Natural Ordermage (30 page)

He half turned, glancing aft. Farther to the northwest was a low line of dark clouds. They looked to be larger and nearer than they had been at midmorning, but he’d already learned that estimating distances at sea wasn’t all that easy.

His eyes came to rest on the silent paddle-wheel assemblies. At that moment, he recalled Khalyt’s comments about engine design and about screws. If screw propulsion were faster, why didn’t the trading ships use it instead of paddle wheels? Although Khalyt had never said so directly, Rahl also had the feeling that the hulls of the Reduce warships were black iron. But Rahl had never seen any trading ships in Nylan that were metal-hulled.

Was building a ship of metal too expensive? Or was there another reason?

One of the passengers, a darker-skinned man who was a Hamorian factor of some sort, made his way along the railing toward Rahl.

“Good afternoon,” Rahl offered in Hamorian. “How are you faring?” He’d wanted to ask how he liked the voyage, but those words escaped him.

The merchant looked up. “You speak Hamorian?”

“I’m still learning. You are a trader?”

“Yes, a factor in cloth and in wool. The black wool of Reduce is much desired in Hamor. I came to pick out that which is most suitable.”

Rahl nodded. “Wool is warm, but is not Hamor too warm for wool garments?”

The factor laughed, a sound with vast amusement. “For tapestries and rugs. Because it does not have to be dyed, it lasts far longer. I also travel to the west of Austra, where there is an orange wool. It is even harder to find, and it is not as durable, but the weaving masters wish it and pay well.”

Rahl knew that the
Diev
carried raw wool that would be sold in Swartheld by the Nylan Merchant Association. So why would the Hamorian spend coins and time to buy wool himself when he could get it without traveling? Did the Association increase the price that much?

“You are Rahl. You are an assistant to the purser, I heard. I am Alamyrt.” The trader inclined his head politely and smiled, showing tannish teeth.

“For the voyage,” Rahl admitted. “I’m being sent as a clerk to the Nylan Merchant Association in Swartheld.”

“Ah… they wish someone who can speak Hamorian.” He laughed. “Still, language alone will not help. They should bargain more. We love to bargain.” Alamyrt paused. “Do you come from a trading family?”

“You write Hamorian, too?”

“As I speak it. Not as well as I would like.”

The trader shook his head. “You will not remain with the merchants. You will learn too much. If you choose to leave, go see my brother. He is Calamyr of Doramyl and Sons.”

“Doramyl was your father?”

Alamyrf laughed again, almost delightedly. “Alas, no. He was my great-great-grandsire. We are an old trading family.”

Over Alamyrt’s shoulder, Rahl caught sight of Galsyn, standing in the hatchway of the passage that led to and from the mess and galley. In one hand he held a large leather case and gestured with the other.

“Ser… you must excuse me. The purser needs me.”

“You are excused, young Rahl. Perhaps we can talk later.”

“Yes, ser.” Rahl could sense a rueful amusement in the trader, almost verging on… something he couldn’t define. Still, he inclined his head politely before turning and heading across the deck toward the. purser.

“What did his mightiness the cloth factor have to say?” asked Galsyn.

“He just said that he was interested in black wool from Reduce and orange wool from Austra, and that the Merchant Association needed to bargain more.”

“Ha! He’d like that. He’d bargain you out of your skin and make you think he’d done you a favor.” The purser snorted. “Anyway, we’ve got a lot to do on the declaration, and I’d rather do it now while we’ve got good weather. Can’t check everything in heavy weather, end up with papers everywhere, and without the declarations being complete, the-captain won’t want to off-load in .Hamor.”

Rahl frowned. “But doesn’t all the cargo go to the Merchant Association there first?” .

“Aye, it does.” Galsyn cleared his throat. “But we have to give the declaration to the Imperial tariff enumerators before we can off-load. Then they check the declaration against everything that hits the pier. Anything that doesn’t match doesn’t get off-loaded, and that means a separate declaration for the stuff we miss—and the fees for another wagon and teamsters, and those costs the captain has to eat out of her share. She doesn’t like that.” Rahl could understand that.

Galsyn turned and made his way down the short passage to the crew and passenger mess, with Rahl behind him. Once in the mess, the purser extracted two stacks of papers from the leather case and set them on the long table.

“I was thinking, ser,” offered Rahl before Galsyn said anything. He’d wanted to ask before, but not when anyone else was around. He hated revealing, what he didn’t know. “Outside of the manifests and cargo lists, I don’t know much about trading, but it seemed like the Nordlan ships I saw in the harbor at Nylan were narrower, and they looked faster.”

Galsyn shook his head. “Trading’s not about speed, young fellow. It’s about coins. A faster ship, if she’s under sail, carries less. If she’s under steam, or steam and sail, she burns more coal, and coal is far more costly than the wind, and the coal takes space that cargo could occupy. And factors and traders, for most goods, they don’t pay more for getting ‘em quicker. Rather have ’em later and cheaper.”

“You’re saying that we shouldn’t use steam at all?”

The purser laughed. “Not like that at all. There are times when there’s no wind, and there are harbors where it might take days for the wind to be right to make port. A good master like Captain Liedra knows when to use the engines and when not to.”-

“And to escape pirates?”

“Most of em. The Jeranyi have fast iron-hulled vessels. They carry barrels of cammabark. After they loot a ship, they fill it with cammabark, then fire it. The stuff explodes and burns right down to the waterline. Doesn’t leave any trace of this ship—or the crew.“

Rahl winced. And Fahla’s father had been involved with them? “But why do we have wooden hulls, then?”

“Better for the cargo, and we’re merchanters. Warships, .that’s another question. I’ve had it explained to me, and I can’t say as I understand, but it’s about order and metal, and too much metal in a cargo ship tends to be bad for the cargo over time. At least, that’s the. way I heard it. Warships, they don’t have to worry about cargo. Anyway, it’s not something I can do anything about.” Galsyn handed several sheets of declarations to Rahl. “Sit down across from me. I’ll read off something, and I want you to check the declaration and tell me if. it’s listed.”

“Yes, sir.”

“It won’t necessarily be in the order on the declaration. So you might have to go through it all to find it. Don’t rush. Just make sure it’s there.” Galsyn adjusted the form in front of him. ‘Twenty kegs of scarletine…“

“Yes, ser. Twenty kegs.”

“Fifteen kegs of madder…”

“Fifteen kegs, ser.”

“Sixty-two kegs of Feyn indigo…”

Rahl looked twice. “There are only sixty listed on the declaration, ser.”

“Sixty? Just sixty?”

“Yes, ser.”

Galsyn fumbled through the papers, then nodded. “That’s right. The frigging teamsters dropped two on the pier. Smashed ‘em up good. Should have remembered that. Probably did it so that they could grab some for themselves. They’d have to return it to the trader, but they could probably make off with a silver’s worth in their trousers easy.”

“A silver’s worth?”

“A keg of good indigo will fetch five golds, maybe more.” Galsyn shook his head. “Need to finish this. Ninety-three bales of Lydlerian black wool—raw.”

“Is that the same as the Hamorian wool factor’s wool?”

“No. Alamyrt’s wool is on a separate declaration that he’ll have to make. Because he’s Hamorian, it has to be separate. He pays a lower tariff, but he’ll also pay on his profits from it, or something like that. Now… next item. Ten barrels of hard wheat flour.”

“Yes, ser.” Rahl wasn’t having any trouble following Galsyn, but he could see that being purser wasn’t the most interesting job, and he wondered how Meryssa was finding it.

As he sat beside Galsyn at one of the crew’s tables in the mess, eating tough lamb in a stew with over-cooked potatoes and stringy quilla, Rahl could sense someone looking at him. Since his back was to the passenger table, he had no idea who it might be, and he didn’t want to turn around and stare.

“Cook’s done better than this,” muttered Galsyn. “Would have been hard for him to do worse.”

“Careful there,” suggested Trylla, the first mate. “I could tell him, and he might try.”

“Who bought the provisions, purser?” asked the carpenter from the end of the table.

“You’re always telling me that it’s a poor crafter who blames his tools and materials,” countered Galsyn.

“Tools, not materials. Hope you’re not as loose with your figures as your words.“

“Some figures even you’d like to be loose with.”

A series of laughs followed Galsyn’s words. Even Mienfryd laughed, if dourly.

Rahl smiled but didn’t laugh. For some reason, he thought of Deybri, although she certainly wasn’t the type for anyone to be loose with. She had made that point more than clear to Rahl.

He finished the last of the stew and hard biscuits, then asked Galsyn, “Is there anything else you need for me to do this afternoon?”

“Not for the moment. Later, you can help me check the ship’s accounts. I could do it alone, but it’s faster with two.”

Rahl nodded, then waited for the mate and Galsyn to rise before following them out of the mess and onto the forward deck.

The early-afternoon air was pleasant, if brisk, and the ship was only pitching moderately in strong swells rising out of the southwest. He walked to the bow, then realized that he’d be soaked before long from the fine spray coming off the bow, and retreated to a position just forward of the starboard paddle wheels.

“Young man, you are the assistant purser, are you not?” The voice was firm—and feminine.

Rahl turned, then paused, because the question had been addressed to him in Hamorian, and the woman who had asked it was the one whom all the crew stared at, and at whom all the male officers tried to avoid staring. She was black-haired and black-eyed, with flawless skin that carried a faint hint of almond. Although concealed somewhat by trousers and a black vest, her shape was clearly one of those alluded to by Galsyn.

Abruptly, Rahl dropped his eyes just slightly and tried to remember the honorifics in Hamorian. “Yes, honored lady.”

She smiled, and Rahl wondered what he had said wrong.

“If I offended you, honored lady, I beg your pardon. I am still learning Hamorian.”

“You speak it as a native, young man, if as a native of Ada who lived in Merowey. No, I was amused because you clearly did not wish to offend, yet you were more than properly respectful, unlike so many of those in the north. That is so refreshing.” She turned to the dark-haired handsome but muscular man with her and nodded. “You may leave us, Bartold.”

The man inclined his head and stepped away, although he retreated only so far as the base of the foremast, and his eyes remained on Rahl.

“How might I be of service?” Rahl asked.

Rahl could sense the amusement, and he wondered if he’d used the wrong term for service, but he waited politely.

“You may talk with me for now. There are few on board who have the time or the inclination.”

“For a while, lady. Later, I will have to work.”

“Accounts of sorts?” Rahl nodded.

“This vessel seems small for both a purser and an assistant.”

While she hadn’t exactly asked a question, that was the fashion in which polite Hamorian society made an inquiry, according to Magister Thorl, and Rahl replied. “It is to make me more aware. I’m being sent as a clerk to the Nylan Merchant Association in Swartheld.”

“Those individuals of less-than-perfect parentage who manage that establishment could use more of the courtesy you exhibit,” replied the woman.

At least, that was what Rahl thought she had said. “I will try to be polite to all.”

“Politeness never hurts, Rahl, especially if you give, nothing except courtesy and what was paid for.”

“I will keep that in my thoughts.” Rahl didn’t know the expression he really wanted to use.

“And in your mind.”

“Thank you.”

“I have seen you sparring. For one who claims little experience, you exhibit much craft.”

“My father taught me the truncheon early. Blades I learned later, and not so well.”

She offered a knowing nod, then gestured out at the ocean and the seemingly endless swells, just high enough to show occasional traces of foam. “The ocean appears to have ho end when one can see no land.”

“This is my first voyage.” And possibly my last, he thought to himself. “You must travel often.”

“More than I would prefer, but I cannot find the… assistants and servants I need for my enterprises just in Hamor. Those who purchase from me often have particular needs.” She shrugged. “One does what one must.”