"Then let us appraise your price again."
Viktor Seradin's voice was gentle.
That gentleness made it more dangerous. Those who raised their voices shook the room, but quiet people shook others to their core.
Kael looked around the accounting room.
Ledgers filled every wall. War ledgers, trading company ledgers, ledgers of territorial tax revenue, and lists of noble families' marriage expenses and dowries. They looked like bookshelves on the surface, but to Kael, they looked like chains binding people.
Viktor sat behind the desk.
Black hair, white hands, a face whose age was impossible to gauge. He was smiling, but his eyes were not.
In his past life, Kael had learned that name too late. The supply route had been cut, and Riorden had already fallen.
Viktor Seradin. The man who set the price of other people's signatures in the margins of ledgers.
"Sit."
Kael looked at the chair.
It was low. Only very slightly. If he sat across the desk, he would have to look up at Viktor.
Mira noticed first and smiled. "You even calculated the chair."
Viktor's gaze turned to Mira.
"You are the daughter of the Belka Trading Company."
"I hope there is still a trading company worthy of calling me its daughter."
"Trading companies disappear, but ledgers remain."
Mira's smile thinned.
"And whoever altered those ledgers remains as well."
Viktor's eyes gleamed with brief pleasure.
"Good. Negotiations are less tedious when someone speaks quickly."
Rowan did not sit. He stood behind Kael's right shoulder.
A clerk said cautiously,
"The escort should wait in the antechamber..."
"He stays here."
"Under the marquess's rules, armed men are not permitted in the accounting room..."
"Bring me the document where that rule is written."
The clerk closed his mouth.
Viktor raised a hand. "Let him stay. Young Master Riorden seems to be fond of documents, so today, it may be best to place people where they are comfortable as well."
"Where people are comfortable."
Kael did not sit in the low chair. Instead, he rested a hand on its back.
"This is a room where the chair is calculated before the people."
"A good room persuades its guests."
"It does not persuade them. It tilts them."
"If one can win on a tilted board, that is true skill."
"It becomes cheap when the one who tilted the board says that."
Viktor's smile did not disappear.
"You are more interesting than the rumors suggested."
"I heard you called for me more cheaply than the rumors suggested."
"That is why I said we should appraise your price again."
Viktor rang the silver bell on the desk.
A clerk entered carrying a thin ledger bound in black leather.
[Contact Proposal]
[Target: Kael Riorden]
[Purpose: Conciliation, Acquisition of Supply Rights, Management of Risk Variables]
[Author: House Seradin Accounting Office]
Viktor opened the ledger.
"The Riorden Barony is unstable at present."
"That is a strange thing to say from the people who tried to bring it down."
"There are two kinds of collapse in this world. The collapse in which something breaks and ends. And the collapse in which it stands again by leaning on someone's hand."
"You mean we should lean on House Seradin's hand?"
"It is a reasonable restructuring."
Mira murmured under her breath.
"Merchants always say things like that when they are taking down someone else's signboard."
Viktor pretended not to hear and slid over the first page.
"Seradin can settle part of Riorden's short-term debt."
Edric's eyes wavered.
It was only natural. Short-term debt, unpaid wages, food costs, repair expenses. To say they would pull all those nails out at once was sweet to a fallen noble.
Too sweet.
[Repayment Proposal]
[Surface Terms: Assumption of 40 Percent of Short-Term Debt]
[Supplementary Terms: Priority Negotiation Rights for Riorden's Supply Rights]
[Hidden Terms: Transfer of Grayden Warehouse Rights]
[Long-Term Cost: Loss of Claim Rights to the Eastern Supply Route]
Kael touched the first line with his fingertip.
"Forty percent."
"A realistic figure."
"Does theft become courteous when it is realistic?"
One of the clerks swallowed.
Viktor smiled slowly.
"You think it is too low."
"It is not low. It is pointed in the wrong direction. Riorden did not come here to borrow money."
Kael pushed the ledger away.
"We came to confirm the money we are owed."
Viktor tapped the desk once with a finger.
Tap.
It was a small sound, but all the clerks froze at once.
Kael saw their reaction. Even one of Viktor's fingers carried a price.
[Cost of Maintaining Silence]
[Target: 6 Clerks of the Accounting Office]
[Loss Upon Violation: Dismissal, Recovery of Family Subsidies]
The hand of a young clerk trembled. The inside of his sleeve had been mended many times.
[Family Subsidy: 3 Silver per Month]
[Recipient: A Sick Mother]
[Paying Party: House Seradin Accounting Office]
[Cost of Leaving: Treatment Discontinued]
People with prices attached to them.
The walls of the Seradin estate had been raised with people's weaknesses.
Viktor said,
"I do not wish to have you as an enemy."
"Because my price is high?"
"Because you are useful."
It sounded like praise, but there was a blade in it.
Useful.
The coldest price tag one could put on a person.
"Please continue with the terms."
Viktor turned to the second page.
"The matter of the Grayden warehouse can be settled as an old administrative error, and Seradin can mediate the dispute between the Temple and the Military Supply Office. The honor of the Riorden Barony will be restored as well."
"And?"
"I can also help with Miss Ria Riorden's marriage proposal."
Rowan's hand touched his sword hilt. Mira's eyes turned cold.
Kael raised a hand to stop them.
The room fell silent.
"There is a good family. One that would be almost more than Riorden deserves."
"A marriage proposal that is more than one deserves is usually a debt."
"It is stability for the family."
"Whose family?"
Instead of answering, Viktor smiled.
[Pressure Point: Ria Riorden]
[Use: Dispersal of Family Decision-Making Authority]
[Expected Effect: Reduced Negotiating Resistance from Kael Riorden]
[Supplementary Costs: Marriage Brokerage Fee, Bridal Dowry Adjustment]
Anger rose in him. But if he put it out immediately, Viktor would put a price on it.
"Does House Seradin's Accounting Office attach a budget even to someone else's younger sister's marriage proposal?"
Viktor's eyes narrowed slightly.
"There are many ways to save a family."
"Then you must have written it down. The budget for adjusting Ria Riorden's marriage proposal."
The accounting room froze.
Mira laughed very quietly.
"Ah, that is good."
Kael looked at the clerks.
"If there is not one, then write that there is not one. House Seradin's Accounting Office has neither the intention nor the budget to involve itself in Ria Riorden's marriage proposal."
The young clerk's hand trembled more.
Viktor did not look at that clerk. But the clerk already knew. It was a sentence that must not be written.
Viktor slowly leaned back in his chair.
"You are truly dangerous."
"I am still putting it cheaply."
"Cheaply?"
"If I make it costly, the clerks will get hurt."
For the first time, Viktor's smile stopped completely.
Kael did not miss that moment.
Viktor had a price list too. The silence and dignity of the accounting room.
"Very well. We will leave the matter of marriage proposals for later."
"No. There will not be a later, either."
Edric's pen stopped above the paper.
"The Riorden family is not a bargaining item."
Viktor looked at Kael.
"You are being emotional."
"No. When something that cannot have a price tag is put on a price list, that ledger becomes a wrong ledger."
Mira nodded.
"Merchants hate wrong ledgers too. They always cause trouble later."
Viktor slowly ran a finger across the desk.
"Fine. We will remove the family."
He opened the third page.
"Then let us speak of you."
[Conciliation Item: Kael Riorden]
[Offer: Special Aide to the House Seradin Accounting Office]
[Surface Reward: Debt Settlement, Preservation of Status, Path to Advancement in the Capital]
[Hidden Cost: Abandonment of Riorden's Independence Rights]
[Long-Term Purpose: Evaluation of the Value of Unidentified Calculation Ability]
Kael's gaze stopped at the final line.
Unidentified calculation ability.
The red letters translated Viktor's intent that way. Viktor had noticed something.
He remembered what Ramun had said.
You do not know what you are calculating.
"Are you not interested in the capital?"
"If I were the person I used to be, perhaps I would be."
Viktor did not miss that small opening.
"Is the person you were different from the person you are now?"
"My price has changed."
"Because of what?"
"Because the people I have to repay have changed."
Viktor was silent.
"I thought I could buy you."
"You saw me as expensive."
"No. There is no one who cannot be bought. Some are bought with money, some with fear, and some with family."
Rowan's eyes sharpened.
Kael smiled.
"That is why there are so many people with prices attached to them in the Seradin estate."
Viktor's gaze went to the clerks for the briefest moment.
It was an instant. But it was enough.
"Watch your words."
"Why? Which person here is loyal for free?"
The young clerk's face went pale. The older clerk lowered his head.
"Wages, family subsidies, debt assumption, retention of weaknesses. It is an excellent structure. People stay bound the longest when they cannot see the cord around their necks."
"You can see them, it seems."
Kael did not answer.
That lack of an answer was an answer.
Viktor's eyes deepened. Curiosity, greed, and wariness surfaced at once.
"That makes me want you even more."
Mira clicked her tongue.
"You talk in front of a person as though you are choosing merchandise."
"Do merchants not always look at merchandise?"
"A merchant is someone who can tell the difference between a person pretending to be merchandise and merchandise pretending to be a person."
Viktor looked at Mira and smiled.
"A daughter of Belka indeed."
"We can discuss whether you have the right to say that name after the accounts are settled."
Kael closed the ledger.
Thump.
"I have heard the offer."
"Your answer?"
"It is a wrong ledger."
"Will you give me a chance to correct it?"
"Of course."
Kael took the Riorden seal pouch from inside his coat. The old pouch looked shabby. But something shabby and something cheap were not the same.
"If you wish to buy Riorden's warehouse rights, first bring back the missing supplies."
Viktor's eyes narrowed.
"The Grayden warehouse?"
"Eighteen bottles of Fever-Reducing Distillate. Seven sacks of flour. And the remaining supplies that were removed without a record."
"That is a matter for the Military Supply Office."
"It bore the seal of House Seradin's Accounting Office."
"A seal can be evidence, or it can be decoration."
"That is why I am telling you to bring them back. So I can determine whether it is evidence or decoration."
Viktor looked at Kael for a long time.
[Negotiation Structure Changed]
[Seradin Offer: Conciliation]
[Riorden Response: Counterclaim]
[Opponent's Cost Increased]
The board was still tilted. But at least Kael had not sat in the low chair.
Viktor clapped once slowly.
Clap.
"Excellent. Truly excellent."
"Praise cannot be put on an invoice."
"No. But it can be put on an invitation."
Viktor signaled to a clerk.
"There is a banquet at the marquess's estate tonight. Eastern nobles and trading company owners will gather there."
Mira said quietly,
"You are making the board bigger?"
"I am showing you the board that has already grown."
Viktor looked at Kael.
"Let us speak again there. You may hear something as well about where the eighteen bottles you are looking for went."
[Public Appraisal]
[Purpose: Measuring Kael Riorden's Market Value]
[Supplementary Risk: Possible Mention of Ria Riorden's Marriage Proposal]
[Hidden Item: Distribution Route of the Fever-Reducing Distillate]
Kael accepted the invitation.
"Good."
Viktor smiled.
"Will you come?"
"I have to."
Kael folded the invitation.
"The more onlookers there are, the better, if we are going to appraise the price again."