“I thought you could reasonably promise only a hundred beads?” Ravia said.

“From your tone, you know eleven thousand is an unreasonable number,” I said. “The only reason we have that many is because our Dungeon Binder spent a long time making those beads as we waited for the arrival of the year’s first dragon.” I shrugged. “And that was mostly because they were focused on how much we could sell so many for. With the coming year and things like the harvest and the other things they have to maintain, not to mention the projects that they’re waiting on the materials we’ll bring back for, I doubt they’ll have as much free time. You’re looking at a stockpile that arose over a long period.”

“Ah. That explains it. It’s basically winter work,” the last of Ravia’s brothers that hadn’t spoken yet said.

I gave a tired shrug, but didn’t actually confirm it. Lori had actually made most of it this past spring and early summer once she’d gotten her bead-making tray together. The main bottleneck had been getting enough pieces of Iridescence whenever she went out to grow the beads. While grains about the size of sand probably worked, Lori had found it difficult to maneuver them on the tray.

“I can see why you would want us to be the ones to transport it,” Ravia’s eldest brother said thoughtfully. “That many beads… Anyone looking at it probably wouldn’t see the lack of denomination marks. They’d just see an almost absurd number of large beads. And if there’s one thing people would likely be able to identify through a sack, it’s beads. We’ll need a covered wagon, and one of the lakimay to pull it…”

With most of the important details finalized, we moved on to drafting the contract. The agreed price of ten bead-tani per bead was accepted, though the terms would defer final payment until everything was inventoried to confirm there were, in fact, as many beads as promised. Some poor Mentalists and maybe even Horotracts were going to have several tedious hours in front of them. If they were my people, I’d have gotten them something nice once they finished with it all.

There was a clause that we could update the price from per bead to per sengrain once I received confirmation from Lori. Hopefully she’d understand not maximizing our profit margins in favor of maintaining cordial relations with our partner. And if not… well, if she asked me to get more for the beads, at least we'd be renegotiating the price anyway.

I was already sighing at having to try and figure out how I was supposed to rationalize the reasoning for it to something she could accept.

There were a lot of such clauses on the contract, such as commitments to regular deliveries and the minimum amount of beads we could promise per delivery that would be renegotiated later. As it stood, we were agreeing to another delivery before winter came, for a minimum of five hundred beads. The later was something Lori could do easily, so hopefully we could finalize at a higher number. If I had my way, we’d deliver monthly, but that would tie up the Coldhold to basically being a dedicated delivery ship. If we did that, we’d need to have another ship for regular salt-harvesting for Lorian and River’s Fork’s own needs, which… was probably going to need to be the next project.

Well, second-next project. Increasing our harvest yields so we could better sustain our populations and maybe eat something besides stew was more important. The only reason we were able to live like that so far is probably because the local beasts and seels hadn’t yet learned to be wary of us, but that was changing. We needed to switch our staple food from wild meat and forage to domesticated crops as soon as possible. With our staple food secured, we can slowly start recruiting more people, and maybe start having something beyond a favor economy…

One of the smaller concessions I managed to get was an agreement that they would negotiate for our continued use of the docks should the demesne pass some sort of ruling limiting who could use those docks, as well as paying for our docking fee—deducted from later from our earnings—should we be lacking in funds. "Which we would be," I said shamelessly, "since I intend to leave here with more goods than beads. Besides, there' a good chance that the increase in boat traffic in the bay might cause policy changes that might force us to have to use the newer wooden docks at the opposite side of the cove, which… well, I don't want to. That place looks very unsafe. I've heard talk of gangs."

Ravia's eldest brother made a snort of amused agreement. "It's a bit of an exaggeration, but given how valuable your goods are, you're probably right not wanting to dock there. Though the old docks aren't all that safe either. Early this spring, a gang set fire to the warehouses and stole a ship that was docked there, then managed to sail it out of the demesne before word could reach Binder Kaures."

I blinked. "They stole a ship?"

He nodded. "It was the first ship of the year and already full of provisions and cargo. The poor fools were probably thinking of using it to get back over the ocean. Probably lost and dead now. I hear sails are hard to use. It's why most boats use oars or wizards to move their boats."

"No arguments there," I agreed. "Well, I'll tell the men that if they see a fire to get our ship away from the dock." Those poor souls. Depending on the time of day they'd stolen the ship, they'd probably gotten lucky about using the sails to get out of the cove. Still, I made a note to keep an eye out for a derelict ship on the way back. There was a lot of ocean it could have drifted to, but we might get lucky. Either we can bring the ship back for a reward or we could keep it for ourselves!

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

One of the questions I’d been expecting came up near the end of drafting the contract, when we were finishing up going over all the listed points, most especially the exclusivity clause that promised we would provide beads only to Emborin and Sons for the next five years. It wasn’t very long, but it was very likely that someone else would have figured out how to make beads as well by that point. Dungeon Binders would be very well-motivated to figure out the process, if just to get into the market and break our monopoly. Once the period was reached, we could discuss either renewing the exclusivity clause or transitioning it to them becoming preferred partners, where they would have right to first refusal for our beads before we offered them to someone else.

“You have wispbeads to offer, but can your Dungeon Binder produce any other kind?” the accountant who I suspected was a Mentalist asked.

I didn’t even bother misdirecting that one. “No,” I said. “And for pretty much the reason you probably suspect.”

There were nods at that, and the accountant—who I reclassified as almost certainly being a Mentalist—sighed, but nodded in resignation.

It was practically public knowledge that none of the Dungeon Binders who had established demesnes near Covehold—including the Dungeon Binder of Covehold Demesne itself—had shown any ability to use any magic but the ones they been born with. Their efforts to try to fix this lack had eventually been spread by rumor and gossip. Trying to learn by reading basic primers on the other forms of magic, asking other wizards to teach them directly by apprenticeship, swallowing beads that they previously couldn’t utilize to try to align their magic to a different type… none of it had worked.

I’d kept the information from Lori, even as she'd told me to try and find primers on the other three magic she lacked with the profits from selling the beads. Partly it was because it didn't really change her situation. While she was utterly confident she would learn how to do other forms of magic, she only made plans based upon her and the demesne's current capabilities. It was why I wasn't too concerned about Shanalorre's safety most of the time. When Lori said the little girl would be all right until Lori learned Deadspeaking, she meant it.

The other reason was that as long as Lori still thought it was possible to learn other forms of magic, there was a very good chance she could stubborn her way to doing so. The woman had managed to learn how to both make beads and expand her demesne, a singular feat in this continent. Even the Dungeon Binder of Covehold Demesne had managed only one of those things, and while he seemed to have put it to good use, from what I heard he seldom left his dungeon and had never left his demesne. The chances of him matching Lori are practically non-existent.

I was still getting her the books, mostly so she'd have something else to read so that she'd finally lend me the almanac, and partly so that we had some way of educating Shanalorre and any of the children who showed the potential. While all the current generation of children were confirmed to not possess magic, we had a new generation of babies now. They were still far too young to be tested, but…

Well. Hopefully Lori would know better than to not educate a population that had proved loyal to her for many years. Otherwise, I had plenty of time to get the right books as reference for pointing out how doing so has historically been a terrible idea economically.

Finally, the contract was drafted, and both Master Emborin and I read over the copies before we signed our agreement. This time they gave me a nice leather folder embossed with the merchant house's sigil to keep the contract, which was nice. I was able to unfold the contract I'd gotten from Ravia earlier for the salt, skins and furs and put it in the folder as well. Hopefully the fold marks would flatten out.

Multaw, Cyuw and I hitched a ride with the wagon that was readied to pick up the beads. The lakimay pulling it stood still instead of shuffling nervously as we, Ravia, Ravia's eldest brother Royt, and the four guards got onto the back. The beast was undead, of course, the Deadspeaker sitting behind it controlling it with chain-link reins. Its feathers were still bright, vibrant and mostly intact, which meant it was either newly made or well-cared for.

The streets had cleared again since it was a past noon, so the wagon had few obstructions as the undead beast pulled us along. There was no conversation, since we were all too busy trying to keep from being bounced hard over the streets. The wagon had some springs and suspension, and it was probably enough to keep inanimate objects from breaking too badly, but as animate people, it still hurt.

When we reached the dock, the Coldhold was lingering several paces away from the dock according to my orders. Even before I'd known about the ship that had gotten stolen, someone forcing their way aboard the Coldhold had been a concern. Fortunately, we were paid for the day, so the dockmaster didn't charge us again when ship docked once more. The water level had also risen, letting us put the ramp onto a saner spot.

Ravia and his brother stayed ashore as I went down and directed the others to open the front room and start pulling out the sacks of beads, making sure we only pulled out the beads that were marked for sale and not the ones for all the ship's bounds tools. The spare oversized beads for the bound tool driver remained where they were, covered in one corner where they couldn't be seen when the door was open.

It took a while to get all the sacks of beads out, passing them all in a chain with Ravia and the merchant house's people taking care of getting them on the wagon. Each of the sacks was securely tied shut, with a number on it that listed how many beads were inside. I'd tallied them twice before we'd left to make sure they added up correctly, because it would have been embarrassing to claim eleven thousand and actually have only a little over nine thousand wispbeads. All in all, it represented nine out of ten of the beads Lori has made before we'd left. Two-thirds of the rest were also on the boat to keep us in creature comforts. In an extreme emergency, we could sell some of the rest for extra funds, but it shouldn't be necessary.

"Once we leave, head out and start collecting more salt," I told Yhorj as the last of the sacks were carried out. "I'll signal you from here at the same time as yesterday. And since we have beads now, we'll bring food. And yes, we'll get some booze too if we can."

"Thank you, L—"

"Ah?"

"—uh, Rian," he corrected.

I nodded, and turned to head towards the wagon. After all, I needed to see the exchange through to the end, which included watching the merchant house confirm how many beads there were. I needed to place the orders for what the demesne needed. And then I needed to recruit Deadspeakers.

The work was only just starting.