Pathfinder

CHAPTER 7 O

“Was it the fold or merely a fold?” asked Ram.

“The fold was there,” said the expendable. “All nineteen of the ship’s computers report that the fold . . . was jumped.”

Expendables made no careless decisions about sentence structure. Nor did they hesitate, unless the hesitation meant something. “‘Was jumped,’ you said, but you didn’t specify that it was jumped by us,” said Ram.

“Because apparently we did not do the jumping,” said the expendable. “We emerged in exactly the position we were in at the beginning of the jump.”

“And were we still moving?” said Ram.

“Yes.”

“So what position are we in now?” asked Ram.

“We are two days’ journey closer to Earth. The physical position we were in two days ago.”

“So we came out of the fold reversed,” said Ram. “Heading the other way.”

“No, Ram,” said the expendable. “We came out facing away from Earth, just as we were when we went into the fold.”

“We don’t have a reverse gear,” said Ram. “We can only move in the direction we’re facing.”

“All the computers report that we are proceeding forward at precisely the same velocity as before. They also report that our position keeps progressing backward toward Earth.”

“So we’re moving forward and backward at the same time,” said Ram.

“Our propulsion is forward. Our motion is backward.”

“I hope you will not remove me from command if I admit to being confused.”

“I would only question your sanity if you were not confused, Ram.”

“Do you have any hypotheses that might explain this situation?” asked Ram.

“We are not hypothesizers,” said the expendable. “We are programmed instruments and, as I pointed out to you before, decisions about what to do after the jump are entirely up to our resourceful, creative, highly tested and trained human pilot.”

Ram thought about it.

As they started seeing the buildings of O, Rigg was amazed at how different they were. During the weeks he and Umbo had walked along the North Road, changes had been gradual. Farms had become more frequent, villages larger, buildings a bit more grand. Thatch gave way to shingle and tile, oilcloth to shutters and occasional panes of glass. Leaky’s Landing had an air of newness about it, but the town was of the same wooden construction, the same roof angles, the same alternation of cobble, gravel, and corduroy on the streets, depending on the whim of the owners of the buildings abutting them.

But the trees lining the river had concealed any such gradual changes, and the current moved them much faster, so that as they approached the docks of O it was like entering another world.

Everything seemed to be made of stone—and not the grey-brown rocks of the mountains, either, but a pale rock, almost white with streaks of warm colors in it. No moss had been allowed to grow on any of it, except down near the water—it gleamed warmly in the noonday sun.

By contrast, the Tower of O shone with the glaring coldness of a steel blade. And since it was larger by far than any other structure, and many times higher than the tallest trees, the whole city gave the impression of the pale hand of a very white woman, holding a fierce dagger upward toward the sky.

As the boat drew nearer the docks, however, that impression faded. The docks were as dirty and cluttered and busy as docks anywhere. Not all the buildings were stone after all; in fact most buildings were wooden structures, though with roofs only of tile or, to Rigg’s amazement, tin. So much metal as to cover a roof! Rigg could see that the impression that all was stone came from a few dozen large buildings that rose much higher than the jumble of wooden warehouses, taverns, and shops selling mementoes of the Tower of O. From a distance, all he had seen were the white-stone walls of those buildings; close up, he could hardly catch a glimpse of them from the narrow streets, where each story of every building jutted out beyond the one below, until at the third or fourth story houses across the street from each other were so close that, as Loaf said, “A man could take a mistress across the street and neither of them leave their house.”

Rigg expected that they would first secure lodging, but Loaf grimaced and said no.

“So we’re going to carry our packs and goods to the banker?” asked Rigg.

Loaf drew them over away from the crowded street to the open space near one of the large stone buildings. “Listen,” he said, “the boat passage and the cost of food and of your clothes have me close to broke. The places I could afford right now would be of such a low nature that we wouldn’t dare to leave our belongings in them anyhow. I’m a taverner, my boys, and I know what the dockyard inns of O are like. Everything depends on getting Mr. Cooper to convert one of these . . . items . . . to money at full value, without anyone else getting a glimpse of them. Then we can afford to stay in a respectable place without hardly making a dent in your fortune, young Rigg. That’s why we’re stopping nowhere, but finding Mr. Cooper’s bank.”

Loaf seemed to know his way through the maze of streets and only had to backtrack twice. To Rigg this seemed like a miracle, since there were few street signs high up on the buildings, and even then they weren’t always right.

“Oh, that’s the old name,” said Loaf when Umbo noticed one of them. “Then they made a boulevard and put the name on that. This is now . . . something else that I can’t remember. It doesn’t matter. You don’t learn by names here, you learn by landmarks and turnings.”

“How can they have landmarks here?” said Umbo. “Every street looks just like every other.”

“If you lived here, you’d see the differences plain enough,” said Loaf. “I could ask anyone here and get directions to Cooper’s bank because he faced his building in grey stone—not to show too much pride, you see, so grey not white—and then he set a clock high on the wall. You ask anybody, ‘Where’s the banker’s clock?’ and if they don’t know, they must be a tower pilgrim because no one as lives here wouldn’t know the place.”

They passed many a food vendor, and when Umbo suggested stopping at one, Loaf just pulled him away and kept them on the road. “So you eat some greasy slab of meat and go in to see Mr. Cooper with fat dripped all over your hands and sleeves and the front of you. Then he throws us out as being the kind of people who have no house to eat in or table to sit at or napkin to drape with.”

“But we don’t have any of those,” said Umbo.

“Exactly, and we mean to have them, so we’ll be hungry and thirsty in the bank, but we won’t look like poor privicks.”

“We are poor privicks,” muttered Umbo. Loaf ignored him.

But Rigg thought about it. Umbo is a poor privick, though in Fall Ford his father did as well as anyone else, and his family was never hungry, nor was anyone else’s. During lean times they shared about, knowing that every man and woman worked as hard as any other, if they could, and they all watched out to make sure no old widows or spinsters starved or froze in the winter. But of food sold by vendors on the street no one got a taste, because there were no such. Only Nox cooked food for strangers, and you had to come at mealtime for a bite; she never brought the food out into the road, she never called out the name of the dish.

Strange how, just by being in a different place, a boy who always had enough and never wanted for anything could now be poor, and had to go hungry for fear that someone will notice his poverty.

And Loaf, too. In Leaky’s Landing he was prosperous, and mocked the privicks as merrily as anyone. But here in O, so far downstream, he was a privick, too, though better at disguising it, since he had traveled the world a good bit more.

I’m the only one who isn’t a poor man here, or at least might not end up so. Even though I’m the most upriver of all, having lived above the falls most days of my life, wandering with just my father in the deepest forest with few paths of men among the beasts and trees. But because of nineteen jewels in a bag hanging from a ribbon at my waist, I may soon be rich compared to them.

And yet they are my friends on this journey, the only friends I have. And if I prosper, they will prosper. The money may be mine, but the benefit will be for all of us. Loaf will go home with a fine profit for his kind service. Umbo can stay with me or go back upriver if he wants, this time in fine clothes and with the passage money for as far upstream as oars and poles can go. Let him go home and be the richest young man in Fall Ford, and then see whether his father shuns him. No, Tegay the cobbler will usher him into his house and offer his son his old place at the table.

People talk of magic and miracles wrought by the saints—and if they saw what Rigg and Umbo had done together, conjuring out of thin air a fine bejeweled knife, they’d be accounted saints or mages themselves—but none of these miracles is as potent or useful as a sudden flow of money into a man’s pocket. Then the transformation is like changing rainy to sunny weather, which no evil mage or generous saint can do except in the silliest old stories.

They arrived at the greystone building just as the large clock set high in the wall began chiming so loudly Rigg was surprised he hadn’t heard it clear down at the docks, though none of the locals seemed to be startled by it. At the door, a man dressed all in grey, wearing a short sword and holding a quarterstaff, stopped them and looked them up and down.

Loaf had already warned them many times to stay silent and say nothing, so Rigg merely looked at the guard with candid interest, showing no apprehension or any other thing if he could help it. Just wide-open eyes, regarding him. Whether the man could read the dread and the hope behind his eyes, Rigg could not guess. But at least Rigg wasn’t blurting things out, or showing the gems around, the way he had spilled his money on Loaf’s bar.

The man stared especially long at Rigg, trying perhaps to break the steadiness of his gaze. But Rigg had done this exercise with Father, so the more the man tried to stare him down, the calmer Rigg became, the steadier his gaze. Until the man looked away.

Then Loaf spoke to him. “I see that you can recognize quality, however weary the traveler,” said Loaf. “This boy and I”—he indicated Umbo—“have kept company with young master here, to ensure his safe arrival here at Mr. Cooper’s bank. But Mr. Cooper has had dealings with me before. I’m Loaf of Leaky’s Landing now, but once a sergeant major in the People’s Army, and I have accounts here, credit and debit both.”

“Then the boys stay outside,” said the guard.

“I’m not here on my own business, but on young master’s, and we go inside all three.”

“Then you go inside none. What do your accounts matter, if the business isn’t your own? And this boy”—he gestured with the head of the quarterstaff toward Rigg—“he’s no customer of Mr. Cooper’s.”

“And yet Mr. Cooper would be sorry to lose his custom,” said Loaf without a hint of temper. “Mr. Cooper has trusted me with loans before, and I have trusted him with my deposits. Let him say for himself if he trusts me now when I say this boy is worth a thousand times the trade that Mr. Cooper’s bank has had with me. Mr. Cooper knows I lie not, and pay my debts, and that is honor enough to win us entrance, I think you’ll find.”

“Mr. Cooper wants no visitors right now,” said the guard.

“And yet I say he will want us,” said Loaf, still as pleasant as could be. Rigg thought: It must be a skill a taverner has to have, if he’s to succeed—to stay calm and friendly in tone and look, regardless of the provocation. And it was quite possible the guard was showing so much resistance precisely because it was obvious that Loaf could pick the man up and break him against the stone walls if he was so inclined. The guard had to prove he was both brave and manly, by making Loaf stand begging at the door. Though in fact, now that Rigg thought about it, Loaf had not begged, but rather demanded, however cheerfully, nothing less than exactly what he wanted.

Which is what Father taught me to do, if I can only overmaster my fear.

Rigg forced himself to become calm, slowing his breath and relaxing his muscles. If Rigg was to be a worthy son of his father and claim his inheritance, he would have to stay clearheaded and confident, putting fear aside. He could not afford to wait until he was as old as Loaf to have that kind of sureness.

When the guard turned around and went inside—leaving the doorway unattended, Rigg noticed—it had not been more than a minute or two that he’d delayed them at the door. And his return was even swifter, and his manner completely changed, for when the door reopened, the grey guard bowed deeply and solemnly, and ushered Rigg inside first, taking him at Loaf’s valuation. Rigg, for his part, carried himself in a relaxed manner, as if being treated with deference were the most normal thing in the world to him.

The moment they were inside, a sharp-faced old woman led them up a wide flight of stairs while the guard returned to duty at the door.

“Why are these stairs so wide?” asked Umbo. “Do so many people have to go up and down them at the same time?”

“No,” said Loaf, patient-sounding as if talking to a favored son.

And that was right, Rigg thought—as right as Rigg remaining silent, as if he had no curiosity about the place.

“It’s important for a banker to impress those who are not yet his customers with how prosperous he is. A rich banker will not be tempted to steal from his customers, and his wealth shows that he knows how to use money wisely.”

Umbo opened his mouth to speak, but Rigg put up a finger that the old woman could not see, twitching it to warn Umbo to keep silence. For Rigg knew exactly what Umbo was going to say, since he had thought of it himself: A banker who looked rich might have gotten that way precisely by stealing from his customers. But now was not the time to bandy words that they would not want repeated to Mr. Cooper.

So they walked in silence up yet another flight, which ended in a spacious landing with a huge double door paned with glass at the far end of it. Other, more modest doors led off on either side.

The old woman brought them to a halt a few steps short of the great doors, and though there was no one to be seen, she said, not particularly loudly, “Loaf of Leaky’s Landing, former master sergeant of the People’s Army, and two boys, one of whom he vouches for as being of quality, sir.”

Without any hand touching them, the doors opened, but not by swinging in or out. Instead they slid aside to left and right, and in front of them was a large, bright room, with many tall windows in the walls and a table larger than the one in Nox’s dining room. Bookshelves filled the gaps between the windows, and they were jammed with books, not a space left over.

Mr. Cooper himself stood at the largest window, directly behind the table, silhouetted by the bright light coming through it. He faced outward, as if there were something important to examine on the wall of the building opposite.

“Come in and be seated,” said Mr. Cooper, his voice like a whisper of someone speaking directly into their ears.

As they walked through the doorway, Loaf stopped them long enough to show them a finger pressed to his lips, to remind them that only Loaf was to do any talking. At first, Rigg decided to comply, letting Loaf take care of everything. He’d handled things well so far.

Yet Rigg knew that it was only his fear and self-doubt that made him imagine he could let Loaf deal with everything. When it came to banking in large amounts, Loaf knew little and Rigg knew much. Father had never taught Rigg how to talk with surly rivermen in a dark tavern by the river, but he had taught him the principles of banking and finance. And Rigg also understood that if he was to be credible as the rightful possessor of whatever money these jewels were worth, he must show that he alone was making the decisions, that he could not easily be fooled.

The only seats were stools around the table. And the stools were low, almost to the point of being milking stools, so that when they sat, even Loaf looked a bit ridiculous, like a child sitting at the grownups’ table. Umbo was not tall for fourteen years of age, so he looked even sillier, lacking only a bib for the babyish effect to be complete.

Rigg, seeing the effect, did not sit down. He recognized at once a thing that Father had warned him about: Men jealous of their power and fearful of losing it will use tricks to dominate other men. “But if you refuse to let such a man deploy these tricks against you, he will be afraid of you. If that’s what you desire, then refuse to submit. But if you want to deceive him into complacency, submit happily, and keep your resistance in your heart.”

In this case, Rigg decided not to submit, because he knew he needed to be seen as bringing great wealth into the bank, not asking for a favor. It was the banker who must prove himself to Rigg, and not the other way around—that was how Rigg knew this conversation must be framed.

And he also realized that Father had spent those forest journeys preparing him for such a moment as this. My life was in the woods among the beasts, up to my elbows in blood, the skinning knife worn down to fit my callused hands—but my education was for rooms like this.

When the sound of sliding and shuffling stools was silent, Mr. Cooper turned around, and there was an eyeblink of a moment in which he took in the fact that Rigg remained standing at the end of the table, his bag resting open upon it.

Rigg met his gaze calmly, trying to keep the same steady emotionless regard he had practiced on the guard downstairs. And as he did, he noticed the path that Mr. Cooper had most recently followed. There had been a back-and-forth from table to bookshelves, a half a dozen little trips, and Rigg realized that when their arrival had first been announced, while they were still waiting outside the door, Mr. Cooper had rushed around to clear everything off the table. His stance by the window was nothing but a pose. He did indeed regard Loaf’s arrival as a matter of some importance, and he had gone to some trouble to make an impression of loftiness and lack of need, which suggested that he needed the business they were bringing him.

“Mr. Cooper,” said Rigg, though Loaf had been about to speak and now glowered at Rigg for preempting him. “I have come into an inheritance from my late father. I was to take it to Aressa Sessamo, where I have kinfolk that I have never met. He gave me a letter of introduction to bankers there, but I find that it is inconvenient to make the rest of the journey without converting a little of it into ready money. Therefore I wish you to oversee the sale of a particular item, return a small part of the value to me in coin, and provide me with a letter of credit that will be convertible in Aressa Sessamo when I arrive. I assume you have a relationship with at least one banking house in Aressa Sessamo?”

Loaf’s irritation had changed to something more like awe. Well, hadn’t Father made Rigg practice rhetoric? “Say the same thing, but now say it to someone you love, to whom you are in great debt.” “Say it now to someone who thinks he has power over you, but whom you wish to intimidate.” “Say it to someone of a higher class than you wish to seem to be of.” “Say it now to make sure someone knows he is of a lower class.” It all seemed like such a game to Rigg, but he had mastered all these tricks of rhetoric before he reached the age of ten, and had done it well enough that Father laughed with delight at some of the things he said. He had used these skills well enough with farmers and taverners and other travelers coming down the North Road, and had dealt with Loaf and Leaky well enough, but in those cases it served him to seem what in fact he was—a harmless boy in need of help.

Now, though, Loaf and Umbo were seeing him in another guise—as a boy quite aware of his own worth, relative to a man of whom he expected a service, and for which he would pay not a penny more than the service warranted.

“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Cooper, after a moment’s hesitation. “I have a good relationship with two Aressid bankers, at either of which my letter of credit will have a good reception.”

“At what discount?” asked Rigg, for Father had made sure he was aware that letters of credit might be accepted, but at a discount sometimes as high as ninety percent, until the funds could be transferred and verified.

“No discount, I assure you!” said Mr. Cooper, a little flustered. And the reason for his blush emerged when he was forced to add, “At one of them, anyway, the house of Rududory and Sons.”

“And the other one, the one that discounts your note?”

Cooper turned a little red. “Does it matter?”

“I intend to take the note first to the house that discounts you, and disdain their discount, and take my custom to Rududory. You may be sure they will regret the loss and not discount you in the future.”

“That is . . . generous of you.” But Cooper seemed still to have his doubts.

“If you serve me well, I shall serve you well,” said Rigg. “The best legacy my father left me were his principles of honest trade. He taught me that it is better to make a friend of a man through fair dealing than to make a momentary profit and lose his trust. Sergeant-major Loaf assures me that you do business in such a way as well, which is why I have stopped at O to deal with you, if you are interested in performing the service I require.”

Of course Loaf had told him no such thing, and it probably wasn’t true, though it might be. But Father had also taught him: Treat a man as if he had a fine reputation to protect, and he will usually endeavor to deserve it.

“The other house,” said Mr. Cooper, “is Longwater and Longwater.”

Rigg nodded gravely. “Now it is time for me to show you the item I wish you to sell for me. Please turn your back, sir.”

Loaf’s eyes widened and he looked like he was about to speak, but thought better of it. Rigg knew perfectly well that in his place, Loaf would have turned his own back to remove the bag of jewels from his trousers; for Rigg to demand that Mr. Cooper be the one to turn his back was nothing short of outrageous—unless, of course, Rigg were a lordly young man accustomed to other people showing him respect, and not the other way around.

Mr. Cooper once more hesitated, then turned his back to look out the window again, affecting the air of one who simply decided it was an apt occasion to study the birds flying to and from nests in the eaves of the building opposite.

Rigg reached down into his trousers, pulled out the bag, opened its mouth wide, and looked at the jewels, wondering which to offer. He settled on the light blue teardrop-shaped one that had hidden in the seam of his trousers back at Leaky’s Landing, for that was the only thing that had made any one of them different from the others since he’d had them. Holding that gem, he tightened the bag’s mouth, tucked it back down into his trousers, and strode around the table. “Here, sir,” he said, “let’s look at this by the light of the window.”

It was generous, for a man of the status Rigg was pretending to have, to walk around the table himself to show the jewel to Cooper. Thus, a moment after diminishing the other man, Rigg made him feel that he was respected in turn, and perhaps even liked, by this rich young stranger.

Rigg set the jewel on the table, well back from the edge. “I realize you are not a jeweler, sir, and that your valuation of this stone must depend on what consultants tell you. But I believe you are experienced enough with all forms of collateral to know what you are looking at.” Because I certainly am not, Rigg thought—but did not say.

Before Mr. Cooper could sit in his chair, Rigg deftly slid it back out of reach of the table. “Let’s not have the back of the chair blocking any of the light,” he said.

As a result, Cooper was forced to sit on a stool at the side in order to examine the stone in the light, while Rigg sat in the chair. Thus Cooper’s strategem of keeping his visitors in a lower, supplicative position was quite reversed. During Cooper’s examination of the stone, Rigg glanced at Loaf and Umbo and saw that Loaf was only barely suppressing a grin, for Mr. Cooper was shorter than Loaf and no taller than Umbo, and at his age looked even more absurd sitting on the stool.

The moment Cooper stood up again, Rigg also rose from the chair and slid it back into place. What could be taken as perfectly natural during the examination of the light-blue jewel would be insolence if Rigg remained in the chair when the need had passed.

Mr. Cooper cleared his throat and spoke. “If this is what it seems, and I have no doubt of it, you understand, then you do my little banking house great honor, sir.”

“It is the honor due to all good men of business,” said Rigg, “when a matter of great trust is in hand.”

“Do you wish me to advance you against the value of the stone, while I pursue its sale on your behalf?”

“I am not pawning the stone, sir,” said Rigg, pouring contempt on the very idea that a young man of his means would bring forth a treasure like this to get some amount of pocket change. Though in fact that was what he was doing. “Your note of receipt will be enough, I’m sure, with a statement of probable value.” In effect, such a note would serve to win them credit with the loftiest of lodges, though it would be meaningless at ordinary public houses.

“Yes, of course, I didn’t mean to—may I recommend a lodging house where you will be most happy with the food and bed?”

“You may recommend three,” said Rigg, “and we will think kindly of you when we make our choice.”

Cooper now moved, not with the ponderous whispered dignity he had shown at first, but with alacrity bordering on eagerness. He rushed to a shelf, took down a book and a box of paper, then rushed back to get a pen and inkbottle, and sat in the chair to write. Meanwhile, Rigg returned to his pack, took out Father’s letter to the bankers that Nox had given him, and brought it to lay in front of Cooper so he could spell Rigg’s legal name correctly.

Rigg did not watch him after that, but instead wandered the room, looking at the shelves to see what kinds of books the man kept about him. Many books had no lettering on the spines, but only numerals that corresponded with months and years—account books all. The others, the ones with titles on them, were in so many different languages that Rigg suspected that Cooper had bought them for the fine, aged bindings, and had no notion what was inside. Either that or he was a consummate linguist with a dozen languages at his command.

Which led Rigg to realize that Father was such a linguist, and in teaching Rigg to read and speak four languages besides his native tongue, and make sense of several others on the page, and know the history of the speakers of the tongue, and why their writings were of worth, he had made such a linguist of Rigg as well. He had often complained that all these languages were useless, and Father had only said, “A man who speaks but one language understands none.”

“Your commission, Mr. Cooper,” said Rigg, not turning back to look at Mr. Cooper. “I think under the circumstances, I will raise the normal half-percent to three-quarters, to be taken immediately upon the sale.”

Mr. Cooper said nothing, merely continued scratching with his pen, and Rigg was quite sure he had intended some absurd commission like three percent or even higher. When Rigg returned to the table, he saw that on the contract of agency, Cooper had crossed out “one-half of one percent” and replaced it with “three-quarters of one percent” in the space above it. Whether he had really written the regular commission before Rigg spoke, or wrote it afterward and then crossed it out to give a false impression, he would learn from Loaf soon enough, for Loaf was watching everything Cooper did.

Rigg and Cooper both signed the relevant documents: the agency contract, which would tell a jeweler that Cooper was authorized to enter into a contract and receive the funds for the sale of the gem; and the note of receipt, affirming that the house of Cooper had possession of an item of value not less than one purse, belonging to Rigg Sessamekesh, the son of Mr. W.M. of High Stashi.

His own full name still seemed like something foreign to Rigg. But he wrote it out carefully and clearly. It was his signature now.

Since a purse was worth 210,000 fens at the official rate in Aressa Sessamo, and even more upriver, there would be no trouble getting lodging—in the mayor’s own house, perhaps, if Rigg were impudent enough to introduce himself and ask the favor.

To Loaf, the word “purse” had some meaning, as a vast amount that only the rich would ever see; to Umbo, it was not a coin at all, but rather a bag you kept money in. Rigg, however, had been trained to convert purses, spills, glimmers, counts, and lights as readily as ordinary people could figure kingfaces, queenfaces, jackfaces, and pigfaces—or fens, shebs, pings, and lucks, as Rigg had learned they were called downriver. Rigg knew that for a purse, a man living upriver could buy an estate with a fine house and land enough to feed three hundred souls. The income from such an estate would support a household with a dozen servants, as well as horses to draw a fine carriage. A family could remain wealthy forever from such a place, if they didn’t divide the lands.

And that was what a single purse was worth, if anyone had ever minted such a coin; Father said that sums that large would exist only as abstractions in the records of banks and the treasury, or as writing on notes of value.

One thing was certain: Father did not acquire these gems by being frugal with the money from the pelts they sold.

Rigg remembered spilling his money on the counter at Loaf’s tavern, and wondered what Mr. Cooper would think if Rigg showed him the other gems and asked what he thought the aggregate was worth. But of course he would not do it; Rigg doubted that any jeweler in town would have the means of buying even the single gem for ready money. Instead, they would give Cooper something on deposit, the rest to be paid when they sold it to a jeweler in Aressa Sessamo.

But the contract with the jeweler would be enough for Cooper to advance Rigg any amount of ready money he might reasonably ask for—perhaps a pair of glimmers. It would be too much to ask for a banker in O to give him a spill, and where would he spend it? The rest of the value would be marked on a letter of credit that Rigg would take to the bankers in Aressa Sessamo. There Rigg would divide his funds among several reputable banks, and appoint bonded agents to buy and manage lands and businesses for him.

He had learned all this as a series of intellectual problems; the thought of actually doing it, with real cost to him if he did it badly or someone cheated him, was daunting. Is this how I am to spend my life? Looking after managers and bankers, checking on them to make sure they stay reasonably honest, deciding other men’s futures by my whim of what to buy and when to sell? It’s the forest that I love, not rooms like Mr. Cooper’s lair, however bright it is with windows.

When all was copied, all copies signed, the papers folded, and the light-blue jewel placed in a little box, Mr. Cooper looked almost radiant. Rigg suspected that at a stroke, this gem would triple—at least—the assets of the Cooper bank. Most of the funds would soon enough be passed along to banks in Aressa Sessamo, but every hand that touched the money or the jewel would make a good profit, and Mr. Cooper would rise in the estimation of everyone doing business in O, for the tale of it would spread. Cooper himself would see to that, and the jewelers would be his witnesses.

“I don’t mean to hasten you on your way,” Mr. Cooper said, “but I must be off to get the bids from the jewelers, and to do that I will close the bank and take my guard, Beck Brewer, with me through the streets.”

“Is that unusual?” asked Loaf, ever careful. “Will that alert people that you have something worth stealing?”

“It’s prudent of you to ask,” said Mr. Cooper. “But I always take him with me when I’m out during the day, and everyone knows I take no money with me when I leave the bank for the day, or come in the morning. It will be safe enough—at least until one jeweler blabs.” Then Cooper’s face reddened a little, because “blabs” was not a word a man of his dignity should have used.

Well, no matter, Mr. Cooper, thought Rigg. We’re all posers here.

Within the hour, they were settled into a vast suite of rooms in the first lodging Cooper had recommended to them. “Aren’t we going to check the other two?” asked Umbo.

“This one’s good enough, and I need a bath,” said Loaf. Then he waved the servants away and they were alone.

“I asked for three recommendations,” said Rigg, “so that Mr. Cooper would know we didn’t intend to let him steer us to a place where he had an arrangement with the hotelier for a percentage of whatever we spend.”

“People do that?” asked Umbo.

Loaf chuckled. “He probably has an arrangement with all three of these. And spies watching what we do, as well. He struck me as a careful man.”

“But I had to keep up appearances,” said Rigg.

“Appearances,” snorted Loaf. “Where did you learn to talk like that? You spoke high enough with me and Leaky that I thought you were putting on airs, but never like how you talked to Mr. Cooper!”

“I thought he’d wet his pants,” murmured Umbo.

“I used an educated accent with you and Leaky, because people downriver were having trouble understanding the way we talk in Fall Ford,” said Rigg. “But Mr. Cooper needed more than an accent. He needed to hear a lordly dialect and the attitude to go with it. Would talking rich have worked on you?” Rigg asked Loaf. “Or on Leaky?”

“Not a bit on me, and less on her.”

“So to you I talked like a boy of some education, but still one who grew up in a smallish town upriver. Father always said, If you talk like someone used to being obeyed, people will obey you. But if you talk like someone who fears being disobeyed, they will despise you.”

“What else did he say?” asked Umbo. “He never taught me that.”

There was no use trying to explain to Umbo how Father spent all day every day teaching and testing Rigg about things that Rigg thought he’d never use in his life. “I wish in all his saying he had given me a hint of where he found a jewel as valuable as that.”

“Nineteen of them,” said Loaf. “I think you carry in your crotch most of the wealth of this wallfold.” Then he laughed. “But that’s how all young men feel, isn’t it!”

Three baths and a dinner later, they were all napping on soft beds in their own rooms when a soft rap came at the door. Loaf got up and answered it. Rigg assumed it would be a summons from the banker, but it wasn’t—it was the banker himself. Loaf ushered him into the parlor of the suite and soon enough they had the tale.

“All three jewelers said the same, my lord,” said Mr. Cooper to Rigg. “This is every bit the gem I thought it was, but alas, it is more, too much more. This is a famous jewel, recognizable by particular marks which each of them identified with no prompting from me. I was told by one that it was the centerpiece of an ancient crown of a royal family from far northwest, in a kingdom whose name I had never heard of. It was won as a prize in battle by a great general, a hero. I thought the man was a mere legend, not real, but the jewelers believed in him. The story is that he struck the jewel from the crown—hence the mark—and bestowed it as a gift upon his great friend, the hero Wallwatcher, who walked the borders of the world, they say. However the skyblue gem of Wallwatcher might have come into your father’s hands, it is that very jewel, they’re sure of it. The value is so far beyond a purse that none of them will buy it, because they know of no one they could sell it to.”

Rigg felt a stab of fear when Mr. Cooper made his veiled reference to how Father might have got possession of the jewel. Might he declare that the jewel was stolen? No—if that were so, the People’s Revolutionary Council would confiscate it, and Mr. Cooper wouldn’t get a pigface. No, Mr. Cooper was merely explaining that he did not know how to sell it. Rigg calmed himself and began planning how to get around the problem.

Meanwhile, Loaf asked, “How far beyond a purse?”

“Without a buyer, who can say? A pounce at least. But who in this People’s Republic has wealth enough to buy it, or would admit it if they did, knowing it would just be taken from him?”

“Why is this a problem?” asked Rigg. “The jewel merely has to be sold privately, to someone who would value it without declaring to any other what he had.”

“But the price would be drastically discounted. Instead of fifty purses, no more than five, and in all likelihood less than that. Perhaps only two.”

“What about a consortium?” asked Rigg. “Would the three of them together undertake the purchase and the sale?”

“They might, if I suggested it. Perhaps a partnership among the three, with me as well.”

“Thereby converting your commission into a share of profit?”

“Unless your lordship disapproves,” said Mr. Cooper.

“I’m not a lord—or at least if my father was, he never told me so. Please call me Master Rigg and nothing more.”

“Of course, sir,” said Cooper.

“I see we’ll have to stay here longer than I intended. But I expect you to make this happen as I have described. I imagine that a jeweler in Aressa Sessamo will secretly sell the stone for a bargain price of three purses to a private party, and pass along two-and-a-half purses to this partnership you speak of, and you will credit me with two purses, telling me that you’re each making only a spill apiece.” Rigg said it with a smile, and shook his head at Mr. Cooper’s protests. “I have no quarrel with everyone’s taking a profit that makes their fortune, Mr. Cooper,” Rigg replied.

“I can hardly agree to this no matter how much I might make,” said Cooper. “The jewel is beyond price.”

“And yet I must have a price for it.”

“Even if it all works as you predict, Master Rigg, you will be getting only one twenty-fifth the true value of the stone.”

“My father certainly knew it would be hard to sell when he passed it on to me. If he had valued it more highly than the price the thing will fetch, he would have taken it with him.”

They all looked at him in shock and consternation.

“I was making the joke my father would have made. He could not take the jewel, so he left it to me. I cannot use the jewel for anything but money, and I need that money. So this precious ancient artifact will bring its money value, not the value of its fame. Meanwhile, I’ll have to wonder how the hero’s prize found its way into my hands, for my father cannot tell me now. Get busy, Mr. Cooper, and make this happen as quickly as you can. Here’s your incentive for speed: You will pay our lodging costs out of your personal profit from the sale, and not from mine.”

Cooper smiled. “I was already going to propose that.”

“I thought you didn’t like that three-quarter percent,” said Rigg, still smiling.

“You were generous to a fault, by normal practice, sir,” said Cooper. “It was yourself proposed the consortium, and I saw no reason that the jewelers should make a fortune, while I made do with my three-quarters of a point—which would have been a lovely sum, if I hadn’t known of others profiting much more.”

“I know of profit, too,” said Rigg, “and I begrudge you none of it. I only ask that these terms be kept as secret as the buyer’s name, so I don’t get a reputation for gullibility. And be sure of this: I will find out, in due time, what the private buyer paid, and if my portion is less than two-thirds of the amount, I’ll be back to see you, and if all I bring are lawyers, you’ll be fortunate.”

Rigg said it all so cheerfully that one might almost miss the fact that it was a threat of bloody retribution. Cooper responded just as happily, but he missed no part of the threat.

After he left, Rigg turned to Loaf at once and said, “Your fee, too, will be higher.”

“My fee will be what we agreed on,” said Loaf.

“If I had known what these jewels were worth, I would never have agreed to pay you so little.”

“And if I had known what the one jewel was worth, I would never have agreed to take you here at all,” said Loaf. “I know now that I was out of my depth before you ever showed Mr. Cooper the stone. This is all too high for me. The fee we agreed on was fair, and it’s still fair today.”

Rigg made no further protest, for he was reasonably sure that when they eventually discussed this with Leaky, she would agree instantly that a much higher fee would not impoverish Rigg—and was justified by the greater risk Loaf had incurred without knowing it. Why argue with Loaf now, when Leaky could do the arguing with him later?

In the end it took nearly two weeks for the consortium to be formed. Meanwhile Rigg, Umbo, and Loaf became more familiar with the taverns, restaurants, galleries, shops, parks, bookstalls, libraries, and other recreations of O than any of them had wished. But the wait seemed worth it when the sale was made for more than Rigg’s rough estimate, for his portion was three purses for himself.

On the last day, Rigg came from Mr. Cooper’s bank with a glimmer and twelve lights, one of which Rigg had asked him to convert on the spot into 120 fens—the rate of exchange in O between the River coinage and the People’s coin.

He also had two documents, signed by witnesses. One was a letter of credit for two purses, which Rigg would put on deposit in a bank or banks in Aressa Sessamo, whereupon the funds would be transferred—probably without ever actually passing through O or Cooper’s bank at all.

The other document was a certificate of deposit for one purse at three percent, secured against all of Mr. Cooper’s personal assets, which were partly enumerated. In effect, Rigg had bought the bank and leased it back to Cooper at an annual rate of return of three percent; if he demanded any portion of it back and Cooper could not (or declined to) pay, this document gave Rigg the right, without court action, to seize by force any and all of Mr. Cooper’s possessions.

Trust between friends was a good thing in business, but nice tight legal documents helped keep the friendship true despite long absence or far distance.

And in Rigg’s mind, as surely it was also in Loaf’s and Umbo’s, was the knowledge that he still kept tied to a ribbon around his waist another eighteen gems of whatever value they might be. They could not all be famous relics of the ancient past. Rigg might have chosen, by random chance, the only gemstone in the bag with a value greater than a spill or two. But even that would be enough to buy every stick of property in Fall Ford without even noticing the expenditure. It was wealth beyond their ability to calculate. If Rigg wanted to spend it all he wouldn’t know where to begin; he thought he could spend a fortune every day for his whole life without exhausting it.

Then again, his definition of “a fortune” had just undergone a change, and he was sure that if he really put his mind to it, he could probably waste it all. That’s what Father said: “There is no rich man so unfortunate as to lack for friends who are eager to spend his money for him.”

But so far, at least, Loaf and Umbo were not that kind of friend. The money frightened them. They still joked with him, yes, and they laughed together; but they also kept apart from him at odd times, and seemed surprised and even grateful when he paid ordinary attention to them.

Talking about this change in them would only make it worse, because they’d feel he was judging them now and finding them wanting; it would make them more awkward, more eager to please.

All Rigg could do was be himself and never speak to them in the way he had spoken to Mr. Cooper and the jewelers and the lawyers he had worked with to make the deal come through.

Truth be told, Rigg had come to enjoy his pose as a man of wealth and power, and to watch these men treat a thirteen-year-old boy with ridiculous deference. It occurred to him that if he really was of royal blood, as Nox had said, and if that still meant something under the People’s government, he would probably have grown up thinking he deserved the treatment he was getting.

But he knew—had Father not warned him?—that he must never value himself for the money he owned. “It can all be swept away,” said Father. “Money only retains the value that society places on it. Many a man has thought he was wealthy, only to discover that in the collapse of his nation or the inflation of the currency, his money was now tinscrap, and himself a beggar.”

Since that very thing had happened to thousands of noble families after the People’s Revolution, Rigg took the lesson to heart. Money is a thing separate from a man, Rigg knew. “I wasn’t born with it, I won’t have it when I die, it’s all temporary.”

Yet even as he told this to himself, he felt the warm glow of knowing that he would never have to worry about money again. That separated him from most people in the world. It was impossible to have wealth like this and remain unchanged, and he knew it. He could only try to make sure the changes were neither too extreme nor all to the worse.