Chapter 16 #3
“Oh.” I sipped the cold tisane Isolde brought in, tasting the rosemary that had steeped overlong.
“I’m just tired, Luca. It isn’t about you.
” I’m sorry, too. I refused to let it pass my lips.
I couldn’t tell if I was sorry or if I should be.
I hated that I was suddenly so aware of Chay lurking over to the side, the way he’d stroked my cheek and looked at me like I was the sun in the sky.
My heart feeling like a tenderized slab of meat, I pulled my attention back to Luca. “You think it might work?”
“No. I know it will work.” He picked up one of my scribbled-over drafts and started jotting a list, unaware of how raw I felt.
Classic Luca. “This is the order I want you to reach out to people. You need to secure some well-known names as soon as you can. Consider offering them a discount on taxes for trading done within the twelve-day window.”
I didn’t even know all the rates we taxed people whilst they were on our soil. It was another gaping void in my knowledge to make me feel simultaneously inadequate and out of my depth. But I didn’t dare admit that to him. I didn’t want to be the puppy again.
“People will tell you that you’re losing money.
Ignore them. I’ve myself waited to sign a few provinces over where the rates are only seven percent—and rarely collected.
Consider how you can incentivize people to arrive promptly for the first day, but don’t make them rush.
Also, consider selling wares in person and signing an ongoing contract as two different things.
You want people to haul barrels of mead and fine beads, right?
So, make it worth their while. There’s a lot of money in spices, but Azashi has the trade locked down tight.
Don’t try to swim in those waters—there’s sharks and sirens both. ”
I glanced at his list. At the top was whitesmithing. “You think there’s money to be had in jewelry?” It was an extravagance many couldn’t afford. Fashionable clothes could be justified when the old ones wore out, at least. Clothes were required, after all. Necklaces, rings, and bracelets were not.
“I know there is.” He kept on jotting. “While your father’s pillaging the South for silver, and our copper mines feed the mages’ clockwork machines, gold is considered a luxury of the nobility.
The thing is, it never spoils and isn’t likely to wear out.
Convince people it’s a worthwhile investment.
Make metals accessible in small amounts: belt knives and lockets and the like.
You don’t need to sell a lot of it to make a lot off it, and if you’re thinking balls… ”
“People dress up for balls, I suppose.” I was going to have to. I hated it. “Do you know any whitesmiths?”
“I do.” He held up a finger. “Let me finish first.”
I skimmed down his list. Most of it made sense, though he’d left off a few things I would’ve expected to see.
“Locals will complain,” he promised. “Give them the rest days in the market to show off their wares. Other than that, same as anyone else. Don’t let the travelling traders use your market square unless they’re regular. Specialty market or nothing.”
I shook my head. I hadn’t even started to wonder about that. Before I could start unpacking the next row of his logic, I heard Chay jangling over. I tracked his progress by sound alone, as I’d done so many times.
“How’s Kadan, Luca?” he asked, proving his thoughts had nothing to do with me in a way that cut me to the quick.
Still, I couldn’t help but glance up, knowing how Chay loved Kadan. But there was nothing I could read from his face. His eyes were on Luca’s hands.
For a moment, Luca paused in the writing, glancing up at Chay. “He’s alive.”
“His foot?”
Luca paused again. “He’s alive,” he repeated.
“Can he walk?” Chay pressed.
I picked up my drink, fighting with the spurt of envy I felt for the man who Chay had always loved.
Would always love.
Instead, I leant into the empathy that I knew would only hurt me. Because, in Chay’s position, I liked to think I’d focus on Isolde and not whoever had recently been through my bed. I followed Chay’s gaze to Luca, waiting for my old friend’s response.
“Sort of.”
“Can he ride?”
“Yes.”
Chay nodded, shifting a little. “They called midnight some time ago, friend.”
I glanced out the window and found the city was plunged into total darkness. “I know.” Luca turned back to his writing. “I just need to finish here.”
“You got somewhere to stay?” Chay asked him.
Luca shot him an irritated look. “Of course.”
“I’ll take you, then, when I’ve finished this.” He held up his cup.
“He can stay,” I protested. “Until we’re ready to call it an evening.”
“It’ll be morning if it’s much longer,” Chay told me. There was a cool edge of reproach to the words I resented. Unease crawled under my skin and I breathed into it.
“He’s right,” Luca told me, his hand flying over the paper. “It’s fine. I wish I could stay for longer, help you write them. I’ll just jot out a query message template for you to—”
“This is good, Isolde,” Chay said, with a sigh. “What’s in it?”
“Water,” she said, without looking up.
“Good stuff.”
A smile tugged at Luca’s mouth. “I’m glad they’re looking after you,” he said, his eyes glued to the letters forming in front of him.
Names, locations, places to begin. It was a fully-fledged plan that it would’ve taken me moons to put together myself.
“I’ve missed you, Audrey,” he said, reaching for another piece of my scrap and flipping it.
This one I’d used both sides of. He quickly got another.
“I didn’t think I’d arrive to find you’d learned to fly in my absence. ”
“You didn’t know I had wings,” I said, before I’d thought it through.
He paused for a moment to look up at me, his expression unreadable as he studied my face. I didn’t know what he’d see there. I didn’t know how I felt. Not surprised. Mayhap a little pleased, that for once I wasn’t being patronized. But how little, and how late?
“I don’t know what’s worse,” he said. “That you’re right, or that you knew how I felt all along.”
Would he rather I not know?
Swiftly, following that thought: I would’ve rather not know. The reality of that shamed me.
Chay stood and put down the empty cup noisily. My heart sat at the bottom of my hollowed-out ribcage. “Time’s up, old friend. Where are you staying?”
“I’m bunking with a few friends,” Luca said, quickly scratching out the template. “Third level, west wing. If you see me tomorrow, no you don’t.”
He put a quick line through a word and rephrased it to something similar, muttering something, still writing as he stood.
“Use this as your basic letter to approach people. Modify tax rates and stall cost as you decide on them. Keep them low, you’ll get it back, but make sure it’s enough they take you seriously.
You want to be clear, but not blunt. You don’t have time for multiple back-and-forths.
People need to trust they can leave their location late summer with carts of goods and be looked after when they arrive. There isn’t time for negotiations.”
I nodded. He put the quill in the inkpot and I clasped his hand firmly. “Thanking you,” I said, my head full of buzzing bees and possibilities.
“My pleasure,” he said, and sounded a little surprised. “I’ll try to visit. Don’t mention my visit to anyone, including me, if you try to write me.”
He thought our letters were being intercepted. “Wait—the messenger birds.”
He shook his head. “I’ll look into it and get back to you,” he promised, heading out the door. “Thanking you both,” he said to Chay and the sharp-eyed Isolde.
Chay left with him. The room suddenly felt empty and peaceful, but my head kept on buzzing.
“A special market,” Isolde said bitingly. “As if the tourney isn’t bad enough.”
She was right. The idea of overseeing markets and social events and a tourney almost gave me a nosebleed.
“We aren’t going to rebuild this place just you and I,” I reminded her, hating the thought of it, but seeing the brilliance.
“Mayhap I can get a clockwork replica of myself made to host some of the events.”
“It’ll have more soul than you by the end of those twelve days, knowing how much you love to socialize,” Isolde said, dryly.
I winced at the reality of her comments, blowing out the candles and heading toward my bed.
It wasn’t until I’d burrowed beneath the layers of blankets that I realized I hadn’t considered how my father would react to Luca’s grand scheme.