"Allen, James - Unicorn Trade, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Allen James)

Lona swallowed again. "Yes." She jumped down from the bench. "Come," she said, around an uncertain smile, "let's choose your things."
Natan Sandana the jeweler was visiting Var-drai of Syr the courtesan. The occasion was not the usual one. The small gray man had always contented himself with his wife, rather than spend money on the favors of other women, especially when they were as expensive as Vardrai's. His desire was for a different sort of
joining.
"I tell you, we cannot lose," he urged, while he paced excitedly back and forth. The rug drank down every footfall. "My guild maintains a farflung web of communication—which stays healthy, sick though business has otherwise become. I had word of that Norrener ship soon after she had sailed from Owaio. Scarcely was she moored at the Longline this morning but I was aboard, to speak with her captain and look into his strongbox. The news was true. Besides
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his cargo of spices and rare woods, he has, for himself, such a store of pearls as I never saw aforetime. White, rosy, black, all huge, all perfect, oh, I have today let Beauty's embodied being trickle through these fingers!"
"How did he get them?" asked Vardrai from the couch whereon she had curled her magnificent body. She continued to stroke a comb through the mahogany sheen of her tresses.
Natan shrugged. "He did not say. But it's known that while they were down among yon islands, the Norreners lent their aid—ship, cannon, pikes—in a war between two kinglets, for hire. I conjecture that the good Haako picked up some booty about which he did not inform his royal employer."
"And he'd fain sell the lot?"
"What else? He can get a substantial price at home. However, he understands it will be but a fraction of the true value. If we, here, outbid it, we shall still have a fantastic bargain."
Vardrai set the comb down and touched the necklace that her throat graced. "Pearls are fine to wear," she observed, "but who can eat them? If you can scarcely move what stock you have in your shop, Master Sandana, how can you realize a profit on such a hoard?"
"Some can be sold quickly," he maintained. "Not everyone suffers in this abominable climate of trade. Zulio Pandric, for example, waxes fat, and nowadays is my best customer."
She grimaced the least bit. "And mine, or one of them," she murmured, half to herself. "I wish I could charge some less than others. A lusty
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The Unicorn Trade
young man would make up for a bloated old moneylender. But he and his kind seem to have all the gold, and I dare not risk word leaking out that Vardrai of Syr can be had cheaply,"
"For the most part, the pearls will have to be held for several years, perhaps as much as a decade, until conditions improve," Natan admitted. "But conditions will. They must. If nothing else, once Sir Falcovan Roncitar has established his colony overseas, the wealth of the New Lands will begin flowing back to Caronne, and we know with certainty how lavish the gods were when they fashioned that part of the world. Gems will not only command their present rightful price, they will have appreciated enormously. Think, my lady. How would you like a profit of two or three hundred per centum?"
The woman sighed. Her glance strayed to an open window which, from this upper floor, overlooked King's Newmarket. The breeze that blew in was soft and quiet, for little of the olden bustle stirred on the square; dwindled were the very odors of foodstalls and horse droppings. Cultivated musicality slipped from her voice as she said, in the provincial accent of her childhood, "The trick is to stay alive till then. How much do you need?"
"I bargained him down to four hundred aure-ates—"
Vardrai whistled.
"—of which I can provide half, if I pledge sufficient property to Master Pandric," Natan said. "But we must be swift. Unlike so many
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merchant skippers, Haako expects to sell his cargo at a brisk rate, to wholesalers as well as the rich and the noble. Then he'll be off."
The jeweler halted before Vardrai's couch, "My lady," he pleaded, "I came to you because your trade is still faring well, and it is general knowledge that you are not extravagant, but put money aside. What say you to a partnership, share and share alike?"
Slowly, she shook her lovely head. "I say wonderful—but impossible," she told him with regret. "I have not the likes of such cash, nor could I leave it with you to ripen for ten years or so if I did."
"But," he protested. "But."
"I know." She gestured at those velvet hangings, ivory-inlaid furnishings, crystal chandeliers, fragrant incense burners which decorated the room. She ran a palm down the thin silk which draped her in luster. "I command high prices, because the alternative is to be poor, miserable, and abused down in Docktown or along the canals. But this means my gentlemen are not many. It also means that they expect this sort of environs, and much else that is costly; and it must be often changed, lest they weary of sameness. No, it's true that large monies pass through my hands, but what remains is scant, hard though I pinch. Besides, as I said, I cannot wait ten years,"
"Why not?"
Vardrai turned her left cheek toward the window and pointed to the corner of that deep-violet eye. A sunbeam, slanting over a roof
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The Unicorn Trade
opposite, brought forth the tiny crow's-feet as shadows. "I am less young than you may think," she said quietly. "Time gnaws. I have seen what becomes of old whores."
Despite his disappointment, Natan felt a tinge of compassion. "What will you do?"
She smiled. "Why, I hope within that decade to have collected the wherewithal to buy a house and start an establishment wherein several girls work, paying commissions to me. That will give me my security and ... and freedom."
Her gaze went outward again, fell on a red-haired youth who was crossing the marketplace with furious long strides, and followed him. A madam could have whatever lovers she chose, requiring no more of them than that they please her.
A gong sounded. "Come in," Vardrai called. A maidservant opened the door and announced: "My lady, there's a patron. Somebody new."
"Indeed?" Interest quickened the courtesan's tone. "Who?"
"He's a Norrener, my lady, but seems quite decent. Says he's the captain of a ship."
Natan chuckled, a trifle bitterly. "Ah, ha!" he remarked. "I expect you'll find Haako Gray-fellsson rather a change from Zulio Pandric."
"Let me hope so," Vardrai replied. "Well, go back, Jayinn, and entertain him while I make ready. I fear you must leave now, Master San-dana; and I am sorry I couldn't help you."
Over the cobblestones, between high, half-timbered walls, through arcades, beneath over-
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hangs, across the plazas and a bridge spanning the Imperial Canal, Arvel Tarabine stalked. Almost, he ran. Passersby whom he jostled would begin to curse, espy the fury on his brow and the white knuckles on his fists, and keep silent. A couple of wagoners halted their mules to let him by, as if otherwise he would have cut a way for himself. Dogs barked at him, but from a safe distance.
Truth to tell, he fled his rage and grief, lest they cause him indeed to harm someone; but they rode along with him, inside his breast. They kicked his heart, squeezed his lungs, clambered about on his rib cage, and mouthed at him. Perhaps, he thought, he could exorcise them by wearing his body down to exhaustion—but how much liefer would he have gotten into a fight!
Out the Eastport he went, and soon left Tholis Way for a trail northward. Seilles had long since outgrown its old defensive walls, but not far in that direction, because there the land climbed steeply, in cliff and crag and ravine. Not even shepherds cared to make use of it, nor did noblemen risk breaking their horses' legs in the chase. Peasants sometimes went afoot after deer, or set snares for birds and rabbits—yet seldom, for wolves prowled these reaches and, it was whispered, beings more uncanny than that.
The trail was merely a track winding up hillsides and along ridges, often overgrown by whins. Strong though he was, after two hours of it Arvel must stop to catch his breath. He looked about him.
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