Recluce Tales

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Lanciano lifted a long double-edged dagger. “You have a most handsome countenance, master factor. It would be a shame if anything happened to it.”

  “That won’t get you your golds.”

  “Alas, it will not, but it might remind you not to send worthless letters of credit.”

  “How was I to know that Sensael was about to fail?” Of course, I had known. That was why I’d forged the letter from Sensael when I’d heard of his difficulties, dated earlier, of course, before he’d jumped off the end of the black wall, with nothing left of value.

  “Spare me your excuses…”

  It was just the way things were turning out. I should have gotten a good letter of credit from Whiltar. That would have covered the two hundred golds, at least until Lanciano had left port on the way to wherever he was bound, even if it would have cost another twenty-five golds in interest—except that Whiltar was the Nordlan representative of the Hagan ships, and, after the loss of the Northern Quarter to Hydlenese pirates, he’d gotten word not to extend any more credit to shipping factors until the Lydians or the Brotherhood did something about the pirates. And no one else would lend me enough to cover the note. Not even with the factorage and warehouse as collateral.

  “By fourday morning,” Lanciano said. “Two hundred golds. No paper. Golds. You know where to find me.” He looked down at the bare dagger, then stood and sheathed it. “Good evening, Trader Moraris.”

  I stood as well and inclined my head. “Good evening, Trader Lanciano.”

  I watched as he walked out, but I did not breathe easily until I had left the Trader’s Hearth and covered the five blocks to my factorage and barred the rear door. Then I climbed the steps to my chambers to consider my dwindling options. By the time I fell asleep in the darkness, because I didn’t want to use the lamp oil I had too little of, I still hadn’t come up with a plan for acquiring the massive sum of two hundred golds.

  Threeday didn’t begin any better than twoday had ended. Faonyt had barely opened the factorage doors when Ruzios walked in, a broad smile on his weathered face.

  “Moraris! I’ve got some of that prime black wool you were asking about two eightdays ago.”

  “How much?” There was no way I could pay for all of it at that moment, but … if I could get it and resell it …

  “Three bales, cleaned and carded. Five golds a bale.”

  “I can take one.” That would leave me with nothing, but I could sell that for twice as much to Alforyk. Lanciano would have paid more, but since I owed him … he’d have just taken the wool, and I’d be out my last five golds.

  He shook his head. “I’m not doing it piecemeal. Three or none.”

  “I can give you five golds now … the other ten at the end of the eightday.”

  “Moraris … I’d be liking you right well … but not that well, especially with what I’ve been hearing.”

  “You can’t trust all the rumors.” I smiled openly and warmly. “Haven’t I always been a man of my word?”

  “You have … but there’ve been times when it took some time to keep that word, and I need the golds now. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be offering the wool at such a price. Has to be good metal on the barrel. Here and now.”

  “Can you come back in a glass? I’d like to see what I can do.”

  “If I haven’t sold it in a glass, I’ll be back.” With that, Ruzios was gone.

  He probably wouldn’t be back, but trying to raise the ten golds might be possible. So I left Faonyt at the counter and made my way two blocks toward the harbor and a certain large factorage with an adjoining warehouse.

  The modest black signboard beside the well-oiled and brassbound door simply read ELTARYL TRADING. I didn’t go in there, but walked around to the side door, also well-oiled and brassbound, that opened into a small anteroom. It was vacant, as usual, but the door leading from the anteroom to the adjoining study was ajar.

  “Ryltar?” I asked pleasantly.

  “Come in.”

  I did. Ryltar had two open ledgers before him. In my view, at twenty he wasn’t old enough to be trusted even as a clerk, for all that his wispy brown hair was already thinning. Still, with his father’s illness, one that showed little sign of abating, despite all the efforts of the black healers, Ryltar was, in effect, running the family’s far-flung trading business.

  “Moraris … how are you doing?” The younger trader smiled pleasantly enough, but I could see the smile didn’t extend to his eyes. He didn’t offer me a chair, either.

  So I took one. “Well enough.”

  “Word is that you’re a bit … strained.”

  “Not that much, even if I did have to buy out Elnora’s share of the factorage.”

  “Everyone knows, I think. You could have let her keep it,” he pointed out.

  “Are you interested in buying it?” I asked idly.

  “Why?”

  “Why not? That would leave one less trading factorage to compete with you.”

  “You can’t compete with us. You don’t have the contacts. Or the golds. So what’s the point?”

  “If you won’t buy, then how about lending me twenty golds?”

  “To allow you to struggle on? Or so you can lose them with loaded dice?”

  I couldn’t quite keep the surprise from my face.

  “I have my ways, Moraris.”

  “You don’t know everything, Ryltar.”

  “I’m well aware of that.” He smiled sadly. “I do know that it was a mistake for you to meet Elnora’s price to gain complete ownership of the factorage.”

  “Perhaps.” But was I supposed to give up everything, just because Elnora’s cousin Clyesa had climbed into my bed when Elnora had taken one of her frequent rest trips to her family’s estate outside Enstronn? And who would have thought that Clyesa would slit her wrists in her bath after saying that I’d forced her, when all I’d done was offer her some ice wine? I’d told her it was stronger than most vintages.

  “You could have walked away and let Elnora run it and watched them struggle,” Ryltar went on. “But that would have proved that you aren’t the trader you think you are.”

  What Ryltar’s attitude proved was that Ryltar’s uncle, the one who was the councilor, had listened to Elnora’s family. I managed a cold smile. “I believe I offered you two propositions.”

  “I believe I turned both down, Moraris. I’d suggest Sugartyn, except he never lends more than a gold. Good day.”

  I was seething when I left. Suggesting Sugartyn—the moneylender for ship’s marines—was a gratuitous insult.

  After I left Ryltar, I made my way to see three others who had lent me funds in the past. They were more polite, but the result was the same. Everyone in Nylan seemed to know that I’d been set up by Elnora and her family … and no one cared.

  II

  Fourday morning came, and I still hadn’t found a way to raise two hundred golds. I had less than three golds left in my wallet because Faonyt had insisted on his pay, and I had indulged myself with decent wine after long and futile efforts on threeday. So I made my way to Hamor House—a handsome structure two blocks to the northeast of the harbor that provided rooms and studies for those from Hamor who might have some business in Nylan.

  Lanciano received me in a small and spare study—after making me wait a good half glass. He looked across the table desk at me almost pityingly. “You do not have the golds.”

  “Where would I get them?” I countered. “You’ve told everyone in Nylan not to extend funds to me.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “I have my ways,” I replied. I didn’t, but I’d liked the phrase when Ryltar had used it, and I didn’t see any other explanation, since the factorage was worth far more than ten golds, possibly even a hundred golds more than the two hundred I owed Lanciano.

  “What are we to do with you?”

  “Give me more time,” I suggested.

  He just shook his head, slowly and sadly. The sad expression w
as an act, of course. After several moments of silence, he spoke. “Do you have no plan, no scheme to repay your debt?”

  “I could do so over time.”

  “You have had time.”

  Since he was going to object to anything I offered, I said nothing.

  “What might be of sufficient value to discharge your debt?”

  Again, I said nothing.

  “You do have contacts among the black engineers,” mused Lanciano. “Is that not so?”

  “I know a few.” The only one I really knew was Lhean, a cousin of mine, and we hadn’t spoken much recently.

  “There are not many items of value that are worth two hundred golds,” said Lanciano. “Especially those useful to a trader.”

  “Sea-green emeralds,” I suggested, almost idly, because I needed to say something.

  “And you have fifteen of the size necessary for your debt?”

  Fifteen sea-green emeralds of the size he meant would bring closer to three hundred golds, but all I had was one likely half that size, and it had been my mother’s. Besides, if I had that many emeralds, I wouldn’t have needed to borrow from Lanciano in the first place.

  “Black wool?” I suggested.

  “Yes … that is always good, but who has thirty bales of prime black wool?”

  Much as I had to admit it, no one did. I doubted that more than fifty bales of prime black wool appeared in Nylan in an entire spring.

  “Some say that the secret to the engines of the black ships is perfect order.” Lanciano shrugged. “Others claim that it is the design itself. It has been kept secret for more than three centuries.”

  “Surely, someone must know the design of the engines,” I suggested warily.

  “Who?” asked Lanciano. “Do you know anyone outside the Brotherhood who does?”

  “I’ve never thought about the black ships much.” And I hadn’t, except to worry about them when I’d had “special” shipments coming in at night.

  “Imagine what a merchanter could do with such an engine. It is said that they do not even have paddlewheels.”

  “I wouldn’t know.” I was getting uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation. Most uncomfortable. All of it was Elnora’s fault. She’d wanted this, and she’d wanted that, and didn’t she deserve this as the wife of a factor—or that? And when she didn’t get whatever it was, she’d say that our quarters needed more order, that whatever it was would supply perfect order. And if I didn’t come up with it, well, our quarters got rather chill … and certainly disorderly … or she departed to “rest” at her father’s estate.

  In the end, I’d owed more golds than anyone knew, but I’d managed to start paying them off, just by resisting whatever Elnora had wanted to get her perfect order and using the silvers and golds that saved in being able to trade. I’d almost managed to clear all the debt—and that had meant that I saw little of Elnora. That had been fine with me … until the incident with Clyesa.

  Then her uncle must have put out the word, because no one in Nylan would advance me sufficient funds to buy out Elnora—that had been why I’d gone to the Hamorians. Needless to say, I wasn’t exactly fond of the Brotherhood … or the ways in which they enforced their visions of perfect order.

  “The designs of such an engine … who knows what they might be worth?” continued Lanciano.

  “A great deal more than two hundred golds,” I said dryly. “More like a man’s life and then some.”

  “If he were caught,” returned the Hamorian. “If no one knew … and other ships appeared in a few years, who could say?”

  “And if he were not caught…?”

  “Who could say … but there is little point in talking about something that has not happened.” He paused, then said, “I leave for Hamor next twoday. If you do not pay what you owe by oneday evening, in some fashion, you will have no worries at all, ever again.” He stood. “I believe that is all.”

  There wasn’t much I could say. So I didn’t. I just left.

  III

  I knew the Brotherhood had a library in the building adjacent to the engineering halls, and anyone could read what was there. They just couldn’t leave with any of the volumes. I doubted that the library contained what Lanciano wanted, but I harbored a slight hope that there might be something of value there, such as rough plans, perhaps, of the first black ship, The Black Hammer. If so … there were certain possibilities.

  You couldn’t just walk into the library. You had to be a citizen of Nylan, and you had to sign a log. I did all that and then looked at the young red-haired engineer apprentice who sat behind the table that held the logbook, situated by the door to the library.

  “Do you have any books on trading?” I asked.

  The apprentice frowned. “Most of what we have is on engineering and materials. There’s a shelf on factoring, ser. The one on the second carrel from the corner…” He pointed.

  “Thank you.” I nodded politely and walked to where he had pointed, and began to look through the books. Only when he returned to perusing what looked like a design of some sort did I ease over into other shelves. I finally located a volume that might have been written by Dorrin. At least, the paper was aged enough that it could have been. When I opened the book, I discovered that someone else had written it, a Jhaksurt of Feyne. He had dedicated it to Dorrin, though, for teaching him all that was in the volume. Unhappily for me, it dealt with the hull design of vessels. I had a suspicion that, while what was in the slim volume might be of great value, it would not be worth two hundred golds to Lanciano.

  I went through every book on those shelves—and quite a few others as well—but there was nothing on engines, nothing at all.

  After re-shelving the last book I perused, I returned to that table by the door and the young engineer. “Thank you. I’d hoped to find something on coinage weights.”

  “This is what we have, ser.”

  “Well … thank you.” I wasn’t about to ask where anything else was. That would have been calling even more attention to myself. I could hope that a factor looking for factoring books wouldn’t be too out of place.

  IV

  Most of the Brotherhood engineers wandered into Houlart’s on one night or another, but seldom on the enddays. Fourday and fiveday evenings were the best nights. So I bathed and put on one of my best factor’s blues and made my way there. More than a few of the black engineers were women. I was counting on that.

  I eased into the public room of the inn and made my way toward the end where some of the engineers were gathered, asking one of the servers for a dark beer. Once I had that in hand, I looked around. I ignored the pair of engineers hunched over a Capture board in the corner. Neither man looked like the type who’d say much.

  To one side, a man and a woman were talking.

  She was striking, and her eyes flashed as she spoke. “… you prize that staff more than any other possession.”

  “But not more than you,” replied the man, also an engineer. “I mean…”

  “I know what you meant. Words aren’t your strength, Warin. That’s why you’re a good engineer.”

  They were too wrapped up in each other, and I eased away, toward two women, both young enough to be barely more than apprentices.

  “… don’t know that I want to be an engineer forever,” said the one, her eyes flicking past me as if I didn’t exist.

  “Why not? Is it the insistence on accuracy?” asked the other, a tall broad-shouldered woman with green eyes. She didn’t notice me, either.

  “It’s not that, Altara. Perfect order, that’s what everyone wants, as if…” She shook her head, and her short light brown hair scarcely moved. “We all know—”

  The other engineer held up a hand, as if the brown-haired one were about to say something she shouldn’t. “Not here.”

  “There are times I think I’d just rather be a smith somewhere away from Nylan.”

  “Is that you … or is it Horas?”

  “We’re j
ust friends.”

  “He’d like more.”

  “I’m sure he would, but I’m not ready. I don’t even know if he’s the one.”

  “He thinks you are. He’d have returned to his family’s lands and those trees he loves so much long ago if it weren’t for you.”

  “I know. He is a dear … but he can be … impractical.”

  “Spoken like a true engineer.” Suddenly, the big blonde shook her head. “I need to go.”

  That was my chance, and as the blonde left, I joined the wiry brunette. “You’re a black engineer, aren’t you?” I asked.

  “You couldn’t tell?” Her voice was cool and ironic.

  “I had to say something. I couldn’t just say that I’m Moraris, and I’m a trader.”

  “You just did.”

  “That was my fallback,” I admitted, trying to sound off-balance and sheepish.

  “Do you need one?”

  “I obviously do,” I said with an embarrassed and apologetic grin. “If not more.”

  She considered. “I’m Cirlin. I wouldn’t have expected a factor here.”

  “Why not? Houlart’s is supposed to have good drink and solid fare … and the prices are reasonable. Factors do consider that,” I added dryly.

  She didn’t laugh, but she did smile. That was good.

  “I’ve never quite understood how the engineering brotherhood was organized,” I said, “or why it’s a brotherhood when so many of the engineers are women.”

  “It was a brotherhood because Dorrin was a man, and so were most of those who followed him in building ships. Women came later. So did better designs.”

  “Because of the women?” I suggested.

  “They certainly didn’t hurt.”

  “You think that women are better at refining things.”

  “I think more women are interested in refining things. Men want to move on to the next new thing.”

  “So once Creslin broke away from Westwind, Megaera refined him?”

  Cirlin shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Then who refined the black ships and their engines after Dorrin? Another woman? Is that what you and your friend do?”