Calling for a merchant in the middle of the night was not the beginning of a good deal.
Kael knew that.
Night drove up prices. The late hour became an excuse, and urgency became a weakness.
An estate with its lamps lit, a baron confined to his sickbed, a sealed depot, a signature not yet dry. Half of it smelled of money. The other half smelled of blood.
"Did you truly send for her?"
Edric asked.
He was organizing Aldren's manuscript and the Interested-Party Confirmation.
"I did."
"It is late at night."
"That is why she will be useful if she comes."
"And if she does not?"
"Then she is even less useful."
"Your standards for judging people are truly uncomfortable, Young Master."
"So are ledgers."
Rowan sat on the steps by the entrance. His sword rested across his black-clad knees.
Then hoofbeats sounded outside the front door.
It was not a carriage.
It was a single horse.
Rowan rose, and the gatekeeper cautiously opened the door.
A woman entered with the cold night air.
She wore a dark brown traveling coat, her skirt hem stained with dust, and carried an old counting board in her gloved hand.
She looked over the aged chandelier, the reduced number of servants, the peeling banister, and then Kael in turn.
"Coming to a fallen noble's estate in the middle of the night usually means one of three things."
The woman said,
"Gambling, blackmail, or fraud."
She swept the hall as though searching for a frightened face.
When she failed to find one, she looked instead for a face that could be priced.
Rowan's brows lifted.
Kael said,
"Mira Belka?"
"I am not the head of the Belka Trading Company yet, but I am Mira."
"I am Kael Riorden."
"I know. The loudest debt-ridden noble in the east these days."
Mira shrugged.
"My apologies if that offended you. If I dress up facts too prettily, the calculations get tangled."
"Facts are good."
Kael pointed to the table in the middle of the hall.
"Sit."
"Price first, before I sit."
"What price?"
"The price for being summoned in the middle of the night. The price of horse feed. The price of lost sleep. The price of getting involved."
Rowan let out a snort of laughter.
"An invoice the moment you cross the threshold."
Mira looked at him.
"The man with the sword may remain quiet. Judging by how worn your scabbard is, it seems you have wages in arrears."
Rowan's mouth shut.
Kael looked at Mira again. She was quick-eyed. The moment she stepped inside, she had roughly calculated Riorden's circumstances.
"We will set the price once the deal is done."
"That is a fraud nobles often commit."
"Then do you want payment in advance?"
"You do not have the money to pay in advance."
"Then I will first tell you why you came here. It is because of Madam Selena's name."
Her gaze turned toward the side door.
Selena stood there.
"It has been a long time, Mira."
"Madam."
Mira gave a brief bow.
It was not the etiquette she would use for a noble.
It was the greeting she gave an old business partner.
"This is not my deal this time."
Selena looked at Kael.
"It is my son's."
Mira's gaze returned to Kael.
"All right. The scent is not bad. I will have to see whether it is the scent of money or the scent of blood."
At those words, one servant swallowed, and Mira smiled as though she had calculated even that small sound.
Kael nodded to Edric.
Edric spread three documents across the table.
The Grayden inventory. Aldren's Interested-Party Confirmation. The final digits of the Temple notarial number.
At first, Mira looked over the documents carelessly. Then slowly. At last, she set down her counting board.
"Where did you get these?"
"The Grayden Military Supply Depot."
"That place has been sealed."
"That is why it has value."
"You are saying you will sell supplies inside a sealed depot?"
"Not the supplies. The right of recovery."
"Wordplay."
"A right."
"Nobles like the word 'right.' Especially when they have nothing in their hands."
Kael did not answer.
Mira lowered her gaze to the inventory.
"Forty-eight bundles of military leather straps. Eleven sets of repair tools. Twenty-seven bottles of fever-reducing distillate."
Her finger stopped at the fever-reducing distillate.
"Is this genuine?"
"We confirmed it inside the depot."
"Its condition?"
"It was clear."
"The crate?"
"The lower compartment of a moldy medicine crate."
"Someone hid it on purpose."
"Why do you think so?"
"There are two kinds of people who hide medicine. Those who stole it, and those who do not want anyone to discover that they stole it."
Mira tapped her counting board.
"If an epidemic fever spreads through Caldran in late spring, the price will triple. It would not be bad collateral."
"The normal purchase price cannot be assessed. But as a risky deal, it has value. The reason Seradin tried to stop it is worth even more."
"How much?"
"For a collateralized deal, the equivalent of three hundred gold coins."
Edric's hand stopped.
"Three hundred gold..."
"Additional settlement after the rights are confirmed. If the deal fails, Riorden will pay me forty gold coins in compensation for my losses."
Selena spoke at once.
"That is too high."
"It is low. There is Seradin, the Temple, a sealed depot, and a sickbed signature. Four risks are attached."
Kael looked at Mira.
"You do not want only money."
Mira's hand stopped.
"What are you talking about all of a sudden?"
"Forty gold coins is too little as payment for risk. What you want instead is to put your name on this deal."
Mira's eyes turned cold.
"A name is not free."
"Belka's name even less so, I imagine."
The playfulness disappeared from Mira's face.
"Where did you hear that name?"
"From my mother."
"And beyond that?"
Kael looked at the small leather ledger Mira had brought.
Red letters seeped from its corner.
[Unpaid Military Supply Transport Cost]
[Payer: Belka Trading Company]
[Party Billed: Deleted]
Kael did not speak at once.
Ability was like a sword. If he drew it too quickly, the other party would not deal with him.
"Your father was caught by a similar document as well."
Mira laughed.
The laugh was short and sharp.
"My lord."
"Speak."
"I call men who pretend to know things that way frauds."
"Am I wrong?"
"The frauds who are right are even worse."
"My father signed that kind of contract and died as well. A proper transport contract, Temple notarization, military supply office guarantee. Three fine-sounding words were attached."
"And then the money never came. The supplies went out, the carriages broke down, and in the ledger Belka became responsible for the failed transport."
Kael listened quietly.
"So do not pretend in front of me that this is a proper deal. If it is fraud, call it fraud. If it is gambling, call it gambling."
"It is gambling."
Kael said.
Mira's eyes stopped.
"But we are not the only ones placing stakes."
"Who else is paying more?"
"Seradin."
"They do not want this inventory to reach the market. The Temple will have difficulty ignoring a confirmation bearing Aldren's signature. You will attach proof of the deal between them."
"You mean to use my name as a shield."
"A shield that is paid."
"You speak well."
"If I could not, I would be dead."
Mira was briefly at a loss for words.
"We cannot sell the supplies at once. But we can create proof of a deal secured by the supplies. Belka receives the priority right to buy them, and Riorden uses that proof to request access to the ledger."
"So you mean to sell bottles of medicine that you do not have in your hands yet."
"Yes."
"All right. You are saying we should set up a merchant's funeral parlor in front of the Temple doors."
"If it fails?"
"The forty gold coins in compensation I mentioned."
"Do you have them?"
"No."
Mira blinked.
"You do not?"
"Not now."
"Wow."
"All right. Then I need collateral."
"What do you want?"
"If the recovery succeeds, Belka receives the exclusive right to purchase the twenty-seven bottles of fever-reducing distillate. The price will be seventy percent of the market price at the time of recovery."
Edric spoke at once.
"That is too low."
"In return, I will serve as witness to the deal and accompany you to the Eastern Temple Branch. If the young noble goes alone, the Temple will turn him away at the door."
Rowan asked,
"Would they not think even less of you if a fallen merchant accompanied you?"
"No."
Mira said,
"They will find it more troublesome. Merchants spread the word in the market when they are turned away at the door."
She had chosen the supplies whose price would rise the most. Greed was predictable.
"Sixty percent."
"Sixty-five. In return, I will accompany you to the Temple Branch, draft the proof of the deal, and manage the rumors in the market."
"Manage the rumors?"
"If Seradin hears too early, we die. If they hear too late, the price will not rise. It needs to leak at the right time."
It was expensive. But what they needed now was an outside witness to open the Temple's door, and the eyes of the market.
"Fine."
Edric looked at Kael anxiously.
"Young Master."
"Write it down."
Mira raised a hand.
"Wait. I will write the draft. Noble language is needlessly grand, and it leaves too many loopholes to slip through later."
She took a bundle of thin contracts from her bag.
"You brought contracts with you?"
Edric asked.
"Would I come empty-handed when visiting a noble estate in the middle of the night? That is not courage. It is stupidity."
Mira began writing swiftly.
The subject was twenty-seven bottles of fever-reducing distillate.
If Riorden proved its rights, Belka would receive a priority right to purchase them.
Belka would sign as an external witness to the deal and accompany Riorden's request to inspect the Eastern Temple Branch Notarial Ledger.
If the claim of rights failed due to fault on Riorden's side, compensation for losses would be forty gold coins.
Mira stopped her pen.
"This part is important. Fault on Riorden's side. If Seradin or the Temple blocks you and that makes it fail, that is not your responsibility."
Edric said carefully,
"That clause is favorable to us."
"I know."
"Why include it?"
"I will deal with a fraud, but I will not deal with a foolish victim. Making you pay compensation for losses under any circumstance would be theft."
Mira hated losing deals. But she hated winning by fleecing the weak even more.
"Why are you smiling?"
"You are a more expensive merchant than I thought."
"If that is a compliment, I will raise the price."
"It is not a compliment."
Kael picked up the pen.
Kael Riorden.
Mira Belka.
At that moment, red letters appeared in Kael's vision.
[External Transaction Proof Established]
[Interested-Party Proof Reinforced]
[Request to Inspect the Eastern Temple Branch Notarial Ledger Available]
Kael folded the document.
Mira watched his expression and asked,
"What is it? Suddenly, I feel as though I bought something too cheaply."
"You did."
"That is a very ominous thing to say."
"We leave tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?"
"At sunrise."
"You call me in the middle of the night, sign a contract at dawn, and head for the Temple at sunrise. My lord, do you charge sleep as an expense too?"
"If necessary."
"No. I truly hate this."
Though she said that, she took one copy of the contract for herself.
"But I will go."
"Why?"
Mira did not answer for a moment.
Then she rested a finger on the list of recoverable supplies.
"Because there is a scent."
"The scent of money?"
"There is the scent of money, too."
"There is also the scent I smelled on the day my father died."
The hall fell silent.
Mira immediately erased her expression.
"So do not misunderstand. I am not going out of goodwill."
"I know."
"If there is no profit in it, I will pull out at once."
"I know that too."
"And if you are a fraud, my lord, I will be the first to announce it in the middle of the market."
"Then name a high price."
Mira paused.
Then she gave a small laugh.
"All right. I like that joke a little."
Kael put away the contract.
The night was not over yet.
But for the first time, an outsider's name had been entered into Riorden's ledger.
Mira Belka.
A merchant who had followed the scent of money.
And perhaps the one who knew better than anyone the scent of the debt the Empire had erased.