Pearl Market (Torrune)

The Pearl Market, also called the Ice Pit Market or simply the Ice Pits, is a public marketplace in the Serrapine Quarter of Torrune's High City. It is situated just south of Aothon's Pool and the Great Hall of the Magnates, near the Water-Porter's Gate.
The Pearl Market's name stems not from any commerce in actual pearls, but from a confection often sold there in the summertime called "pearls of the mountain" or "honey pearls": Snow or crushed ice, compacted into a ball, and served in a small bowl or cup with fruit juice, honey, liqueurs, or other sweet flavorings drizzled over it. What makes this possible is that the market is built over the pits of the ice-merchants, a series of capacious underground chambers like great vaulted cellars or cisterns, where huge quantities of ice brought down from the Adhemars are stored (for sale to those who can afford such a luxury) over the hot months of the summer. The ice chambers are lined with a thick layer of a special plaster, compounded with precise proportions of sand, clay, ash, sawdust, and goat's hair, that is impermeable to water and maintains the low temperature of the pits even in the most sweltering weather.
Aside from ice, the vendors of the Pearl Market sell a wide assortment of goods, especially those shipped overland up from Huareb and entering the city via the nearby Water-Porter's Gate; thus olives, oil, grapes, wine, vinegar, apricots, and melons are easily found here, along with the flesh of goats and sheep in the butcher's stalls. In warm weather, some vendors sell draughts of still-cold water (meltwater from the ice, which slowly gathers on the floor of the pits and in the carts that deliver it from the mountains) to people too poor to afford actual ice or iced confections.