Four Horsemen: Chapter 31

Chapter 31:

“Armor and weapons comes to about fourteen hundred gold, so three fifty each,” Mya said. “Coin and other bits adds up another seventy, so four hundred and twenty each. I talked to Jaxus and the others, they’d be interested in buying. That leaves us with just the Baron’s stuff.”

They sat around a campfire, the caravan was circled like it had been when it was a market, turned into a defensive structure instead.

Guards moved around the carts, using side steps to look over and watch for any possible threats.

There were a few campfires in the circle, most were out as people slept for tomorrow.

Dark had arrived before they made it to camp and the caravan guards were flagging. Especially those in the middle of the fighting.

Desar, Valter and Petor had shrugged it off easily.

Desari glanced around and tossed two pouches to Mya.

She looked inside, pursing her lips she just stopped herself from whistling.

“Gold, bunch of it, then got some clothes and some items.” She drew out items stored separately.

She created a circle with her thumb and forefinger, casting a spell of inspection she looked through the circle at the items.

Scepter of Avarice-Cost 7,500GP

Description: Attracts loose coins from around the vicinity into the owner's pockets.

Box of Never-Ending Spices-Cost 10,000GP

Description: For a gourmet baron; always full of the most exotic and expensive spices.

Book of Dark Deals-Cost 25,000GP

Description: A manual on making pacts with otherworldly entities for personal gain.

Crown of Dominion-Cost 50,000GP

Description: Allows a leader to exert subtle control over their subjects.

Necklace of Charm-Cost 15,000GP

Description: Those who look upon it find themselves more amenable to the wearer’s requests.

She read out their descriptions as she went.

“Altogether, one hundred and seven thousand, five hundred gold.” She peeked into the pouches again.

“Then another sixty two thousand, three hundred and thirty one gold, a few items will need a bit of haggling.” A book was shimmering under her inspection spell. Mya pulled it out and inspected it.

A simple protection rune on its cover. She slid her mana through, teasing the rune till it accepted her and deactivated.

“Ledgers? Grain, different goods that can keep, gold? Oh, you are a sneaky little creature.” She shook her head and chuckled.

“Care sharing with the rest of us?” Desari asked.

“This is his little black book. He’s been skimming off of the top for years he was smart about it too, an item here, a shipment of food there. Then he would sell it back to himself or the kingdom when they were needed the most and increase his profits. Set up caches around the barony to store his coin. Oh this is definitely worth some good coin.”

She closed it and looked at the others.

“We could go around to the different caches and loot them, there’s no one here to collect them and it will be some time before the Baron’s death is announced. So anyone that knows about them isn’t going to do anything.”

“Then we can use the gold to buy out our information?” Valter asked.

“Exactly! That and could add in an investment into the Mardun traders, we’re always looking for forward thinking shareholders with plenty of gold,” She grinned.

“How long would it take?”

“Most are near to the capital, so it would take us about a week, week and a half to get there.” She flipped to a page with a map showing the various locations and held it out.

“Does that take in the condition of the roads?” Valter asked.

“Say two weeks.” Mya moved her hand side to side.

“Two weeks to get to a single location?” Petor asked.

“Yes, but then it would only take a few days to get to the other locations.” Mya clicked her tongue. “Would be easier if we could call on Limos or Hedgewick again, sell them what we find. A lot of it is grain he was holding out to sell during the winter when prices jumped.”

“So we can head off, hoping to snatch up what’s in the caches and selling of the grain, how much are we talking about?”

“Several dozen cartfuls each cache.” She could only hold maybe two cache’s worth and there were over a dozen.

“That sounds like a lot of room in a storage device,” Desari said.

“Well we’ve got three options, one we go off and loot the caches, two we sell the information off to Hedgewick and we get part of what’s looted. Third we keep the information and we come back later to loot the caches,” Mya said.

“Don’t know how long it will be before we come back this way and if most of the wealth is in grain then it could spoil,” Petor said.

“We’re just  four days from Aetheria, we sell the information we get guaranteed coin without having to do anything extra,” Valter said.

“I’m for keeping on our path to Aetheria,” Desari said.

“Carrying all that wheat, its good coin, but it’d take us a long time,” Petor said.

Mya rubbed the back of her head and let out a sigh.

“Okay, so sell it to Hedgewick then.”

The others nodded their heads.

“Uggh I hate getting middle men involved, fine!” She raised her hands in defeat. “Any of you want the items?”

“The book on Dark Deals, I’d like to have a look at it if I can?” Petor asked.

“A little summoning in you?”

“Well, just curious, I’ve been told its terrible all my life, but I’m not so sure that I believe the sources anymore. Having several creatures willing to fight for me could be interesting.”

“Necklace of charm, never know when you need someone to bend an ear to your cause,” Desari said.

Valter shook his head.

“Okay, well then we’ll take that out of the coin total at the quoted prices.” She handed them items and their coin quickly.

“Alright, then I’ll see what I can make off of the Baron’s ledger and his sundries, then trade the cores as well.” She threw up the pouch and caught it. “Wish me luck.”

“Have fun,” Petor said, he slid down against the log he’d been sitting on, to use it as a backrest while he opened the black book made from some strange hide.

Desari nodded to her and went back to looking into the fire.

Valter stood and stretched. “I’m going to get some sleep. Mya could you get me fifty ingots of mithril off of my credit too?”

“Easily done.”

“Thank you, see you in the morning.” He trudged off towards the carts.

Mya wandered off towards the largest campfire where Hedgewick was working at a travel desk, crafting letters. He sealed one with wax and put it into a cubby on his desk, it flashed with an inscription and the letter disappeared.

“Fine night for some tea, no?” Mya asked as she walked up to his desk.

He turned in his seat, a smile spreading across his face as he stood and bowed slightly. “Miss Mya.”

“Mister Hedgewick,” Mya tilted her head. “I think I might have a distraction well worth your time.”

She took out a chair beside his own.

“Oh, color me intrigued,” Hedgwick turned his chair to face her, his arm resting on the desk.

“Well first there is the armor and weapons of the barons men, market price.”

“Of course,” Hedgewick said, a pen jumped to paper and started recording.

“Then we found several items of value within the baron’s possession,” She drew out the items and handed them to him.

He took out a monocole from his breast pocket and studied them.

Mya took out her heater, tea pot, water and tea. Getting it all going by the time he’d checked the items.

“Lets say eighty five thousand then?”

“The box of spices are worth their weight in platinum, especially if you can continue to feed it mana and allow the spices to fall out constantly. We both know you sell to a great number of people that would be interested in adding a bit of flavor to their foods.”

“Ninety thousand, but only due to my lack of sleep,” He smiled. He didn’t look tired in the least.

“Of course,” The teapot hummed as she took off the heat and placed the tea into it. “And the assorted items?”

“One hundred and sixty gold all in. Then seventeen thousand for the cores, standard prices?”

Mya bowed her head. “Agreed.”

“Why do I feel you’re holding back from me?” Hedgewick studied her like a puzzle.

“Well I was also wondering if this might interest you.” She pulled out the Baron’s book.

“A journal?” He studied the book as if to read its secrets.

“A little more than a journal, a ledger and a map.”

“Oh?” Hedgewick took on a carefully neutral expression and interlinked his hands in his lap.

“Seems that the baron kept a few things for himself, items, gold, and grain. Cartloads of grain. I can think of nothing that would get the people on a new Baron’s side if he was to dip into his pockets and sell the people grain at prices they could afford over the winter. Or if some enterprising trading company was able to make a rather tidy profit of off such an item.”

She opened the book, to a page of numbers and carefully tore it out. She handed it to him and closed the book, storing it away.

Hedgewick studied the page and then turned it over.

“We keep Eighty percent of what we find.”

“Forty percent, market prices on the goods found within.” She took out the tea and poured into two cups, handing one to Hedgewick.

“We take seventy percent, market prices on everything.”

“You get sixty, we take forty. Payment to be automated through our credit and completed within the next three standard months?”

Hedgewick took a sip from his tea.

“Just how many caches?”

She took a drink too, spreading out the interest. “Seven that I saw with a glance.”

He put the cup down on his desk.

“Sixty to the Limos Trading company and Forty to the four horsemen.” He stood and held out a hand.

Mya put her cup down, stood and shook his hand.

“Pleasure doing business with you. Also Valter asked if he could get another fifty ingots of mithril paid on his credit.”

“I can do it on yours and then have him confirm with me tomorrow morning,” Hedgewick said.

Mya thought for a second, she was coming to trust the others with her life, maybe not her secrets.

“Fair.” Mya took out the book and held it out to him.

“I am faintly regretting saying that you keep your own loot.” Hedgewick sighed dramatically, taking the edge from his words.

“Finder’s keepers.” Mya winked.

“Here are the ingots.” He pulled them from a storage device and handed them to her, then he took a copy of the contract and gave it to her as well.

“Enough excitement for one day,” He sat back in his seat and drank his tea.

Mya did the same.

“So what are you going to do now with the barony?”

Hedgewick tapped his hand on the desk.

“Its always a delicate thing dealing with governments. Thankfully this one is terribly managed and is essentially left to its own devices. The royal family are fighting battles on two fronts, one of them the nasty cold war where neither side likes one another but the cost of fighting would be too high to be of value. I don’t think they even knew about the passes that would lead to Aetheria.”

He drank from his tea.

“It would be best to instill someone that has come back from the war on the front. After fighting on the front they’ll see the state of the barony, the way that their families have been treated. They’ll be eager to do something to redeem the place. We can get them into office easily enough, an internal barony matter, with a military person the royal family will be happy, secured in their loyalty.”

“Rooting out the nobles and creatures that litter the barony and were akin to the baron will be trouble.”

“Ah,” Mya held out several books. “A certain Baron’s journals? I would think it might hold a great number of secrets.”

She held them out.

“No price?” Hedgewick made no move to take them, even with the eagerness in his eyes.

“Freely given, out of friendship. One trader to another.” She smiled.

“Thank you, that should make things easier.” He took the books and stored them.

“So install someone from the military. Then take over trading?”

“Install them, set them to public works plenty of veterans and people looking for work, with gold backing them they can repair the roads, trade will improve across the area. Decrease the taxes to rates that they actually need. We’ll establish ourselves as a common trader moving around. What is better for trade other than stability? Banditry will decrease, more farmland be developed. We can continue our little trades here with less worry and might even open up the training routes to Aetheria with our caravans. Get paid to carry others goods.”

“Why not the top merchant in the barony?”

“Being the biggest gets others looking into you. Being middling you’re just one of the rest. Best to be grey than stick out,” Hedgewick smiled.

“And all of that gold you lend the new baron will be quite the nest egg.”

“Indeed and we can move the market in different ways. With the right problem solvers, the new baron won’t even know its our little trading group that’s behind it all,” He smiled.

“Why stay quiet and hidden?”

“If someone doesn’t know about you then you have a greater chance of evading their interest. Constant and repeated work makes it possible for our values to spread. Over the coming months Windmolen will expand into a trading city that we have a firm foothold within. We have many other things to worry about, dealing with issues in the way that creates the least amount of ripples is for the best.” Hedgewick’s expression hardened. “That said, those that mess with our trades and with our people are sure to find out why that is not a good idea. Balance must be maintained as you’ve seen.”

Mya drank from her tea, sinking into her thoughts. Was that what went wrong? Sticking out too much? Though there was no one else to fight the pirates. No one to open up the trade routes. They’d done what they’d had to because another wouldn’t.

Would it have been possible to get the other groups to fight and help us? It grated on her to fight alongside them, they were doing most of the work. She’d wanted to show them just what her group could do and shove it in their faces.

They’d worked with the gods, but there needed to be an opening.

Maybe in the future? She finished up the tea in her cup.

“I agree with you Hedgewick, those that cross the line must be dealt with. There cannot be any mercy.” She stood and took her chair.

“Want the last of the tea?”

“I think I’ll need it this night,” He smiled. She filled his cup and then stored the pot and her gear.

“See you in the morning.”

“You too Mya.”