The Dragon's Banker

by Scott Warren

  The box was divided into several compartments, segregated in unequal portions. The largest was silver, coinage so long out of circulation that it probably would have more value to collectors than the component weight of the precious metal content. Enough to buy a new office five times as big in the richest part of the city. An adjacent cubby had gemstones of a greenish hue, not emeralds but malachite. Several sapphires lined the box beside that. What caught my attention though were six neat rows of stacked golden dinars, laid end to end and packed tight enough that they did not jingle. If they had, I would have heard it. My ears are keenly tuned to the melody of gold.

  Dahli covered a gasp behind me, and Bendric made no effort to disguise his low whistle. While this was a small offering compared to the vast treasures that filled Alkazarian’s lair, the wealth before me was the most liquid capital that had ever passed through this banking house at one time. If those coins were packed as deep as the reliquary suggested, probably more than had passed through all but a handful of the largest banks in Borreos. I estimated its total value at nearly a quarter-million silver marks. It was a small fraction of Alkazarian’s wealth, but it was somehow more real seeing it here in the city.

  Arkelai took a long drag from her cigarette. She was the only one in the room not impressed by the casual display of wealth. What amounted to a fortune for this banking house was little more than a few drops in the pool of gold in which Alkazarian swam. But if his avarice was true to the stories, even this would have been jealously guarded. His forgiveness would be long in coming if I squandered it. She met my eyes and raised one brow in question.

  “What about the rest of it?” she asked. The twinkle in her eye might have been my imagination, but the implication was real enough.

  I looked between Lady Arkelai and the chest, then back once more before I noticed the cubby just above the silver. I had mistaken it for empty at first because it lacked the glimmer of metal or the glint of gemstone. Instead, there was the soft shimmer of black velvet hiding in that crevice. What first I had dismissed now called to me, and a lump rose in my throat as I reached for it with a shaking hand. Even the clerks looked up from their ledgers, driven by the silence that had fallen on the trade floor of my banking house.

  The velvet purse weighed almost nothing. I struggled to untie the black drawstrings, but once I pulled back the swaddling, I had trouble even remembering to draw breath.

  Platinum. A bar of platinum as long and thick as my hand. It was so polished I could see my own stunned face reflected in its quicksilver beauty. In all my life, I had never held more than a full mark’s worth of the metal prized above all others by bankers, sages, alchemists, and wizards alike. This single bar was worth between sixty and a hundred thousand silver marks depending on where and who you sold it to.

  And I could see two more identical purses waiting in the cubby.

  Chapter 12 – Kuvtka’s Freight

  The first thing I did with Alkazarian’s fortune, once my legs remembered how to work without turning to jelly, was set fifteen percent of it aside. I charged one of my clerks with using it to settle tax burdens and fees as they were incurred. Ignoring such things will come back to bite you at the worst possible time, and it’s much better to lose some liquid capital than to give up stake in a company before your investment can mature.

  After Lady Arklelai departed, I set aside one hundred and sixty gold dinars, just shy of two thousand silver marks. This amount was outlined in the contract and would ensure that, whatever happened, for the next two years my staff would be paid, and handsomely, for their work. My own fee was one percent, which I would collect only at the end of the tenure and only from profits. If there were any. It was low. Typically, I balked at anything less than three percent, but one does not out-greed a dragon.

  The next item on the agenda was paying a visit to my, or rather our, new caravan company. And as it happened, the master of the whole thing was in when I arrived by carriage.

  Kuvtka’s Freight was in a northeast corner of the city, or rather just outside of it. The cobbles ended almost a quarter hour prior to our arrival, and I stepped down into dry dirt tamped by the hooves and wheels of a thousand wagon trains coming and going over the years. The dust in the air immediately began seeking purchase on my skin as the heat of the day produced a healthy sweat. Dahli emerged beside me, leather satchel over her shoulder and nose wrinkled. The spice of Lady Arkelai had never entirely left the cabin, and I was surprised to find that replacing it with the smell of healthy pack animals and hay was actually a refreshing shift. My secretary did not share my elation.

  “Ugh, it smells like shit out here.”

  “Manners, please. There are children about.”

  A girl of five or six ran past us. I stopped her to press a copper penny into her hand with the question of whether Kuvtka was in and where I might find him. She directed me out behind the squat office and said I had better hurry if I hoped to catch him.

  Dahli and I made our best time, and not a moment too soon, as it appeared a pack train was trying to smooth out a few final issues before getting underway. A dozen oxen were hitched to half as many wagons, and I also counted sixteen horses, which would belong to the packmaster, wagon master, and a company of fourteen mercenaries who had to be nimble enough to scout out and head off any threat to the freight.

  Kuvtka did not wear any apparent jewelry or finery, which is to say I did not immediately notice him. He was effectively invisible to my banker’s senses until Dahli pointed him out as he was adjusting the complex rigging on the back of one of the pack animals. Her worth as my second cannot be understated. Before I could make introduction, the same girl I had bribed ran up to Kuvtka, and he swept her into arms as thick as tree trunks, laughing all the while. She whispered into his ear, and his smile vanished as the bear of a man turned to me and set the tiny traitor on the back of the ox. His daughter (I presumed) was entirely comfortable with the enormous beast. Just as comfortable as she was with taking my coin and then turning her little coat. If she succeeded her father, she would be very shrewd in business.

  Though absent the glint of gold or silver, Kuvtka’s belt was adorned with some iron. A sword dangled from his left hip with a leather wrap around the grip that showed considerable wear. Between that sword and his impressive muscles, I had no doubt Kuvtka could find ample work felling anything from trees to castle doors if the freight business ever went belly-up.

  “You’re the man looking for me,” he said. No question there, merely a statement.

  “Aye,” I said, “Sailor Kelstern.”

  Kuvtka extended a hand, and mine rose to meet it. I braced for a crushing grip, but it was merely firm. It seemed Kuvtka had no need to impress his strength upon me, for which my slender fingers were grateful. I do not have a weak grip, or a shy one. But men such as Kuvtka who have demanded hard labor of their hands, with both sword and beast in his case, tend to enjoy showing off that brawn.

  “The new owner,” said Kuvtka, spitting in the dust. I don’t believe it was meant to insult, merely a habit. He called to a younger man and gave instructions for delaying departure a half-hour and then turned back to me. “Know much about caravans?” he asked.

  “The economics, yes, but not the minutia,” I admitted.

  Kuvtka pointed a single sausage finger at my chest. “Another banker then. Let’s get one thing straight. You may own the building and the animals, the tack, the wagons, and most of what goes in ’em. But you are not my boss. I don’t take your orders. This is my company. I built it, built the teams, the people. Neither need your help to run.”

  “You feel that strongly, Master Kuvtka?” I asked.

  “I do, Master Kelstern.”

  I looked at the grubby finger. Unlike most men in my profession, I am not afraid of a little filth, especially on men in service to business. Often my contemporaries will turn their noses up or faint outright at the thought of browning their perfect black shoes with desert dust. Neither am I burdened with an
oversense of my practical knowledge. It seems the previous stakeholders may have found difficulty dealing with Kuvtka when they attempted to strong-arm him into larger profits at the expense of his company’s well-being. I suspected it might have had something to do with their eagerness to foist the business upon me.

  “When I passed that building,” I said, gesturing to the squat hut behind me, “I saw a sign that said Kuvtka’s Freight. I like that sign. I like it because I did not see the name Kelstern on it anywhere. I did not build this company, sir, merely bought the largest share of it. The sign that does have my name on it says Kelstern Merchant Banking. That’s what I do, loans and financing. I make sure outfits like yours have what they need to succeed. And though the nature of your freight may change with the hand that holds the deed, this company needs the right people in the right places. It looks as though you’ve assembled them, and I hope you will continue to lead them.”

  Kuvtka looked at me as if seeing me for the first time, a curious look with his head cocked to one side.

  “How many caravans do you operate?” I asked.

  The packmaster turned and gestured for me to follow.

  “Three. Two up to Lethorn by way of the northern passes with textiles and one to Kaharas by the Waste Road with rum, smoked fish, and salt. That’s where we’re headed if I can get these blasted loads secure.”

  Hence the high proportion of security personnel. The Waste Road went through the domain of the kala’del, sand elves, who preyed upon merchant traffic. I began to notice the hired swords as we walked, passing a yard’s length of steel on every third man and a handful of crossbows. It seemed Kuvtka’s drovers went armed as well. No one here was wasted. I even spied a grenndrake with one of their curious black-powder rifles and a mottling of henna on his bare red arms. I almost stopped to stare at him. This was my first time seeing one since my meeting with Alkazarian. How could anyone confuse them for relatives to dragons? Now that I looked, they seemed very little alike indeed. I averted my gaze when the mercenary noticed my stare and began to return it, stepping lively to keep up with Kuvtka.

  “How much would you need to scale your operation up to six trains over the next three months?” I yelled over the sound of baying oxen.

  Kuvtka stopped dead in his tracks, as did most of those within earshot. All eyes turned to me, and I became very keenly aware of the reason the Master of the Royal Mint abhorred an audience. The packmaster didn’t face me. Instead, he looked out to the east, running a meaty hand down his face as if to wash it of my suggestion. He looked at the ground for a moment, then back up at me.

  “Mister, I’m looking at a two-month round trip with the arrow nocked and drawn. And you walk in here like the Bone King with his bag of tricks and ask me to double the size of my operation without the contracts to fill the coffers? Six Gates, you certainly like to make a memorable introduction, don’t ye? I’m not ashamed to admit we’re not swimming in silver here. We get by, but we do it on willpower and more than a few empty stomachs come suppertime on occasion.”

  “The contracts will come,” I said. I motioned to Dahli, who withdrew a set of papers from her satchel. I offered them to Kuvtka, who looked at them, shifting at random between the pages with a glazed look in his eyes. An overwhelming sadness passed over me. I had seen that look on many unfortunate occasions.

  “Sir… are you not lettered?” I asked with some trepidation.

  Kuvtka pursed his lips and handed the papers back to me. “My daughter can read them for me. Tell you the truth, Master Kelstern, it wouldn’t make a difference if I were. Can’t be done. I’d need at least a week to figure it out, and with Randrick coming down with diphtheria, I’m the only one can run this train up to Kaharas—”

  “A week, splendid,” I said. My early estimate had predicted the planning to take at least double that time, and this would spare me no small expense. I traded the papers to Dahli in exchange for a small leather purse. Kuvtka may not have been lettered, but he could read the weight and sway of the small package. He had likely deduced it to hold a substantial amount of silver. I handed that to him, and it all but disappeared in his hands as he undid the flap and looked inside.

  “That should cover wages and the mercenary contracts for a week’s delay and get you started on expansion. Mistress Fost will stay to help you with the details.”

  Dahli coughed. “Excuse me?”

  I ignored her. “You’ll need some new facilities to hold the additional animals and equipment, I imagine. Oh, and a new sign.”

  Kuvtka looked up from the purse. “I thought you said you liked that sign.”

  “Oh, I like what it says, but it does look a bit dilapidated. You should take better care of your reputation.”

  Kuvtka spat again. “Your word that the contracts will come once I start bringing on more hands?”

  “Master Kuvtka, the harbors are practically overflowing with cargo.”

  Chapter 13 – The Shipwright

  What do you mean there’s no cargo?”

  A week after my meeting with the caravan master, I had little to show for my end of the arrangement. I had spent the majority of it with Tokt down in the portside districts trying to secure any and all Aedekki goods I could get my hands on. At first contracts were ready, and I secured deals to transport fresh exotic fruits, timber, and nutrient-rich jungle topsoil so dark it looked more like ink than dirt. I was not well-versed in the agricultural arts, but I knew that such ideal soil was well-prized by specialty botanists that serviced the arcane communities with rare and valuable herbs.

  But over the course of six days, more and more doors closed to me, and I found myself with barely enough to run one additional baggage train. Kuvtka was not going to be pleased when he returned, and neither was Lady Arkelai. Harbors did not just dry up, so to speak. One or two instances was typical. Three or four was unusual. But more? Conspiratorial. And I do not like being on the receiving end of a conspiracy.

  I stood in the waiting room of Barron Dancin’s (known colloquially as the Dancing Baron) shipping house, listening to his orderly tell me there were no goods to be had. I could see sturdy men with bare backs unloading freight in the summer heat while this cretin fed me lies.

  “Am I to believe those casks are empty? That the sailors got thirsty and drank all their profits?”

  “Master Kelstern, please,” said Tokt, holding up his hands. But I was angry, and rightfully so. Still, even a flared temper did not justify rudeness, and so I acquiesced, allowing my junior partner to have a word with the man while I examined the tapestries and charcoals on the back wall. Tokt was suave, likeable, amiable, and could charm the fur off a blackbear. Even as I watched from the corner of my eye, the orderly—who had been so defensive with me—began to relax and even laugh as they no doubt discussed the bosses who had set them to such unpleasant tasks.

  I occupied myself for a minute by watching the freight pass from hand to hand and down the gangplank of one of Barron’s ships. That much was normal, but from there, instead of being loaded onto the low-wheeled trolleys bound for dockside warehouses, it was being arranged on high-backed carts, with banded wheels for traveling on cobbles, not boardwalks. I frowned and then glanced to my partner. If he noticed me, he gave no indication and was instead helping his compatriot to light a clay pipe. With a heartbeat’s hesitation, I slipped out of his field of vision and down the dank hallway toward Barron’s office.

  I passed two additional staff on the way back: a bald-pated sailor in trousers and bare feet with one ring of copper and another of gold, and a clerk with brass-rimmed spectacles and a small hoop through each of her ears. I gave neither any indication that I was anywhere I ought not to have been, and in fact nodded to them as they passed. After all, no one explicitly said that I could not pay a visit to Barron Dancin, only that there was no available cargo and the master of the house was not in. If one was a lie, chances were the second verse quite matched the first.

  It was quite impossible, this close to the
shore, to keep the salt air from corroding just about everything. Rather than make the futile attempt, these buildings had been built with generous windows running the length of each hall with no coverings of any sort. I could feel the wet salt air cooling what would otherwise be a stifling heat. Though I must add that after my foray into the Jaws of the Mountain, summer heat did not seem to bother me quite so much. The cawing gulls could grate after a time, but they served to mask my footfalls on the floor planks. Barron’s office was built straight on the boardwalk, and beneath the cries of seabirds and ships’ bells was the sloshing of seawater against wooden pylons. It should be said again that, despite my name, I have no proclivity for sailoring. I will not go so far as to say that water frightens me, so it must go without saying.

  So distracted was I by the idea of the fetid planks breaking beneath me and depositing me in the shark-waters of the Borrean Bay that I did not notice the office door, almost within arm’s reach, begin to open. It was the voices that made me look up, and as I did, my eyes widened. If I did not like suspecting I was on the receiving end of a conspiracy, I liked confirming it even less.

  “Master Kelstern.”

  “Lord Brackwaldt,” I mumbled. I tugged a lock of hair toward my former client. Clients, I should say, as he was in the company of the former owner of Kuvtka’s Freight, whom he had likely seduced away from my patronage. Behind him, I could see a sliver of Barron’s office and an unknown guest in a lush chair facing away from me. The guest crossed a pair of green-scaled boots atop the edge of Barron Dancin’s desk. Their owner’s hands drooped down over the plush armrests—hands with glints of silver rings on the forefingers and thumbs. There was laughter within, from Barron and his guest, and as the door swung shut the draft wafted a scent of something even stronger than salt air past my nostrils, though it was gone in an instant.