(eng) P. Joseph Cherubino & Michael Anderle - Welspring Knight 02 by Knight's Struggle

Author:Knight's Struggle [Struggle, Knight's]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

In the nearly two weeks that Gormer and Pleth spent in Ward 52, they’d been to every inn, tavern, and food shop in town. They’d sold their contraband cheese to everyone with enough coin. They gave Mina a cut of all their action. Gormer didn’t want to, but Pleth knew the score. Keeping Mina happy made things go smoother for them.

Gormer wanted to skim from Mina’s cut. They found out how quickly word flowed on the avenue and how deeply Mina was tapped into that flow. She knew everyone they sold to. She didn’t even need to have them followed. All she had to do was serve drinks and the barflies told her everything she needed to know. Apparently, with nothing to do in the winter, the boot maker buying some cheese was a hot topic.

It was the gossip network that Pleth and Gormer refashioned into their spy ring. They started by taking the temperature of the gossip. It started out as moderately annoyed. They heard grumbled criticism of the changes at first. But as the days went on, those grumblings turned into outright complaints. Then, people got angry.

One such angry barfly was ranting away at the bar when Gormer walked in. Pleth was already there.

“I’ve always supported the Protectorate,” the man grumbled. “Lungu has a strong hand, which is what you need in this world. But hanging a nineteen-year-old bandit girl from a lamp post with no trial? I mean, sure, bandits are scummy people, but they’re people. She shoulda been in jail, not dead.”

“And firing all the commissioners? Now the damn military is running the whole Protectorate. I heard they’ve already eaten half the winter surplus in Keep 11. How much do you think that Balan’s men ate in our keep? Janks’ men were here for months. I bet there’s not a damn bit of barley left.”

“Well,” Gormer said, sidling up to the barfly, “I bet they ate all the cheese, too. Lucky for you, I have some of the stuff right here.”

“Not likely they ate the cheese,” the barfly, whose name happened to be Barney, said. “They get a deal on Petran cheese and trade it up north to Ungur. I bet Protector Ungur doesn’t know about the toll’s kickback, either.”

Pleth raised his eyebrows. “Toll kickback?” he asked. “What toll kickback?”

Pleth shot Gormer a look. It was such a specific, obscure remark to make about the inner workings of the toll system. It didn’t seem like a simple brag.

The barfly tapped the side of his bulbous nose, purple with burst blood vessels. “I was an Assessor once,” he confessed. “But now I trade in future contracts. It’s my business to know which palm greases which.”

“A speculator,” Gormer said with a smile.

At that, Barney’s face darkened. Pleth deflated. It was a bad move. The word speculator had a negative connotation in the Protectorates. Technically, selling contracts for future production wasn’t legal. But that was how some struggling villages and merchants survived when they didn’t have money on hand.

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