L. Modesitt - Magi'i of Cyador

“With our own coins-not clan coins-and there’s no one to back us if it’s not good.”

“That’s why I’m here, remember?” Lorn says.

“You can slip back into that mighty house if this doesn’t work.”

“It’s worked before. Why would today be any different?”

“Because it’s Hamorian cotton. Or that’s what Aljak has let it be known. You can’t trust him, not even so much as Jiulko.”

“He was the one who had the oils-Jiulko?” Lorn touches Ryalth’s arm, gently, offering reassurance.

“I don’t know why you talked me into this,” Ryalth murmurs.

“So that you can start your own merchanter house. Merchanter women can refuse to consort, or consort by choice if they have a business worth more than five hundred golds. Remember?”

“Don’t remind me.”

“My sisters would like that kind of choice,” Lorn says softly.

“Why would they need it? They’re protected women.”

Lorn smiles faintly, deciding against arguing. “If we take this Aljak’s cotton … If we take it, did you arrange for a cart?”

“Sormet has the next warehouse … he’ll let us use his hand cart and charge me a silver for storage until I can sell it, if it’s less than a season.” Ryalth grins. “The oils … he got a silver for an eightday. So he’ll be happy.”

“If the cotton’s good.”

“Some of it will be good,” predicts Ryalth.

The two swing to the left and around a two-horse wagon that lumbers uphill. The wagon bed is covered, as required in Cyad, but the covering does not totally block the acrid odor of dyes carried in the small demicasks.

“Green dye,” Lorn murmurs.

“You’d think you’d been born a merchanter, sometimes, and then … other times.” Ryalth shakes her head.

“That’s why we work together.”

Ryalth laughs. “No … we work together because you want to sleep with me, and it’s the only way you think I’ll keep seeing you.”

Lorn smiles, slightly more than faintly. “Well … you’re still seeing me, and you have a lot more golds.”

“Alyet says you’ll leave me once you become a full Magus.”

“More likely that you’ll leave me,” he counters, laughing again. “I’m too young for you. You’ve told me that more than once.”

Ryalth turns again, this time along the Road of the Second Quay, which is the second street back from the stone piers where the trading vessels tie up.

Although the road is spotless, for it could not be otherwise in Cyad, an air of disuse permeates the road that appears narrower than it is, running as it does between the high and largely windowless warehouses of gray stone. The acrid scent of ancient, chaos-carved stone drifts up and around Lorn, a scent that he has discovered few others discern.

“His place is on the next corner, away from the harbor.”

“Are any of these used any more?” Lorn gestures to the warehouse to his right.

“Most of them are empty. Aljak probably doesn’t pay a gold an eight-day to rent the space. It belongs to the Jekseng clan, but they only have two ocean traders and a coaster left.” She adds wryly, “I wish I had just two ocean traders and a coaster left.”

“Is that it?” Lorn nods toward the half-opened timbered door framed by weathered granite that had faded into a whitened and dingy gray shade more attractive from the hillside above than from where he viewed it.

“Yes.” Ryalth squares her shoulders, her hand brushing her belt wallet as she steps toward the open door.

Lorn follows Ryalth through the opening created by a heavy wooden sliding door being rolled back perhaps five cubits. He enters the warehouse a step behind her, his posture conveying that he is indeed her lackey-or hired enumerator. His chaos senses flick across the racked items, stopping for a moment on the barrels of seed oil stacked in a cube to the left of the doorway. He does not nod, but his eyes sparkle, as he takes in the other items-a pallet of dark timbers; five tall amphorae, one slightly cracked, with darkness seeping from the crack; a stack of what appear to be bales of wool; another set of nine curved canisters, half again as large as the amphorae ….

“Ah … the lady merchanter from the House of the Lesser Traders.” Aljak steps out of the gloom at the rear of the cavernous structure toward the comparatively small groupings of goods just beyond the open warehouse door.

Lorn focuses on the heavy-set but massively broad traderwith the oiled curly black hair and the bush-like beard. Heavy bronze bands girdle overlarge wrists.

“Trader Aljak.” Ryalth inclines her head. “Sormet said you might have some cotton … some good Hamorian cotton.”

“That I do. That I do, lady merchanter. Aljak has what others lack.” The big trader offers a rolling belly laugh that echoes falsely through the big warehouse, then turns and walks a good fifteen cubits before pointing at five bolts of off-white cloth, each hung on a rack above the stone floor of the warehouse. “Here ye be. Five full-length bolts of Hamorian first rate cotton, thread count guaranteed tighter than sixscore to the span, ready to bleach and dye. Twenty-five for the lot or seven and a half for each bolt, and I pick the bolts.”

Ryalth nods, then moves forward.

Aljak steps back, his eyes flickering toward the darker section of the warehouse to the east.

Lorn sees the other two men, nearly as big as the trader, with blades, iron blades, in the scabbards at their belts. His eyes flick back to the barrels of seed oil, then to Ryalth. As Ryalth examines each bolt of cotton, Lorn studies each with his chaos senses.

After looking at the last bolt, Ryalth straightens and steps toward Lorn.

He steps forward and murmurs, “The first two, the ones closest to the door, are garment class cotton, close to it. The other three are leavings or burlap or something wrapped in the good cotton.”

“He’s asking five golds a bolt, if we take all of them.”

“What’s a bale of garment class run?”

“Bales are for raw cotton. Bolts are finished. I could sell it at ten a bolt to Guvell.” She frowns. “Maybe fifteen if it’s really good.”

The two burly men, each topping Lorn by a head, appear just behind the trader.

“What say you, merchanter?”

“Offer him eight for the first two bolts,” Lorn suggests, noting the short timber leaning against an empty rack. Hedoes not let his eyes even register its presence as he bends toward Ryalth. “Tell him we’d love to buy his cotton, but that it’s far more than we need.”

“We’ll take the first two bolts for eight golds total,” Ryalth offers firmly.

“Eight golds for that which will bring twenty, or perchance thirty. Ah … my friends … Well … perhaps you don’t wish to buy my cotton after all. Sooner or later, you will. You merchanters won’t have the golds to keep buying shimmercloth from the Hamorians, not with the barbarians pushing at your borders.” Aljak and the two guards ease forward. Each guard bears a heavy club, besides the blades in the scabbards. Aljak has a coil of velvet rope in his left hand, and the teeth that his smile reveals are crooked and yellow.

Lorn hides a frown, his attention on Ryalth-and the two thugs.

“And lady merchanter … perhaps you would like to spend some time with a real man, not a girlish enumerator.” Aljak laughs harshly. “To seal a bargain, shall we say.”

“When I tell you, dash toward the oil barrels … all right?” Lorn murmurs to Ryalth.

“You won’t pay me twenty-five? How about twenty-five just to leave here?” Aljak laughs again, and the two guards step away from him, as if to flank Lorn and Ryalth.

“Now!” Lorn says.

As Ryalth bolts for the oil barrels, the student magus concentrates-hoping he can pull chaos from enough places-then flings the firebolt into Aljak.