by David Hair
Kip’s eyes narrowed. ‘Explain to me the difference between you playing their game and appearing to do so.’
Ramon glanced about him again, then leaned in closer. His illusions looked like they were holding unchallenged, but he hated talking so openly of what should be secret. ‘We give them promissory notes, and they give us poppy. We stockpile it among the Thirteenth’s stores, to drive up the price, all the while creating tensions along the supply chain. We stay solvent by buying and trading in spices, but we put the profits into paying our initial investors – Storn and his fellow tribunes – massive interest. That will create a tidal wave of new investment, and the promissory notes will start to proliferate until they are exposed as worthless and they destroy the market. All trust is lost, fortunes collapse and panic spreads. Eventually everyone will come after me, but by that time, I’ll have vanished, together with my mother. The debt collectors will not let it rest. They will come after Pater-Retiari and my real father – and that, my friend, is what will snap off their ivory towers at ground level.’
Kip stared at him. ‘You can do all this?’
‘Why not? Pater-Retiari’s closest adviser is a former Treasury official. He’s very smart – and very corrupt. It’s really his plan – at least, the parts that enrich the Retiari familioso and gain control over the poppy trade are.’
‘But how do you expose the notes as worthless?’ Kip said, his brow creasing, trying to follow the intricacies of Ramon’s plan.
‘By burning all the poppy, rendering two-thirds of all the opium stockpiled since the last Crusade worthless, and destroying the value of most of the money in the market.’
Kip’s eyes flashed. ‘You’re going to buy it all, then burn it?’
‘At the right moment, si.’
‘You swear?’
‘On my honour.’
Kip snorted. ‘I’m not sure that’s good enough.’
Ramon spread his hands. ‘On my mother’s name.’
Kip looked down at him, then rolled his shoulders and uncricked his neck. ‘Yar, very well then. We will try it. But I will be watching you.’ He poked a finger at Ramon. ‘Very closely.’
‘That’s fair.’ Ramon climbed painfully to his feet and dusted himself off. ‘I guess I should have explained before.’
‘Yar, you should.’
Ten minutes later the six Dhassan merchants sent someone to summon them back into the meeting chamber. Even before he was seated, Ramon could sense the change in the room.
‘Magister Sensini,’ they greeted him. ‘One and thirty, and we have a deal.’
*
Storn’s eyes bulged. ‘All of it? But …’ He swallowed. ‘I don’t know that many other tribunes.’
Ramon patted his arm. ‘You don’t have to. When you double the money of the first investors, the rest will come forward. Their friends, and then their friends’ friends. Do the sums: each wave of investors is bigger than the last, so we can use the deposits of the last in to pay a return to those who got in first.’
Storn screwed up his face. ‘But … that only works when there are fresh investors,’ he said anxiously. ‘And what happens when we run out of product? Or if a shipment is seized?’
‘Then the price will spike, and we promise them more. Eventually, the Upon Mine clauses are invoked, but not until all other options have been exhausted.’ Ramon grinned. ‘Then my backer becomes liable.’
Storn looked sickly. ‘But he’s—’
‘Shhh,’ Ramon hushed him. ‘The breeze has ears.’ He patted Storn’s arm. ‘Don’t worry. By the time this Crusade is over, the only problem we’ll have is getting our millions back across old Antonin’s Bridge without the Inquisitors grabbing the lot.’
‘The penalty for poppy-trafficking is death.’
‘We won’t be trafficking it. We’re stockpiling it,’ Ramon reminded him. He rubbed his hands together. ‘I’ve already talked to a tribune in Korion’s army. He’s given me half their last pay consignment in exchange for promissory notes, and I’ve promised him ten per cent interest per month on it. He thinks I’m mad, but he’s read the name at the bottom. He’s going to speak to the other tribunes on the quiet. We’re going to be flooded in opium and gold. The hard thing will be keeping it quiet.’
‘I can hide it among the stores,’ Storn mused. ‘But what about the buyers we’ve cut out of this? Won’t they come after us?’
‘Undoubtedly – but Kip and I will deal with that. The suppliers stockpile in the years between Crusades because they get far more per pound during the months when the Bridge is open. They’ve already started sending me their stock.’ He tapped Storn on the chest. ‘You’re going to need to buy more wagons.’
Storn put his head in his hands. ‘You’ll get me hanged.’ He peered at one of the promissory notes. ‘I still don’t understand how we can get rich from buying opium then burning it,’ he added doubtfully.
Ramon grinned. ‘Look, it’s simple. Let’s say you give me a gilden. I give you back one and fifty—’
‘How?’
‘I borrow the fifty. Don’t worry, I’ll have paid back the creditor inside a week. So, I give you one and fifty, and I promise you that I’ll do it again, so long as you tell your four best friends they can too, and I’ll give them the same deal. So you and your friends give me a gilden each, and I give back one and fifty each. They tell their friends. More and more money comes in. I bank all the money, and give half back. So long as new investors come in, everyone is given a return, and all is well.’
‘And when we’ve found all the investors we can?’ Storn asked anxiously.
‘By then, amici, you and I have so much money that we can buy passage from anywhere to anywhere, and my backer is left carrying the can.’
Storn looked again at the name on the bottom of the promissory note. ‘He’ll back it?’ he asked doubtfully. ‘Won’t he just disown it?’
Ramon shook his head. ‘He might. But then no one would ever trust him again, and he’d be responsible for letting the whole banking and trust edifice collapse. He can’t let that happen. Bankers like Jusst and Holsen own the Crown. It’ll cost him everything, but he’ll still pay up, and he’ll bankrupt Pallas while doing so. Meanwhile we’ll be living in villas in South Rimoni with wall-to-wall dancing girls and endless wine.’ He slapped Storn’s shoulder confidently, watching greed and doubt war across the man’s face. Storn had no family, no ties and no assets, and no desire to see out another term of duty in the legions. Greed won easily.
‘We’re in this together,’ Storn growled.
Ramon clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Of course we are.’
*
Camp life simmered as the legions camped in clusters about Hebusalim, awaiting the orders to march. Half the men who’d gone to the prostitutes had pustules on their groin within days, which – amusingly, for Ramon – included Kip and Renn Bondeau. Mistress Lanna and Chaplain Frand were working day and night to clear up the sores. Duprey told the entire legion that no one would be left behind. ‘You’ll march, even if your cock is rotting off,’ he thundered from the front of the parade ground.
Severine was sulking. Bondeau had been well and truly banished from her affections, but she still craved a child. Any female mage who fell pregnant to another mage would be automatically sent home; mage-blood was too valuable to risk. Baltus Prenton regarded himself as next in line, and tensions between Bondeau and him were simmering. The trio of Andressan magi were also hovering, flexing their muscles and posturing whenever Severine passed.
Meanwhile, the number and value of the promissory notes Ramon had issued had already increased tenfold, and the stores of the Thirteenth were bulging with false sacks of beans. Storn had local carpenters adding false bottoms to all their wagons to store the opium and ingots. The first investors had been paid their interest and had reinvested five times as much money, and every day brought more tribunes seeking a way in. It felt like a giddy stilt-walk across a crowded plaza, alarming and exhilarating bo
th at once. But still the gold and opium poured in, and the price went up and up.
At the end of the week Duprey returned and assembled tribunes and magi in an empty house on the fringe of the city. ‘There will be two lines of march,’ he told them. Ramon had already heard this from dozens of sources; nothing stayed secret in the army. ‘General Korion will command the northern wing, who will take the pass into Zhassi Valley and drive Salim east, all the way to Halli’kut.’ He pointed to the map, tracing his finger along the intended route. This route had been largely picked over in the last Crusade, but only as far as Istabad. Halli’kut was reputed to be rich; it looked as if Korion had got himself the best route.
‘Meanwhile, Duke Echor of Argundy is taking the southern routes, driving around the bottom of the mountains of Dhassa, through Medishar, Sagostabad and Peroz.’ He jabbed a finger into the middle of the map, at a point in eastern Kesh, almost in Mirobez. ‘Here is his goal: Shaliyah.’
The tribunes and magi exchanged looks. Shaliyah, a major city, was some five hundred miles beyond the furthest extension of the last Crusade, through increasingly hostile lands. Though they’d crossed the Leviathan Bridge doing twenty-five miles a day, in unknown lands five to ten miles a day was more realistic. Any kind of resistance would see Echor’s legions a long way from home – not that serious resistance was expected.
‘What’s out there?’ Bondeau asked.
‘Just one big rukking desert, that’s what,’ Rufus Marle growled. ‘Not much else.’
‘Shaliyah is where the prophet was born,’ Duprey told the room. ‘A captured Godspeaker told us that the Dom-al’Ahm in Shaliyah has more gold than the whole of Pallas, and Duke Echor wants it. He’s promised the loot will be shared equally amongst each legion that’s with him.’
‘What did Uncle Kaltus think of that?’ Ramon piped up, making a few of the tribunes smile.
Seth scowled.
‘He looked like he’d just sat on a turd,’ Duprey chuckled. ‘Echor’s got almost all the vassal-state legions with him. Everyone knows Salim will lead Korion a dance in the north. But no one’s ever gone all the way to Shaliyah before.’
There had been talk for months that this Crusade was Echor’s big chance. If the Duke of Argundy came out of this with all the treasure of Shaliyah, then some kind of coup against Emperor Constant appeared likely.
I’d not mourn it … but I don’t want to be on the frontline either.
‘So which army are we in?’ one of the tribunes asked, voicing the question on everyone’s lips.
‘We’d better not be left behind this time,’ Marle grumbled. ‘The men won’t take it.’
Duprey met his Secundus’ eye and nodded slowly. ‘Fear not, my friend.’ He looked about the room as a smile spread across his face. ‘We’re in Echor’s column! We’re going to Shaliyah!’
The room was silent for a few seconds as they took it in, then it rang with cheers.
‘Rukka,’ Ramon swore quietly, his dreams of a cushy duty fleecing His Imperial Majesty’s legions turning to dust.
And how the Hel am I going to hide all that damned opium?
19
The Vlk
Sydia
The history of Yuros is one of westward migration. The oral histories of all primitive peoples speak of long treks from the vast plains of Sydia into western Yuros. Where do all these people come from? Why do they leave? Why are they so diverse? Not even the magi have learned the full truth. The Sydians are the latest, but they arrived before Rimoni had developed sufficiently to record them, and the oral record is frustratingly unclear.
ORDO COSTRUO COLLEGIATE, PONTUS
Kore preserve me from Sydian men. And Sydian women. Most especially Sydian women.
MYRON JEMSON, ARGUNDIAN, IN JOURNEYS EASTWARDS, 901
South Sydia, Yuros
Octen 928
4th month of the Moontide
Alaron had been sitting in the midst of the circle of Elders for an hour. Reku and Mesuda were ageing by the day; Mesuda looked even more hunched and frail, and Reku was almost totally blind now, but still stubbornly refusing to step down. Only Kekropius, curled next to Hypollo, looked supportive of his latest idea.
They sat in an old stone circle built by the Sollans in the centuries before this tiny, uninhabited island east of Thantis had been cut off from the mainland. Alaron found himself picturing the old sacrificial rites performed on this ancient site; it wasn’t the most comforting place to present his plan to the Elders.
‘No one would need to come with me,’ he concluded after outlining his intentions. ‘You all know where the Bridge is now – you don’t need me any more. What I’m doing might endanger you all.’
‘Listen to him,’ Hypollo growled, exasperated, thumping the ground with his tail. ‘You are the son of Kekropius and Kessa: they saved you and adopted you. You belong to the clan now.’
Reku made a clucking noise of agreement. ‘You have proven your worth to us, Alaron Mercer. Hypollo is right: you may not just choose to leave us. You are family now. It is our decision, not yours.’
Kekropius clicked his fingers loudly, asking the right to speak. ‘My son has given much to this clan. He has shared his Arcanum training and opened our eyes to many things. All of us have gained. The next time the Inquisition come for us, they will not find us such easy prey. He has earned the right to request this boon. I give my assent.’
‘I vote against,’ Reku snapped back. ‘He is too valuable. We still have much to learn from him. It is too soon.’
‘I concur with Reku,’ Hypollo rumbled. ‘We cannot risk his capture revealing our presence.’
All eyes went to Mesuda. She blinked slowly, considering. As always her vote, as Eldest, carried the most weight. ‘Alaron Mercer, explain to us again why we should risk the safety of our clan for this girl. What you have said does not persuade me, but I sense there is more.’
Alaron swallowed. He’d spoken previously to them only of Cym: a missing girl he’d pledged to find. Knowledge of the Scytale was dangerous, but it looked like he was going to have to tell the whole truth. Of course he could fly away without their permission if he had to, but that would be a betrayal of trust. They’d saved his life twice over; he owed them his honesty.
He took a deep breath. ‘You’re right, there is more. Have you ever heard of the Scytale of Corineus?’
*
Cymbellea di Regia picked up the strange wicker and ribbon crown and carefully lowered it onto her head. She winced as the pins stabbed her scalp, hissing in frustration.
‘Allow me,’ said Myrlla, the chief woman of the Sfera, the only tribeswoman who spoke Rondian. She waddled forward. Her swollen belly pressed against Cym’s back as she carefully lowered the bridal crown onto her head and pinned it carefully before arranging the veil.
Too many pregnancies in too few years had stolen Myrlla’s youth; she looked much older than her thirty years. Each of the dozen women of the Sfera, the tribe’s magi circle, were either pregnant or had just given birth, except for Gilkira, the eldest, who was fifty but looked seventy. The women’s tent was filled with squalling infants and toddlers. Cym hadn’t been alone for months.
Stupid stupid stupid. How could I let these savages get hold of me?
She stared into the tribe’s single mirror and scarcely recognised the girl it reflected. Her narrow face was losing all trace of baby fat, and the sun was darkening her skin. Her hair hung down her back in black waves, tied by a red scarf. The crown sitting above the scarf was a weird construction of wicker, finely knotted into intricate patterns and decorated with dangling ribbons of white. Even worse was the new tattoo on her forehead, a wolf’s head set in a diamond, marking her new clan.
The Sydian women cooed and clapped and sang another of their jaunty songs that made Cym want to scream. She’d thought Rimoni caravans claustrophobic, but this was beyond horrendous: the brats never stopped screaming, and the women never stopped chattering.
This will be my life.
<
br /> She shuddered; this was all because she never fully recovered her gnosis-energies after crashing the skiff on Phaestos Island in Julsep. Although she’d managed to fly herself to the mainland, it had depleted her badly. Augeite and Septinon had been a long, footsore nightmare as she tried to move unseen, skirting the towns and villages along the Imperial Road. She’d been reduced to stealing food from the occasional unwary traveller, and when there were none, hunting for eggs and setting traps for rabbits and pheasants. She’d gone for days without being able to wash. She’d been constantly under scrying attacks, which had become increasingly hard to block as her gnostic energy waned. At first it had been Alaron, much to her annoyance, though she’d never really believed he’d just stay in Norostein and forget her. More recently it was someone – or something – else: an alien mind that unnerved her; that was much harder to block.
The exhaustion got her in the end.
She’d successfully skirted the cities of Verelon and forded the massive rivers, and started across the Sydian plains, but on her fourth night in she’d started awake when her wards were triggered. Even stupefied and slow to react, when a tattooed face had loomed above her she’d managed to throw him off, and the next, but more came, and more, overwhelming her. The tattooed man had clamped a hand over her mouth and as searing pain racked her body he struck her head.
When she came round she couldn’t touch her gnosis. Though she knew of Chain-runes only in principle – she’d never let Ramon and Alaron demonstrate it in case they couldn’t undo it – she knew at once that was what had sealed her gnosis away.
After that she was helpless, a prisoner of a tribe of Sydians, one of the nomadic tribes that travelled the vast steppes of eastern Yuros. Men and women alike were short and stocky, and they aged quickly in these harsh lands. They dressed in leathers and furs from the beasts they hunted and herded, and tattooed their clan symbols onto their skins. This tribe’s totem animal was the wolf, ‘Vlk’ in their tongue. They’d claimed her that first day, etching her skin with their diamond-and-wolf symbol after subduing her by pressing a knife to her jugular. She’d feared worse, but they’d done nothing more than bind her wrists and hand her over to the women of their ‘Sfera’; the tribe’s magi, all low-blood products of liaisons with Rondian magi. She hadn’t immediately realised exactly how much trouble she was in.
