Raymond Feist - Rise of a Merchant Prince

Roo started to smile and say something when his father’s eyes rolled up into his head and he fell forward, facedown into the fire. Roo yelled, ‘Duncan!’ and with a single move yanked his father out of the flames.

Duncan was over in an instant and saw the waxy pallor of Tom’s face, the white eyes, and smoldering burns on his cheek and neck. He knelt next to Roo, then said, ‘He’s dead.’

Roo remained motionless as he silently regarded the man who had been his father, and who had died still a stranger to him.

Roo signaled.

Duncan reined in the second wagon, coming to a halt behind the first. Roo turned, stood, and shouted, ‘Krondor!’

They had been traveling this way since burying Tom, in a grave Roo had dug with his bare hands, covering him with stones to keep scavengers away. Duncan had become a fair driver. He had remembered a few things taught to him by Tom when he was a boy, and Roo had increased his skill until he no longer had to spend every minute worrying about the second wagon and its cargo.

Roo was still troubled by his father’s death. He couldn’t escape the feeling that he had glimpsed something in his father when he had been speaking about Roo’s mother. Roo knew there was a great deal about his own history he didn’t understand. His father had always been an aloof man when sober and abusive when drunk, and in part Roo now understood why: each time Tom looked at his son he saw a reminder of the wife he had loved beyond measure, taken from him at Roo’s birth.

But there had been more, and Roo now had dozens of questions, none of which his father would ever answer. He vowed to return to Ravensburg and try to find those few people in the town Tom might have called friend, to ask them those questions. Perhaps he might travel to Salador to visit with Duncan’s branch of the family. But he wanted answers. Suddenly Roo had been made aware that he really didn’t know who he was. Pushing aside that thought, he insisted to himself it wasn’t as important who one is as who one becomes, and he was determined to become a rich, respected man.

Duncan tied off the reins and jumped down from his wagon, walking to where Roo stood. Roo had come to like his cousin, though there was still the rogue in his manner, and Duncan didn’t bring out any strong sense of trust, the way Roo trusted Erik or the other men he had served with under Calis. But he liked the man and thought he might be useful, for he had enough experience with nobility to tutor Rob in manners and fashion.

Duncan climbed up on the first wagon and looked at the distant city. ‘We’re going in tonight?’ he asked.

Roo glanced at the setting sun and said, ‘I don’t think so. I’d have to find a stable yard to house this wine until we could move out in the morning. We’re still more than an hour from the gate now. Let’s make a camp and we’ll head in at first light, try to sell some of this before the inns get too busy.’

They made camp and ate a cold meal before a small fire, while the horses, tied in a long picket, grazed along the roadside. Roo had given them the last of the grain and they were making satisfied noises. ‘What are you going to do with the wagons?’ asked Duncan.

‘Sell them, I think.’ Roo wasn’t sure if he wanted to depend on other shippers, but he didn’t think his time was best spent actually driving the wagons back and forth between Ravensburg and Krondor. ‘Or maybe hire a driver and send you back for another load after we sell off this lot.’

Duncan shrugged. ‘Not much by way of excitement, unless you count those two hapless boy bandits.’

Roo said, ‘One of those “boy bandits” almost put an arrow through my head’ – he tapped the side of his skull – ‘if you remember.’

‘There is that.’ Duncan sighed. ‘I mean by way of women and drink.’

‘We’ll have some of that tomorrow night.’ Roo glanced around. ‘Turn in – I’ll take the first watch.’

Duncan yawned. ‘I won’t argue.’

Roo sat by the fire as his cousin grabbed a blanket and crawled under one of the wagons to protect himself from the dew that would form during the night. This close to the ocean it wasn’t a possibility, it was a certainty, and waking up wet wasn’t either man’s idea of a pleasant way to start the day.

Roo considered what he would do first in the morning, and made up several speeches, rehearsing each and discarding this phrase or that as he tried to determine which sales pitch would work best. He had never been a focused thinker in his youth, but so much was riding on his doing well that he became lost in his thinking, and didn’t realize how much time had passed until he noticed the fire burning down. He considered waking Duncan, but decided instead to reconsider some of his sales pitch, and just stuck some more wood in the fire.

He was still practicing his pitch when the lightening sky finally took his attention from the now merely glowing embers of the fire and he shook himself out of his half-daze, half-dreaming, and he realized that he had not truly slept all night. But he was too filled with excitement and too ready to rush forward into his new life and he figured Duncan wouldn’t object to the extra rest. He rose, and found his knees stiff from sitting in the damp, cool night air without moving for hours. His hair was damp, and dew shone upon his cloak as he shook it out.

‘Duncan!’ he yelled, rousing his cousin. ‘We’ve got wine to sell!’

The wagons clattered over the cobbles of Krondor’s streets. Roo indicated Duncan should pull up behind him, over to one side, allowing some room for traffic to pass on the narrow side street. He had picked out his first stop, a modest inn named the Happy Jumper near the edge of the Merchants’ Quarter. The sign was of a pair of children turning a rope for a third who was suspended in midair over it.

Roo pushed open the door and found a quiet common room, with a large man behind the bar cleaning glasses. ‘Sir?’ the barman asked.

‘Are you the proprietor?’ asked Roo.

‘Alistair Rivers at your disposal. How may I be of service?’ He was a portly man, but under the fat Roo detected strength – most innkeepers had to have some means of enforcing order. His manner was polite, but distant, until he knew the nature of Roo’s business.

‘Rupert Avery,’ said Roo, sticking out his hand. ‘Wine merchant in from Ravensburg.’

The man shook his hand in a perfunctory manner and said, ‘You need rooms?’

‘No, I have wine to sell.’

The man’s expression showed a decided lack of enthusiasm. ‘I have all the wine I need, thank you.’

Roo said, ‘But of what quality and character?’

The man looked down his nose at Roo and said, ‘Make your pitch.’

‘I was born in Ravensburg, sir,’ began Roo. And then he launched into a brief comparison of the bounties of that small town’s wine craft and what was commonly drunk in Krondor’s more modest establishments.

At the end of his pitch he said, ‘The service to Krondor has either been bulk wine for the common man or impossibly priced wine for the nobles, but nothing for the merchant catering to a quality clientele, until now. I can provide wine of superior quality at bulk prices, because I don’t transport the bottles!’

The man was silent a minute. ‘You have a sample?’ he asked at last.

‘Outside,’ said Roo and he hurried out to fetch down a sample cask he had filled before leaving Ravensburg. Returning inside he found a pair of glasses on the bar. He pulled the cork, and as he filled the two glasses with a taste, he said, ‘It’s a bit shocked, having rolled in this very morning off the road, but give it a week or two to rest before you serve it, and you’ll have more business than any other inn in the area.’