Business and Family
K arigan gazed wearily across her desk covered in ledgers at Robert, who had begun to fill her in on everything that had transpired during her absence.
A tiny, frosted window allowed daylight into the shabby office that had once been a cobbler’s shop located in a safe and respectable, but lower-class neighborhood in the middle city.
Robert had done his best to make it presentable by thriftfully purchasing furnishings that had once been fine but were, perhaps, out of fashion and showed some wear.
He had repaired a few of the pieces himself, and the outfitting of the office was adequate, if not that of a highly successful merchant.
As Robert listed clients lost and debts owed, she began to wonder if they’d be able to hold onto even this office.
“They may never do business with us again,” she murmured, her head throbbing.
“That is so,” he said, “but once we are again on solid footing we may be able to find new suppliers and customers. Most of our suppliers have been quite patient and understand the situation.”
“Their patience is not infinite, especially since they, too, suffered from the shortages and shipping issues in the war with Second Empire,” she said. “We are very overdue on certain payments. They may come for us legally or otherwise, and we need to satisfy them as soon as possible.”
“I understand,” Robert replied. “We are bare bones on expenses. I don’t see any way we could save more.”
It was the same conclusion she had come to after an entire night and morning scouring the books. They’d almost nothing left to sell off, except her father’s horses, the G’ladheon estate, her father’s investments, and the essentials of the business.
“We need to sell off my father’s investments,” she said. “Or at least some of them.” This was a last gasp attempt to bring in some capital. He had invested in shipping and a range of smaller businesses and projects. “Maybe now that shipping is returning to normal we will even gain some profit.”
“Very well,” Robert said. “I will review his papers and see what looks likely. I think it would be wise to keep a few that may offer more profit if we sit on them for a while. I will see that we don’t scrape the barrel’s bottom.
” He paused, deep in thought, tapping his forefinger on the desktop.
“We should gain enough income to retain the clan and begin the process of rebuilding the business. And there is always the chance that this trading mission of your father’s has been successful. ”
If only the trading mission had been about trade. “We should probably sell most of my father’s horses. It’s not like he’s around to ride them.”
“Just his saddle horses?”
“Selling the drays would mean not being able to move merchandise come spring.” Not that they had merchandise to move.
“Saddle horses,” she told him. “They are all of excellent lineages. Let’s hold onto Aspen for now, though.
I’m finding him useful, and he is my father’s favorite.
” Indeed, in her ongoing effort to maintain separation between merchant and messenger to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, it was more appropriate to use Aspen for clan business rather than Condor, a messenger horse of the realm.
“We sell the drays as a last resort, but perhaps, in the meantime, we can lease a few of them and our caravan wagons.”
“Good thinking.” Robert scratched down her instructions in his notes. “As for your father’s contributions to certain charities?”
She’d pondered over what to do about that.
Among the charities he contributed to, he maintained a home in Corsa called Garden House for women and children who had found themselves in intolerable circumstances.
If the clan stopped supporting them, they would swiftly go broke, leaving the beneficiaries in the lurch.
This was unacceptable, especially when it came to Garden House, which was the only lifeline available to many of the residents.
“Let me think on it.” Her personal income as a Green Rider was of little help, and all she earned was already going to her aunts.
Robert nodded.
“What else?” she asked. She just wanted to rest her head on the desk.
“I have heard your grandfather is in the city and is looking for you,” he replied, “but not why. Apparently he’s been pretty closed-mouth about his intentions. He is staying at Hillsdon Inn. Would you like me to set up a meeting?”
“No. I’ve no wish to meet him.” She was still curious, but not curious enough. “Do you have any good news?”
He winced. “I’m afraid not. The guild masters wish to see you at your earliest convenience. I’ve told them you’ve been ill. And one last thing.” He pulled a sealed envelope from the inner pocket of his longcoat and passed it to her. “Post rider brought it about a week ago.”
She inspected the seal, but it held no special markings. It was addressed to her at their previous place of business.
“I’ve been checking the old office for deliveries and such,” he explained.
She broke the seal and opened the letter. She smiled as she read. “Finally, some good news. Our agents have located Lucas Croft in Rivertown.” Croft was the accountant who had made off with a good portion of the G’ladheon financial holdings.
“That is excellent news.” Robert replied.
“Yes.” She read further and laughed. “Croft’s been spending lavishly at a particular inn of my acquaintance. The owner is a friend of my father’s and her employees tipped off our agents. They have been instrumental in obtaining information from him.”
“That is fortuitous,” Robert said.
Karigan had long ago gotten over her father’s attachment to the Golden Rudder, a high class brothel.
She did not know the exact history of his relationship with the madam, Silva Early, except that she had helped him in some way when he was just starting out as a merchant.
Together they operated Garden House, and thinking of Silva put Karigan in the mind to drop her a letter informing her of the bind the clan was in, in regards to funding the House.
Karigan would also pass on her thanks to Silva for continuing to look after Stevic G’ladheon’s interests in the case of Lucas Croft.
“If their plan to extract Croft went as expected,” she said, “then they’re already on their way here. The journey will take a while even if the weather holds, but it’ll be very satisfying to get my hands on that man.”
Later, after she had written her letter to Silva and pored over the ledgers to no avail, she rubbed her temples and decided it was time to return to the castle. She could do no more here and attempting to work on it was like a bird repeatedly flinging itself at a window.
She folded her arms on her desk and rested her head on them.
Numbers and debts and ledgers, among other problems, swirled in her mind, and she wished she could think about pleasanter subjects like horses, or her father bringing Colonel Mapstone home alive and well.
Spending time with Zachary without a dog present was certainly a.
..Well, a wistful longing, but a complicated situation, which made it not entirely a happy topic.
A busy mind working through a maelstrom of problems was not necessarily a bad thing.
Ever since her tumble through the stars, the dark of the heavens leached into the quiet spaces between her thoughts as if she had not entirely returned.
Even ordinary activities like riding Condor, eating dinner with her friends, and calculating numbers did not dispel the feeling.
Always the heavens lingered on the edge of awareness.
She yawned, her eyelids drooping and her vision blurring. Two objects gleamed in the dull light on her desk.
That’s odd.
She couldn’t seem to lift her head or move, and she felt caught in the finespun threads of dreaming, or, perhaps, a spell.
The two objects resolved into glass game pieces from Intrigue, and in some part of her consciousness she recalled seeing something like this before. She thought she ought to be alarmed, but could not wake.
Only a dream.
One game piece was of an archer, smoky gray in color, the other a green king. Her vision closed in on them, and it was like she shrank to their size and stood between them. The features of the king looked familiar. Too familiar.
The archer drew his bow, aimed it at the king.
She wanted to scream, move to shield him, but she could do nothing.
The archer loosed his arrow and it flew at the king.
Just before it hit, she jerked to a sitting position and blinked rapidly.
It took a few moments for her to remember where she was.
Her back, stiff from sitting so long in a room inadequately warmed by a small brazier that only seemed to pollute the air with smoke, further returned her to the present.
How long had her mind been wandering? But then she spotted the two game pieces on the edge of her desk, the king in the dead position.
She reached for them, but they evaporated in a sparkling green cloud.
“Shawdell,” she muttered.
His voice came to her then. “You thought we were finished? No, there will come a time...”
Fully awake now with no evidence the game pieces had ever existed, she knew this had been no dream, no matter how it had felt. There would not, she thought, “come a time” if she could help it. Shawdell might like to play games, but—
Raised voices drew her attention to the outer office. One definitely belonged to Robert. She set aside Shawdell and his little games and grabbed her staff, extended to full length. The neighborhood might not be dangerous, but it made her feel better to have it with her.
When she stepped into the outer office, she found Robert scuffling with a red-faced older man.
“Is there a problem?” she demanded.
They paused and she made sure their visitor saw her staff.
“Aye, there’s a problem,” the older man said. “This idiot won’t let me in to see you, granddaughter.”
The end of her staff thumped to the floor. “You will not abuse my secretary in words or action.”
“Now you listen here—”
“No.”
The look he gave her indicated few stood up to him.
She took in his seamed and ruddy features, the snapping eyes that were so like her father’s.
He was tall, but stooped, most likely from his lifelong occupation hauling nets and traps from the ocean.
He was missing a thumb on his left hand.
It was dangerous work, fishing, and it was etched into his face.
She said, “Robert knows I have no wish to see you and he was obeying my orders. He is acting on my behalf.”
Sutton G’ladheon sized her up in return. She’d worn her gray longcoat and breeches. But mostly his gaze rested on her face with its eyepatch.
“Edwin Turval was right,” he said. “You’ve the look of the Grays on you, but I see the G’ladheon, too.”
“Madam, do you wish me to—” Robert began.
“You may stay, Robert. Master G’ladheon was just leaving.”
“Just like that?” Sutton said. “I came a long way to see you. I keep getting turned away.”
And couldn’t take a hint. She said, “For good reason considering the rift in our family. I assume you intend to take me back to Black Island to marry Vernas Turval. Let me say right now, that would end very badly.” She shifted her staff to ensure he understood.
“Not to mention my service to the king would not permit such a thing.”
“Hmph. Heard you laid out Edwin’s crew real good. I’d’ve paid to see it. No, girl, I’m not here to drag you off to Black Island to marry that fool, Vernas.”
“Well, what a relief.” She could not hide the sarcasm in her voice.
“No Turval is good enough for a G’ladheon.”
“Then why did you make a marriage contract with them?”
Robert stood uneasily off to the side, watching them, his hands clasped behind his back.
“Back then, I was younger and ambitious,” Sutton said. “Edwin and I wanted a fishing empire.” He laughed. “I forgot about it to be honest, and the Turvals have since proven themselves...wanting.”
“They will be facing king’s law for attempting to abduct me and ignoring the king’s own command.”
“Will they now...”
The two of them fell silent, staring at one another.
“Er, perhaps I’ll make some tea,” Robert said, and he moved to the small stove that made his office warmer than her own, and started fussing with a pitcher of water and a kettle.
“I came here to warn you about the Turvals,” Sutton said, “but I got delayed in Corsa, so they got to you first. And then the weather got bad, but at least I saw Edwin at Corsa Harbor in an awful hurry to reach his boat.” His laugh grated like rust.
“If you had no reason to come,” Karigan said, “then why are you here?”
“I can’t come to see my own granddaughter?”
“You never have before.”
“Oh, I tried, but your father and aunts wouldn’t let me near you.”
She hadn’t known this, but was not surprised. “Might have something to do with how you treated them.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “If you are looking for apologies for things that happened before your birth, you will be disappointed. I did what I did. Fishing is no easy way of life and I had to push ’em.
We don’t...” His gaze tracked around the office.
“We don’t sit inside counting coinage. Though I have to say, this is lacking compared to what I’ve heard of your father’s wealth over the years, but your aunts have told me a thing or two about your problems.”
She started. “You saw them?”
“I did. That’s what delayed me in Corsa. They did not welcome me at first, but in the end, they asked me to deliver a letter to you, a letter delivered by family. That’s what I’m here for, to let you know that Stace is gone. Her condition took a turn and she passed away on Feast of Vendane.”