The Broken Eye(42)
The veins on his neck were standing out. A temper, huh? Well, let him try something, please. She’d see just how much freedom of movement she had in this thobe after all. And for however embarrassing a man might find it to have his bung packed by an Archer, how much more embarrassing would it be to be humiliated by a woman in a thobe?
But then again, the Blackguard clothes were an armor that kept Karris out of fights. Bullies didn’t want to fight and lose. New garb, new rules.
She realized then that his lack of cooperation in the first place might have something to do with her choice of Parian garb. The Onestos were originally Ilytian, and there had long been strife between them and Paria. Especially among the rich, who felt unfairly taxed when they used Parian overland routes for trade during the winters.
Many nobles who were raised on Big Jasper prided themselves on putting those petty struggles in the past, but Turgal hadn’t been raised here. He looked like another young rich urban fop, but he had the biases of his elders.
Karris suddenly wondered if Marissia had dressed her like this on purpose. But Karris hadn’t said anything about meeting with an Ilytian, had she? Had she let something slip, and this was Marissia sabotaging her, or had she not said anything and Marissia would have helped her avoid it if she had?
“Turgal, I could have played this a dozen different ways. I could have delayed our meeting and showed up in front of your father with all the correct numbers. I could now expose you and destroy you. Instead, this.” Karris fished the cone out of her bag, along with paper. She handed both back, and pulled out a third paper, with the cipher correctly translated and put on flat paper. All done in the time that he’d taken to walk to this meeting. “I don’t wish to destroy you,” Karris said. “But I will have your respect.”
The spine went right out of him. “You have it. Please, I’m on my last leg with my grandfather. He’ll disown me. If he does that, I can’t be any use to you, right? Right?”
“I have no intention of destroying you, Turgal. I want you to take all these monies and transfer them to a new account—just in case someone else also has these numbers. This will happen today.”
“I can do that,” he said.
“High Luxlord Andross Guile might come after this money.”
“My grandfather always deals with him personally. But if the monies are in a new account, even Andross Guile won’t get them out.”
Smart of the grandfather, then. Turgal wouldn’t last two minutes with the old man. “Good,” Karris said. “Now, as a gesture of goodwill: your old rivals, the Adini family, have been planning to move their main Abornean warehouses from the Darks to Eastland. They need more storage and the harbor there is better. They’ve found exactly the area they need, and have been quietly buying up the deeds. There are a few holdouts, whom they’ve begun harassing. If your family wishes, you can buy these properties simply by telling the owners, ‘The sun shines on the obedient.’ The White expects that you will still allow each of them a fair profit, because they will sell to you. You, in turn, can sell those properties at a huge profit to the Adini—or if you so desire, deny the sale in order to hurt them. Tell your grandfather that he must protect the families who sell to him from Adini retribution and that he ought to send his fastest ship, whatever he decides. This matter is three weeks old already.”
Turgal’s eyes lit up. “If this is true, this will make me look indispensable to my grandfather. This is…”
“Very gracious of us. You’re in business with us, Turgal Onesto, and you will find us good partners. It is in our interest that you rise, but only so long as we help each other.”
“Yes,” he said. “That makes complete sense.”
“Please understand me, Turgal. Some interpret kindness like this as a lack of will. If there is one thing that we at the Chromeria have in abundance, it is will. If you cross us … but that need never happen. We won’t ask of you more than you can bear to give. Do you understand?”
He did. She saw in his eyes that he had gone from scared to saved to vassal, in the space of minutes. Karris only wished that she had been able to do any of this on her own. Instead, every pressure point and bribe had been the White’s suggestion.
But then, that is how masters teach apprentices, isn’t it?
Karris gestured to the greeter that they were done, and would like the privacy shield to be withdrawn. The woman came over immediately. Karris said her goodbyes to Turgal Onesto, and passed a hefty tip to the greeter. The greeter discreetly palmed Karris a bundle of rice paper documents: her reports.