Zennon Horse Market
For most of the year the huge, white washed pens, stretching for countless paces back from the ramped platform, crowned with a simple wooden podium are sparsely populated. Some of the finest examples of horseflesh in all of Tarien paw restlessly at the dirt in relative solitude or clump together, neighing in nervous anticipation of the unknown. A dozen or so bidders - half regular horsetraders and the other half a smattering of nobles and Cavalrymen seeking their own steeds bid on fine steeds by the individual or lot, a simple wave of their hand or nod of their head indicating acceptance of the next level of bidding. The vastness of the market itself makes it seem empty, but in truth more horses pass through it in a moon than in all of the other markets on the content, save perhaps the shadowy commerce of Katzpütch.
In the fall, however, as bitter winds pick up the chill from the Frozen Wastes to the far north and as the city's farmers pull their last crops from the ground in preparation for the Harvest Festival, the pens fill with hundreds of cattle, driven to Zennon from all parts of the Confederacy. The scent of manure and the sound of lowing fills the market and city at large for three days as bidders shout and jostle for the best deals. Then, a denary before festival itself, the bidding finished, the sounds fade as the cattle learn their fate - to be slaughtered for beef in the very pens where they wait or to watch their brethren suffer, only to be driven to new pastures by their new noble owners after the festival ends. A few days later, the pens cleaned by an army of day laborers, the horses return, snorting and uncomfortable in both the chill wind and the lingering smells of the great cattle drive's culmination.
Type
Market square
Parent Location