folk in general, who will accept anyone; they laugh at their accents and sneer at their clothes, but always with the benevolence which indicates true arrogance. Tolls and taxes are kept fairly low, the authorities operating on sprat-to-catch-a-whale policies. And the infrastructure has been built and is kept intact. It may take you three hours to get through central Jalkin even when the curfews are raise, but your wagon won't get jarred to pieces on the roads and your wheels won't be wrenched off by tactically placed pot holes. They didn't, two hundred and fifty years ago, 're-route' the Mellertang Way so it ran through the Cities, as is commonly described. They just put a new loop on the greatest of Teraf's trade routes, made the road of the loop twenty times better than the rut-ridden alternative and let people choose. And while stuck for hours in a wagon jam or waiting till sunset for the curfews to lift, there is always plenty in the Cities to see and do. The Cities has gradually transformed itself into a place of servants, middlemen, shopkeepers, jesters, cooks, drivers, entertainers - and, of course, innkeepers - whilst still keeping its own enormous pride intact. The locals see the visitors as victims to be attracted, enticed in and then pounced on until their wallets are bled dry and their souls converted to the grandeur and glamour of the Cities."There are two main retain forums in the Cities; shops and markets. They have roughly an equal importance. As a very general rule of thumb, markets sell staple goods, are cheaper and more generalised. Shops, meanwhile, specialise in particular items and tend to be more expensive. However, there are a number of exceptions to this rule (see below).
Markets are, theoretically, held regularly in every square in the Cities. The only official exceptions are Parliament Square and Vellers Square in Jalkin and Ansell Square, Yaleth, where virtually all kinds of trading are banned. Each other square is authorised to hold a market on a set number of days a week/month. How many, and whether the Guards turn a blind eye to trading on other days, depends largely on how busy a thoroughfare the square is. Fortune Square, by Jalkin's south gate, is lucky to get one a month; meanwhile Fountain Square in the backwater Tonelays gets a way with virtually a permanent market. The majority of stalls sell fruit and vegetables, bread, cakes, wheat, preserves and, slightly rarer, meat. A number offer pre-prepared food, particularly hot pasties and stuffed vine leaves, and others hot drinks (warm, flavoured milk in the winter, graf at any time). Other goods include small handicrafts, generally made domestically by local merchants, and small household utensils. Clothes are sold to some extent but are mainly the preserve of the shops. Around the Forgar workshops various offcuts and rejects are frequently sold at knock-down prices; again, though the bulk of regular workshop produce is bought by shopkeepers. Stallholders are invariably small, independent operators. A number are farmers who journey from the surrounding countryside, usually monthly, to sell their own produce. However, this practice is slowly dying out and middleman traders are becoming more prevalent.
Markets have a social as well as an economic function. They are forums for neighbourhoods to meet and exchange gossip; particularly poorer neighbourhoods, who frequently have no other venue beyond the pub. All neighbourhoods hold their own markets; those without convenient squares hold them on crossroads. Those on a day off often spend hours at markets talking and mingling, making only the occasional purchase. Other common sights include newsheet vendors, buskers, beggars, jugglers and stalls running small games and competitions, all adding to the semi-festive feel. Politicians frequently use market days to hector their electorate; soapbox demagogues do likewise.
Being public places, market squares are naturally owned and run by the city Councils. Pitches are leased by individual stallholders, a process now controlled by the Trade & Industry Councillor since a big bribery scandal in 1284 forced it out of the hands of the praetors who hitherto ran it. Bribery is still said to be endemic, but unproved as yet. In practical terms, the daily running of markets is still largely left to praetors and any problems resolved at neighbourhood meetings.
A number of indoor or covered market halls also exist; Tinners Barn, the Pemby Exchange, the Eight Roads Exchange, Fishguard Square, The Trove and the Lintel Emporium being the most notable. These are privately owned and run, although licensed by the Council, and in turn lease out pitches to traders. Fishguard Square is perhaps the Cities' most notable market. However, beyond being divorced from a specific neighbourhood (being on the edge of the uninhabited Milliks Triangle) it differs from the standard model only in terms of size and regularity. It is held daily and stallholders are carefully vetted to ensure both quality and diversity of goods, but it again caters mainly for those seeking basic goods and foodstuffs. However, more specialised markets do exist. Drayers Square once a week hosts a livestock market, alternating between horse fairs and sales of other animals. Due to the troubles of storing meat and the remoteness of many pastoral farmers, many bring their beasts live to the Cities and sell them in Drayers Square to butchers' agents. The Trove was established in 1319 to house sales of jewellery and metalworks. The absence of 'treasure' from its title is telling; almost all pieces are cheap, badly made junk. Tinners Barn, which functions as a warehouse most of the year, opens every Garreday to sell antiques and curios from across the continent and beyond. Merchants converge on it to display the jewelled teeth of snakemen from Ellniss, quartz chipped from caves far beneath the Zanzins, rings looted from the treasures of the old Kings of Jurlan, snuff boxes (apocryphally) fashioned by the Elder Race and so on. Tinners Barn is so popular that it can charge a fee for admittance alone. Most visit it simply to gawp and any sales are made to aristocrats who fancy themselves as collectors.
A few shops operate as general stores and offer direct competition to the markets. They tend to sell less foodstuffs and more odds and ends; cutlery, furniture, handicrafts, small items of clothing and (especially) newsheets, all at a cheap rate. Most are owned by Tomas Listel, who made his fortune with similar stores across Christoté and is trying to establish a beachhead in the Cities. However, their success to date has been limited and old ones seem to close as quickly as fresh ones open. Councils, preferring the sanctified communal aspects of markets, are also reluctant to grant them licenses even in the face of Listel's massive incentives.
The number and diversity of Cities' shops are said to be the greatest in the world, with Dorlaf Avenue the epicentre. Between local products and goods hoovered up from elsewhere, virtually anything can be bought. The majority of shops are still independent, privately run businesses with the family typically living in quarters directly above. However, they are gradually consolidating. The most profitable have swelled into huge concerns, either sprawling over several buildings, opening new shops elsewhere in the Cities or slowly taking over competitors. Chain stores strung across Dorlaf are also slowly emerging. In most instances Cities shops are the hub not the rim, gradually pushing outwards onto new grounds.