‘But...’ Venart let his hands fall to his sides. ‘What about everybody else?’ he said. ‘Surely there must be somebody . . .’
Ortenan shook his head. ‘Went through this district like a cloud of locusts,’ he said darkly. ‘Cleaned the lot of us out. Said it was for catapult ropes,’ he added, as if that was the most idiotic notion he’d ever heard. ‘So I’m afraid you’re out of luck, mate. Should’ve done a deal yesterday, like I told you. Then you’d have your rope and I’d have my money.’
Venart thought for a moment. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you make some more rope, instead of just sitting there? Did they take all the raw materials as well?’
‘No,’ Ortenan replied. ‘But why the hell should I bother? Anything I make’s got to be sold to the government, otherwise they’ll sling me in the coop and fine me to buggery, because of this so-called state of emergency.’ He curled his lips and spat. ‘Well, they know what they can do. When I see some money - real money, not this paper stuff -
then
I might just consider making some more stock. Till then, they can go play with themselves. My materials won’t go off for sitting in the bins for a week.’
A brief tour of the district confirmed what Ortenan had said. There was nothing to be had, except a few hundred yards of soggy and mildewed mess which the government buyers had rejected, and Venart decided he didn’t really want that. Dejected, he went back to the inn.
‘That’s a nuisance,’ Vetriz said when he told her. ‘And after you spent all that time and energy researching the subject. Whereas if you’d just blundered into it and bought the first stuff that came your way, you’d now have the next best thing to a world monopoly of the rope trade and be able to name your own price.’
Venart scowled at her, which made her giggle. ‘I’m glad you think it’s so amusing,’ he snapped. ‘I hope you’ll still be laughing your silly head off when we sail home with an empty hold.’
‘But we won’t do that, will we?’ Vetriz replied. ‘Because all we’ve got to do is buy something else. Or hadn’t that occurred to you?’
Venart sat down and took off his left boot; he’d got something sharp in it on the way back from the ropewalks. ‘Oh, yes, and what exactly did you have in mind? Or have you been secretly studying the markets while I’ve been out frivolously working my fingers to the bone to keep you in—’
‘There’s plenty of things we can buy,’ Vetriz said, with a truly aggravating air of patience. ‘So long as we get the right price.’
‘Right, then. Suggest something.’
Vetriz nodded. ‘Carpet,’ she said promptly.
‘Carpet?’
‘Carpet.’ She studied her fingernails for a moment, then continued, ‘Where does all the carpet on the Island come from?’
Venart thought about it. ‘Blemmyra,’ he said. ‘Direct,’ he added.
‘Very good. But what you haven’t noticed, because you’ve been too busy mugging up on twelve-ply pure flax this-that-and-the-other is that the Blemmyra carpet they’re selling here is better than the stuff we get at home and about a third of the price.’
‘Oh.’ Venart scratched his head. ‘You sure?’ he added.
‘Sure I’m sure. I was looking for some yesterday to replace that mouldy bit of rag I’ve got on the wall of my bedroom. I happened to notice the price and mentioned it to Athli and she explained it to me. You see, the Blemmyrans buy all their wine in the Mesoge, but they ship it in their own barrels to save money, and barrel staves are so much cheaper than at home because the Hesichians bring them in as ballast on their big bulk freighters. So the barrel staves cost the Perimadeians next to nothing, which means they can sell the carpets they get in exchange from the Blemmyrans much cheaper than we can;
and
they’re much more fussy than we are, so they insist on the good stuff, and we get all the carpet the Perimadeians don’t want.’ She yawned. ‘It’s called international commerce,’ she added insufferably. ‘You should find out about it when you’ve finished studying rope.’
‘Carpet,’ Venart said. ‘Fine. And have you thought about how much carpet we can actually get rid of in our quaint little backwater home? It’s not exactly a high-volume seller, is it?’
‘It could be,’ Vetriz replied, ‘if it was nice stuff and the price was right. I don’t blame us for not wanting to be robbed blind for second-rate rubbish. Proper carpet, on the other hand—’
Venart shook his head. ‘I’m not gambling our working capital on some theory you and your new chum cooked up while you were out shopping,’ he growled. ‘What I
am
going to do is go and see this man Loredan, if I can.’
‘Loredan?’ Vetriz looked up sharply. ‘Why?’
‘He’s the only person we know in the government,’ he replied. ‘Think about it, will you? They’re buying up all the rope in the city; but a lot of that rope’s no good for catapults, so presumably they’ll sell off the stuff they can’t use on the surplus market. Unless,’ he went on with a smug grin, ‘someone makes them an offer for it first. Cheap government surplus rope, best quality, one careful owner? The secret of international commerce is being able to see the opportunity that lurks inside every disaster. Plus,’ he added, ‘knowing something about the commodities you deal in. In my case, rope. See you later, don’t wander off.’
It had seemed a conclusive argument when he’d been explaining it to Vetriz. It was still a good argument by the time he reached the council buildings. After he’d spent an hour waiting outside a clerk’s office only to be given a chit that would allow him to see another clerk at the opposite end of the building, it was nothing more than a hare-brained scheme, and he’d reached the point where he would gladly have traded all his notional future earnings from the rope business in exchange for a floor plan of the building with the exits clearly marked when he nearly walked into someone he thought he recognised.
‘Sorry,’ the man said. ‘Wasn’t looking where I was going.’
‘You’re Bardas Loredan,’ Venart replied. ‘I was just coming to see you.’
‘Well, here I am,’ Loredan replied. ‘I think I know you from somewhere, but I can’t say exactly—’
‘We met in a tavern,’ Venart said. ‘I was with my sister. You’d just fought a case against a man called Alvise.’
Loredan smiled. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘I had an idea it was something to do with a tavern, but most people I meet in taverns I deliberately try and forget. What can I do for you?’
Suddenly, Venart’s tigerish trading urge wilted. What he was going to suggest was probably illegal; certainly bad form and morally repugnant. Terribly short-sighted, too; here he had a contact at the highest level of the city government, and he was proposing to alienate him on the offchance of making a quick quarter on a load of rope. It was too late to back out now, however. He took a deep breath and started into his sales pitch, doing his best to lard it solid with
if you think it’d be all right
s and
so long as it’d be in order
s. Eventually he ground to a halt and stood nervously on one leg, waiting for Loredan to summon the guard.
‘Well,’ Loredan said after a moment, ‘it’d certainly help me out of an awkward position. The clowns in the Quartermaster’s Office were only supposed to take an inventory, not bring the stuff back with them by the cartload; so we were facing the prospect of either giving back the stuff we can’t use, which wouldn’t be easy since they didn’t bother to mark on the barrels where each lot came from, or else pay up on the assignats when the ropemakers present them for payment. Either way it’s a bit of a shambles, so selling the stuff on seems a fairly good idea.’ He paused. ‘Did you say you wanted the lot or only part of it? To be frank with you, I’d be rather more inclined to agree if I could get rid of all the unwanted stuff in one go.’
Venart licked his lips, which had become rather dry. ‘Certainly I’d be interested in taking the lot,’ he said, ignoring the frantic protests from the back of his mind. ‘It would of course depend on the, er, price.’
Loredan nodded. ‘That’d have to be strictly by valuation,’ he said. ‘Quartermaster’s valuer puts a price on what we’re going to have to pay. You give us that and we can balance our books and forget it ever happened. I understand that standard practice for government purchasing is to split the difference between cost price and what the seller would have got for the stuff selling to the trade. I hope that’s all right, because I daren’t go any lower.’
All the medium- and coarse-grade rope in Perimadeia, at less than trade . . .
‘That’s fine,’ Venart muttered. ‘Yes, I’d be quite happy with that.’
Loredan actually looked relieved. ‘That’s one less thing for me to worry about then,’ he said, rubbing his temples as if he had a headache. ‘Good thing I happened to bump into you. Oh, one other point. If you could let us have a quarter, say, up front and the balance in a month’s time, that’d help things along a bit. You know, I’m starting to get the enemy and the auditors muddled up in my mind. I’m terrified of both of them, but the auditors know where I live.’
Venart, who had been wondering how quickly he could raise a hundred per cent mortgage on his ship, swallowed hard and said, ‘That’s no problem at all.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘I can probably give you a quarter now, if it’s any help. Subject to valuation,’ he added quickly.
‘Splendid,’ Loredan said. He closed his eyes and opened them again, as if the light was bothering him. ‘Bit of a morning head,’ he explained. ‘Look, if you can spare the time we can go over to the Quartermaster’s Office right now and get the paperwork drawn up. Is that all right, or are you in a hurry to get somewhere?’
Gods bless the government service
, Venart said to himself as he followed Loredan through the rat’s nest of corridors and cloisters.
The inefficient, bungling, inexhaustibly rich government service. I can have the whole lot sold before I need to pay the balance. I wonder if there’s anything else they’ve got too much of?
‘They’ll do the valuation today,’ he told Vetriz, when he got back to the inn, ‘and release the stuff to us tomorrow. They’re even going to cart it down to the docks and load it for us, would you believe? And they accepted the cash I had with me as the quarter up front, so as soon as the stuff’s on board, we can get home and start selling. It’s unreal,’ he added. ‘The way it’s worked out, it’s enough to make you believe in miracles.’
‘Oh, good,’ Vetriz replied. ‘So you’ve spent all the money, then?’
‘Of course I’ve spent all the money. D’you think I was going to let an opportunity like this slip through my hands for the sake of trying to shave a bit off the deposit?’
Vetriz nodded. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘What it comes down to is, you’ve agreed to buy all the rope in the city, except for all the good-quality stuff they’re keeping for the catapults, and you don’t even know yet what the price is going to be. And now there’s nothing left in the box to try out my idea about the carpets. Fine. You’re the businessman.’
For the sake of a quiet life Venart decided he hadn’t heard that. ‘And if this works,’ he went on, ‘who knows, we might be able to do it again with something else. Apparently the Quartermaster’s Office is virtually out of control; they’re grabbing stuff right, left and centre and handing out paper to all the merchants. Just think of what they might buy up next; timber, nails, pig-iron—’
‘Did you say Loredan had a headache?’ Vetriz interrupted.
‘What? Oh, yes, I think he did. Probably explains why he wanted to get it all over and done with quickly, so he could go and lie down. What the devil’s that got to do with anything?’
Vetriz shrugged. ‘Just interested, that’s all. I seem to remember I had a bad head the day we went and saw the Patriarch.’
‘Huh? Well, hard luck, I’m so sorry. It’s probably something to do with the weather; thunderstorm on its way, something like that. Damn it, Vetriz, I thought you’d be
pleased
about this deal.’
‘Oh, I am, really’, she replied absently. ‘Jolly well done, and let’s hope it doesn’t go wrong, with all our money at stake. It’s funny, you mentioning miracles. We do seem to be having something of a run of luck.’ She grinned. ‘Maybe that nice Patriarch put a spell on us. Wouldn’t that be fun?’
From the top of the slope overlooking the new camp, Temrai could see the city. In a strange way it was like coming home.
In his hand he jingled a couple of reckoning counters; loot from a caravan of merchants who’d made the mistake of assuming the rumours of the clan’s advance were the usual irresponsible scaremongering. It had been a stroke of luck; a set of counters and a counting board were likely to prove as useful as five hundred archers once the job began. He’d learnt simple accounting while he was in the city; the wages clerk in the arsenal had been only too happy to show off his skills to someone prepared to take an interest. An endearing and very helpful Perimadeian characteristic, this urge to disseminate useful knowledge.
Pretty things they were, too. On one side, the city arms; on the other, more or less exactly the view he was looking at now, the city in all its picturesque strength, smug as a landlord behind its guaranteed-secure walls, with the sea behind and the river as a moat keeping the unruly elements from the interior at a respectful distance. Well, he said to himself, I’ll keep these safe, just in case someone in years to come wants to know what the city looked like, before Temrai pulled it down.
Temrai; Temrai the what? Temrai the Great, Temrai the Magnificent, Temrai the Terrible, Temrai the Cruel - he’d be happy to settle for Temrai the First, or just plain Temrai. But just-plains don’t destroy the greatest city in the world.
Assuming it turned out to be possible, of course. No guarantee of that; the thought that he might fail was almost reassuring, because if he failed he wouldn’t have to be Temrai-Sacker-Of-Cities, Temrai the Butcher.
How about Temrai the Engineer? He could fancy the sound of that, rather more than Temrai the Great, certainly more than Temrai the Slaughterer. As for Temrai-Who-Bit-Off-More-Than-He-Could-Chew, that wasn’t the kind of immortality he was keen on.