The Belly of the Bow (21 page)

Venart paid him the sixty quarters and went back to the ship. There was no sign of any porters, but that didn’t surprise him in the least. He told his men to start unloading.

‘I’ve been through the list and everything’s fine,’ Vetriz said, sitting next to him on the sea wall. ‘Oh, and by the way, don’t let them sucker you into paying porters’ fees. Apparently they try it on with newcomers, but it’s all a scam.’

‘Do I look like I was born yesterday?’ her brother answered. ‘I’ve told Marin and Olas to take first turn watching the cargo. Let’s go and find somewhere out of this rain and get something to eat.’

‘The Unicorn, just off the Strangers’ Quay,’ Vetriz said. ‘It’s not too expensive, for Scona, and if we’re lucky we might get out again without having our throats cut.’

There was no point asking how she knew that; there were just some things that Vetriz knew, and that was that. Venart guessed that she asked people.

 

‘We’ll leave making a start till the morning,’ he announced, dumping his kitbag in the corner of the room. ‘I don’t suppose anybody does any business around here in the evenings.’

‘Actually, the time to do business is the evening promenade, ’ Vetriz corrected him. ‘There’s three or four taverns where the provisioners hang around, over on the other side of the Dock. We’ll need to take samples along, and it’s customary not to start talking business until after the second drink. Once we’ve told them what we’ve got, we leave it to them to have a sort of informal auction, and whatever we do, we don’t name a price ourselves, because that’s a sign of weakness. They make the offer, and we take it or leave it. They don’t haggle much.’

‘How the hell do you know? Never mind.’ Venart shook his head. ‘You’d better lead the way, then.’

‘I don’t know where to go,’ Vetriz replied. ‘I’ve never been here before in my life.’

The provisioners’ pitches turned out not to be hard to find. The fifth tavern they looked in smelt overpoweringly of cardamom and cumin, and they saw ten or twelve men sitting on cushions on the floor passing round a pewter jug, while all about them were open bags and sacks of fine-grade produce. When the two Islanders joined them, they were greeted with cheerful curiosity, more cushions and more cups were called for, and a space appeared in the ring. Two boys hurried up with the cushions, the cups, another quart jug and two wide copper plates of raisins, dates and dried figs. To Venart’s surprise, three of the men in the circle turned out to be women, dressed in the same heavy brocaded coats and trousers, embroidered slippers and big shapeless felt hats as the men.

After the barest minimum of small talk, the circle got down to business. Venart produced his samples, handed them to the man next to him to pass round, fixed a pleasant smile on his face and resolved to say nothing, while Vetriz (who was hungry) kept herself occupied with the plate of dried fruit. As predicted the merchants started haggling and arguing among themselves, for all the world as if the two strangers weren’t there. It was only when one man opted out of the negotiations after a good deal of arm-waving and furious language that he leant forward with a warm, friendly smile on his face and said, ‘Welcome to Scona.’

‘It’s a pleasure to be here,’ Venart replied inaccurately.

The provisioner acknowledged the formula with a slight bow from the neck. He was an elderly man with a round face, pale brown eyes and four hairless chins. ‘I can see you’re familiar with our way of doing business,’ he said, ‘so presumably this isn’t your first trip here.’

‘Not for me, no,’ Venart said. ‘But my sister, who’s learning the business from me, hasn’t been here before.’

The provisioner nodded two or three times. ‘It can be a very offputting place when you’re new here,’ he said. ‘But once you’re used to it, and you know better than to be taken in by the dockers’ scams and the excisemen’s bluster, you find it’s more or less the same as any market place anywhere. If people want to buy what you’re selling, it’s easy enough; if you’re not carrying the right lines, you have to work harder.’

‘And what about the war?’ Venart asked. ‘Is that making much difference?’

The provisioner grinned at him like a tired dog. ‘War?’ he said. ‘What war? Oh, I know what you mean, but it’s like an unspoken rule, you don’t call it that. You say “the state of tension existing between the Foundation and ourselves”, or “the intense rivalry between the Scona Bank and its local competitors”.’

Vetriz frowned. ‘Not meaning to be rude,’ she said, ‘but why not call it a war when it is one? It seems - well, a bit silly.’

Venart scowled ferociously at her, but both Vetriz and the provisioner ignored him. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to your eminently reasonable question,’ the provisioner said. ‘That’s just what’s been decided, and so we do it. To give you an example, our forces have just wiped out a larger enemy unit right in the heart of the Foundation’s territory, which effectively gives us control of the area. Now what’ll happen is that the accredited Scona representatives in Shastel will call at the offices of the Foundation and hand over a letter of credit - drawn on Scona, needless to say - for the value of the mortgages held by the Foundation in the territory we’ve just taken, and the Foundation will seal receipts on the mortgage deeds acknowledging that all sums due have been paid in full. Then as soon as they’re able, they’ll send a larger army to chase us off again, and if they succeed, their agents will call on us and give us a letter of credit (drawn on Shastel, needless to say) and we’ll receipt our mortgage deeds back again, and so it’ll go on. Neither side can actually cash the letters, obviously, but I know for a fact that we solemnly enter them in our accounts as fixed assets, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they do the same.’

Vetriz bit her lip. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘It still seems a funny way to do business.’

The provisioner shrugged his shoulders. ‘It is; but, to use our favourite phrase, it’s custom and practice. And it does make a sort of sense, in a way; we treat warfare as one of the many forms that commercial activity can take. And if you ask me, running commerce and warfare in parallel is no sillier than simultaneously waging war and playing diplomacy, which is what all governments do.’

The rest of the circle had stopped arguing and gone back to talking pleasantly among themselves -
except when they’re negotiating
Venart noticed,
they’re a very soft-spoken lot
- and a middle-aged woman on the opposite side of the ring got up, sat down next to Venart and started talking terms. Vetriz tried to follow the conversation for a while, but it wasn’t particularly interesting stuff, and for all her determination to learn the business she still found it hard to get enthusiastic about warranties of actual state and condition. Instead she turned to the man they’d been talking to.

‘I was wondering,’ she said. ‘Do you happen to know a man called Bardas Loredan? I think he’s the Director’s brother.’

The provisioner raised both eyebrows. ‘Not personally,’ he said. ‘I know of him, naturally. If I may ask, why?’

‘Oh, I met him once in Perimadeia,’ she said, with slightly exaggerated lack of concern. ‘We did some business with him just before the City fell.’

‘Really,’ said the provisioner softly.

‘Oh, yes. We bought a lot of rope from him.’

The provisioner nodded slowly. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Colonel Loredan - that was his official rank, wasn’t it? - he’s something of a mystery to us, if the truth be told. He came here immediately after the City fell, but as far as anybody knows he’s having nothing to do with either the Director or his brother—’

‘His brother,’ Vetriz repeated. ‘Gorgas Loredan?’

‘That’s right. Our Chief Executive. Do I take it you know him as well?’

‘We’ve met,’ Vetriz replied, looking past him rather than at him. ‘I gather he works for his sister.’

‘Gorgas Loredan’s a very important man here on Scona,’ the provisioner said, deadpan. ‘If you know him personally, that could be a great help to your business dealings here. For one thing, he’s in charge of all the buying for the military.’

‘Oh, I don’t suppose he remembers me,’ Vetriz said quickly. ‘Does anyone know why there’s bad feeling between Bar—between Colonel Loredan and his brother?’

The provisioner shook his head. ‘Rumour and speculation,’ he said, ‘and no two stories agree. It’s not all that uncommon for brothers to fall out, you know.’ He paused, apparently thinking something over, and then went on, ‘If you knew the Colonel in Perimadeia during the siege, did you ever come across a man called Alexius, the Patriarch?’

Vetriz blinked several times and then nodded. ‘I did, as a matter of fact. He was a friend of Colonel Loredan’s, and we also did business with him. In fact, it was our ship that brought him out when the City fell, and he stayed with us for a while on the Island afterwards.’

‘That’s interesting. I only asked because he’s here on Scona too; he arrived not long ago, and I did hear somewhere that he was anxious to find where Colonel Loredan’s living now. If you want to see the Colonel, he may well be the person to ask.’

‘I see,’ Vetriz said. ‘Well, I don’t suppose we’ll have the time to go looking up old friends, because we’re on quite a tight schedule. But if we do, I’ll certainly bear that in mind. I don’t suppose you have any idea where Patriarch Alexius is staying, do you?’

The provisioner smiled. ‘As a matter of fact, I do. He’s the guest of Gorgas Loredan. I can show you where he lives if you’d like.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble,’ Vetriz said immediately.

‘It wouldn’t be any trouble,’ the provisioner insisted, and if there was an edge of wickedness in his voice he concealed it very well. ‘It’s on my way home, in fact, and since it doesn’t look like I’m going to do much business this evening, I might just as well walk so far with you.’

‘Well, I really ought to wait for my brother, you see,’ Vetriz replied with a slight tinge of desperation. ‘And I really have no idea how long his business will take.’

‘I’m in no great hurry,’ the provisioner said. ‘I don’t mind waiting.’

Vetriz shifted a little on her pile of cushions. ‘I expect you’re just being polite,’ she said. ‘And really, I’d hate to hold you up.’

‘No trouble, no trouble,’ the man said firmly. ‘While we’re waiting, perhaps you’d indulge my curiosity just a little further. You see, I’m terribly interested in what actually happened in the last days of the City, and meeting someone who was actually there - if you don’t mind my asking, that is.’

‘Oh, no, not in the least,’ Vetriz answered unenthusiastically. ‘But really, we didn’t see very much, and I wasn’t actually there at the end, it was my brother—’

‘Only,’ the provisioner went on, ‘the story is that the City fell because somebody actually opened the gates and let the plainsmen in. I find that extremely hard to believe, and I wondered if you knew anything.’

Vetriz shook her head. ‘I expect I’ve just heard the same rumours as you,’ she said. ‘I mean yes, I’ve heard that story, but to me it just sounds like rationalising; you know, Perimadeia couldn’t possibly have fallen to the plainsmen unless it was treason, and then that turns into speculation and the speculation becomes a rumour—’

‘Quite so,’ the provisioner agreed. ‘That’s how tales get about, as my father used to say. But I’ve heard this story from several quite different sources, and they all seem to agree on so many details that maybe there really is something to it after all.’ He smiled, and appeared to relax slightly, like a hunter slowly easing his bow when he’s decided that the animal he’s just drawn on is actually too small to be worth shooting. ‘So what was it
really
like?’ he went on. ‘I used to visit the City quite regularly at one time, but that must be, oh, ten years ago now, so the truth is, I really have no idea what it was like towards the end. Is it true, do you know, that Chief Temrai actually built scores and scores of seige engines from scratch, just from what he remembered seeing in the Arsenal? If so, I’d say we’ve all been underestimating the plainsmen for far too long. The potential for trade . . .’

As Vetriz listened and tried her best to reply intelligently to the provisioner’s questions, she had the distinct feeling that she’d been deliberately let off the hook; no, it wasn’t even that, more a case of having been saved till later, like the best of a batch of honey-cakes. Whatever the reason, he didn’t insist on walking with them once Venart had struck his deal, and they were able to escape.

‘This isn’t bad at all, you know,’ Venart said as soon as they were back out in the open air. ‘I’ve got rid of all the raisins at twenty-five per cent profit, and she’s going to take half the cloves at thirty per cent. They don’t seem particularly keen on pepper, though; she offered me fifteen quarters a quart, so I turned her down on that. I’ve got this feeling we can get it up to seventeen if we stick at it; I mean, they must use mountains of the stuff, and I can’t really believe they’re getting it cheaper from the Colleon boats.’

Vetriz made some sort of show of listening to her brother’s blow-by-blow account, but her mind was preoccupied with other things. The thought that Alexius was here, on Scona, was somehow vaguely alarming, as well as extremely mystifying. If she’d been told he was on Shastel, that would at least have made better sense, because Shastel was heavily into all the mystic stuff and magic that Alexius knew about; they weren’t the same denomination as the City magicians had been, but they talked a lot about this peculiar thing called the Principle, so they might well be expected to invite one of the greatest living authorities on the subject to come and join them. But for him to go and join their enemy—

Unless that was it, and what was being planned was some kind of wizards’ war, with Alexius and the Shastel scholars trading fiery spells with each other across the Scona Straits. That would make just a little sense, if it wasn’t for the fact that Alexius couldn’t do anything remotely resembling magic (and nor could anybody else, for that matter) and even if he could, he wouldn’t offer himself for hire like a cotton-picker at the start of the season. She was so preoccupied that she forgot to keep saying, ‘That’s nice,’ at regular intervals, and Venart stopped talking and looked at her.