Gwen and Nora huddled together and whispered over it for a while before deciding to eat first and worry about the ship later—there was still plenty of time.
So, many workers heading to work that morning witnessed an astonishing sight: beside Miss Bettis's fried fish stall, Gwen and Nora, one big and one small, were squatting there eating French fries.
"Lady Nora, try this! French fries with chili and sea salt are absolutely amazing!"
"Mmm, dewish!" Nora replied through a mouthful of food.
"This one, this one's great too. What flavor is this?"
"This is a Castel specialty. The sauce is made from small sweet fruits native to Castel Island. It's sweet and sour, really appetizing~" Bettis explained to Gwen as she stood on a crate, frying fish for her customers.
"Fruit? Shipped here?" Gwen looked at the jam in her hand in surprise.
Fruit was extremely difficult to transport. Back in the Northern Territory, she had never heard of merchant caravans transporting fruit.
Forget shipping it across the sea—even fruit from nearby villages was difficult to get into the city.
Gwen squeezed the jam in her hand, wondering whether they made it into jam before sending it over. No, that wasn't right. In such warm weather, jam would spoil even more easily.
"You girls are from out of town, aren't you?" the workers lined up beside them to buy fried fish called out with smiles. "Then you should go take a look at the harbor. Several ships load and unload there every day, bringing in coal and ore, fruit and olives, and carrying away shiploads of iron ingots and steel."
Gwen nodded awkwardly. There were no seaports in the Northern Territory, so she had no real concept of such things.
"We're taking a ship to Castel later."
"Then all