The port was not entirely shut down. Men sat upon every pier, their rears weighing down crates and barrels as they watched but a small subset of sailors ready their ships and depart. No mercantile vessels were changing sails, only fishermen. Many had already returned with holds full of herring and cod collecting ice as they were ported to the awaiting markets. Surrounding the port was half as many men clad in steel, armed with the vague order to prevent violence when their only tools at hand were weapons.
Lucius did not go to the protestors first. He queried a guard who summoned his superior, who in turn summoned his superior and so on until at last Watch Captain Hartley greeted him. The man’s hair was half grey and half snow, his station marked by silk plumage across his sleeves and trousers that ballooned from the edges of his hauberk. “So, the friend of the merchants has arrived,” the Watch Captain said, neither offering his hand nor saluting.
“By the king’s order,” Lucius said. “What can you tell me about this?”
“And could we speak inside?” Valerie asked.
Hartley grunted. “We won’t be able to hear each other anywhere that’s warm. Our headquarters for the district is under siege by bards with drums and horns. We’ve tried arresting them, but as soon as they’re given to the judge, they’re let back out. The man organizing this mess is Suther. He’s something like a guild master for the warehouses. Bulk negotiations for labor with the merchants but got a bit too much bulk at his beck and call if you ask me. He expects the king to bend over for him by the sound of it. Tell me, what hope do you have of resolving this?”
“One way or another, it must be resolved in three days' time, and the king has given me no authority to concede anything.”
Hartley laughed. “Then it is impossible.”
Lucius did not laugh. “Watch Captain, I advise that you meet with your requisitions officer at the castle.”
“What? You expect me to bring in more men? That’s impossible too. Even if we had more funding, the men get most of their pay in food and ale and it’s nearly impossible for us to get any more of that.”
“Cannons. At least two functioning. Also ask for every broken cannon, every prototype. They don’t need to work, but they need to look like they can work. Don’t load them with slugs like you’re trying to sink a ship, but with bags of gravel. Pack the ends with cloth to keep the ammunition tight against the hammer. They’ll be your only hope of not being torn limb from limb if this becomes a riot. You’re already outnumbered two to one, and that’s just the men you can see. I’d wager twice as many are willing to come in from behind you once killing starts. If they think it’s a matter of strength, they’ll overwhelm you. I’m the only man alive that can face a cannon and live.”
Hartley’s dry mirth faded as Lucius spoke. “I’ll see what I can do. I don’t like the idea of using such things against citizens though. They’re weapons of war.”
“They’re weapons of force. I suggest you pray that my negotiations succeed, or the king will tell you to clear this port, riot or not. Three days, captain,” Lucius said and headed into the port as soon as the man nodded.
Lucius didn’t make it far into the port before a pair of trollkin blocked his path. The larger of the two, with long hair braided down to his chest, stated, “No business in the port today, sir knight.”
Lucius had to crane his neck to stare back at the man’s sunken eyes. “I have business with you lot.”
“Is that so, sir knight? Because I don’t know you and I don’t do business with people I don’t know.”
“I have no interest in doing business with the doorman. It’s your guild leader or chief negotiator or whatever title he wears that I want. I’m here on behalf of the king, at the request of you people. I am Lucius von Solhart and I’m here to bring this standstill to an end.”
The other trollkin nudged his comrade. “He’s the one,” he said. “I’ll go get Kerouac.”
“Hold up,” the larger trollkin said, but his comrade had already left. “Who’s she?”
Lucius looked to Valerie, but she didn’t introduce herself. “The accountant,” he said, getting an unmasked look of puzzlement from her, but the nuance was lost on the workman.
The trollkin crossed his arms and leaned back. “The leader will be the judge of whether you have business here.”
Lucius clasped his hands behind his back and waited, not flinching even when several groups of other portmen wandered over to see what the issue was. At first they asked what was the matter in feigned threat, but confusion soon became genuine. Then the guildmaster of the portmen came striding through the port in robes fit for a scholar. He kept his grey beard trimmed and oiled, with an energy in his step befitting a youth.
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“The Gambling Lion! I’m delighted to have you here. In truth, I didn’t think the king would assent to that humble request. You know, I thought there was a chance. This sort of business is typically handled by the Montisferros but they’ve been in a terrible way since the incident. Your reputation precedes you, m’lord. Shall I guide you to the office?”
“If it’s warm and quiet, otherwise we can discuss the matters here,” Lucius said.
“Nonsense! The middle of the street is no dignified place for business. We’re not hawking apples to orphans. Come, come, my wife is in the process this very moment of preparing food. You haven’t eaten, have you?”
“Enough fit for a soldier.”
“I won’t have it. Come, let us be civilized. Your comrade is welcome to join the meal of course,” Kerouac said, beckoning for them to follow. Half a step ahead of them, he took them to an old house squeezed at the corner of the port, butted up by a warehouse lacking the characteristic odor of sea life. A quick summons of his wife brought out a plate of flatbread and cheese while the scent of the kitchen presaged fish of some culinary variety. He partook of the food only nominally, soon clasping his hands together across the table from Lucius and Valerie, who was gorging herself. “I fear I’m late on introductions. John Kerouac is my name. Born in Portacheval, trained in Jarnmark, and now the representative of the workers here.”
“Lucius von Solhart.”
“Valerie, knight serving the king.”
“A pleasure. Might I ask if our letters were provided in full to you? They were some ten pages given in duplicate.”
“I’m afraid they weren’t.”
Kerouac frowned. “As I’m sure you know, winter is always hard for men of the sea. Sailing is more dangerous with ice on the lines and outright hazardous when ice floats upon the surface. The oil we must spread to clean the routes gets stuck in the ice and serpents become bold. The schools of fish are still out there, but in aggregate, business diminishes. This makes for a terrible time when the price of food keeps rising. Many of the men come here every day to bring coin back to their families and leave with never enough.”
“Clogging up commerce won’t help that.”
“But the food would! Almost the entire city eats out of the fishmarket, we aren’t stopping the fishermen. Only the merchants, the ones still shipping hard goods for the nobility.”
“You’re pressuring the king when it’s the temples that hold that monopoly.”
Kerouac scoffed. “The angel Acheliah is the head of the temples and the king is her second. They may be independent of the nobility, but not of the crown. He has the authority.”
“But not the desire,” Lucius said, pushing the plate of food aside. “I’m afraid that I must be blunt. This interruption is to come to an end. As I already mentioned, I wasn’t given your full list of demands, but I imagine it wasn’t ten pages of explanation as to why bringing more meat into the city is a good idea the king should support.”
The man across from him wetted his lips. “I certainly could have filled that and more with such justification.”
“But?”
“There is the matter of pay as well. It won’t do to have the workers passing over food when their children grow gaunt and cold. Thievery would be unstoppable if nothing else.”
“Nobody is forced to work at these docks. They’re not slaves.”
“Pay everywhere in the kingdom is too low! Except the military, of course. The men who defend the peace are taken care of, and I understand you are an exemplar of keeping them fed even on the march. That was one of the first stories about you, you know? When the news of the siege at Rackvidd first came, we of course heard about how you broke the backs of those mountain men, but we also heard how you kept your little army from feeling the pangs of hunger, even at the expense of your own comfort.”
Lucius drummed his fingers on the table. “Tell me what happens when a ship comes to port and there are travelers aboard. Do you tell them too that the port is closed and the must stay upon their ships with the cargo?”
Kerouc retreated in his seat. “That would be inhumane.”
“So you turn them out into the city without their belongings? Or do you at least leave them their coin purses so they can have a roof over their head? Perhaps you send them to the temples for sanctuary and burden their charity? Is that why the temples have rebuked you? Or is it that you give them their belongings and take their coin as a special favor to get them through the port?”
“I don’t understand what you’re accusing me of!”
“You have two days, Kerouac. Return to work or the fist of the crown will sweep you away.”
The guild leader rose, shoving his chair back as he did so. “I can see you are not the man I believed you were, Sir Solhart. I don’t see how anything will be accomplished more today.”
“Not here, no,” Lucius said as he too rose from the table.
Kerouac shook his head. “I think you’ll find that society is changing, Sir Solhart. The people relied on the temples for all manner of learning in the past, but guilds have become repositories of knowledge in their own right. Furthermore, we have a mere fraction of the nobility we once had. Not just because of the massacre this past season, but the old bloodlines have not maintained their fecundity. Wars have depleted the stock of good men from all classes and so those that rule over the common people no longer have a sufficient quantity of excellence to lead. There are those who believe it is time for every man to stand on his own feet and think with his own head. The writings of Jacque Mordare might be of interest to you.”
Lucius laughed. “I’m already familiar. I’ll be back tomorrow and I suggest you make time to meet with me, for your own good.”