He held up his notes, and the smith waved him inside.
“Anyone else?” I called to the crowd, and thirty men pushed forward. The smith watched them come with shock. He struggled with it. The notes they would pay him for his goods could be spent on ore and his debts. He needed nothing else to succeed.
Notes as tender.
He waved them inside and became the salesman he clearly loved to be.
“Selt,” I said. “Leave one of your men here to record the purchase of the shoes and get them moved aboard ship.”
“Who else?” I asked the crowd.
A man with a gigantic voice elbowed his way forward and yelled over the rest, “I need horses. Today.”
“Are you an account holder?”
“Account? At your bank? No. I have 1,200 silver worth of your notes.”
“Then I must ask that you step aside. Account holders first.”
“Hold on,” he said over the rest who sought to displace him. “I’ll open an account, if you’ll take this show of yours over to the stables next—Wholminet’s right over there. Bastard won’t take anything but silver.”
I asked the crowd, “Who else here would open an account with me if I could get Wholminet to accept my notes?”
A number of men laughed, but just as many raised their hands. Selt corralled them from the crowd, and I started across.
Master Wholminet appeared with a half-dozen brutes carrying spears. The crowd backed up a pace. My greencoats stepped forward and showed them what spears were supposed to look like.
The man was not impressed. He spit at me. “One step closer, and I’ll kill you.”
The forward troop of my guards advanced upon this small, unhappy man. He drew his sword and looked for all the world like Leger standing the line, preparing a charge. I would not move this man without killing him.
Someone yelled from the crowd, “Prince Barok did not kill your boy.”
“My boy’s just as dead,” Wholminet shouted back at the unknown speaker. “Died with a greencoat arrow in his belly. Died before the great miracle saved everyone else. So you can go get fucked, General.”
The speaker stepped free of the crowd. It was Regent Oklas, at last. Wholminet had not moved, but as the regent stepped toward him, he huffed, put away his sword, and saluted him. The regent returned the salute and gave the man a great hug.
“I miss your boy,” the regent said to him in a low voice. “He was a fine soldier. As fine as you were, I dare say.”
The old man pointed at me, growled something under his breath.
The regent shook his head and pointed up the hill at the manor house behind the fortress walls where Kuren Pormes was kept. A few more words between them, and the stablemaster sighed and waved his men back inside. He said, “Fine and well. Bring the prince’s notes. I’ll take them on the general’s promise.”
Another segment of the crowd detangled itself and followed the old veteran into the wide stables. Selt was tucking a purse of coins into his satchel. Another of his men pursued the small crowd, recording the names of our new account holders.
Some in the crowd began again to demand I give them silver. The wiser men there had tucked their notes safely away, and were forming something of a circle around me. I pointed at a man whose stack of notes was big enough that I worried at his being alone in the crowd—a quartermaster from the garrison, if I had to guess. The regent joined us and made a hasty introduction.
“Where to?” I asked him, and he led me to a cobbler who owed on an order of boots. The man could not refuse us. He took the quartermaster’s notes, and the crates of boots started up the hill—700 pair.
On it went like this, from shop to stall to simple apple cart. Stubborn men were convinced one at a time to accept the promise of my notes.
The crowd of those seeking redemptions dwindled. Others departed to the bank to open accounts so that they too could enjoy my resounding defense of their interests.
The regent withdrew, begging to get back to matters with his family. I thanked him, and I led the rest to the bank. Selt had found a proper building. It was a grain silo whose owner had fallen on hard times, but the office was built of the same heavy stone as the pair of silos attached behind it. They did not look like vaults, but they served the purpose well.
From behind the long counter in the office, I deflected all but a handful of the men seeking coins, until all that was left of the crowd was the drunks and dregs who had no interest in the world beyond a bottle or a whore. These were not men I cared to help.
“You could press them into shipboard service,” Selt whispered. “Don’t know that anyone in Almidi would mind if they went missing.”
I asked Gern, “Could you sweep them all? Right now?”
“Not here, but yes. Get them down to the harbor. Mercanfur’s captains will take ‘em.”
It was a brutal and cruel business. I led the group back down with promises to pay, and once upon the pier, Gern and his boys herded them swiftly into the hold of another of Mercanfur’s ships. Their notes were seized, and they went north with the changing tide.
The dawn saw another crowd in front of the bank, but the panic was gone. No drunken fools came anywhere near us. Those who held accounts received whatever aid they required to make use of their notes, and those without accounts got to wait in line. We made it so that every man in Almidi would accept them. Selt made the rounds to all those who had borrowed the notes originally, and returned with all but a handful of the interest owed. Gern got a troop ready to visit the few who had not paid, but it was hardly worth noting. Very few established men were unable to pay. Selt’s book of loans was sound.
I paid out coins to those I could not turn away, the sun set on the 19th of Summer, and the Bank of the Pinnion had survived.
The days that followed became a blur. The tiny reserves grew as more men put money on account with us and others paid down their loans. Late in the night on the 25th day of Summer, Selt managed by candlelight to deliver an accounting. We had loaned to the men of Almidi 492,550 standards worth of notes, and had 28,543 pieces of silver on hand at the bank. It was a ghastly ratio, but I slept on a straw mat in the silo like I was king of all the known world.
When Selt shook me awake I still believed it.
“We’ve got a new problem. Get up.”
The grumbling murmur of yet another crowd yanked me the rest of the way from my peaceful slumber. I knocked the straw from my tunica and hurried into my robes.
“Where is your wife and son?” I asked. “Did they not sleep here?”
“Sleep here? No, sir. The regent has made them a guest of his home. She has been spending her days on an estate farther up the Kogan Valley. Come, we must deal with the Pormes. They are refusing to accept our notes.”
“Let them. They can starve,” I replied. “I have no interest in propping up that miserable family.”
“But they are not starving,” he said. “They have leveraged the Tracian treasury to Parsatayn and have been slowly pocketing the gold. They are rich and all the debt is on the province’s books. They are holding Oklas hostage with refusals to pay the interest owed on the loans.”
“You are learning this now?”
“It cost me five weights of gold to get the nolumari who wrote the contract to tell me the details.”
“Who is outside?”
“Every Pormes man who holds our notes. Others are getting wise. They want to redeem.”
I belted on my sword and followed him into the office where Gern and a few of Selt’s bankers eyed the growing crowd. The line of greencoats outside was not what I wanted Almidi to see.
“Where can we find Kuren? I am going to kill him.”
“That will do you no good. It’s the wife you need to talk to.”
“Kuren’s wife?”
“No. Erd’s wife. She speaks for the Pormes. She would be at the estate up the valley, entertaining as she so often does.”
“You are disappointing me, Selt, with facts you should h
ave learned before you wrote a half million in loans. Her involvement did not fit into my understanding of Trace. Find the regent and meet me at the bridge above the town. I will have the truth of all of this today.”
To the bankers I said, “After we have gone, get that crowd organized in line and let them in one at a time. Pay them out happily, but slowly. Do not say no to anyone. You’ve been working by my side for a year now, gentlemen, and you have earned my trust. I am counting on you to preserve the bank’s reserves until we get back.”
They manned the counter as though they were Chaukai upon a wall.
I led the rest out and suffered a long slow ride to the rendezvous. Selt and the regent did not keep me waiting.
“What is it?” Erd asked as I approached.
I said to him, “Your wife’s family is refusing our notes.” This did not seem to surprise our regent. He did not seem interested in explaining himself, either. I was not sure at all how to take that, but the need to be moving left me no time to challenge him. I turned us south, and the rhythm of the cantering hooves was the only sound while we moved up into the river valley.
It was a green place, if a little dry. It bore Trace’s ever-present mark of disrepair. Most every building and barn leaned one way or another. The pitted roads slowed us, and every fence needed mending. The effects of our investments were evident as well, though. Every field was cultivated, and each tattered structure was busy with one industry or another. The roads were busy with all kinds of materials and goods. The Kogan Valley was waking up.
We made our way up and across to the east side of the river upon a tattered wooden bridge. The raised road on the far side led between two forested ridgelines to the gates of the Pormes estate. The grounds beyond the stone wall were pristine. The road was well laid. It was as though we had rode onto a Yentif estate just beyond the gates of Bessradi. It was busy like a Yentif estate, as well, with the pennants of several visiting noble families flying above the elegant stone manor at the far end of the cobbled turn.
“Whose pennants are those?” I asked.
“Quite a few of the cousins. Some Hooak, too, from Thanin,” Erd replied. “A few minor men whose lands border Trace—ohh—their arilas as well.”
I saw the tallest pennant then. White with black hashes over light green—the iron gates of the prophet Thanin barring the undeserving from Bayen’s heaven above.
I balked. Arilas Hooak was a stranger to me, and his family was a pack of lynx compared to the sickly alley cats that were the Pormes. I knew almost nothing of the man and the large, wealthy province he commanded—and worse—I had no idea at all what he wanted or whose interest he served. Likely his own—and that made him dangerous, indeed.
Valets came forward to take our horses, and a frantic-looking house servant opened the doors for us. Each of them wore tight-collared shirts with long sleeves and white gloves. The skin that showed was pitted with fleabites. I had heard that they plagued the wetter places upriver. It was ugly and miserable. I did not surrender my cloak or riding crop for fear of needing to burn them later. I declined to state our business and led my group down the long carpeted hallway despite their polite protests.
Erd and my greencoats trotted after me.
“Do you know why the arilas is here?” I asked. Erd shook his head.
I stampeded through a series of functionaries who expected to be paid pleasantries. Erd knew me well enough not to be waylaid by this crowd.
“Exigent circumstances, gentlemen,” he said to the men who tried to step in our way. “Pardon us. Pardon me, cousin. Yes, the gardens are lovely.”
When we got clear of them I asked, “Do the Pormes and the Hooak have any children of marrying age, perhaps?”
“Hmm. That is an idea for it,” he replied. “There are available Pormes and Hooak of the right age. We might be interrupting an engagement negotiation. We’ve brought no gift at all. Rot.”
“We do have a satchel full of bank notes,” I replied in complete jest.
“Oh, that would be an insult,” he said, and I nearly cuffed him.
The level to which he was removed from our common cause was beginning to concern me. “Your wife is certainly nearby. Should we locate her, perhaps? This would go better if she was on your arm, no doubt.”
“Don’t know. We haven’t spoken since the surrender.”
I stopped us there and gave the regent a hard look. I’d thought he’d mended fences with his wife.
“They’ll all be in the gardens, I expect,” he said and sniffed once. He’d not missed my expression. He paused at the heavy double doors, as though searching for a way to avoid going through. He had no more control of the Pormes than he did the previous fall when I had given him tools enough to pull out their eyeteeth and make them paupers.
I grabbed his arm. “What does she have on you?”
He leaned upon the door handles. “It’s nothing.”
“Clearly it is something. Don’t walk me out there blind. What’s going on here?”
“We haven’t …”
“What?”
“We’ve no children,” he said hotly. “My marriage is contingent upon the production of heirs.”
“How do you know you are the reason for the failure?” Selt asked.
The general did not like being questioned. He replied, but with violence in his voice. “I was kicked by a horse when I was young. I tried last year with a number of women. Nothing.”
“You idiot,” Selt said loudly, and his fury was so unexpected neither Erd nor I were prepared for it.
“I beg your pardon?” Erd growled.
“Have you tried since Geart’s magic healed everyone last year?”
“You think it would have?” he asked, quite flummoxed.
I said quietly, “It healed the damage the women’s medicine did to Dia.”
“So, I could still make a go of it, you think?”
“Yes,” I said. “Now are you going to solve your problem before your wife is stolen from you?”
He’d clearly not thought his way to the logical conclusion of the day’s facts. We were walking in on an engagement negotiation alright—but it was his wife, not his niece that was being bid upon.
“Wait …” Selt said, but to no effect. Erd shoved the doors open with a crash and led us into the sunlight of the royal gardens. The scene before us was worse than I expected. The Hooak and their arilas stood upon a brief hillock in the center of the manicured lawns with the Pormes organized around them. The Hooak held themselves as though the deal was done and Trace was theirs.
“Look at his hands,” Selt whispered and handed me his satchel full of bank notes. “Dredging.”
I had no idea what the arilas’ hand and dredging could possibly have to do with each other or anything else. Selt’s behavior was as irksome as the general’s.
The regent did not seem to care about the quality of the scene, or our predicament. He aimed us straight at them like a fool lieutenant charging light horse upon a ready phalanx of spears.
“General …” I said, hoping to slow him, but he wouldn’t hear me.
He continued straight through the wide-eyed crowd toward his wife. She was a Pormes for certain—long black hair, round face, and the extra weight that came with their universal indulgence. She was younger than Erd and sad looking, but not unattractive. Erd took her by the hand and said up to Arilas Hooak, “I do not believe you have met our neighbor from Enhedu, Arilas Barok Yentif. Prince, this is Aldus Hooak. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to have a word with my wife.”
I was stunned. Everyone was. We watched together in silence as the general pulled his wife behind a nearby row of hedges, took her in his arms, and began to kiss her. She protested briefly, but when he ripped open his coat in a marvelous show of strength, she grabbed him by the neck and kissed him hard. He snatched her off her feet and carried her out of sight.
I turned away from the spectacle to see Kuren Pormes—the man I’d defeated and deposed. He had the sa
me look of shock upon his face he’d had the day I took a third of his family’s lands and made Erd his regent. He squawked a protest, which Arilas Hooak silenced with a gesture. Aldus looked down the brief hill at me as though our charge had been bloodily repulsed and he was preparing to route me from the field. He was dressed in robes and dalmatic fit for my father’s throne room—unusually made, though, with long sleeves and a high collar. His hands were blemished and red, as were the faces of some of his men. The infestation of fleas in Thanin was terrible, indeed, if an arilas could not find refuge. It was the only problem I knew him to have. Selt had seen it, too, but how to exploit it? I drummed my fingers on the satchel full of notes and continued the suicidal charge.
“Marvelous plan, isn’t it?” I asked.
His eyes darted once to the sound of Madam Pormes being ravished before he replied, “Sorry, plan?”
“Why, yes—for the eradication of the fleas. I’d assumed you were here to hear all the details. I decided to come up personally to see if you had accepted the proposal. The Pormes did relay it to you, I trust?”
He blinked and looked to the Pormes whose blank faces offered no insights. “What are you talking about? What plan?”
“Ahh. You have not heard. Well, it’s a wonderful plan—the full capital of my bank here in Almidi is behind the project,” I said with pauses enough to sail a ship through. “Canals, dredging, and healers, of course, to keep everyone alive while they complete the work.”
“You mean to drain the swamps? You do not have the funds for such an enterprise or the manpower. My father lost 40,000 men to disease before he surrendered to the swamps. The healers alone—if you could find any who would work for you—would cost you 50,000 weights of gold a season.”
“Oh, healers, I have—and for free. Lieutenant, I believe the arilas is in need of aid. If you please …”
The crowd was too focused upon the ruckus of the general and his wife for any of them to protest the sudden move of a greencoat up the hill—including the arilas himself.
The blue light of the young man’s healing song gathered up their attentions instantly, and the arilas went a bit limp as my man took hold of arms, neck, and thighs. It was a shabby display of the healing magic—halting and flickering. It ended quite abruptly, too.
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