“Milady!” Olar’s mostly bald forehead wrinkled in consternation at the little joke. While he was stone-faced during negotiations, he had a surprising abundance of expressions other times, which Fleur always found impressive.
“Come, don’t be angry. And I thought I told you to stop calling me ‘milady.’”
“Then I’d ask you to try and think a bit more like a merchant.” Olar’s gaze remained so even and steady that Fleur found herself looking away.
She was constantly aware of the necessity of thinking like a merchant. After all, she was no longer one of the nobility.
Fleur von Eiterzental Mariel Bolan, eleventh generation scion of the house of Bolan.
These days she almost felt nostalgic for the long name.
“Of course I think like a merchant. I moved so much herring my hands smell of it, and coming back I brought great loads of hay.”
“And that’s quite wonderful. I’m sure no one would suspect that until recently you were terrified to ride a horse.”
It didn’t sound much like a compliment, as Olar was still angry. Fleur knew why, too, but it seemed as though the strict Olar wouldn’t be satisfied until she said the words with her own mouth.
“Twelve ligot to buy the herring. Four ligot for taxes. Provisions including bread, mutton jerky, and pickled pork, cheese, and wine, half a ligot. Two for the horse feed and wagon rental. Add it all up and what does it come to?”
Fleur sighed beneath her scarf at Olar’s question.
Adding everything up, they’d spent eighteen and a half ligot on the load of herring. If she’d been foolish enough to accept the merchant’s offer of seventeen, they’d be in the red.
The nobility lived in a world of giving and receiving, but merchants could not afford to naively count gifts received and given against one another. When giving something to someone else, they always had to receive something of greater utility in return.
Otherwise, they could not survive.
“I had no intention of taking that offer.”
“Is that so?” said Olar, looking straight ahead as he continued to walk without so much as glancing in Fleur’s direction. She was beginning to find his attitude irritating.
“Are you saying I’m such a coward I won’t argue at all?”
At these words, he immediately looked in her direction. “No. But, milady, while you might insist that you were promised twenty, you have nothing to prove that.”
“I know I heard him strike the bargain at that price. Do you doubt me?”
“It is not that I doubt you. But nothing is so terrible to witness as a pointless argument, and normally both sides give a little and strike a bargain somewhere in the middle.”
“So that’s why you said twenty-five ligot!”
Olar nodded a tired nod that said yes, but that it was such basic common knowledge among merchants that he was reluctant to explain it.
And it was true – Olar had been born into the mercantile life and had once kept the ledger for a large trading company.
The reason he called Fleur “milady” was because the onetime house merchant who worked with the former head of the Bolan family was none other than Olar’s master, and so Olar was a frequent visitor to the house. However, around the time when Fleur was turning of marriageable age, the head of the house died of illness, and the house’s already precarious situation turned to ruin, ending its association with the company Olar worked for.
The next time Olar and Fleur met was the day Olar’s master came to make fast the contract that would make Fleur his bride.
It wasn’t so very long ago, but the memories of the event were already starting to fade.
“So, milady – how much did you buy that hay for?”
She’d been lost in thought for only a moment. Reality was constantly moving and always before her very eyes. Her house had been bought up by a wealthy merchant, and now that wealthy merchant had gone utterly bankrupt.
And now he wanted to know how much she’d paid for hay?
“Two ligot.” Fleur had been raised as a noblewoman – able to hide her true feelings in social situations. She named the figure matter-of-factly, which made the still-expressionless Olar raise his hands exaggeratedly and quicken his step.
Evidently she’d made him angry now.
The merchant had paid both to have the herring transported to an inland village and for the hay they’d brought back as return cargo. And if the herring plus expenses came to eighteen and a half ligot, with two ligot for hay added on top of that, then even payment of twenty ligot would leave them with a loss.
Fleur was certainly aware of that. She caught up with the angrily quick-striding Olar and drew alongside him. “The villagers were in dire straits. Their sickles were chipped and dull and had to be repaired. They swore they couldn’t survive unless they got two ligot.”
“Is that so?” came the flat reply.
While Olar was a commoner, Fleur was still nobility – fallen nobility, but still. And when she became frustrated, her lineage made itself known.
“Do you suppose I’m lying?”
Olar stopped for a moment but then began walking again without looking at Fleur. He strode even more quickly than before. It was obvious who was at fault. Fleur was no longer a noblewoman who’d hired Olar – she was his student, learning how to be a merchant so that she might survive.
Running through the narrow alley, she again caught up with Olar. “I’m sorry, Olar. But you called me ‘milady.’ You know how that irritates me.”
At this, Olar truly did stop walking. Fleur was unable to halt quickly enough and stumbled a few more steps ahead before looking back. When she did, she saw a rueful grin on Olar’s face.
“A proper merchant needs a proper excuse.”
Fleur slumped, then relieved Olar of some of the load he carried.
When they finally exited the alley, they were in view of their home, nestled in a row of houses that all looked very much the same.
“So, milady, after all that work you still took a loss?” Bertra the maid was an honest woman and always said just what she was thinking.
“It wasn’t a loss.”
“Then what was it?” She was shorter than Fleur and a year younger. The difference in their social status was like night and day.
Yet when it came to her ability at managing the affairs of the house, Fleur could do nothing but defer to her.
Without money they wouldn’t be able to afford tomorrow’s bread. When she’d been among the nobility, she could fall back on her family name, but now that was of no great comfort. Fleur made as though she were putting her scarf and mantle away and attempted to flee.
“Milady, I may be an uneducated woman, but I know well enough to understand what Mr. Oura said.”
“Stop calling me ‘milady.’”
“I will not stop. Milady!”
Fleur extracted herself from Bertra’s obstruction and escaped into the next room. From the other side of the door, she could hear Bertra’s exasperated sigh, but Fleur passed through the room and into the hallway, bypassing the washroom and climbing to the second floor.
Through a window situated halfway up the staircase, she could see the garden that Bertra tended. It supplied them with all the vegetables, spices, and medicinal herbs they could use, with enough left over that they could be taken to the marketplace and exchanged for meat.
And what did Fleur bring to the household?
Not much, she knew, so when Bertra, the mistress of the household, scolded her, she had nothing to say in her own defense.
Even a child could do simple arithmetic. But she just couldn’t beat the price down past two ligot. She knew she had to – she just couldn’t do it. She couldn’t harm the livelihood of the same people who lived on land that had once belonged to her family.
“Milady.” There was a knock on the door. It was Olar’s voice.
In the old days, the door might have been flimsy, but it would’ve taken her twenty paces
to walk to it from her desk. These days, all it took was three long strides.
“Bertra’s in tears. She said you wouldn’t listen to her.”
“…”
Olar was totally merciless. He had a knack for understanding a person’s reluctance or delight better than they did themselves. Olar said this was a crucial skill in business, but the ability seemed very useful in education as well. When it came to making Fleur understand just how great a sin it was to willfully sustain a loss, there was no better way than using Bertra.
Fleur nodded in defeat, then nodded again more forcefully and took a deep breath. “I know. I know.”
“And?”
“I’ll apologize to Bertra. And I promise I’ll listen to what she says.”
“…”
“And I promise I’ll eat all my dinner.”
Olar smiled. “Please just rest a while,” he said, then closed the door and left her to her thoughts.
Fleur sighed a tired sigh, then smiled to herself as she sat in her shabby little chair.
Her family’s great house had been taken and all their various special privileges sold off. Their servants had been scattered to the winds. She’d found herself living in lodging meant for craftsmen or low-ranking town officials, and her poverty was such that she could barely afford to raise a pig, let alone feed fine horses.
She was the very image of an impoverished noblewoman, and yet Fleur did not think of her daily life as being a particular burden. It was true that dealing with merchants did not come easily for someone with her noble sensibilities and was frequently difficult. Sometimes it was vexing, but it was hardly impossible.
After all, Olar had said he would spend his remaining years tending to her education, as well as her ledger, and her closest servant, Bertra, had stayed on to continue to take care of her, which allowed Fleur to continue to live as comfortably as she did. Between the two of them, they reminded Fleur that the entire world was not her enemy and that her family name was not the only thing others might value in her.
That was enough for one to keep on living.
But Fleur was well aware that it would take money to sustain such a life, which meant that she could not go on taking losses like this.
“I’m a merchant, after all,” she said aloud to remind herself, then went downstairs to apologize to Bertra.
Midday, the following day.
After Fleur had finished the gruel she’d finally become used to eating, Olar slowly spoke up.
“If that hay is as good as it is, the horse trade might be a good one.”
“Horses?”
“It seems that war may break out in the far south of the continent across the sea. If it does come to war, then the price of horses will soar, as though they themselves had wings.”
Fleur didn’t doubt Olar’s information-gathering abilities, but she still responded dubiously. “If it’s such a good opportunity, won’t others already be doing it?”
“There’s no particular need to be first. If there’s truly profit to be had, it should be good enough to be second or third.” As he spoke, Olar picked the mold off the piece of bread he was eating, then brought it to his mouth.
Fleur had once furrowed her brow at the prospect of eating moldy bread, but now having been on more than one trading journey, such minor details no longer concerned her. And indeed, she had eventually been told that even in her own manor, the servants had frequently eaten such bread while she had been none the wiser.
When Bertra had first told her of this, Fleur had been at once surprised and strangely accepting of the fact.
“So. Horses, eh?”
Horses were always considered a luxury, and as such were reliably expensive.
Back when the Bolan family name had been worth something, the greatest part of the family’s modest income had come from the usage fees the family levied on the collection of feed from the family forests, which the farmers needed to raise their horses and pigs.
If the demand for hay was such that the price was rising, there might be farmers unable to continue to feed them and thus motivated to sell.
“I’ll talk to the company merchants when I go to collect our payment tomorrow,” said Fleur as she dipped bread Bertra had carefully scraped free of mold into her gruel.
“Please do your best to avoid losing money, milady.”
Fleur nodded at Bertra’s words, smiling sheepishly. Then her gaze was drawn elsewhere, but not because of anything Bertra had said.
“Oh, again? How’s it getting in, I wonder.” Bertra followed Fleur’s gaze to its object, standing out of her chair as she did so.
In the doorway that led to the kitchen and washroom sat a puppy, small enough to be picked up under one arm.
“Do you suppose this dog’s the one who tore the wheat sacks?”
Towns were full of animals to an extent Fleur could never have imagined when she had lived in a manor surrounded by fields and forests. They seemed to cause Bertra no end of headache, but for Fleur it was just the opposite.
“Here, boy.”
The puppy slunk away from Bertra as she’d tried to approach it, but when it spied the bread Fleur held in her outstretched hand, it seemed to regain its courage. It sprang to its feet and ran between Bertra’s legs toward Fleur.
“Milady!” cried the long-suffering Bertra, who warred daily with kitchen invaders like mice, cats, and dogs.
Fleur looked up only once the puppy had finished eating the bread. “My husband only stole from others. I have no mind to follow his example.”
Even the puppy seemed to understand the ways of the world and was happy to pledge temporary loyalty to the source of its food.
It held still while Fleur patted its head, even wagging its tail. But unfortunately a dog was not a knight, and Fleur was no longer a noblewoman.
Bertra approached and picked up the puppy, shooing it out through an open window. “You are much too kind, milady.”
“Too kind to live among the common folk?”
Fleur knew perfectly well that it was a malicious question to ask, and unsurprisingly Bertra was stunned into silence – but Olar then stepped in.
“We’re all perfectly aware of how things were when you were a wife, and while I have no praise to give my former master, we must still earn our living via trade. Unless milady has discovered some other way of making a livelihood?”
Fleur was not so naive as to be unaware of the fates that awaited fallen nobility. And for a young woman, the possibilities were even more limited.
“You can’t give away what you haven’t first earned. Anyone of quality would cry to hear one of their own say such things.”
“And the bookkeepers of any kind landlord are always in tears.”
“Quite so. And I hate to see Bertra’s crying face so.” Fleur popped the remainder of the bread into her mouth and stood. “Now then, I’m off to do business. I won’t lose money this time.”
Bertra looked at her steadily, still wearing an apron that had faded somewhat since the times when she had worn it in the old manor. Finally she smiled a relieved smile and spoke. “Off you go, then, milady.”
This was no longer the fine, beautiful manor of the old days, but Fleur’s smile was just as genuine.
When a river froze, it was not just the water that ceased moving. During winter in the north, boats were stuck – entire ports froze. So come spring, shipping traffic was especially heavy, as though releasing pent-up demand.
At least that had been the explanation given to her by Olar, and it seemed to be true. The weather was fine, and the port fairly bustled with activity.
“Right, here’s your payment.”
Given that it had tried to push the price from twenty down to seventeen, the company did not hesitate to pay what it owed.
As a rule, merchants were an eccentric bunch. Fleur mused on the fact as she broached the topic Olar had discussed with her over lunch.
“Horses?”
“Yes. We’ve heard there
may be war and thus a need for horses.”
“Mm, well, yes… Horses, you say.” The merchant scratched his chin with his quill pen and closed his eyes.
“You’ve got to pay usage fees in order to get hay to feed them, do you not? If hay is expensive, it takes money just to keep them.”
“And you’re saying people will be looking to sell. That’s it, is it?”
In order to avoid being swindled, one had to grasp what one’s opponent was saying even as they spoke and formulate a response by the time they had finished. Olar was always saying so, and he seemed to have quite mastered the devilish trick of it.
Fleur nodded.
“Mm,” the man murmured, looking around before continuing. “And do you suppose that you’re the first person to think of that?” His tone was a condescending one; perhaps he’d noticed that beneath her scarf Fleur was a young girl.
“Not at all. But there’s profit enough to be had for even the second or third.” Olar had said so, and Fleur repeated his words.
The man put his finger to his mouth, as though trying to mask the smile that rose unbidden there – but if Fleur let her own triumph show on her face, the loss would be hers.
“Apologies. You’re getting better at this every day. It’s as you say. But as you can see, we have our hands quite full with business here, so we’ve no time to go out and buy horses. So if you were to obtain them for us – well, I won’t say we wouldn’t buy them.”
Merchants always left things a bit vague.
“So would you or wouldn’t you?” she pressed, at which the man frowned.
“Well, we can’t buy a starving, stubborn nag, now, can we? I won’t make any promises.”
It would be just like a noblewoman to ask if he did not trust her. Fleur realized his point and apologized.
“Of course, even if we couldn’t buy them, there would be plenty of people who would want to. If you gauge the market and buy them for the right price, you won’t have trouble selling them.”
“I see.”
“Still…”
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