Colors of Chaos

XXXV

CERRYL WALKED QUICKLY across the foyer toward the Tower steps. The day hadn’t been that bad, but he was glad that it had been quiet. Only a few celebrating mercenaries at The Battered Cask, and they’d quieted down even before he’d gotten there after the summons from Coreg, the lead area patroller. Both the innkeeper and Coreg recommended that Cerryl but warn them, and Cerryl had heeded the recommendation, if warily. Everyone had seemed relieved at that. Cerryl wondered if he’d have trouble later-or if Gyskas would.

Cerryl shook his head as he started up the steps to the lowest level of the White Tower. You still don’t have enough experience.

Neither guard was more than passingly familiar, and Cerryl nodded politely as he passed and began the climb to Myral’s quarters, hoping the older mage happened to be there.

He paused outside Myral’s door, then knocked once. Thrap.

After a moment came the familiar voice: “You can come in, Cerryl.”

Cerryl opened the door, then closed it behind him. Myral sat by his table, a mug of hot cider before him.

“To what do I owe this visit?” Myral smiled, then half-choked and lapsed into a series of deep and retching coughs.

Cerryl bolted toward Myral. The older mage held up a hand even as the heavy retching coughs subsided. Cerryl stood, waiting for Myral to stop coughing, glancing toward the windows shuttered against the chill breeze and then at the older man. After a time, Myral cleared his throat and took the smallest of sips from the mug.

“Are you all right?” Cerryl asked.

“I swallowed wrong. It happens with age. Now…what do you wish?”

“I thought you could help me.”

“All I can provide these days is information, and you know that.” Myral smiled. “So what knowledge can this aging mage provide?” He gestured toward the chair across the table from him, then lifted the mug of cider.

Cerryl seated himself. “I need to know more about tariffs and trade.”

“For the Patrol?” Myral raised his eyebrows. “For peacekeeping?”

“For peacekeeping. Over an eight-day ago, we found an abandoned cart-a painted and well-kept cart. There was blood on the seat, and a scrap of silksheen under the seat, and traces of chaos.” Cerryl went on to explain how nothing else had turned up, but not about Fydel’s veiled suggestion that such interest was beyond peacekeeping. “It keeps bothering me, but I don’t know exactly why. So I thought about you.”

Myral lowered the mug of hot cider and chuckled. “I am flattered. So many mages forget us relics once they become full members of the Guild.”

“I know I have much to learn.”

“You are one of the few who understands that.” After a pause, Myral asked, “Why do you think taxes and tariffs have anything to do with this strange cart?”

“The silksheen…I guess.”

Myral frowned. “Do you have that scrap of silksheen?”

Cerryl glanced around, then nodded. “No one else seemed to care.”

“Look at it, closely.”

The younger mage extracted the fragment from his white leather belt wallet and studied it for a time. “It was cut…”

“Exactly. Silksheen looks fragile, but you cannot rip it. It takes a sharp blade to cut it, a very sharp blade.” Myral took another sip of the cider, letting the vapor wreathe his face.

That meant the fragment had been placed under the seat deliberately. But why? After another look at the fabric, Cerryl replaced it in his wallet.

“We think of silksheen as a fabric because it is soft and beautiful and lasts,” Myral said slowly. “Yet I understand the druids use it for ropes and harnesses for its strength.”

“When a small scarf can cost over a gold?”

“What is a rope that will not break worth? Or a scarf that will outlast its wearer?”

“Is it so valuable that anyone would stoop to murder?”

“That is your judgment. I would not, not for a length of fabric, no matter how beautiful, no matter how strong.”

“Some might.”

“Every man has a price, especially those who value everything in terms of coins.” Myral sipped his cider. “You know what I can say about silksheen.”

Cerryl waited, then finally spoke. “About taxes…I know what the golds go for-armsmen, stipends for mages-but I really have no idea how many golds are needed by the Guild.”

Myral shook his head. “Guess.”

“Fifteen thousand? Every year?”

The older mage’s eyes widened. “You are low by a third or more, perhaps by a half these days, but most would not guess a fifth part of that.”

Cerryl permitted himself a slight smile, amazed that his overestimation had fallen so far short. “The medallions…they bring in only but a thousand golds a year, two at most. I cannot imagine twenty thousand golds or more. Where would one keep it?”

“We do not. Nearly so fast as it arrives, it must depart. You get your golds every eight-day, do you not?”

“Yes.”

“So does every other mage. The White Lancers get their coppers and silvers, and the masons, and the cooks, and the haulers…and everyone spends all or part of them, and more taxes are levied on that spending, and the golds return.”

Cerryl nodded. That made sense.

“So where do we get more than five hundred golds an eight-day?”

“Taxes on the factors and merchants and artisans?”

“Who else? There are far more peasants and street peddlers, but how would we collect such taxes?”

That also made sense.

Myral took a long swallow of the hot cider, then held the mug just below his chin, letting the vapor on the damp day wreathe his cheeks before speaking. “Fairhaven is more than a city, and less than a land. That is its strength and its weakness. We do not collect tithes from the landowners the way that the Duke of Lydiar or the Viscount of Certis do. Instead, we must tax those who sell goods in the city, and those who carry goods into it, as well as those who carry goods out of it. Yet we cannot drive the merchants away. Of this Sterol and those before him were most aware.” Myral shrugged. “Traders are supposed to pay a tenth of their profits in taxes, a tenth of what they clear after paying for their goods and those who work for them. They also pay for trade medallions-”

“The most anyone pays is four golds a wagon a year,” Cerryl pointed out. “That is not a large sum for a well-off trader.”

“They would have you believe differently. They grudge every gold even while they insist the Guild close the roads to all traders but those of Fairhaven.”

“Perhaps the Guild should charge more for the goods of those from elsewhere.”

Myral shook his head. “It is not possible, or necessary. There are those who sell large amounts of goods to factors in Fairhaven, and those factors pay taxes on the goods. Those who wish to use the roads but who never come to Fairhaven, they pay a tax, but it is but half of a tenth, and only for those who trade more than two hundred golds a year. Those with small amounts of goods who sell in the squares, the golds they pay for medallions are those we would not see otherwise.”

Cerryl thought for a moment. “Except for goods such as silksheen.”

“That is true, but there are few such.” Myral adjusted the white wool lap blanket across his legs.

“Gold…jewels?”

“A few others, but most would not dare to carry them in carts.” Myral smiled. “Few would dare to carry silksheen, save that the Tyrant of Sarronnyn has made it dear.”

Cerryl raised his eyebrows.

“Silksheen is traded in two places-in the trading fields east of the Stone Hills and at the port of Diehl. So half goes to Sarronnyn, and all those who have coins and ships haggle over the other half at Diehl. The druids will not sell to any who represent Fairhaven.” Myral shrugged. “They know who tells the truth and who does not, and will not trade again with those who deceive them.”

“So silksheen is very, very dear here?”

“When it is found at all. That should tell you all you need to know about silksheen, more than enough.”

More than enough? What has he told me? Cerryl cleared his throat, feeling warm in the close confines of Myral’s room, a room that always seemed hot to him and too cold to the aging mage. “Fairhaven is clean, and you can drink the water. The streets are safe. It is a good place to live.”

Myral smiled. “Ah…for whom?”

Cerryl frowned. “For everyone.”

“Think, Cerryl. Those with coins…can they not purchase whatever they need wherever they live? What do those thousands of golds purchase them that they could not purchase less dearly elsewhere?”

“Then why do they not depart?”

“Who would buy their goods?”

The conversation was turning in the direction Cerryl had disliked when he had been an apprentice, where Myral and the others had asked question after question, never answering any.

“Who is better off-the poor artisan in Fairhaven or the poor artisan in Fenard?”

“The one here, of course.”

“Who lives in more luxury-the High Wizard or the prefect of Gallos?”

“The prefect.”

“So who benefits most from the Guild?” Myral smiled crookedly.

“Oh…”

“And who pays most of the golds?”

Cerryl nodded.

“Remember, Cerryl, most of those golds the factors and merchants pay…where do they come from?”

“From those who buy their goods.” Cerryl wanted to shake his head. Myral was running his mind in circles. There were few very wealthy factors, and that meant that most goods were bought by those who had less.

“Taxes are not what they always seem,” Myral lectured. “The merchant who pays them charges them to those who buy his wares. Yet he feels that they come from his pocket, even though his buyers supply the coin.” The balding mage sipped his cider. “You need to think about that. Confusion wars with confusion upon your face.”

Cerryl offered a twisted smile, then asked, “Why do the gate guards report to the overmage, rather than the Patrol chief?”

“Did Isork raise that with you?” asked Myral dryly.

“No. Not even indirectly. I hadn’t even thought about it. It just popped into my thoughts.”

“Be most careful where you express any such unguarded thoughts. In any event, the Patrol chief does report to Overmage Kinowin, as do the gate guards.” Myral coughed once. “Now…this old mage needs a respite. Off with you.”

Cerryl rose. “Thank you for once again enlightening and confusing me.” He grinned.

“It’s not enlightenment if it is not confusing,” Myral answered.

After closing the door, Cerryl stood on the stone landing for a moment, trying to gather together his scattered thoughts. The factors, merchants, and artisans paid 10 percent of their earnings to the Guild. He pursed his lips. How much had Tellis made? Fifty…a hundred golds a year? Five to ten golds to the Guild, and Cerryl had known another ten scriveners…That would only be a hundred golds. But if each group of artisans paid a hundred golds…there were weavers, potters, coopers, basket makers, woodworkers, fullers, apothecaries, jewelers, coppersmiths, and tinsmiths and all sorts of other smiths…

“Still…” Most of the taxes had to fall on the larger traders and factors. But what did that have to do with the purple cart, silksheen, and the fact that Fydel had warned him away from more than simple peacekeeping?

He walked slowly down the Tower steps.

“Few would dare to carry silksheen…” For some reason, those words remained in his thoughts.

Why? Who had the coins to buy silksheen? Cerryl shook his head. It was obvious, so obvious he should have seen it earlier, far earlier, but mages who had been scriveners and sawmill boys did not think in such terms, not naturally. He knew in general terms where the silksheen had gone and possibly even to whom in particular, but why was an unanswered question. He had trouble believing that even the wealthiest of factors would accept silksheen gotten from peacebreakers merely for coins.

He frowned. Why not? There was nothing in the manual or the codes against purchasing stolen goods-or goods of dubious origin. Was that because it was impossible to prove that goods were stolen? Or for some other reason?

Every question raised another.

As he walked toward his room he massaged his forehead slowly. At least, he’d get to have dinner with Leyladin the next evening. Perhaps that would help…one way or another, if he could get his thoughts together.