Midday, the following day.
After Fleur had finished the gruel she’d finally become used to eating, Olar slowly spoke up.
“If that hay is as good as it is, the horse trade might be a good one.”
“Horses?”
“It seems that war may break out in the far south of the continent across the sea. If it does come to war, then the price of horses will soar, as though they themselves had wings.”
Fleur didn’t doubt Olar’s information-gathering abilities, but she still responded dubiously. “If it’s such a good opportunity, won’t others already be doing it?”
“There’s no particular need to be first. If there’s truly profit to be had, it should be good enough to be second or third.” As he spoke, Olar picked the mold off the piece of bread he was eating, then brought it to his mouth.
Fleur had once furrowed her brow at the prospect of eating moldy bread, but now having been on more than one trading journey, such minor details no longer concerned her. And indeed, she had eventually been told that even in her own manor, the servants had frequently eaten such bread while she had been none the wiser.
When Bertra had first told her of this, Fleur had been at once surprised and strangely accepting of the fact.
“So. Horses, eh?”
Horses were always considered a luxury, and as such were reliably expensive.
Back when the Bolan family name had been worth something, the greatest part of the family’s modest income had come from the usage fees the family levied on the collection of feed from the family forests, which the farmers needed to raise their horses and pigs.
If the demand for hay was such that the price was rising, there might be farmers unable to continue to feed them and thus motivated to sell.
“I’ll talk to the company merchants when I go to collect our payment tomorrow,” said Fleur as she dipped bread Bertra had carefully scraped free of mold into her gruel.
“Please do your best to avoid losing money, milady.”
Fleur nodded at Bertra’s words, smiling sheepishly. Then her gaze was drawn elsewhere, but not because of anything Bertra had said.
“Oh, again? How’s it getting in, I wonder.” Bertra followed Fleur’s gaze to its object, standing out of her chair as she did so.
In the doorway that led to the kitchen and washroom sat a puppy, small enough to be picked up under one arm.
“Do you suppose this dog’s the one who tore the wheat sacks?”
Towns were full of animals to an extent Fleur could never have imagined when she had lived in a manor surrounded by fields and forests. They seemed to cause Bertra no end of headache, but for Fleur it was just the opposite.
“Here, boy.”
The puppy slunk away from Bertra as she’d tried to approach it, but when it spied the bread Fleur held in her outstretched hand, it seemed to regain its courage. It sprang to its feet and ran between Bertra’s legs toward Fleur.
“Milady!” cried the long-suffering Bertra, who warred daily with kitchen invaders like mice, cats, and dogs.
Fleur looked up only once the puppy had finished eating the bread. “My husband only stole from others. I have no mind to follow his example.”
Even the puppy seemed to understand the ways of the world and was happy to pledge temporary loyalty to the source of its food.
It held still while Fleur patted its head, even wagging its tail. But unfortunately a dog was not a knight, and Fleur was no longer a noblewoman.
Bertra approached and picked up the puppy, shooing it out through an open window. “You are much too kind, milady.”
“Too kind to live among the common folk?”
Fleur knew perfectly well that it was a malicious question to ask, and unsurprisingly Bertra was stunned into silence—but Olar then stepped in.
“We’re all perfectly aware of how things were when you were a wife, and while I have no praise to give my former master, we must still earn our living via trade. Unless milady has discovered some other way of making a livelihood?”
Fleur was not so naive as to be unaware of the fates that awaited fallen nobility. And for a young woman, the possibilities were even more limited.
“You can’t give away what you haven’t first earned. Anyone of quality would cry to hear one of their own say such things.”
“And the bookkeepers of any kind landlord are always in tears.”
“Quite so. And I hate to see Bertra’s crying face so.” Fleur popped the remainder of the bread into her mouth and stood. “Now then, I’m off to do business. I won’t lose money this time.”
Bertra looked at her steadily, still wearing an apron that had faded somewhat since the times when she had worn it in the old manor. Finally she smiled a relieved smile and spoke. “Off you go, then, milady.”
This was no longer the fine, beautiful manor of the old days, but Fleur’s smile was just as genuine.
When a river froze, it was not just the water that ceased moving. During winter in the north, boats were stuck—entire ports froze. So come spring, shipping traffic was especially heavy, as though releasing pent-up demand.
At least that had been the explanation given to her by Olar, and it seemed to be true. The weather was fine, and the port fairly bustled with activity.
“Right, here’s your payment.”
Given that it had tried to push the price from twenty down to seventeen, the company did not hesitate to pay what it owed.
As a rule, merchants were an eccentric bunch. Fleur mused on the fact as she broached the topic Olar had discussed with her over lunch.
“Horses?”
“Yes. We’ve heard there may be war and thus a need for horses.”
“Mm, well, yes…Horses, you say.” The merchant scratched his chin with his quill pen and closed his eyes.
“You’ve got to pay usage fees in order to get hay to feed them, do you not? If hay is expensive, it takes money just to keep them.”
“And you’re saying people will be looking to sell. That’s it, is it?”
In order to avoid being swindled, one had to grasp what one’s opponent was saying even as they spoke and formulate a response by the time they had finished. Olar was always saying so, and he seemed to have quite mastered the devilish trick of it.
Fleur nodded.
“Mm,” the man murmured, looking around before continuing. “And do you suppose that you’re the first person to think of that?” His tone was a condescending one; perhaps he’d noticed that beneath her scarf Fleur was a young girl.
“Not at all. But there’s profit enough to be had for even the second or third.” Olar had said so, and Fleur repeated his words.
The man put his finger to his mouth, as though trying to mask the smile that rose unbidden there—but if Fleur let her own triumph show on her face, the loss would be hers.
“Apologies. You’re getting better at this every day. It’s as you say. But as you can see, we have our hands quite full with business here, so we’ve no time to go out and buy horses. So if you were to obtain them for us—well, I won’t say we wouldn’t buy them.”
Merchants always left things a bit vague.
“So would you or wouldn’t you?” she pressed, at which the man frowned.
“Well, we can’t buy a starving, stubborn nag, now, can we? I won’t make any promises.”
It would be just like a noblewoman to ask if he did not trust her. Fleur realized his point and apologized.
“Of course, even if we couldn’t buy them, there would be plenty of people who would want to. If you gauge the market and buy them for the right price, you won’t have trouble selling them.”
“I see.”
“Still…”
“?”
The man closed his ledger and tucked it under an arm before continuing. “I do think it could be difficult. Horses are living creatures, after all. It’s not uncommon for a prize horse to turn into a wagon nag while you’re transporting it.”
“I suppose t
hat’s true…” When she lived in the manor, Fleur remembered hearing that caring for the horses was a difficult job. And having rented horse-drawn wagons, she knew from experience that a capricious horse was trouble.
If she made the effort of buying a horse and wound up having to sell it cheaply, Bertra wouldn’t be the only one weeping.
“But consider this.”
“Hmm?”
“If you’ve got enough money on hand to be buying horses, there are other lines of business.”
“Other lines of business?”
The man smiled and pulled his ledger back out from under his arm, opening it and licking his finger. “No fuss, no risk of illness, no need to worry about feed or care. With an opportunity like this, even an inexperienced merchant won’t fail too badly. A horse may sell dear, but in exchange they’re quite a bit of trouble.”
Everything the man said was true. And even though she was aware he was an unsavory fellow, she could not help but be taken off guard by his generous explanations of everything. Somehow she found herself completely absorbed in what he was saying.
“And what is this other business?”
“Clothing, my dear!”
“…Clothing?” she repeated.
The man seemed to find what he was looking for in his ledger and tilted it toward her. “This figure is how much I paid when buying it up. And here’s what I sold it for. The margin isn’t so great as a horse might have, but…as you can see, every single item from top to bottom turned a profit.”
Assuming this had not been entirely fabricated to convince her, it was indeed as the man said. And he had not had time to manufacture all these figures in the short time they had been talking. Having decided that much, Fleur nodded politely.
“It’s a reliable trade,” said the man as he closed the ledger.
What opened next was Fleur’s mouth. “But what sort of clothing would I buy?”
“That would be your decision to make.”
Fleur had to admit that was obvious enough, but having left decisions about what to wear entirely up to others throughout her life, she knew very little about clothing. As she was agonizing over whether to first consult with Olar, the man clapped his hands together and spoke.
“Ah yes, as it happens, one of the people my company does business with has quite the eye for fashion.”
“Quite the eye?”
“Yes. We’ve had him sell clothing we’ve bought up in the past, and he’s quite talented at it. The pieces just fly out of our hands left and right. He’s been saying he wants to move from buying to managing and has been looking for someone with capital.”
Fleur was well aware that her own mind was not especially sharp, yet the meaning of what the merchant was saying proved difficult for her to grasp. Perhaps there was something about it that gave her a strange feeling.
“So…I would supply the capital, and the profit would be shared?”
“Even so. And in addition to the profit, you’d gain knowledge of the clothing business. And your partner would handle everything from purchase onward, so you’d maximize your profit.”
“Well…” It seemed like quite an opportunity. Perhaps the world wasn’t filled with only bad people after all, Fleur thought.
The man flipped through a few more pages in his ledger, then gave her a name. “The man’s name is Milton Post.”
It sounded like the name of a nobleman.
Whenever she had coin in her pocket, Fleur could not help but do some shopping. On her way home, she bought some of the cheese she knew Bertra liked and the wine of a particular village that Olar had praised very highly.
Their budget was not such that there was room for wasteful expenditures, but Bertra and Olar had not become so unsympathetic as to furrow their brows at gifts bought especially for them. And besides, Fleur had also gotten a lead on a new business opportunity.
“The clothing business, eh?” murmured Olar several times, his eyes closed as he inhaled the scent of the wine. He seemed to be enjoying it very much, though there was only a small amount, enough to fill a hand-sized cask.
Fleur had related what the man at the trading company had told her, but she could not tell whether Olar was really listening to her.
“Yes. So, perhaps we should take the opportunity to…Olar?”
At the sound of his name, Olar finally looked at Fleur. “Apologies. This rich scent is terribly nostalgic. But yes, the clothing business. You would—”
“The company has a man whom they entrust with the sale of the clothing they buy up, and this man is looking to do the buying himself this time, it seems.”
“I see…”
Olar again inhaled the wine’s scent through his hooked nose and then held his breath.
Fleur could not help but laugh at the way he acted like a former man-about-town and quite forgot to be angry with him. “His name’s Milton Post.”
The instant she spoke the name, Olar’s eyes snapped open, their sharp gaze lancing out from between his deeply wrinkled eyelids. “Of the Post family?”
“You know him?”
“…Mm. Of course I do.”
Olar breathed in the wine’s scent one last time, then pushed the stopper back in the cask and set it on the table. The house was quiet, as Bertra was out doing her afternoon shopping at the market.
“The head of the house was a knight renowned as much for his courtly elegance as for his bravery. The tales of his romances are many, but he was also an honorable, family-minded man. It is said that he left no less than thirty descendants behind.”
Families with many siblings in a single generation were not uncommon, nor was keeping a mistress or two within one’s home. Once children from different mothers were added into the mix, just listing their names was like reciting scripture, or so the jokes went—but in reality there were not very many families like that.
Fleur could see why the name would be a famous one.
“Since it would’ve been impossible for all of his children to inherit land, he’s probably one of them. You said he helps the trading company sell clothing?”
“Mm, yes…huh?” Fleur’s reply was vague and distracted, as her gaze was stolen by a goat that stood by the windowsill, chewing away on the potted plant there; perhaps it had escaped from somewhere or else someone had bought it and forgotten to tie it up. Her attention was briefly captured by the strange sight, but Fleur hastily composed herself and replied again, “Y-yes.”
“Well, I imagine he mostly sells to the nobility. We ourselves once did something similar—hiring the impoverished second or third sons of noble families. The idea being that when you go to introduce yourself, if you say you’re from the cobblers or the smiths, you’ll be turned away at the door, but if you have a name of quality…and the fashion of the nobility changes quickly. We needed people with both names and know-how to do our selling.”
“I see…”
“So you met this Post fellow, did you?”
The goat finally seemed to have decided the plants’ leaves were inedible and gave an irritated baa before wandering away.
“Not yet. I thought it would be better not to rush and check with you first.”
“Is that so? Perhaps milady is finally beginning to open her eyes.”
“I’ve already made terrible mistakes twice over by trusting my own judgment.”
Olar smiled, then deliberately cleared his throat. He pointed to what was left of the twenty ligot that remained after Fleur’s shopping.
“…?” Fleur cocked her head, which elicited a small sigh from Olar.
“But you still have much to learn, and the road will be hard. The coins they paid milady with…”
“The coins? Are they the wrong amount?” That can’t possibly be, she was about to say, but was interrupted by Olar’s small head shake.
“With coins that have this much shaved from their edges, I doubt a money changer would give us their face value for them. We might lose as much as ten percent in the transacti
on.”
Fleur hastily looked down at the coins on the table, and it was true—some of them were quite misshapen from how deeply their edges had been ground down.
“Still, you couldn’t remember every single lesson even if I could give it all to you at once. One step at a time. Of course…”
“Of course?”
“If you were an apprentice that I might whip and beat into shape, things might be different.” Olar didn’t often make jokes. He must have been genuinely enjoying the wine she had bought for him.
“I was slapped once during a banquet. I cried for a week.”
Olar smiled amusedly, collecting the coins in a box, then closing its lid. “Now then, on to this new opportunity.”
“I’d like that.”
“So, as far as this notion of selling clothing goes, what are your thoughts?”
Fleur was caught off guard by the sudden change in topic. Unable to switch her mind over to the new topic in time, she said the first thing that came to her. “I thought it seemed good.”
“Is that so?” replied Olar casually, writing a figure in the ledger that was spread open on the table. Given the amount of coin Fleur had returned with, there was sadly a loss recorded in the right-most column.
“Is it…not?”
“Not at all. If milady decides it is, then I think it is fine. Just as the company fellow said—horses can be sick, injured, or even die, but clothing can last for years if properly cared for. There was once a time when dealing in clothes meant it would be three years or more before you could record the profit or loss in a ledger like this. It’s a business where it’s hard to sustain heavy losses, so for training purposes I think it’s quite suitable.”
“So—” Fleur said, and Olar nodded decisively.
“This will be milady’s third time making a trade as a merchant.”
When she had lived in the manor, her duties amounted to wearing the clothing presented to her and eating her meals. She had no influence over the prosperity or downfall of the house, no choice in whom to marry—she had but to exist and do as she was told.
She had still not become accustomed to the life of a merchant. It was difficult for her to see through the lies of other traders, and often she wished she didn’t have to converse at all.
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