Tao nodded, troubled. She generally paid little attention to news of politics and the broader affairs of the kingdom, for they had little impact on life aboard her wagon as she traveled between the remote villages on the outskirts. But she could not help but feel uneasy about what seemed to her a draconian and illogical policy, and what effects it might have on the poorer folk of Eshtera. The statute might harm only the pockets of the wealthy merchant class now, but—as she had heard a sailor say once—shit seemed to have a way of trickling down. Economics, they called it.
