| |
Quintus had selected the booth in the back of the grubby little Minertian restaurant because he had a clear view of the door. But the tea was weak, and the light of the red-glazed lamps was very dim, and the service was very slow. And so, every two or three minutes, he would slump over and fall asleep, only to jerk awake a few seconds later when his head hit the table.
He hadn’t been sleeping well since he had met Caedmon Aldred. The great sorcerer had been very polite. He had, in fact, praised Quintus to Mr. Megalos, which had probably saved Quintus’s job. But the mere notion that someone like Aldred was really out there in the world, not just in storybooks, and the fact that he knew the name “Verrus,” was giving Quintus nightmares.
He’d suffered through one last night, in fact, where he’d found himself outside the soaring walls of Oasestadt—a place he had never been in real life—by the side of the dark sorcerer Kuhlbert. And across a wind-scoured plain of sand, they faced Caedmon Aldred and a bunch of other hillichmagnars from Diernemynster.
“You’ll never take us alive!” Kuhlbert had shouted.
And poor Quintus stood there, desperately trying to explain that he was only Kuhlbert’s banker, and he simply needed to get a signature and a seal on the latest deposit slip, and he would be on his way.
It wouldn’t do to get mixed up in the affairs of sorcerers. He had stopped going to his usual haunts for meals, and he had taken a sick day without being sick, much to the annoyance of his older brother, Lucius.
“You’re already on thin ice,” Lucius had said. “Don’t expect me to cover for you when I write my report at the Solstice.”
His head hit the table, and he dreamed feverishly for a few minutes about Caedmon Aldred shooting bolts of red, magysk lightning from his hands, while Mr. Megalos rode a giant black dragon and cried, “I really don’t think you’ve got a future in banking if you can’t handle a fire drake or two, Quintus.”
Then he felt a hand shaking his shoulder. He adjusted his glasses and looked up to see a small, cheerful-looking young woman with dark, curly hair.
“Hello,” she said. She turned and did a strange sort of twirling dance move. Then she leaned over the table, kicking her legs briefly in the air, and said, “You’re Quintus Valerius Verrus, aren’t you?”
To anyone even slightly more threatening than this overgrown child, he might have denied it. But she seemed so completely without guile that he said, “Yes, I’m Quintus. Who are you?”
“You can call me Gina.” She dropped a bit of sealed parchment on the table and whispered, “Read that, and be there on time tonight. It’ll be worth your while. Trust me.”
She strutted away, whistling and dancing as she went, and Quintus picked up the parchment. It bore two seals—both in purple wax. One showed a peculiar, stylized letter “M,” made from what appeared to be four crossed swords. Or maybe they were toothpicks. On that scale, it was hard to tell. The other seal depicted some sort of slender flower. A lily, perhaps, though Quintus had never known much about flowers. He opened the message and read:
Please present this letter at the front gate of the Imperial Palace tonight at 6:00. We have a proposal we think you will find most interesting.
Quintus paid his tab and rushed out into the alleyway. When he emerged in the wider main streets, he stood for a few minutes, breathing in the cold autumn air, and looking around. The little dark-haired woman was nowhere to be seen, but he still had an uncomfortable sense that he was being watched.
He hung around the university district all afternoon, trying to decide what to do. He could run. He could go home and refuse the summons. But he had a bad feeling that if he failed to show up at the palace, someone decidedly less pleasant than the dark-haired girl would come find him. After taking a pint of cider at a student tavern for courage, he walked up to the palace at the appointed time and showed the letter to the soldier on guard duty.
The young soldier pulled a rope and a bell rang somewhere nearby. Then a beautiful, curvy woman with bright blue eyes and golden tanned skin appeared in a green velvet dress.
She shook his hand, pointed to the note, and said, “I see you got our letter. Come with me.”
Courtiers in fine silk and jewels filled the entrance hall; they barely turned to acknowledge the lady and Quintus. She led him into emptier, colder hallways, and then across an echoing rotunda, up a wide, curving staircase, and down a strange hallway lit with mysterious floating balls of flame.
Quintus nearly gave up and turned around at the sight of those little lights that had no natural explanation, but his guide smiled at him and said, “It’s only for effect. Don’t worry.”
They came out in a circular room lined with windows and bookshelves. A tall, dark-haired man with a warm smile stood to greet him, as did a slim, lovely woman with long, red hair. The man shook Quintus’s hand and introduced himself as Servius Lepidus Faustinus.
At first Quintus thought it was a joke, but he saw the man was quite serious, and he had to sit down. Legate Faustinus was the man who had overthrown Emperor Lucius. He was the court sorcerer now, and even if he was partly retired from public life, everyone said he was a man you didn’t want to cross.
And yet, he seemed perfectly friendly. He fetched Quintus a glass of very good Thessalian wine, and then introduced his companion as Moira.
“Moira Faustina?” asked Quintus. “The Prefect?” Another famous hillichmagnar. Why were they all so interested in him all of a sudden?
“Indeed,” said Faustinus. “The woman who led you up here is named Liliana Avita Serrana, or Lily. The girl who brought you the note earlier today is Giorgina Marcella Brembana, whom everyone calls Gina. Normally I wouldn’t give those names out quite so freely, but you’ll soon need to know them.”
“I...I will?” asked Quintus, looking around.
“Yes, Mr. Verrus,” said Moira. “We are all going to be very good friends in the future.”
She stood, and then she and Lily took seats on either side of him. He shivered slightly. Back in his schooldays, his fantasies had often started along these lines, but he didn’t think this would end quite so pleasantly for him.
“Mr. Verrus,” said Moira, now in a softer, more musical voice, “what would a person need to do if she wanted to start a new merchant bank?”
He swallowed. This certainly wasn’t the direction he had expected the conversation to take. “Um...a new bank? Who’s starting a new bank?”
“It’s merely a hypothetical for now,” said Lily, on his other side. “But if you had to do it, what would you do?”
Moira rested a hand on his arm in a reassuring way, and suddenly it felt like he’d had another mug of cider. He felt entirely relaxed, and he couldn’t imagine why he’d been frightened of these people.
“Well, first you need investors,” he said. “And you need a license. Oh, and eventually your staff will need to be individually licensed, but you can worry about that later. The investors and the banking license would be the tricky bit, though.”
“Why is that?” asked Moira.
“It’s like a chicken and an egg,” he said. “Which comes first? Investors won’t take you seriously if you don’t have a license, but to get the license, you have to show you’ve got sufficient backing, which means you need investors.”
Faustinus chuckled and waved a hand dismissively. “Good, but supposing you already had investors and a license, what comes next?”
“Next? Well, then you need premises. And the individual licenses for your staff. In time, I suppose you could open other branches—Priena, Vinopolis, Corumbriga, and so on. You’d need a system of ships and riders to keep the accounts updated from branch to branch, but you could rent those services from a larger bank, like the Mediata or the Procellus, who already have contracts with Stylianos Shipping. A lot of smaller banks do that.”
He sat back. The warm, comforting feeling was starting to wear off, and he was disconcerted by the way they were all studying him with rapt attention. He had the feeling that he was being given a test, though he couldn’t imagine why.
“There you are,” said Faustinus, looking at Moira. “He’s perfect.”
Moira pursed her lips. “He’s...adequate. Perhaps.”
Faustinus reached down and shook Quintus’s hand again. “Mr. Verrus, these questions are not hypothetical, as you may have guessed. We wish to start a bank.” He topped off Quintus’s cup of wine. “Now we have it on good authority that you wanted to give a loan to the Gramiren family of Myrcia.”
“How do you know that?” said Quintus, growing more alarmed by the second.
“We are now working with Brother Hamon,” said Moira. She rested her hand on his arm, and once again, he felt that odd, half-drunken glow slide over him. “He mentioned you, and so we wish to bring you into the enterprise.”
“We want you to run our bank for us,” said Faustinus. “We’ve heard that you’re that rarest of breeds, a banker with a conscience. That’s precisely what we need. You want to help people, and in a way, that’s what we’re doing, too. The Gramiren loan will be the first we make, but you’ll have full authority to make others. Think of the good you could do.”
“Think of all the money you could make,” said Moira.
“Think of being your own boss for once,” said Lily.
There was a knock on the door, and the woman Lily went to answer it. Quintus felt his head spinning, wondering if this could all be true. Perhaps these people were lying about who they were in hopes of entrapping him into helping with some nefarious plot. Not that he could think of any way to positively prove who they were, though.
“Faustinus, please tell me this is important. I should be home getting ready for my trip.”
Quintus nearly jumped out of his seat, he spun around so quickly at the sound of that voice. It was none other than Sir Presley Kemp! Sir Presley had been his tutor and examiner when he took his license examination back in the spring. He was one of the most respected financial professionals in the Empire. Just a moment earlier, he had mentioned most of the banks relied on Stylianos Shipping, and here was that company’s recently retired accountant. If Faustinus wanted someone to run a bank for him, why wouldn’t he just ask Sir Presley? They seemed to know each other.
“Presley! I’m so sorry to disturb you,” Faustinus said, gliding across the room in a few strides to shake Sir Presley’s hand. “But you see, we’ve found the perfect person to help us run our little bank, and we were hoping you might lend your support to our choice.”
“Oh? Who?”
Faustinus, for this must really be the famous sorcerer, had been standing between Quintus and Sir Presley, but he now stepped aside, and with a sweep of his arm, he gestured to Quintus. “Why, Mr. Verrus here. I assume the world of money in Presidium is small enough that you all know each other.”
Sir Presley looked at Faustinus with a raised eyebrow and then slowly turned his gaze to Quintus and then back again. “I do know Mr. Verrus. Good evening, by the way.” He said this last with a little nod to Quintus, which he returned. “And you’ve offered him the job running your new bank, have you?”
“Indeed,” said Moira, stepping up to Sir Presley, and resting a hand on his arm. “We think he is exactly the right sort of man for our endeavor.”
Sir Presley shook her hand off and gave her a rather curious look. “I’m sure you do think so.”
“But what do you think?” Faustinus asked. “We’ve chosen wisely, don’t you agree?”
Once again, Sir Presley turned his attention to Quintus. “What do you think? Do you want to do this? You’ve just become a loan officer, you know.”
Quintus nodded, his stomach a little queasy, as if he were back at his exam. “I haven’t decided yet, sir. I hope Count Faustinus understands that I might need to think about this.”
“Of course!” Faustinus answered with a broad smile. “Take all the time you need.”
Not having anything else to say, Quintus left the room, but by the time he’d left the palace, he knew he would take the job. He was not entirely surprised to see the small brown-haired girl loitering about in the park as he walked home, and he called her excitedly over. “You’re Gina, right?” he asked. “Tell them I’ll do it.”
“Oh, good!” She gave him a forceful hug. “Oh, we’ll be such good friends, Mr. Verrus!”
“Call me Quintus,” he said, as he always did.
That reminded him that he was going to have to explain this to his brother, though. As he anticipated, Lucius was less than thrilled. “This is insane,” he said over supper that night. “This sounds very suspicious, Quintus. Very suspicious, indeed. Not to mention dangerous.”
“There’s nothing dangerous at all,” Quintus said. “We’ve got Count Servius Faustinus as one of our directors. I don’t think we’ve got much to worry about. Why don’t you come work with me?”
Lucius threw up his hands. “Because I don’t have a death wish! Even if this fellow you met really is the fabled Legate Faustinus, he’s only one sorcerer. And you remember what Caedmon Aldred said, don’t you? All of Diernemynster is opposed to this loan to the Gramirens. What is one sorcerer going to do against a hundred?”
That was a fair point, but Quintus told himself that Faustinus must have thought that through already. The man had overthrown an emperor. Surely he could figure out how to get around the objections of a group of hillichmagnars who lived hundreds of miles away.
“It will all work out. They’re friends with Sir Presley Kemp, after all,” he thought. Even if it didn’t, at the very least he’d be able to help a few people along the way. And he already knew where he would start.
The next morning, he stopped by the laundry down by the docks, where he found Lady Dagra in a surprisingly good mood.
“Oh, Mr. Quintus Verrus,” she said, “You have to come see these.”
Despite his objections, she pulled him into the little dressing room where the laundresses changed out of their street clothes and into the cheap, formless, sack-like dresses they wore on the job. The widow reached into one of the little cubby holes and pulled out a pair of blue velvet shoes. Each one had a little sequined bow and what looked like gold stitching over the toes and at the heel. She put them on and did a twirling little Kenedalic dance, lifting her skirt slightly so he could see the shoes properly.
“Aren’t they fantastic?” she said. “I saw them and I knew I had to have them.”
Someone like Lucius would probably have demanded to know why she had spent money on pretty new shoes when she was working in a dockside laundry, but Quintus didn’t think that was fair. Her husband had been at court, after all. Why should she be deprived of every single comfort and luxury? She deserved a little happiness in her life, once in a while. And now he had come to make her even happier.
He told her about the new bank and explained that as soon as he could get everything running, he would be more than happy to reconsider the loan for her bakery.
She seemed pleased, but not quite so overjoyed as he had expected. In fact, her delicate lips curved down in a look of distinct displeasure. “I suppose that will be some weeks from now,” she said.
“Not that long, surely,” he said. “Maybe one week. Maybe two. We’ll see. But that’s good news, yes?”
Her brow furrowed. “The thing is, Mr. Quintus Verrus, that my children are hungry, and they need new clothes, and it would really help quite a bit if we could get a tiny little advance on that loan.”
Again, Quintus knew his brother would mention the shoes again, but he couldn’t bring himself to upset her further. “Oh, certainly. No trouble at all.” He drew out his purse, rooted around in it, and took out a silver sestertius. “Would this be enough?”
She stood on her tiptoes, staring down into the purse. “I can’t help but notice several more of those in there. I don’t suppose I could have two, could I?” She looked up with such a sweet look of hopeful longing that he couldn’t say “no.”
“Here, have three,” he said, handing them over. “And consider that...a gift from me. It won’t even count against your loan.”
When she had the coins securely in her purse, she giggled and danced a little more, showing off her shoes again. She twirled around the room, then seemed to trip, and fell against him. He caught her, and for his gallantry, she gave him a little kiss on the cheek. The big Balakian manager came in to tell her to get back to work, but she was still laughing and singing as she disappeared into the clouds of steam.
Quintus, holding his cheek where she had kissed it, went out into the cold streets and thought, “I could get used to this.”