Beartongue glanced at her secretary. Rigney shrugged. “There was a trade delegation from Morstone to the Archon last month, Your Holiness. We thought nothing of it at the time. Archenhold only produces a few things that they would be particularly interested in trading, and none in any great volume.”
Marguerite nodded. “I doubt they did anything of note. But it and a half-dozen others were cover for a much more serious delegation to Anuket City.”
“I don’t particularly like them,” said Beartongue dryly, “but it’s not a crime to trade with Anuket City. They have a great many things we don’t. So why would they require cover?”
Marguerite leaned forward. “Word has it that an artificer there has invented a device that will convert sea water into salt…and do it far more cheaply than the Sealords can beat it out of their populace.”
She watched the Bishop’s face as the implications sank in. Beartongue’s secretary let out a low whistle. “That would destabilize the Sealords…the trade fleets…”
“Half the continent,” said Marguerite crisply. “Enormous political upheaval. More than a third of the income of the Toxocan Confederacy comes from salt taxes imposed on vessels passing through their strait. If the salt trade stops, they, too, will be scrambling to survive.”
“And they’re the haven for half the pirate fleets in the south. That tax is protection money as much as anything else.” Beartongue’s gaze became unfocused. “The Sealords are monsters…if they could be removed from power, I can only consider that good…but when a trade network fails, people starve. Violence breaks out. The cure may be as bad as the disease…and yet…” Her voice was soft, as if she was talking mostly to herself. Then she seemed to remember where she was. “Very well. I understand why the Red Sail wants it stopped. What do you want?”
“I want the Red Sail to be in such hopeless disarray that they stop bothering with minor players like myself.” Marguerite met Beartongue’s eyes squarely. “I want to have friends again without worrying that I’m painting a target on their backs. I want the Sail confused, bankrupt, and out of commission.”
And I hope you believe me, because that is the actual truth, and if you try to ferret out something behind it, we’ll both be disappointed. She ran her fingers over the surface of the desk. It was polished to glass smoothness here, unlike the oiled softness of the underside.
The Bishop pursed her lips. “So your solution to one faction of an enormous organization hunting you is to destabilize the economy of half the world.”
“I did try to find a civilized solution first.” When the other woman snorted, Marguerite added,
“Honestly, if I hadn’t been in Anuket City and quite literally overheard someone in the Artificer’s Quarter talking about it, it would never have occurred to me to try. But when something like that falls in your lap…” She spread her hands. “This is an extraordinary opportunity. But I can’t do it alone.”
Beartongue stared off into the distance. “Rigney. How much does the Temple spend on salt?”
“I do not have the exact figures, Your Grace, but it is a significant expense, both directly and in terms of spending on food.” He ticked off points on his fingers. “We must salt our food, of course, and items such as cheese require salt in their preparation.” One finger. “Anything being stored or transported any distance must be pickled or salt-preserved.” Two fingers. “Although it is likely a small quantity compared to the other two, livestock require salt in their diets, particularly over winter. Most of our wool comes from upriver, and the farther into the hills you go, the longer the winters. Sheep require salt blocks, and that is reflected in the price of wool.” Third finger. “Industrial processes. Tanning leather, making soap, and papermaking all require salt. We use leather as much as wool, and we go through truly epic quantities of soap and paper.” Fourth finger. “Well over a third of our parishioners ascribe to the folk belief that the dead must be buried with a handful of salt to keep evil spirits from inhabiting their bodies, and it has been the policy of the Temple to provide this for the grieving who cannot afford it.” Thumb. “Finally, we tithe five percent of our annual income to establishing other temples of the Rat and offsetting their operating costs. The temple in Morstone has been soaking up the lion’s share of that for a number of years, largely because of the unbridled power held by the Sealords.” He dropped his hand. Marguerite waited to see if he was going to start in on the other hand, but he did not.
“God’s whiskers,” said Beartongue, passing a hand over her eyes. “How much money would we save if salt was cheaper?”
Rigney began to scratch numbers on a ledger. “I cannot even begin to calculate without knowing the cost of the technology, but assuming the cost of salt was halved…leaving Morstone’s Temple as an unknown quantity…mmm…”
Marguerite and the Bishop exchanged looks and waited.
“Based on reduction of shipping costs and the lack of the Toxocan salt tax, we might well see a three to five percent savings in total annual food expenditures across all our temples in this region.”
“That,” said Beartongue, after a long pause, “is real money.”
“Indeed, Your Holiness. And there is the additional effect, though difficult to quantify, that if salt is less expensive but prices remain stable, many smallholders will turn a larger profit and thus
require less assistance from the Temple for major investments.”
The Bishop turned back to Marguerite. “All right, you’ve definitely got my attention. And I can see why the Red Sail would want this invention suppressed. So is this device real?”
“They believe it is. They went so far as to blow up the artificer’s workshop over it. She’s gone into hiding now, but they’re hunting for her.”
“Do you think it’s real?”
Marguerite smiled. “That is what I’m hoping you’ll lend me a couple of paladins to find out.”
THREE
“PALADINS?” Beartongue’s eyebrows shot up. “Why—forgive me, but if you were planning a covert spy mission, I don’t think our paladins would be my first choice.” She considered this. “Or my second choice. Possibly not even my third.”
“There is a certain bull-in-a-pottery-shop quality to the late Saint’s chosen,” Rigney observed.
Marguerite sank back in her chair. She’s interested. She’s going to help me. It was important not to show the depths of her relief. The Sail had been baying at her heels for so long that even this first small step felt like a victory. “People are already trying to kill me,” she said. “Ruthless people with very deep pockets. When they learn that I’m trying to get to this artificer before they do, I imagine that it will get even worse. What I need are people who cannot be bought and who are very, very hard to kill. People that I can trust.”
Beartongue grunted. “Well. When you put it that way…the paladins it is.”
THE TWO PALADINS were as different a pair as Marguerite could imagine. One was a woman a bit taller than she was, and—there was no getting around it—rather dumpy. Frizzy hair, soft chin, muscle and fat in equal quantity. You would not look at her and think paladin. You would likely not look at her and think much of anything, until you noticed that she was carrying an axe strapped to her back.