"I gave him all the money I had on me. What else did you expect me to do?" Old John's son said helplessly.
"You went away on business with only enough money for a dozen or so loaves of black bread? Who are you trying to fool?" Old John said.
"I told you, you don't know what things are like outside. You think food out there costs the same as it does in The Hinterlands? It's outrageously expensive! Why do you think the City Lord forbids smuggling food out? If everyone were allowed to take it out and sell it, there'd be nothing left for the new refugees to eat!" Old John's son said.
"Surely it can't be as ridiculous as ten or twenty times the price?" Old John said.
"Of course it can! Sometimes it's thirty times as much! What did you expect? Food is the most expensive thing out there. Everything else is actually fairly cheap," John's son said. "It's the exact opposite of The Hinterlands!"
Old John sighed. "Your third uncle brought it on himself! He had a perfectly good life here. Why did he have to join those people and stir up trouble?"
Old John's son lowered his head and worked in silence. What could he say? That was his third uncle! But according to the officials, the people who had been expelled, including his uncle, were all bastards.
Ungrateful people deserved to die! Weren't they unhappy with how The Hinterlands was run? Fine, The Hinterlands wouldn't keep them. They could go somewhere they liked! Hadn't they gotten exactly what they wanted?
He and the others who had traveled outside all knew what life was like for the refugees out there, so they appreciated The Hinterlands all the more. Although he sympathized with his third uncle's