Daniel Abraham - The Dragon's Path

The trackless sea, however, could be remade.

Each autumn, ships in the south loaded themselves with wheat and oil, wine and pepper and sugar, and, paid with gold adventurous or desperate enough, made the trek to the north. Northcoast, Hallskar, Asterilhold, and even the northern coast of Antea would buy the goods, often for less than the same items that had traveled overland. The trade ships might take on some cargo in those ports—salt cod from Hallskar, iron and steel from Asterilhold and Northcoast—but most would take their money and hurry to the open ports of Narinisle to wait for the blue-water trade from Far Syramys. This was the great gamble.

Accidents of wind and current made the island nation of Narinisle the easiest end port for ships from Far Syramys, and if a trade ship could exchange its cargo and money for a load freshly arrived from those distant lands, an investor might triple her money. If not, she risked seeing her trade ship return from Narinisle with only what could be bought from the local markets, making a much smaller profit, assuming prices went with her. Or the ship could be lost to pirates, or it might sink and everything either lost entirely or ransomed back at exorbitant rates and glacial slowness from the Drowned.

And when the ships returned to their southern ports and the fortunes of those who had sponsored them rose or fell, the sponsorship of this fleet of gold and spice that sailed together without alliance and answered to no single flag reshuffled. A house that had placed its wager on a single ship and did well might make enough to hire half a dozen the next year. Someone whose ship had been lost would scramble to find ways to survive in their new, lessened circumstances. If they had been wise and insured their investment, they might gain back enough to try again by appealing to someone like Cithrin.

The ships would already have left Narinisle. Soon, the seven that had set out the year before from Porte Oliva would return, and not long after that, someone would come to her and ask that the bank insure them to sponsor a ship for the next year’s work. Without knowing which captains were best, without knowing which families were best positioned to buy a good outgoing cargo, she would be left with little better than instinct. If she took all those who came to ask, she’d be sure to take too many bad risks. If she took no one, there would be no chance for her bank to prosper and nothing to show the holding company when they came. This was the species of risk that her life was built on now.

Betting on pit dogs seemed more certain.

“A few insurance contracts, maybe,” Cithrin said, as much to herself as to Cary and the others. “Part sponsorship in a few years, if things go well.”

“Insurance. Sponsorship. What’s the difference?” Smit asked.

Cithrin shook her head. It was like he’d asked the difference between an apple and a fish; she didn’t know where to start.

“Cithrin forgets that we didn’t all grow up in a counting house,” Cary said and drank down the last of her coffee. “But we should go.”

“Let me know when the new play’s ready,” Cithrin said. “I’d like to watch it.”

“See?” Smit said. “I told you we’d have a patron.”

They left through the alley, transformed from mysterious woman of business and her guards back to seafront players. Cithrin watched them go through her thin window, the glass distorting them as they went. A patron. It was true she wouldn’t be able to go and lead the crowd with Cary and Mikel anymore. She probably wouldn’t be able to go out to a taproom with Sandr. Cithrin bel Sarcour, head of the Medean bank of Porte Oliva, drinking with a common actor? It would be terrible for the bank’s reputation and her own.

The loneliness that came with the thought had little to do with Sandr.

When, an hour later, Captain Wester arrived, Cithrin was out on the street, sitting at the same table where Cary had found her. He nodded his greeting and sat across from her. The sunlight brought out the grey in his hair, but it also brightened his eyes. He handed a sheet of parchment across to her. She looked over the words and figures, nodding to herself as she did. The receipt looked fine.

“How did it go?” she asked.

“No problems,” he said. “The tobacco’s at the seller’s stall. He argued over a few of the leaves, but I told him he either took all of it or none.”

“He shouldn’t have done that,” Cithrin said. “He should be negotiating with me.”

“I may have mentioned something like that. He accepted the delivery. The pepper and cardamom goes out tomorrow. Yardem and a couple of the new men will take that.”

“A start,” Cithrin said.

“Any word from Carse?” Marcus asked. The question sounded almost casual.

“I’ve sent a dispatch,” Cithrin said. “I used Magister Imaniel’s old cipher, and a slow courier, but I expect they’ll have it by now.”

“And you said what?”

“That the branch had placed its letters of foundation and was beginning trade as Magister Imaniel and I had planned,” Cithrin said.

“Not telling them the truth of it, then.”

“Letters go astray. Couriers take extra payment to unsew and copy them. I don’t expect anyone to intercept it, but if they do, it will look exactly like what it’s supposed to be.”

Marcus nodded slowly, squinting up into the sun.

“Any reason you picked a slow courier?”

“I want time to put things in order before they come,” she said.

“I see. There’s something we should—”

A deeper shadow than the cloud’s fell over the table. Lost in her conversation, she hadn’t seen the man approach, and so now he seemed to have sprouted out of the pavement. Taller than Captain Wester, but not so tall as Yardem Hane, he wore a wool tunic and leggings, a blue-dyed cloak several layers thick against the spring cold, and a bronze chain of office. For the most part his features were Firstblood, but slight and fair enough that he might have had a grandfather among the Cinnae.

“Forgive me,” he said, his voice scrupulously polite. “Am I addressing Cithrin bel Sarcour?”

“You are,” Cithrin said.

“Governor Siden sent me,” the man said.

Fear punched the breath out of her. They’d discovered the forgery. They were sending the guard. She cleared her throat and smiled.

“Is there a problem?” she asked.

“Not at all,” the messenger said, and produced a small letter, the smooth paper neatly folded and the sides sewn and sealed. “But he did suggest I wait in the event that you wished to reply.”

Cithrin held the paper, uncertain where to look—it, the man, the captain. After what seemed entirely too long, she shook herself.

“If you’ll let Maestro Asanpur know you’ve come on my business, he’ll see you in comfort.”

“You are very kind, Magistra.”

Cithrin waited until the man disappeared into the café before she pulled the thread. It cut through the paper with a rattle. Trembling a little, she pressed the opened page onto the table. The script was beautifully shaped, the work of a professional scribe. To Magistra Cithrin bel Sarcour, voice and agent of the Medean bank in Porte Oliva, I, Idderrigo Bellind Siden, Prime Governor of Porte Oliva by special commission of Her Royal Highness and on and on and on. Her fingertips slid down the page. I request your private attention as a voice of trade and a citizen of Porte Oliva concerning certain matters central to the health and vigor of the city and on and on and on. And then, near the bottom of the first page, she stopped.

The solicitation and arrangement of joint civic security as concerns the safe conduct of maritime trade in the coming year…