----------------------------------------
I put my head into my hands for a moment because Lily’s father was talking about corporations again. I chastised myself for dishonoring my faithful host, who had such patience with me, but I also bristled on the inside because this topic filled my body with an urgent need to sleep or run. Of course, I had some mild interest in the topic, too, so I chastised myself again, and I steeled my body and my will to listen and learn.
I asked, “Please, sir, refresh my memory: why am I not allowed to form my own corporation?”
He stopped all movement. I noticed that he had a habit of sitting rigidly in his chair, not stiffly and formalistically, but with both feet on the ground, with his hands upon his knees, and his back against the back of the chair. His brother, on the other hand, was slovenly: draped over his chair, with his feet propped up on a stool or a leg hung over an arm, and he was constantly fiddling, either with his hair, his beard, or with the feather decorations. Sometimes he traced patterns on the arm of the chair with his finger.
Lily’s father stopped all movement, as I said, taking the pose of a bas-relief at the palace, and I was, once again, seized with defensiveness.
“You are not a foreigner,” he said, furrowing his brow while he said it.
“Yes, yes,” I said. “I know that; I do not understand it.”
“This city belongs to your king,” he said. “And you belong to him. A corporation, you recall, protects a man from liability. You have no need for such protection—” at this, he smiled brightly, “—because your king protects you from liability.”
Lily’s uncle smiled brightly, chuckling.
“Oh,” I groaned. “I’ve never had that experience before.”
“You have probably lived a lifetime of the opposite experience, haven’t you?” Lily’s father asked.
I looked at the floor, then at the leg of the chair he was sitting on. “I suppose so,” I said. “The constant demands were a factor in the decision to sell my house and walk away from the city. I did not want to serve in his military, pay his taxes, or anything else of the kind. Even now, knowing the circumstances of travel beyond the city, I still find it more attractive than property ownership under the king.”
“If you whisper much louder,” said Lily’s uncle in low tones, “agents will appropriate your person to another venue, whence you will nevermore be perceived by man. But,” he continued in a brighter tone, “you will still be a servant to the king.”
“This is the language of assassination and insurrection you are speaking,” said Lily’s father.
“I don’t want to kill the King,” I responded.
“No, but you are using the language of an insurrectionary,” he said. Lily’s uncle looked at me with his half-grin. I didn’t know what to make of this turn in the conversation.
“So I can buy a portion of your corporation, though,” I said. “As I recall.”
“No, indeed not,” came the reply. “You can buy a right to the rights of a financier.”
“Oh! Yes!” I exclaimed. “The rights of the rights!”
“A financier lends me money at a rate of eight percent,” he reviewed. “And they have rights to sell my property if my corporation defaults. The financier then sells rights to those rights, promising five percent to buyers.”
“Ah!” I said. “It makes more sense the second time around!”
“Good!” he exclaimed with me.
“How much is your corporation worth?” I asked.
“Nineteen thousand Marks of the Sun,” he said. His brother burst out laughing. He, in turn, began to laugh loudly. It took me a moment to remember that that had been my bluff earlier. “Oh, son,” he continued, after a hearty last chuckle. “My corporation has a huge ledger, with many Marks coming in and many Marks going out, some for expenses, some for lending, some for debt service, some for inventory purchasing, and so forth. It is very difficult to say what my corporation is worth. It is easy to say that the financiers thinks that I am worth very much, even though I don’t own a thing!”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
“You lend money?” I asked. “I thought only financiers did that.”
“Well, my friend,” he smiled, “financiers and corporations, but not individuals. I borrow money from a financier—my corporation borrows—and then I lend that money to individuals, but I request ten percent in interest.”
“Why would they pay more for the same money?” I asked.
“Because I am not a financier,” he said, “and I do not ask the same kinds of questions a financier asks, and my books do not belong to your king.”
I blinked, staring straight into his eyes. He returned the stare, without expression, as usual. The next question was tricky; did I actually want to ask? I thought to discipline myself to avoid the usual anxiety of my mouth departing from my body, but discipline flew away, like a snipe, senseless.
“Do you finance criminal activities?” I asked.
Lily’s uncle burst into laughter again. Lily’s father held his reaction to a barely perceptible smile. He put his head into his hand for a moment.
“No,” he said. “No. Some people desire to avoid the prejudices of the financiers, who have rules for a broad consumer base. People are people, and each has his own needs, many of which the financiers cannot perceive; their rules prevent good vision. I provide a convenience; I lend money to character, not to rules.”
“Could I lend you money?” I asked.
“You could,” he smiled.
“Could I have ten percent back when I return?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “Those are bad terms. I will pay you less than what I pay the financiers. I will pay you seven percent on your money.”
“Why should I not ask the financiers to pay me eight percent?” I demanded.
“Who said financiers ever pay eight percent?” he retorted.
I had to stop to review everything he had been saying. What he said next was beyond my comprehension, mostly because I didn’t want to comprehend financial whatsits, but also because he didn’t make any sense. I went over this in my mind during many long, empty stretches of road, and her father constantly barged into my daydreams of Lily with his unwelcome and fruitless instruction, and no matter how I came at the matter, it would not yield to proper sense. I began to believe he forgot something in the works, and the further, happier thought began to intrude that perhaps, maybe, in a whisper of a faraway cloud, he was actually fallible. He proceeded without mercy:
“Financiers deal in volume,” he said, “paying a few people many Marks of the Sun by lending many Marks to many people while borrowing very few Marks from very few people for a very small rate. They do not deal in risk.”
“Oh,” I said, not quite understanding.
“Consider this,” he continued. “Your money will double in ten years.”
“I think not,” I said. “It will grow by seventy percent, unless foreign math is different.”
“Compounding is the same everywhere in God’s universe,” he said with a touch of impatience in his voice. “Compounding means that every period your Marks grow by a rate, then begin earning on the new number of Marks for the duration of the following period.”
“Oh,” I said. “I never heard that before.”
Lily’s uncle peered at me from under the feather decorations, smiling again. Lily’s father sighed deeply, dropping his head so he could peer at me from under his brow.
“You have never heard of compounding before…” he said. “The single most pressing issue of every civilization since the beginning of time, so simple to conceive, so difficult to compute, and you, a dweller of this great city, the son of a mighty king, have never heard of compounding before.”
“I sold my house,” I protested, “so that I could walk away from such considerations.”
A gust of wind challenged the house from the north. A dish clattered on a countertop in the kitchen. Rescue whimpered and covered his eyes with his paws.
Lily’s father leaned forward in his chair. I thought I saw his face flush a bit. Lily’s uncle laughed silently, disappearing behind the feather decorations. Lily’s father leaned back into his position.
“Who do you think would come for you?” he asked. “If we were in a public place, and you said what you said about property ownership, who do you think would come for you?”
I looked at him with no answer. I’m sure a blank was on my face. I did not want to kill the King.
Lily’s uncle cleared his throat. “A priest, boy!” he said. I did not like it that he called me a boy. I flexed some muscles in my shoulders to prove to myself that I was a man. Why was this important?
“Give me your money,” said Lily’s father, “and I will put it toward doubling in ten years—that rate is guaranteed by my corporation, under any circumstances. While you are walking along the road, Shur-qa-hil can explain to you the details—”
“Even though they are less exciting than these—” interrupted Lily’s uncle.
“—and perhaps my corporation will perform better than seven percent.”
The accountat-scribe ponders the futility of money [https://embodimentandexclusion.files.wordpress.com/2023/08/the-scribe.jpg]
Lily’s father was visibly upset, and I could not understand it this time. I pondered other times I had seen him upset: either when I had misunderstood a simple command of his; when I had said something indicating a healthy measure of naivete; when I had breached a cultural boundary; when I had forgotten my place as guest. All these times I could understand, and I could manage to respond favorably, or attempt to receive favor. This time I had no framework, no concept, no idea why he was upset. I also could not understand why my talk of taxation would be considered insurrectionary or treasonous.
“I would like for you to take my money to keep it safe in your corporation,” I said.
He answered, “You are about to discover that slavery to a fool is to be desired over freedom within barbarism.”
----------------------------------------