Xangô POV: Day 76

Current Wealth: 168 gold 47 silver 29 copper

“A deal?” I frowned, stupidly, but recovered from my surprise quickly enough. Truth be told it’d been an oversight on my part to be surprised at all, of course she’d wanted a deal. She was smart, and she knew enough about me and my friends that it’d take a drooling idiot not to want in on what we were doing. Gunpowder was a big deal in a world that’d never known it, and if she thought Beam was running around in magic metal as well…

“A deal.” Velaharo repeated, interrupting my thoughts with the words. “Do I need to explain what exactly I wish to gain from it?”

In fact, she did not.

“You want the fruits of our knowledge.” I guessed. Her lips thinned.

“I want your knowledge.” Velaharo corrected. “But, as I am not unreasonable, and know that you are no fool, I will settle for simply what you can create with it.”

An obvious lie, whatever we gave her, she’d have studied, taken apart and put back together until whatever alchemists and blacksmiths and scholars she’d summoned up had figured out a way to replicate it for her. That’s what I’d do, that’s what anyone with eyes that reached the horizon would do. More money later, not little money now.

But surely she realised I’d know that. So was she hiding her plans? One good way to find out.

“You want to study it.” I noted. “To figure out how to replicate it.”

She arched an eyebrow.

“Obviously, are you only just realising that now?”

So, not trying to hide it then. Unless she was a better liar than Solitaire, which was unlikely.

“Not really.” I shrugged, dismissively. “Just making sure we’re on the same page, what sort of offers can you make that’ll be worth more to us than any of the others we’ll get?”

“For one.” She replied, quick as lightning. “I can assure you that I won’t hire some big, horrible men to club you over the head until you either tell me everything for free or end up an idiot.”

I eyed her, considered what I knew of Redaclan nobility, and decided that she was neither joking, nor making an inconsequential point.

“Go on.” I urged her, and she did.

“For another, I don’t think you’re likely to find very many other nobles willing to protect you as I have already.”

It was a deliberate tidbit thrown out, casual as anything, but done knowing that it’d hook my attention. Well, it fucking did, and I didn’t have the patience or temperament to make a show of not caring about something as immediately important. Not when Velaharo would just see through the performance, anyway.

“How exactly have you done that?” I challenged her. “I was attacked by a magus capable of levelling houses a few hours ago, and I did not feel very protected while suffering through it..”

I’d spoken without remembering who she was, without thinking about what her sort’s temperament tended to be, and I almost winced anticipating some vicious, aristocratic retribution for my disrespect. But it never came. I saw anger, fury, even, but it didn’t blossom into retaliation. And there was something else with it, too. Shame?

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Whatever the emotion had been, she didn’t let it sit for long. Lunging past so quickly I barely even caught it.

“I am talking about the actions of my fellow nobles, and the numerous thugs in this city. Mercenaries, criminals. Gods know what other sorts. You continue to draw breath only because I have kept the growing tides of confrontation from reaching you, even as the pressure they bring forth has intensified.”

Her answer brought a wave of scepticism to me, and I decided to wear it openly. Sometimes the truth could do a lot of heavy lifting for you.

“That’s a very convenient accomplishment.” I noted. “You protected me and my family, so hard, in fact, as to leave no evidence at all that we’d even been in need of protection in the first place. Remarkable. Tell me, do you have a stone to sell that turns lead into gold?”

She eyed me for a single moment, then rose from her seat and slapped me across the face. Her strike was not powerful, I barely even felt it. She was a woman, an untrained, non-combatant woman, and with all my level-ups and points thrown into Toughness I wasn’t even sure if most grown men could hurt me anymore. In fact I was more concerned for her, and sure enough I caught the fingers of her hand flexing with pain, as if she’d just struck a tree trunk rather than a face.

That didn’t make the fury in her eyes any weaker, though.

“You will not speak to me like that.” Velaharo told me, her voice icy, sharp and…Hollow.

Strange, but true. There was no passion to her words, no weight, none of the emotions I’d expect from a woman so shocked and repulsed by a thing that she’d felt no recourse at all except to lash out physically in some knee jerk fury. But my cheek still tingled with the sensation of impact, all the same.

I’d been hit by a woman who was completely calm and lucid, who hadn’t even felt particularly enraged by the thing I’d been hit for. Why did that happen? To send a message, obviously, but the message being sent here clearly wasn’t just not to disrespect her. She didn’t care about that- I could see that clear as day.

The message, then, was that I couldn’t. That I needed to show her the respect due, that…That she was someone I couldn’t sass the way I had been.

And if she was sending a message like that, even when she didn’t give a shit in the slightest about that disrespect, it was because she had something to hide. Because she knew that her message was a lie, that I could disrespect her, that she was someone I could sass.

She hadn’t cared about my contempt or snark, because she was fucking used to it. All the pieces fell together at once, and I felt a powerful, idiotic surge of confidence as I knew for certain that I was right.

Slowly, I massaged my cheek, smiling as sweetly as I could muster.

“I’d advise against that.” I said, idly. “My family happen to be quite strong, as far as mercenaries go, unless you’d like to take a moment and don some nice, steel gauntlet slapping me just won’t have the usual bite. Though I can pretend it hurts if you’d like.”

She stared, taken aback, and there was no feigning the flash of uncertainty and worry in her eyes. Not a scrap of anger, just the fear of a woman whose facade of strength was being broken. I decided to break it harder, taking a seat now, putting my legs up on her desk as I leaned back in the chair.

“If I accepted your terms, what sort of protection could I expect to get, exactly?” I asked, moving onto business quickly, while her shock and concern was still strong, wanting to ensure she was as unbalanced as possible.

It didn’t work, not really. This one recovered as fast as she thought.

“It depends on what kinds of secrets you would be willing to part with.” She replied. “What kinds of equipment or material I would receive.”

I thought about that, considered the black powder I couldn’t calculate, the alloys I knew nothing about the parameters of, and decided to just offer her an answer in broader terms.

“Steels that are far, far stronger than any you’ll have seen before. Able to hold an edge for numerous battles without sharpening, or be tempered into holding one for a single battle that might take limbs off with the strength of a normal man. Just for a start.”

Velaharo thought, nodded, considered. Then sighed.

“Very well then.” She breathed, tense, suddenly. So tense in fact that I half expected her to order some guards in and have me beheaded. What she did instead was even more shocking. “My offer is for a marriage between us.”