CHAPTER 87: Dispute
A few days after releasing the elves, a person I hadn’t expected to see, delivered a troublesome message. Schneider arrived unannounced with a merchant companion and escorting adventurers. Straight off the bat he didn’t seem to be his usual jovial self and following the usual cursory greetings he untypically dived straight into business.
“A few days ago, the Berelli Estate submitted a trading conflict notice at the merchant’s guild.”
He handed me a parchment to read. Afterwards, I asked Karato, Sebastian and the Goldcastle team to join us in my office. I then read out the contents out to them since it impacted them as much as it did me.
“For consideration to the person, Shane Karosaki, operating under the company Goldcastle Trading Associates, who having engaged in wood cutting business with the Shimmerstal palace, has come into trading conflict with the Berelli Estate. As such, and within its legal rights to do so, the Berelli Estate hereby institutes an immediate estate border tax of thirty percent on all goods transiting the Berelli Estate until further notice. Signed this day, His Lordship, Lord Berelli.”
A short silence followed as everyone digested my words.
“Well, that was short and to the point.”
Said Elle sarcastically.
“We can’t blame them for wasting parchment either.”
Hana followed up.
“Whatever the reason for their reasons, it sounds like they’re instituting some sort of toll tax. Why do I get the feeling I’ve unknowingly stepped on someone’s toes?”
Karato knew only too well the reason for Lord Berelli’s tax.
“It’s a political message, a classic warning shot for you to close-up shop. Thirty percent is the highest legal tax that can be charged when crossing another estate’s border. They are obviously not playing around.”
He hoped it would take longer, but somehow the nobles discovered me earlier than expected.
“Why are they doing this?”
I asked Schneider.
“The Berelli family have large woodcutting operations in their territory and were the suppliers of wood to the palace until recently. Also, it’s no secret Mr. Marset, Obon’s Mayor, was supplying wood exclusively to the Berelli Estate.”
“Ah, so they’re sore about my competition with the palace and at the same time getting back at me for shutting down the mayor. Can they legally do that?”
It frustrated me to be used as a political target by someone else, especially when it hurt others around me.
“Unfortunately, they can. It’s highly uncommon though. No estate has ever been bold enough to launch such high toll tariffs in living history. In fact, the merchant guild is particularly livid about his action against a member of the guild.”
“Will they take any action in this case?”
He shook his head.
“Unfortunately, they won’t do anything because it’s not in their best interest. At worst they’ll send him a letter saying they protest his actions.”
It sounded like typical merchant rhetoric, unhappy but still beholden to the source of income.
“What’s your knowledge on mercantile law?”
Schneider scoffed at my question.
“There’s a reason I’m the sole supplier to the palace, it’s certainly not for my looks.”
I smiled at that.
“How then can we legally avoid that toll tax?”
He thought about that for a few seconds.
“Since I can be complicit if I advise you on tax avoidance, all I can tell you is that in the mercantile law under provision six, paragraph nine, border tax applies to wagons and carts. Personally carried items are exempted.”
That statement was worth gold to me. I would’ve kissed him on both cheeks had it not been for the present company. What Schneider omitted to say, was that storage rings were exempted from that tax, probably due to the rarity of the rings, and the inconsequential carrying volume of those still in existence. As a side note, it was fascinating to me that carriages were not mentioned at all. The fact that only wealthy people predominantly travelled in them had nothing to do with that of course.
“Thankyou Schneider, we’ll be operating legally of course. You say the Berelli Estate has the most gold mines in the kingdom, correct?”
“Yes, which also means they have the spending power to mess around with smaller market players like yourself. I’m afraid it doesn’t bode well for you.”
I’d been stung by yellow jacket wasps before, they might be far smaller than me, but I certainly felt its sting well enough to get me packing. Like those little yellow jackets, they ignored me at their peril.
“When are the wood supply preparations made for the upcoming winter?”
“Hey? Usually within the next moon cycle or two at latest. But what has that got to do with anything?”
I started laughing until everyone looked at me strangely. The Berelli estate were about to get seriously stung by me. Supply and demand were a fickle thing and people used to their entrenched systems tended to make slow, fat targets.
“Okay listen carefully, this is what we’re going to do. Schneider, you’re going to give a gift to a select few of the important leaders in the guild, call it a small appreciation of their consideration in our situation. Give it to whomever you think will be important contacts in future, you can tell them it’s from someone who appreciates their effort, and make sure there’s no pressure on them to reciprocate the gift.”
“What’s the gift?”
“One cartload of Ironwood.”
“Huh…are you serious, do you know how valuable that wood is?”
“Very.”
I didn’t tell them I had another cartload’s worth of much better-quality wood for myself. I wasn’t about to hand them the best stuff when they would be just as happy with the rest.
Schneider laughed as he thought of the value of my gift. The Ironwood quest rotted away on the quest board in Shimmerstal’s adventurer guild. No one was stupid enough to take it because adventurers knew what lay in store for them if they did. Ironwood was difficult to find, no doubt some idiotic adventurers tried cutting branches off the first pseudo-Ironwood tree they found but soon found themselves lost in the forest or attacked by particularly nasty monsters. Normally the situation resulted in the loss of the wood or worst case, someone’s life.
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“You’re more of a politician than I thought.”
Mocked Schneider, but I picked up his hint of underlying sarcasm. I couldn’t tell him that in my future, merchants wouldn’t need merchant guilds. Merchant guilds were run by an institution of old men holed up in a derelict fort of crumbling dreams. I only needed their co-operation for that moment, even if I had to buy it with gifts.
“I’ll take that as a compliment. But it also brings me to the next point. Tell your trusted merchant contacts to sell all their lumber before the end of the next moon cycle.”
“And why exactly would I want to tell them that?”
“Because it seems there’s a particularly bad case of pandora moth. Of course, we don’t want to create baseless rumours so keep it under your hat.”
“Huh, what’s pandora moth, why have I never heard of it?”
I wasn’t surprised at Schneider’s ignorance. After all, Sebastien also never heard of it, even after a lifetime of working with wood. The pandora moth was an innocent looking moth living in the Ironwood Forest without a care in the world. I mean, no one looked twice at the insect if they ever noticed it in the first place. If it wasn’t for a peculiar trait mentioned to us, thanks to our recent information-for-possessions trading with the dark elves, we wouldn’t have paid attention to it either.
Sebastien gave up trying to illicit useful information from the elves because whatever they considered useful information turned out to be worthless to him. Every time Sebastien walked into my office with more useless elvish information, he left shaking his head at how pointless the exchange seemed. But I couldn’t help but laugh at the windfalls we were gaining whenever he handed the list to over to me.
To be fair to Sebastien, my imagination lay far ahead of his. In my adventurous mind lay myriads of pathways each of those so called pointless elvish natural technologies led down. One of them was the story of the little grey pandora moth. It grew no bigger than a thumbnail, but when given the right stimulus and in this case when forced to feed on a specific noxious weed, it became a ferocious wood boring monster only the legendary Ironwood could resist.
Of course, I referred to their woodboring larval state that developed in less than a week from an egg. When the moths were fed the noxious weed, each sex crazed moth produced thousands of eggs with such vigour it impacted their whole lifecycle, dramatically reducing their lifespans to less than a couple of weeks. Within a few days a voracious worm was born into the world, one that loved wood with a ravenous appetite. For me, that was fantastic news, but best of all, as if layering my cake with double thick cream, some quirk of nature only allowed the moths to survive within a fifty-meter radius from where they first started breeding. That meant no uncontrolled outbreaks across the city or the kingdom. After all, the last thing I needed was the collapse of the timber industry because the forest was eaten up by something I started.
“Don’t worry about it. Just tell your sources that if they sell now and wait until you tell them, we’ll continue to sell wood to your sources at the same guaranteed price as now right through winter until the end of the next summer season. That way they’ll make a killing when the wood prices soar.”
“So, you’re going to supply both the palace and the domestic markets? Where will you get the labour for that?”
“Trust me, you’ll see when the time comes.”
I didn’t want to tell him the Berelli estate would supply all my labour needs because he would think I was nuts.
“And what if this moth thing doesn’t happen?”
“Then we’ll sell wood at a price where your contacts can soon recuperate their losses. We take the risk, and they only stand to win.”
Elle interjected at my statement.
“You realise that if you get this wrong, we’ll soon be bankrupt?”
I chuckled.
“Have more faith in me Elle, we won’t go bankrupt.”
“How do you know that?”
I smiled but before I could answer her, Schneider interjected.
“My apologies for cutting you off there Elle. Shane, why are you doing this? You stand to gain nothing out of it.”
“Unlike the Berelli estate, I’m not in this for the money Schneider. Money is useful, but it’s only a tool to achieving what I want for Obon and its estate.”
“What exactly is that?”
“It’s like I’ve said to some of you before. This summer will be the last for some children and adults you and I personally know. That might not seem abnormal to you given Aryonne’s harsh climate, but that doesn’t make it right. I believe this camp and whatever comes from it, will help correct that imbalance.”
There was an uncomfortable silence. Only Karato was smiling from ear to ear for some reason. Probably tittle tattle to the king about it. Well, I didn’t particularly care.
“Anyway, that’s enough of that issue, which brings me on to the next topic. Sebastien, I hear this winter is likely to be a particularly harsh one?”
“Yes, all early indications are showing the cold season will be a long, severe one. Why’s that of interest?”
“I’ll explain it all just now. When do people start preparing food preserves for the winter?”
“That would’ve already been in progress from the beginning of summer. Late season fresh fruit or vegetables are usually snapped up at a premium price as people rush to create extra preserves.”
“How much of a premium?”
“At least three times higher than the usual rate for preserves.”
“Right. Tomorrow, start sending out as many messengers as you can spare into the Berelli estate’s outlying villages, no matter how small, and tell them we’ll regularly come around buy up any preserves they can spare at triple the normal rate. I’ll supply the messengers both the money and the storage rings they need for the collection. Of course, tell them to be surreptitious about it. I don’t want the Berelli Estate standing in the way if it isn’t necessary.”
“Already? You know the villagers will just sell to you at normal prices anyway, right?”
“You’re right but that’s not my reasoning. I want to create the perception that we are the go-to people when times are tough.”
Typically, Sebastien’s brain was overheating from the computational effort he put in to analyse my words. He already knew that when I said something, it usually had far reaching implications. He didn’t argue and only nodded.
“Also, we need to up the rate of woodcutting, both for Shimmerstal’s lumber and that we need to start preparing wood for burning winter. Can you get the labour for that?”
“Those elves should be finished with their houses soon enough; I suggest you have a look at their work after this. An extra fifty of them should do the job for us now, but even with the extra manpower, we need a faster way to cut down trees and split the wood if we want to use them effectively. Elves might be good at working at wood, but they cannot swing an axe with those thin arms like our guys can. Also, mobile mills are great for creating planks but are next to useless for processing anything else.”
What Sebastien was telling me without saying it, was that his men needed some technology that could quickly cut down trees, saw them into chunks then split the wood. Luckily for them, cutting and processing of hard materials was my forte.
“I’ll have something for you in the next seven days. Also, come the next shift in a few days’ time I’ll be instituting a new rule. All permanent residents of Camp Endeavour will have every seventh day off. To compensate them for that, I’ll allow an increase in salary to make up for the extra day they lose in income.”
“What? Are you sure?”
Sebastien’s eyes grew wider.
“We’ll talk through the details with Elle once we finish here. That brings me to my final issue.”
“Bloody heck.”
“You mean there’s more?”
“Goodness.”
Judging from the groans and expressions I’d given them more than enough to absorb for one day. I needed Hana to scan the mercantile law books using a specially designed golem, a tiny camera that she could hold over the page until a small red light lit up and then she could move on. Once she returned, Ara could read the page with the stored information keep me informed of regulatory issues, like a high-powered lawyer working for the family, only much better. Why did I suddenly feel like I was part of the mafia?
“I promise this one is easy. Hana, I’d like you to go with Schneider to Shimmerstal and read through all the mercantile law for me.”
“Huh, me?”
“Hang on. She can do that?”
“What the?”
Since I needed to explain a few things, it meant that meeting turned out to be a lot longer than I planned.