Rise of a Merchant Prince (9 page)

The man died before the knife was out of his belt.

“It's over,” said Roo.

A moment later, Duncan and Tom appeared, wraithlike in the gloom. “Just two of them?” asked Duncan.

“If there's another, he's halfway to Krondor,” said Tom. He had obviously fallen hard, as he was dirty from boot to the top of his head on his left side, and he had a bruise on his left cheek. He held his right arm across his chest, holding tight to his left biceps, and flexed the fingers of his left hand.

“What's the matter?” asked Roo.

“Fell damn hard on this arm, I guess,” answered
his father. “It's all tingly and numb.” He seemed short of breath as he spoke. Blowing out a long note, he added, “Some time of it, that was. Not ashamed to admit I was scared for a bit.”

Duncan knelt and rolled over the bandit. “This one looks like a ragpicker,” he said.

“Few honest traders and only a few more dishonest ones brave this route,” said Tom. “Never been a rich outlaw I heard of, and certainly not around here.” He shook his hand as if trying to wake up a sleeping limb.

Duncan came away with a purse. “He might not have been rich, but he wasn't coinless, either.” He opened the purse and found a few copper coins and a single stone. Walking back into the light of the campfire, he knelt to inspect the gem. “Nothing fancy, but it'll fetch a coin or two.”

Roo said, “Better see if the other one is dead.”

He found the first man he had encountered lying facedown in the mud, and when he rolled him over, discovered a boy's face on the corpse. Shaking his head in disgust, Roo quickly found the boy without even the rude leather pouch the other bandit had possessed.

He returned to the wagons as Duncan put down the bow he had taken from the first bandit. “Pretty poor,” he said, tossing it aside. “Ran out of arrows.” Roo sat down with an audible sigh.

“What do you think they'd be doing with all this wine?” asked Duncan.

“Probably drink a bit,” said Tom. “But it was the horses and whatever coin we carry, and the swords you have and anything else they could sell.”

Duncan said, “We bury them?”

Roo shook his head. “They'd not have done the same for us. Besides, we've no shovel. And I'm not about to dig their graves with my hands.” He sighed. “If they'd been proper bandits, we'd have been feeding the crows tomorrow instead of them. Better keep alert.”

Duncan said, “Well then, I'm turning in.”

Tom and Roo sat before the fire. Because of his age, Roo and Duncan allowed Tom the first watch. The man with the second had it roughest, having to awake for a few hours in the dark, then turn in again. Roo also knew that dawn was the most dangerous time for attack, as guards were the sleepiest and least alert and anyone contemplating a serious assault would wait for just before sunrise. Chances were near-certain if Tom had morning watch, should trouble come he'd be sound asleep when he died.

Tom said, “Had a stone like that one Duncan's got, once.” Roo said nothing. His father rarely talked to him, a habit that had developed in childhood. Rupert had traveled with his father many times as a boy, learning the teamster's trade, but on the longest of those journeys, from Ravensburg to Salador and back, he'd rarely had more than ten words for the boy. When at home, Tom drank to excess, and when working, remained sober but stoic.

“I got it for your mother,” said Tom quietly.

Roo was riveted. If Tom was a quiet man when sober, he was always silent about Roo's mother, sober or drunk. Roo knew what he did about his mother from others in the village, for she had died in childbirth.

“She was a tiny thing,” said Tom. Roo knew his diminutive status was a legacy from his mother.
Erik's mother had mentioned that more than once. “But strong,” said Tom.

Roo found that surprising. “She had a tough grit to her,” continued Tom, his eyes shining in the firelight. “You look like her, you know.” He held his right arm across his chest, clutching his left arm, which he massaged absently. He peered into the fire as if seeking something in the dancing flame.

Roo nodded, afraid to speak. Since he had struck his father, knocking him to the ground, the old man had treated him with a deference Roo had never experienced before. Tom sighed. “She wanted you, boy. The healing priest told her it would be chancy, with her being so tiny.” He wiped his right hand over his face, then looked at his own hands, large, oft scarred, and calloused. “I was afraid to touch her, you know, with her being so small and me having no gentleness in me. I was afraid I'd break her. But she was tougher than she looked.”

Roo swallowed, suddenly finding it hard to speak. He finally whispered, “You never speak of her.”

Tom nodded. “I had so little joy in this life, boy. And she was every bit of it. I met her at a festival, and she looked like this shy bird of a thing, standing on the edge of the crowd at the feast of Midsummer. I had just come up from Salador, driving a wagon for my uncle, Duncan's grandfather. I was half-drunk and full of myself, and then she was right there before me, bold as bright brass, and she says, ‘Dance with me.'” He sighed. “And I did.”

He was silent awhile. He hugged himself, and his breath seemed labored, and he had to swallow hard to speak. “She had that same look you do, not fetching with her thin face and uneven teeth, until she
smiled—then she lit up and was beautiful. I got her that stone I was speaking of for our wedding. Had it set in a ring for her.”

“Like a noble,” said Roo, forcing his voice to a lighter tone.

“Like the Queen herself,” Tom answered with a shallow laugh. He swallowed hard. “She said I was mad and should sell it for a new wagon, but I insisted she keep it.”

“You never told me,” said Roo softly.

Tom shrugged and was silent. He took a deep breath, then said, “You're a man now. Showed me that when I woke to find you standing over me at Gaston's. Never thought you'd amount to much, but you're a shrewd one, and if you can beat the King's own hangman and learn to handle yourself so I can't bully you, why, I figure you'll turn out all right down the road.” Tom smiled slightly and said, “You're like her that way; you're tougher than you look.”

Roo sat in silence a minute, not knowing what to say, then after a bit he said, “Why don't you turn in, Father. I have some thinking to do.”

Tom nodded. “I think I will. Got a pain in my neck.” He moved his left shoulder as if to loosen tight muscles. “Must have really twisted it hitting the ground when those lads started shooting arrows at us. Hurts from my wrist to my jaw.” He wiped perspiration from his brow. “Broke a bit of sweat, too.” He sucked in a large breath and blew it out, as if just standing had been exertion. “Getting too old for this. When you get rich, you remember your old father, hear me, Roo?”

Roo started to smile and say something when his father's eyes rolled up into his head and he fell forward,
facedown into the fire. Roo yelled, “Duncan!” and with a single move yanked his father out of the flames.

Duncan was over in an instant and saw the waxy pallor of Tom's face, the white eyes, and smoldering burns on his cheek and neck. He knelt next to Roo, then said, “He's dead.”

Roo remained motionless as he silently regarded the man who had been his father, and who had died still a stranger to him.

Roo signaled.

Duncan reined in the second wagon, coming to a halt behind the first. Roo turned, stood, and shouted, “Krondor!”

They had been traveling this way since burying Tom, in a grave Roo had dug with his bare hands, covering him with stones to keep scavengers away. Duncan had become a fair driver. He had remembered a few things taught to him by Tom when he was a boy, and Roo had increased his skill until he no longer had to spend every minute worrying about the second wagon and its cargo.

Roo was still troubled by his father's death. He couldn't escape the feeling that he had glimpsed something in his father when he had been speaking about Roo's mother. Roo knew there was a great deal about his own history he didn't understand. His father had always been an aloof man when sober and abusive when drunk, and in part Roo now understood why: each time Tom looked at his son he saw a reminder of the wife he had loved beyond measure,
taken from him at Roo's birth.

But there had been more, and Roo now had dozens of questions, none of which his father would ever answer. He vowed to return to Ravensburg and try to find those few people in the town Tom might have called friend, to ask them those questions. Perhaps he might travel to Salador to visit with Duncan's branch of the family. But he wanted answers. Suddenly Roo had been made aware that he really didn't know who he was. Pushing aside that thought, he insisted to himself it wasn't as important who one is as who one becomes, and he was determined to become a rich, respected man.

Duncan tied off the reins and jumped down from his wagon, walking to where Roo stood. Roo had come to like his cousin, though there was still the rogue in his manner, and Duncan didn't bring out any strong sense of trust, the way Roo trusted Erik or the other men he had served with under Calis. But he liked the man and thought he might be useful, for he had enough experience with nobility to tutor Roo in manners and fashion.

Duncan climbed up on the first wagon and looked at the distant city. “We're going in tonight?” he asked.

Roo glanced at the setting sun and said, “I don't think so. I'd have to find a stable yard to house this wine until we could move out in the morning. We're still more than an hour from the gate now. Let's make a camp and we'll head in at first light, try to sell some of this before the inns get too busy.”

They made camp and ate a cold meal before a small fire, while the horses, tied in a long picket, grazed along the roadside. Roo had given them the
last of the grain and they were making satisfied noises. “What are you going to do with the wagons?” asked Duncan.

“Sell them, I think.” Roo wasn't sure if he wanted to depend on other shippers, but he didn't think his time was best spent actually driving the wagons back and forth between Ravensburg and Krondor. “Or maybe hire a driver and send you back for another load after we sell off this lot.”

Duncan shrugged. “Not much by way of excitement, unless you count those two hapless boy bandits.”

Roo said, “One of those ‘boy bandits' almost put an arrow through my head”—he tapped the side of his skull—“if you remember.”

“There is that.” Duncan sighed. “I mean by way of women and drink.”

“We'll have some of that tomorrow night.” Roo glanced around. “Turn in—I'll take the first watch.”

Duncan yawned. “I won't argue.”

Roo sat by the fire as his cousin grabbed a blanket and crawled under one of the wagons to protect himself from the dew that would form during the night. This close to the ocean it wasn't a possibility, it was a certainty, and waking up wet wasn't either man's idea of a pleasant way to start the day.

Roo considered what he would do first in the morning, and made up several speeches, rehearsing each and discarding this phrase or that as he tried to determine which sales pitch would work best. He had never been a focused thinker in his youth, but so much was riding on his doing well that he became lost in his thinking, and didn't realize how much time had passed until he noticed the fire burning down.
He considered waking Duncan, but decided instead to reconsider some of his sales pitch, and just stuck some more wood in the fire.

He was still practicing his pitch when the lightening sky finally took his attention from the now merely glowing embers of the fire and he shook himself out of his half-daze, half-dreaming, and he realized that he had not truly slept all night. But he was too filled with excitement and too ready to rush forward into his new life and he figured Duncan wouldn't object to the extra rest. He rose, and found his knees stiff from sitting in the damp, cool night air without moving for hours. His hair was damp, and dew shone upon his cloak as he shook it out.

“Duncan!” he yelled, rousing his cousin. “We've got wine to sell!”

The wagons clattered over the cobbles of Krondor's streets. Roo indicated Duncan should pull up behind him, over to one side, allowing some room for traffic to pass on the narrow side street. He had picked out his first stop, a modest inn named the Happy Jumper near the edge of the Merchants' Quarter. The sign was of a pair of children turning a rope for a third who was suspended in midair over it.

Roo pushed open the door and found a quiet common room, with a large man behind the bar cleaning glasses. “Sir?” the barman asked.

“Are you the proprietor?” asked Roo.

“Alistair Rivers at your disposal. How may I be of service?” He was a portly man, but under the fat Roo detected strength—most innkeepers had to have some means of enforcing order. His manner was polite, but distant, until he knew the nature of Roo's
business.

“Rupert Avery,” said Roo, sticking out his hand. “Wine merchant in from Ravensburg.”

The man shook his hand in a perfunctory manner and said, “You need rooms?”

“No, I have wine to sell.”

The man's expression showed a decided lack of enthusiasm. “I have all the wine I need, thank you.”

Roo said, “But of what quality and character?”

The man looked down his nose at Roo and said, “Make your pitch.”

“I was born in Ravensburg, sir,” began Roo. And then he launched into a brief comparison of the bounties of that small town's wine craft and what was commonly drunk in Krondor's more modest establishments.

At the end of his pitch he said, “The service to Krondor has either been bulk wine for the common man or impossibly priced wine for the nobles, but nothing for the merchant catering to a quality clientele, until now. I can provide wine of superior quality at bulk prices, because I don't transport the bottles!”

The man was silent a minute. “You have a sample?” he asked at last.

“Outside,” said Roo and he hurried out to fetch down a sample cask he had filled before leaving Ravensburg. Returning inside he found a pair of glasses on the bar. He pulled the cork, and as he filled the two glasses with a taste, he said, “It's a bit shocked, having rolled in this very morning off the road, but give it a week or two to rest before you serve it, and you'll have more business than any other inn in the area.”

The man looked unconvinced, but he tasted. He rolled the wine around his palate, then spit it into a bucket, while Roo did the same. Alistair was quiet again, then said, “It's not bad. A little jumbled, as you said from the road, but there's some structure there and abundant fruit. Most of my customers won't know it from the usual plonk, but I do have a few businessmen who frequent my establishment who might find this diverting. I might be interested in a half-dozen barrels. What is your price?”

Roo paused, and quoted a price he knew to be three times what he would accept, and only 15 percent below what the finest noble wines from Ravensburg would fetch. Alistair blinked, then said, “Why not burn my inn to the ground and have done with it? You'll ruin me far quicker.” He offered a price that was a few coppers less per barrel than what Roo had paid in Ravensburg. Then they began haggling in earnest.

They were waiting for Roo when he came out of the third inn an hour after midday. His first two negotiations had proven profitable, earning him more than he had anticipated. He had gotten about 10 percent higher a price from Alistair Rivers than he had hoped for, which had made him bargain harder at the Inn of Many Stars. His final price had been within coppers of what he had sold wine to Alistair for, so he knew what he was likely to get at the Dog and Fox Tavern. He had concluded his negotiations in quick order, and as he came out of the Dog and Fox he said, “Duncan! We need to unload five barrels!”

Then he halted. Duncan moved his head slightly to indicate the man sitting close to him on the wagon, who had a dagger point in Duncan's ribs, though you had to look to notice it. To passersby it appeared he was merely having a quiet conversation with the driver of the wagon.

Another man stepped up and said, “You the owner of these wagons?”

Roo nodded once as he studied the man. He was rangy to the point of gauntness, but there was quickness and danger in his movements. Roo saw no weapons in the man's hands, but guessed there was more than one of them secreted on him, within easy reach. His narrow face was covered by a two- or three-day growth of beard, and grey-shot, raggedly cut black hair hung loosely about his forehead and neck.

“We was noticing you driving around and making deliveries. Wondered if you were new to Krondor?”

Roo glanced from the man's face to the man next to Duncan, then looked around to see if the two were alone. A couple of others lingered in close proximity to the wagons, men who could aid their companions in moments, without calling attention to themselves until needed. Roo said, “Been here before, but just rolled into the city this morning.”

“Ah!” said the man, his voice surprisingly deep for one so thin. “Well then, you'd not be knowing about the local licenses and duties, would you?”

Roo's gaze narrowed. “We declared our cargo at the gate to the Prince's magistrate, and nothing was said about licenses and duties.”

“Well, these aren't the Prince's licenses and duties, in a manner of speaking.” The man lowered
his voice so he would not be overheard. “There are ways to do business in the city and there are other ways, if you catch my drift. We represent interests that would seek to keep you from encountering difficulties in Krondor, if you follow me.”

Roo leaned against the back of the wagon, attempting to look casual, while judging how fast he could kill this man if needs be and what chance Duncan stood of disarming the man who held a dagger on him. Of the first he was confident; he could kill this man before his companions could take two steps in his aid, but Duncan didn't have Roo's combat training, and while a competent swordsman, he would probably die. Roo said, “I'm very stupid today. Pretend I don't know anything and educate me.”

The man said, “Well, there are those of us in Krondor who like to make sure the daily commerce of the city goes undisturbed, if you see what I mean. We don't care much for unseemly price wars and large fluctuations between supply and demand. Toward that end, we make sure that everything coming into the city has a reasonable profit, so that no one has too much an advantage, don't you see? Keeps things civilized. We also keep thugs from roughing up merchants and destroying property, as well as make sure that a man can sleep in his bed at night without fear of having his throat cut, don't you see? Now, to that end, we expect a compensation for our work.”

Roo said, “I see. How much?”

“For your cargo, it would be twenty golden sovereigns”—Roo's eyes widened—“for each wagon.”

That was easily close to one half his expected
profit on this cargo alone. His outrage couldn't be kept below the surface. “Are you mad? Twenty sovereigns!” He took a quick step back and said, “I think not!”

The man took a step after Roo, which he had anticipated, saying, “If you want your friend there to stay health—”

Suddenly Roo had his sword out and at the man's throat before he could move away. The man was quick and tried to move back, but Roo followed, keeping the point of his sword touching skin. “An, ah!” said Roo. “Don't move too quickly; I might slip and then you'd get blood over everything, if your friend doesn't get his dagger out of my cousin's ribs or if either one of those two men across the street makes the wrong move, you're sucking wind through a new hole.”

“Hold on!” shouted the man. Then, glancing sideways without moving his head, he shouted, “Bert! Get down!”

The man next to Duncan got down without question, while the man whom Roo held at sword's point said, “You're making a big mistake.”

“If I am, it's not the first,” said Roo.

“Cross the Sagacious Man and it's the last,” said the would-be extortionist.

“Sagacious Man?” said Roo. “Who would that be?”

“Someone important in this city,” answered the thin man. “We'll mark this a misunderstanding, and you ask about. But when we come back tomorrow, I'll expect better manners from you.”

He motioned for his two distant companions to leave and they quickly darted into the midday crush
of people. Other pedestrians had stopped to watch the display of one man holding another at sword's point, and it was obvious the thin man didn't care for the scrutiny. A merchant looked out from his shop and started shouting for a city constable.

Glancing at Roo the man said, “If I'm handed over to the city watch, you're in even bigger trouble than you might be already.” He licked his lips nervously. A shrill whistle sounded a block away, and Roo dropped his sword's point and the man ducked away, vanishing into the crowd.

“What was that?” asked Duncan.

“Shakedown.”

Duncan said, “Mockers.”

“Mockers?”

“Guild of Thieves,” supplied Duncan as he patted his ribs to make sure they were still intact.