11. Torgan
TORGAN
"This number is wrong." I tap the ledger.
The entire negotiation chamber goes quiet.
Pa turns his head slowly toward me. I've spoken out of turn on the third day of sessions, and the heir speaks only when the lord invites it. But I've been staring at the same figure on the same schedule for an hour, and I'm done watching my father get politely bled dry.
They say humans conquered their lands through paperwork. I can see how.
The Duke of Valeforth sits across the long table, folded into his chair like he's half asleep.
His clerks flank him. Princeton sits at his right hand, working through a stack of papers.
Caden sits at the far end, present because form requires a second son and looking like he'd rather be anywhere else.
He's been sneaking glances at me all morning.
Trying to read the family he's courting into, I assume.
Smart man.
"Which number?" the Duke asks mildly. Sleepily.
I don't buy it.
"The dock fee." I turn the schedule around and slide it across the table.
"Four percent on orc freight through Merreach.
Your clerk called it standard. But the Mellican traders pay two.
The river barges pay two. And I've sat here for three days listening to every number in this treaty get called standard. "
I keep my voice level. "So either orc freight is twice as heavy as everyone else's, or the word means something different when it's applied to us."
Silence.
Princeton's pen stops.
"Torgan," Pa says.
A warning. But he doesn't take the schedule back.
"It's a fair question," the Duke says. He hasn't moved. "The higher rate reflects higher costs. Orc goods require additional handling. Inspection. Coordination."
"Protection," I say. "Knowledge of the territory. You gave us this speech at dinner, Your Grace. It was smoother the first time."
"Torgan," Pa snaps.
"No, no." The Duke waves a soft hand at him. "Let the young lord speak. It's refreshing. Most men his age don't read the schedules."
His eyes settle on me, and the sleepiness thins.
"You'll find, my lord, that trade has costs that don't fit neatly into columns. The four percent stands. Or the docks are always available to those who would rather row their cloth to market themselves."
Sell to Voss or sell to nobody.
Kenna's words from Ysolde's wedding make me sit straighter.
"Then we adjourn for today," Pa says before I can answer. "We'll review the schedule tonight."
Chairs scrape as we rise, and clerks gather papers. Pa grips my shoulder on the way out, hard, and steers toward our rooms. Princeton passes without looking at me, which from him is a statement. Caden hesitates like he wants to say something, doesn't find it, and follows his brother.
I stay to collect the schedules.
That's my excuse, anyway. Mostly, I want a moment alone.
I take the long gallery back toward our rooms. Portraits line the walls, merchants dressed like kings. Every generation of Voss that bought its way to this point.
"Lord Oakenshade. A word."
I know the voice before I turn.
The Duke stands behind me. No clerks. No sons.
I give him a slow nod. "Your Grace."
He regards me for a moment. "Walk with me."
"I'm returning to my rooms."
"This won't take long."
He doesn't wait to see whether I'll follow. He starts down the gallery with his hands folded behind his back, and I fall in beside him. Refusing would make a scene.
I'm not ready to make one yet.
"That was a good catch," he says. "The dock fee. Your father missed it. No shame in that. It was built to be missed. Three sessions of standard this and customary that, and the four percent sails through in the middle."
He sounds pleased. Like a tutor praising a student.
"You read schedules," he continues. "Princeton reads schedules and treaties. Caden reads poetry." A small sigh. "You see my difficulty."
"Is there a point ahead, Your Grace?"
"I'll be brief. My son has attached himself to your sister."
I nod. "He asked our blessing to court her. Openly. It was given."
"It was given by your father. Not by you. And not by me." He glances at me. "We both know the match won't work."
I say nothing.
"No use denying it, Lord Oakenshade. I watched you at dinner months ago. You broke a fork. You asked after my sons like a man checking a perimeter. So let's not perform for each other."
He stops beside a gallery window. Cold air slips through the old frame.
"You don't want this match," he says. "Neither do I. I propose we cooperate."
There it is.
"Cooperate," I repeat.
The Duke nods. "Now, while it's still a courtship. A letter goes astray. Caden is recalled to the docks for a season. Absence does its work." He pauses. "Or perhaps something on her side?"
The vial sits in my breast pocket.
It has been there for two months.
My stomach turns.
"Why?" I ask, partly to keep him talking while I get my face under control. "Your son gains a lord's daughter. Your house gains a tie to the clans you trade with. It profits you in every direction."
"It's a weakness."
The sleepy mask slips. Underneath is the man who watched me find the four percent and immediately decided what to do about me.
"Caden is sentimental," he says. "Sentiment is a lever, and I don't permit levers where my family is concerned. A Voss married into the Oakenshades doesn't unite our families. It divides mine."
Fury flashes across his face and disappears so quickly I almost miss it.
"Divided loyalties," he says, smooth again. "A Voss whose loyalties can be divided."
The four percent built to be missed. Kenna at the wedding. He buys at half, sells at full, and somewhere he calls it tariffs.
A man skimming both ends of the cloth trade cannot afford a sentimental son inside an orc lord's hall. Not one married to the family across his negotiating table. Not one reading poetry to a woman whose brother just found the lie in his treaty.
It isn't the match he fears.
It's the access.
"And if I refuse?"
The Duke sighs. "Then nothing, my lord. There's no threat here. I simply prefer to solve problems while they're small."
He smiles faintly.
I wonder how many people have believed that smile.
"I don't consider love a problem," I say.
Lissy's face appears in my mind. Candlelight. Her hand in mine. Now we're dancing.
I keep my expression still. It costs me.
"No," the Duke says. "Of course not."
He doesn't believe me. But he isn't certain either, and that's the best I'm going to get.
"My sister chose," I say. "The family blessed it. That's the end of it. And the four percent comes out of the schedule, or my father walks from the table and your docks lose every bolt of orc cloth from the western villages. You're not the only one who reads numbers, Your Grace."
"Hm."
He resumes his stroll, pausing beneath the portrait of some dead Voss ancestor.
"We'll see, my lord." He walks on without looking back.