Chapter 9 #2
Beneath me, Storm snorted, but my hands hadn’t flexed on the reins. Given I felt like the whole keep was poised to topple on me, I could only assume she felt my distress. “I don’t have the seal, Brian,” I said, around the buzzing in my head. “I’d have to send to my father.”
“It’s in the Duke’s study,” Brian assured me. “Head Steward has keys.”
My heart sat like a stone in my chest. I struggled to breathe.
“We need to go in anyway so I can review a few contracts,” he went on.
“The ones I’ve access to are primarily abridged Inker versions, but one of them listed a clause that might allow us to not provide cider, which, if we can get the wheat or at least a goodly amount of millet or barley, might allow us to get back some of the ground we’re going to lose. ”
Part of me wanted to drop it all in Brian’s lap, give him the family seal, and tell him to make it work. I could spend my days hunting game and practicing the sword.
The other part of me said aloud, “What’s the clause?”
“I’ll show you when we return,” he promised. “It fell under Future Provisions, I believe. Quite a predatory little addendum, slipped in there.” There was admiration in his tone.
There shouldn’t have been anything under future provisions that would allow me to not provide the agreed upon goods, but if Brian said there was, I very much believed him. My father employed the best negotiators.
Money begat money.
That thought saw me into the docks. The area was, as much of the city was, inhabited by rats, cats, and ghosts. But today there was a ship in the harbor and rowboats at the pier.
One of the taverns had noise coming from within, a playful string instrument joined by drumming. The tune was cheerfully irreverent.
I drew in a breath. A guard came forward to take my reins, giving me more time to brace myself.
“In here,” Brian told me, then grunted as he half-fell to his feet with joint-jarring force.
Isolde was at my side, her head up as she eyed the upper levels of surrounding buildings. I dismounted, taking my time to settle my skirts, letting Thomas and Chay join us.
“I’ll take the rear,” I overheard Thomas telling Chay, his expression grim.
There wasn’t a single weapon on my body. I felt that lack keenly as I followed Chay up the short steps onto the raised walkway leading into the tavern.
It was bright enough outside, but inside, where it smelt of decades of smoke and revelry, there were pockets of visibility amid deep shadows. I paused to let my eyes adjust.
The ceiling was higher than I’d expected, the tables mostly upright. The music faded away as faces turned to look at us. They were grimy from the weather and tanned from the sun, but they weren’t unfriendly. My skin crawled all the same as eyes moved over me.
“My lady, meet the crew of the Siren’s Ally,” Brian said ahead of us.
He stood beside a tall, broad-shouldered man with unusually pale skin that had patchy red marks.
A thick silver scar ran from the bottom of his lip to his exposed collarbone and then vanished beneath the brown of his roughly laced shirt.
He wasn’t the one who’d had that cocky smile.
I was staring. I hadn’t responded to Brian’s introduction. The shame clamored at the gates of my heart. I dropped a bar over it resolutely, lifting my eyes to meet the giant’s gaze. “Pleased to meet you,” I said, the familiarity of the words was a small comfort. “Where’s your captain?”
Brian laughed, turning to the man beside him. “She’s the life of the party, my lady is,” he said, grinning.
The big man wasn’t laughing, but there was some mirth in his eyes. “I’m the Captain, girl.”
I ran over the brief glimpses I’d seen yesterday, trying to remember if I’d seen this man.
They’d been a sea of details, passing by so quickly.
But there was no mistaking the pirate who’d been looking at me with their hand on the helm.
I had little to give their body scale, but the roundness of their cheeks and the length of their hair were all wrong, and their skin had been brown.
If I was a smart captain, going into an unfamiliar city that might be hostile, and I wanted to strong arm my way to a deal, I’d tell the most imposing person the words to say.
I’d probably put Chay in my seat, with Brian beside him. And I’d sit up the top with my bow and Isolde, and watch, and learn.
Chay was looking at me, brow cocked, hand on his sword, while Brian reminded the big man of my status and titles quietly.
Storming through the place to find the real captain would’ve been fun. Except I didn’t quite trust my own judgement. After all, wouldn’t that sort of thing just complicate the situation?
“Come, my lady,” the big man said, waving his hand toward a table with less scars than the big arm ushering me along. “Sit with us.”
Us. Would a captain say “us”? I went, the faces a blur around me, forcing myself to focus on the man before me.
Brian pulled out my chair. I took it, too focused on the list on the table held down by an empty bottle to do more than murmur thanks. Isolde stood behind me to my right, and I heard the soft chime of Chay’s sword belt, the creak of his boot leather, as he settled on the other side of me.
“I’ve discussed your proposal with Lady Audrey,” Brian said. “My lady, are we in agreement? We’ll offer the Siren’s Ally the listed goods, in exchange for equal crates of wheat?”
Wheat was heavy, but small. You didn’t trade wheat in crates; you traded it in bags. But, sure enough, Brian had added that clause down there.
He was trying to protect our interests, but the people getting swindled were the wheat growers.
I sat there, my eyes not seeing the words in front of me.
The sound of dozens of people standing by quietly was like splinters under my fingernails.
They were watching me, their eyes crawling over me, judging me.
A slight cough and a small movement came from the right. The alleged captain glanced over, his hand stroking the stubble on his big jaw.
I took the moment to catch Brian’s gaze. He smiled at me pleasantly and pushed his eyeglasses up his nose.
That wheat was going to rot if no one bought it; the small country mills couldn’t manage what surplus there ought to be. Those people could make the decision to trade or not, depending on whether they needed the goods we were offering.
But that was assuming the survivors had someone amongst them who had the knowledge to navigate these trades and that these pirates were going to play fair. Two assumptions I didn’t want to make.
If I altered this trade in any fashion, it’d reveal Brian to be the schemer he absolutely was and make future dealings with both the pirates and Brian more complicated.
“And I’m to give you license to trade,” I said, pushing the paper away to halt the hypnotic pull of the letters. “Why?”
“We’re good, honest traders,” the big man said, spreading his weathered hands in a gesture of innocence. “Why not?”
There were so many reasons why I shouldn’t give these people easy access to my docks, my seal, and my markets—not the least of which involved the other people at the table who had the monopoly on gravy, who still held that tureen even now.
“What’s your name, Captain?” I asked him, thinking of the contract I’d need to write.
He hesitated. It was brief, but it was there. “Uthman,” he said, throwing one big, meaty arm over the back of the chair. Between the vest and the man’s muscles, the worn fabric of his shirt strained.
“Captain Uthman has been aboard the Siren’s Ally his whole life,” Brian offered to me. “They renamed it when he took the helm. She was the Bitten Coin, before.”
Took the helm. The phrase made that distrust at the back of my skull itch.
“How many years are we considering making this license?” I asked Brian, wishing I’d thought to check that later. A three-year term was considered brief, but, given the war in the South, it was possible my father’s brief returns home would leave it unchallenged.
“We want a decade,” Uthman said, before Brian could. “We’re doin’ you a favor, my lady. Ask your man, here. He knows.”
“The best trades do everyone favors,” I cut in, before Brian could smooth over the pirate’s social roughness. “A ten-year license from me isn’t really a ten-year license.” It wasn’t fair to lie to them. Especially if they didn’t wrong me.
Because one day, they’d come into port and my father’s men would be here, wanting their pound of flesh.
Uthman straightened, his face darkening.
“The plague brought change,” I explained to the big man.
“The power I have is temporary. My signature may be worthless next year. I won’t lie to you and your crew.
” And if we re-wrote the contracts…the wheat would be by the bag.
Some of the buzzing settled. The air came more easily when I drew in a breath.
“What I can promise is that while La’Angi is in my hands, you’ll be treated like a free trader, and the Siren’s Ally will be given the respect that they’ve given the people of La’Angi. ”
Uthman’s eyes flickered to the side.
“We can make coin,” he repeated slowly, “like a proper trading ship, but we can’t have a license?”
“Oh, you can have a license,” I countered. “But I need you to understand the value of that license is…changeable.” I’m running an elaborate hoax, you see. “Upon the Duke’s return, everything I’ve approved is void.”
There was movement off to the side. This time I did swing my gaze around.
Immediately that smirk drew me in; the pirate from the ship, the one I’d expected to see, was here.
They were so close I could make out the light brown flecks in their eyes, protected between two burly men, mugs of cider before the trio.
My pirate lost their smirk, but those eyes still glittered brightly. Long fingers drummed against the side of their tankard as they considered me. They didn’t look down. There was no attempt to hide.
We’d spotted each other once again.
It felt like the missing piece of a puzzle falling into place. Another knot of tension unraveled in my belly. “Knowing the truth of this, I propose we re-negotiate.”
I didn’t direct my words at Uthman.
The real captain set down the tankard in their hand, amusement tugging at the corner of their mouth. “All right, princess,” they said with relish as they stood. “Let’s renegotiate.”