Side Colors II

by Isuna Hasekura

  “…Sometimes even things that drive one to rage.”

  Last time, Milton had chewed his beans in order to hide his rueful grin. Mutton was apparently less effective for such purposes.

  “I’ve thought about that. They might’ve been more aggressive, like demanding a higher commission or worse conditions for the contract. And yet they were very accommodating. When you’re a company as large as they are, there comes a time when you must worry about your reputation.”

  “So we should be able to worry less, then?”

  Milton cocked his head slightly at Fleur’s question, but not to refute or quibble. He seemed not at all displeased. “And I did receive terms so favorable from you I yet find them hard to believe.”

  Fleur looked bashfully aside at his teasing, though she did so deliberately. They both fell silent for a moment, and then unable to bear it any longer, they simultaneously burst out laughing.

  After the ripples of laughter subsided, all that remained were hearts washed clean.

  “So, here we begin,” said Milton, extending his hand.

  Even Fleur understood that when he said “here,” he was thinking further ahead than this single trade.

  Olar’s warnings echoed in her ears, but Fleur wanted to treasure this fortuitous encounter, rather than doubting it. To earn, to profit—and soon.

  And she was certain that it would be more fun for two merchants to chase whatever lay at the end of that road of anticipation than it would be for either to go alone. And Milton wasn’t such a bad choice of partner for that journey.

  While she had not remembered it, this was very different from their true meeting at the Milan banquet—in that this time, Fleur accepted the hand that was offered to her and grasped it firmly.

  Back then, her hand would smart after the merest brush with another’s. But now she didn’t shake hands without an honorable reason to do so—with a trustworthy partner or a profitable partner. And so shake hands she did with firm strength.

  When she’d been first cast out of her house and walked on her own feet, she was surprised at how firm the ground had been—and now, shaking hands firmly for the first time, she was again thus surprised.

  Milton smiled faintly as he gazed at her. Fleur returned his look, but this was no white-clothed table. After their hands had stayed clasped for a goodly span, they each grinned and returned their attention to their ale.

  “This is the way for merchants, surely.”

  At Fleur’s words, Milton feigned regret, a gesture she wouldn’t forget.

  Milton would be a good partner.

  Fleur raised her cup and knocked it against his.

  That evening over dinner, Fleur reported the details surrounding the contract to Olar, including the amount of time it would probably take, the commission Hans specified, and the impressions he’d given off.

  Olar listened carefully, eyes closed, then finally opened them, his face slowly breaking into a smile. “Let us hope all goes well.”

  Fleur had to laugh—it was the very same thing Hans had said. Apparently all merchants of a certain experience level liked these words. Perhaps it was most prudent to hope for the best while not assuming that it would come to pass.

  They had only placed the purchase order, and when it arrived, the work of selling it awaited them. But that evening, Fleur felt her chest unblocked by something, and for the first time in a while, she was able to take her meal. When she looked back on the experience later, she had the feeling that this moment was where her fate had taken a turn.

  If only she had told Olar about that when she’d discussed the contract with him.

  Hindsight was clear indeed.

  Merchants were no saints.

  Two weeks hence, she would come to understand that.

  During those two weeks, Fleur did grunt work that required no capital.

  If one was trustworthy and had a good sense of geography, the town fairly brimmed with people who needed goods taken from one place to another.

  She took woven goods to a distant mill to be fulled, and on the return trip, she accepted a letter from a villager to a townsperson.

  Both jobs were honest and steady, but the profit was proportionate to them—tiny.

  In her heart, Fleur could think only of the clothing they had ordered. If the business went well, she wouldn’t have to do these demeaning tasks anymore. She was sure of it.

  As for Milton, he had been going around town intercepting servants and messengers, trying to learn the condition of the coin purses and tastes of the nobility.

  She had known as much when she’d come down into the town, but evidently information on the goings-on within the manors around its outskirts was worth money. Servants sent into town on errands were well aware that the hints and gossip they possessed could be converted into cash.

  In the past, Fleur had often wondered why the servants enjoyed going into town so much, and now she knew that in addition to the obvious reasons of food and shopping, there was this more direct incentive as well.

  When she had asked Bertra about it, the housekeeper had looked away, embarrassed. Even she had done it and not just once.

  Fleur had then asked Olar about the practice and learned that Olar’s company at the time—the company run by Fleur’s former husband—had paid a tidy sum to the servant who told them of the Bolan family’s dire straits.

  Surely it had been the maid who had gone missing a few days before the company master came knocking at their door with his proposal of marriage. Now, though, Fleur did not hold the maid in any real contempt and was actually rather impressed with her for taking advantage of her situation. There were crafty people all around, she realized.

  “Milady,” Bertra said to Fleur as the latter sipped her cheese stew at lunchtime. Bertra had just returned from speaking with a visitor to the house.

  In her hand was an envelope.

  Fleur looked to Olar, who nodded at her.

  “Thank you,” she said, accepting the envelope from Bertra. It was sealed almost apologetically with red wax, and she opened it.

  In it was Hans’s signature, along with news that the ship containing their cargo had safely arrived in port.

  She folded the letter, tucked it into her breast, and stood. Even Olar, who was usually so insistent upon her finishing her meals, would surely overlook this one instance. Fleur apologized to Bertra and took out her cloak and scarf. “I’m off to make money,” she said.

  Bertra’s eyes went wide, and Olar sighed a long-suffering sigh, both of which Fleur ignored as she put on her cloak and wrapped her scarf around her head.

  Her destination was the lodging that Milton rented in a craftsman’s workshop.

  Back when she was as yet unaware of her family’s privilege, she had employed a servant she got along with particularly well who now worked in that same workshop and who had introduced Milton to the place when he was cast out of his own home.

  Human connections truly did cross much of the world—this was another thing Olar was fond of saying, and Fleur was coming to understand the truth of it.

  “Excuse me, is Mr. Post in?” Fleur was becoming more and more confident in her ability to lower her voice to sound like a man.

  A leatherworker who sat astride a long, narrow table, pounding a strip of leather, looked up in vague surprise.

  Fleur asked again, and the man finally seemed to understand she was asking after Milton.

  “Oh, Milton? He just came back from lunch. He’s up the stairs on the fourth story.”

  “Thanks,” she said clearly and briefly.

  The young craftsman flashed her a pleasant smile. Fleur had learned how to charm craftsmen while coming and going from the waterwheel-powered fulling mill over the past few weeks.

  She climbed the narrow, steep stairs, which felt very familiar to her, as they were not so very different from a waterwheel’s use of different levels of water. She had received only a bit of profit out of her short employment there, but had learned mu
ch. She continued up the steps and soon arrived at the fourth floor.

  What greeted her there was surprising, as she had expected to find a hallway and a door, which would have given her a chance to catch her breath.

  Having run up the stairs in such a hurry, she was out of breath in a most embarrassing manner. And yet the moment she reached the top and rounded the handrail, Fleur was immediately greeted by the sight of a bored Milton eating a piece of bread.

  “…Hello there,” said a surprised Milton after swallowing his bread.

  Fleur tried to respond but found that the words would not come. Flustered, she produced the letter and held it out. “Look—” she finally managed.

  Truly important matters often did not require words.

  Milton stood from his chair and rushed over. “The ship?”

  Fleur nodded, which made Milton hurry to fetch his cloak.

  Cutting through the heavy traffic of humans and horses that congested the port, they nearly flew to the Jones Company. The company employees stopped in their work to regard the pair with dubious eyes, but neither Fleur nor Milton cared.

  “Where is Mr. Hans?” asked Milton, whereupon everyone—whether they were engaged in negotiations or taking inventory—pointed to the interior of the building.

  Mumbling their thanks, Fleur and Milton hurried inside. The first step on their road to riches awaited them inside, after all.

  “Hans!” said Milton in a strangled-but-still-loud voice, upon spotting Hans emerging from a room with a colleague.

  He was exiting the room while looking down at a bundle of parchment in his hands, but as soon as he spotted Milton and Fleur, he gave the documents to the other man, along with some short instructions.

  Perhaps they were part of a large deal, as Hans seemed a bit nervous, but they had nothing to do with Fleur. The other man bowed and headed the opposite way down the hallway at a trot, and Hans watched him go before turning to regard Milton and Fleur.

  “Ah, your order? It’s arrived.” He flashed a too-perfect merchant’s smile and brought his hands together in front of him as he did so.

  Perhaps it was some sort of joke among merchants, since when Fleur smiled an awkward smile, she glanced at Milton, who was doing exactly as Hans had done.

  Was she the only nervous one? Fleur wondered.

  “Your goods have safely arrived at the docks. The winds were uncertain and it looked as though they might be delayed, but fortunately our company was able to live up to its reputation.”

  Fleur smiled at Hans’s mild boasting, but she couldn’t help letting a bit of impatience creep into her expression.

  Perhaps Milton noticed this, or perhaps he merely felt the same way himself. “So—” he interrupted. “We’d like to take delivery of them. Will today be possible?”

  Speed was of the essence in business.

  Hans nodded magnanimously, well aware of that fact himself. He pointed farther into the building. “The goods are secured in the rear loading dock. I’ve already asked to have the order document brought up. We must make sure there aren’t any discrepancies between your order and the goods, after all.”

  That must have been the content of the exchange between Hans and the other man they had seen just moments earlier. They were very efficient. Olar had told her over and over again to check the goods carefully before taking receipt of them. Complaints stated after the fact would be too late.

  They followed Hans as he led them down the hall, Milton ahead of Fleur. In the hallway, traces of the grandeur of the Jones Company could be seen—beautifully embroidered maps and portraits hung on the walls.

  They passed an open door and through it caught a glimpse of a room filled with barrels, crates, and large earthen pots, the very existence of which made crystal clear that this was the intersection of sea and land. As they walked down the narrow hallway that led to the rear entrance, even Hans—whose position in the company was not at all low—had to step aside to allow others to get by as they busily traveled the passage.

  They were all sorts, too—apprentices and young merchants and big, brawny men.

  As they exited the hallway, Fleur was immediately struck by the fragrance of wheat. Perhaps it was the first crop to result from the spring thaw, and the dock was white and dusty with the flour. Workers carried burlap sacks of flour large enough to hold an adult man, and as they worked, the flour in the air caked their sweaty bodies.

  Fleur and Milton were led to a corner of the room. The crates and barrels lined up there had yet to become covered in flour dust, which made clear just how recently they had been left there.

  The attendant from earlier returned bearing under one arm a rolled parchment, which he gave to Hans.

  Next to the crate stood an iron bar flattened at one end; perhaps it would be used to open it.

  “Everything fit in one crate?”

  The question was put to the attendant. The youth seemed to be even now enduring the sort of hardships that Hans had spoken of earlier, his keen eyes lively and body strong.

  He nodded wordlessly and picked up the iron bar. “May I open the box?” he asked, careful to observe the correct protocol.

  For a moment, the two former nobles felt as though they had never been asked such a question in their lives.

  Milton stepped forward as their representative and nodded, and Hans gave the signal to continue.

  The flat end of the iron bar was wedged under the crate’s lid, and a little pressure brought the lid slightly open. The young attendant then set the bar aside and used a smaller tool of similar shape to begin removing the nails that secured the lid.

  “We’ll reuse the nails, you see. Although when we want to appear prosperous, sometimes we just break the crates open.”

  The pair nodded mutely at Hans’s words. It seemed everything they were watching transpire had a meaning.

  Having very cleanly removed all the nails from the lid, the youth stepped away, as though making it clearer than was strictly necessary that he had not touched anything inside the crate.

  Hans cleared his throat and held out the roll of paper that held the invoice for the order. Fleur accepted it, and Milton gave her a faint nod, then took a step forward. The first step in their great trade—the first step in their participation in the merchants’ great game.

  Milton looked inside the crate.

  Then—

  “What?” It was not Milton’s voice, but Fleur’s.

  Milton shied away from the crate, as though having seen something he should not have, spinning around and facing Fleur.

  His face was ashen.

  Milton didn’t speak, instead looking again inside the crate, then back to Fleur, this time snatching the invoice out of Fleur’s hand.

  “What is going on here?” he groaned in a voice that seemed to come up from the abyss.

  Fleur recoiled at his obvious rage. If it had been directed at her, she might very well have collapsed on the spot.

  “What do you mean, ‘What?’”

  “Do not joke with me!” Milton’s fury seemed likely to send the flour dust on the floor a scatter.

  The loading dock buzzed with activity, with merchants hurrying this way and that. A single shout could have easily gone unnoticed, but Milton’s was enough to make him the focus of all eyes and ears present.

  “I’m sorry, a joke? No.” Hans’s face remained completely calm, even faintly teasing, as he reassured Milton.

  “This…this order is an outrage!” Milton could barely speak through his rage. The parchment crumpled noisily in his clenched hand.

  “An outrage? Not at all. I swear in God’s name that we have committed no errors. These are the items you ordered in the quantities you specified.”

  Despite his fury, Milton seemed to notice something amiss in the calm quality of Hans’s voice. He seemed to remember the invoice in his hand, and with trembling hands, he reopened and read it.

  As he did so, Fleur took two steps forward and looked inside the crate.
Inside it were clothes entirely in black.

  As black as her future now was.

  “This…this can’t be…”

  “The goods are exactly as stated on the order.”

  “That’s absurd!” Milton roared, his voice hoarse. He dropped the invoice and glared at Hans with eyes full of rage.

  Hans, meanwhile, seemed entirely unconcerned. The moment Milton took a step toward Hans, the youth from earlier came between them, his sword at the ready.

  “That’s the problem with nobility; they always want to duel. Unfortunately we are but merchants. Contracts on paper are everything to us. Surely even you can understand that.” Hans’s gaze was cold and his smile faintly mocking.

  Fleur looked down at the paper beside Milton’s feet. There upon it were hers and Milton’s signatures and the list of items they had written.

  They were all bright, colorful pieces, perfect for the fashion of the approaching spring. So why…?

  She bent at the knee and picked the paper up, looking over it again, then rubbed her eyes as though dizzy. It was not an accident. The colors of the items written there had somehow changed.

  A few short strokes had been added to characters here and there. That was all it took to change the colors of the specified items to black. All black.

  How could this be?

  Moreover, the order for four pieces of silver jewelry had been changed as well. Two strokes had been added to the word, and one of the existing strokes was smudged away and erased. Now instead of reading “silver,” it clearly stated “amber.”

  Her vision dimmed, and she put her hand to her forehead in shock. The company’s tricksters had far exceeded her imagination and were perfectly content to discard all morality. Olar had scrutinized the contract with Milton so closely in order to avoid exactly this situation—using difficult words whose spelling was unmistakable and difficult to alter and writing them very clearly.

  But the truly astonishing thing was not just that they had so brazenly altered the contract. No, it was Hans’s instincts that were most terrifying.

  Perhaps having realized the contract could be rewritten the moment he saw it, he had immediately signed it. If Fleur or Milton had thought to ask for a copy to be made, they might have been able to protect themselves now, but Hans had carefully never given them that opportunity.