Balzenov (2)

We had passed through the garden and come inside a good while ago, and Ivan’s stride still held the pace it had started at, as if there were still a long way to go.

“The house really is enormous.”
“It’s the best-off neighborhood in Siltrein, and the best-off house in it.”

This was not my first visit to the residence of the house of Balzenov. Even so, the formidable scale of it struck me all over again. For a mere resident to pile up wealth on this scale would have taken several generations, however vast Siltrein might be.

“How does Balzenov make its money?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary, but we hold a trade network between the cities.”

I stopped walking. Ivan looked back.

“What did you say?”
“Exactly as you heard.”

“…You mean there is a trade road? In Siltrein?”

“Whether it deserves to be called a trade road I could not say. Only our house uses it, and only our house will ever be able to use it, so you might say it amounts to the house of Balzenov’s own dog hole¹.”

Everyone knows Siltrein is isolated. If it deserved the name of a trade network, then trading on a fair scale had to have been going on. And yet neither Lilian nor even Rodrik had ever shown the least sign of knowing such a thing existed in Siltrein, had they?

“My father will explain the details, but on condition that their side builds the distribution route, we sell them Siltrein’s goods. The wagons only go out. None come in.”
“Does that hold together? The way it sounds, the other side has taken on every disadvantage there is.”
“They in turn sell those goods on at a higher price. One way or the other both sides gain, and that is why a trade can happen at all, is it not?”

With outside help, they smuggled Siltrein’s goods out. Even between two cities such a thing would barely come off, and here was a single commoner house doing it. Small details aside, just working out how to shut the countless eyes that would see the wagons while Siltrein’s gate stood open was enough to set my head aching. And that was before the mouths of the defense army who had to open it.

“Is it all right, laying a story like that out for us so readily?”
“If the situation were an ordinary one, no. But as things stand there is no particular point to it anymore.”

Even after Ivan’s explanation, questions remained. If the house of Balzenov had piled up its wealth without anyone knowing, why had Siltrein’s administrator allowed it? Someone must surely have grown suspicious of a fortune that did nothing but grow with no outward activity to show for it.

Talking with Ivan as we walked, I found we had come to a large door before I knew it. A servant who had been waiting opened it for us.

“Do speak with my father.”

Madam Balzenov was waiting, and with her a man who looked to be Balzenov himself. He was middle-aged, his features heavy and strongly cut.

“So you have come.”
“Good to see you.”

The visit had come without warning, but a servant must have carried word ahead, because simple tea and refreshments were already laid out. Lilian sipped at her tea the moment she sat down.

“We will take the meal at our leisure. Is that all right with you?”
“Yes, well. I’m not particularly hungry. This tea, it’s the leaf I said tasted good.”
“I put a little thought into it.”

I could hear Lilian crunching her way through the sweets. The man spoke up around the time she picked up her third piece.

“Do you know what I am about to say?”
“I’ve got a vague idea.”

It was Lilian who answered him, not me. A glint came into the man’s eyes.

“I heard about it on the way here. That you smuggle.”

“…”

“You still have to sell goods behind everyone’s back, and now you can’t, right?”

The man looked startled by how Lilian spoke and carried herself, and at the same time interested in what she was saying. Far from scowling, he was smiling.

“What makes you think so?”
“There’s only one force in Erbern that could build you a distribution network, isn’t there?”

For a moment the sound of Lilian biting into a sweet filled the room. She swallowed and went on.

“Oskalt. It’s hardly going to be Esmartin.”
“What connection is there between our trading partner being Oskalt and our no longer being able to trade?”
“Because Oskalt is finished. There isn’t a single person left.”
“How do you know that?”

Led neatly into the man’s trap, she had let slip that she knew what state Oskalt was in. Lilian had blundered.

She stiffened, and the man laughed.

“There is no need to be so frightened. I already knew the two of you came from Oskalt. It was the heart of a father who cannot hand his child over to a total stranger, so I would ask you to understand.”

Not a man to be taken lightly.

One way or another, he had gone through the fog into an Oskalt that must by now be a nest of undead, and had found traces of us there. Probably by way of that trade network.

“How much do you know?”
“As far as your being someone high up in the church of Talios.”

“…”

His intelligence reached far past anything I had expected. I could not rule out that he knew the rest of it as well, that I was not merely someone high up but their apostle.

“You met the Talios paladin order?”
“For some reason they were loitering about in Erbern.”

The church of Talios had stayed on in Erbern to deal with the sculpted soldiers on the plateau.

Oskalt’s defense army, permanently posted on the plateau and guarding something, and the house of Balzenov, trading with Oskalt.

“Was Oskalt’s administrator backing this house?”
“Sharp of you.”

Only then did the question I had been left holding come loose. It was not that Siltrein’s administrator had never wondered how the house of Balzenov piled up its wealth; knowing who stood behind Balzenov, the administrator had simply left it alone.

In all likelihood the house of Balzenov was not Oskalt’s earner but the administrator’s own, a private means of making money or a way of laundering it. And once Siltrein’s administrator learned that Balzenov was in collusion with another city’s administrator, there was no digging into the source of the funds. For Siltrein to lay a hand on Oskalt would have been courting trouble for nothing.

“Why the house of Balzenov, of all houses?”
“An ancestor of ours married into the administrator’s house as a son-in-law. It is a thing with no bearing on anything now.”

The man’s gaze turned to the view beyond the window. Oskalt lay in that direction.

“As you know, Oskalt is finished. All that is left in the city are the marks of a large beast rampaging and the marks of carcasses burned with fire. The church of Talios has always been that sort, so I can understand them storming into Oskalt and killing the beast, but… they were never the sort to go so far as trying to burn the traces away, were they?”
“It sits badly with you?”
“It would be a lie to say it did not. But that is not what matters. Whatever whim got into them to clear the carcasses away, whyever the beast appeared in Oskalt, none of it is any concern of mine.”

He came forward out of his lean. His gaze fixed on me precisely, as though he were looking into my eyes through the helm.

“What matters is getting into a new market even one step ahead of the rest.”

I had seen that look countless times over a long life. The eyes of one born a trader by nature. The eyes of one who holds a single copper coin more valuable than a life.

People like that are usually quick on their feet. They know how to read the world, and they act before anyone else does.

“The world has changed. That being so, one must adapt to the changed world with one’s whole body. Once it gets out that the undead no longer come crawling up, Erbern will reach out into the surrounding domains sooner or later. We learned that before anyone else did, so whatever it takes, we must make the first move before others lay down any substantial trade roads.”
“So you are telling us to help you with it.”
“Just so. I will speak plainly. Open a trade road to Pirberk for us.”

Pirberk was rich. That the merchants who traded within Erbern would take an interest in the city went without saying. Only, whose hand Pirberk took rested entirely on the decision of the church of Talios. And what the church of Talios decided rested in no hands but mine, did it not?

To exaggerate a little, a few words from me could shake the livelihoods of hundreds, even thousands.

“…Your money line has been cut, so it would be no wonder if you were downcast. Instead you’re desperate.”

“It is Oskalt that has collapsed. Balzenov has not collapsed yet, has it? If we can no longer do trade that is less than clean, then we have only to start doing real trade.”

Balzenov had lasted a long time as a house, and surely that was because, for all the shady business it did, it had never crossed the line. Better to entrust Pirberk to someone who knew how to keep to the proper way than to hand it over to some other riff-raff, was it not? At the least, it was plainly worth considering.

“What can Balzenov give us?”
“I will get the two of you out of Erbern.”
“Didn’t you say yourself that you know Erbern has already become a free land?”
“Of course I know it well. I also know that if the two of you simply run for it, what catches you by the ankle will not be the undead but Tairen Beloa.”

The undead may no longer be arising, but Lilian’s authority, which can deal easily with the countless undead still wandering about, is a power Rodrik cannot help coveting. For the moment he keeps his claws hidden, but there is no telling when he might turn and try to tie her to the domain.

“It is far too useful a power for a Tairen Beloa who has finally brought off his rebellion not to set his eye on. I will not ask who she is, nor how such a power can exist. If you wish it, I will send you to another domain tomorrow, with no trouble at all and no tail attached.”
“Is that possible?”
“I have already made contact not only with Darbar but with the other domains nearby. The reason I asked you to build a bridge is simply that Pirberk was too large a thing to swallow whole alone. Elsewhere the business is proceeding without trouble, and what I mean is that I will get you out that way.”

I had in truth been turning over the idea of slipping away with Lilian, out from under Rodrik’s eye. What Balzenov wanted and what it could give, and what I wanted and what I could give, fitted together perfectly. The offer was hard to refuse.

“Let’s do it.”

I took a pendant out from inside my clothes and set it on the table.

“Show this to the church and things will come loose.”
“What is this?”
“A token that vouches for who I am. There is only one of its kind in the church, so they will know I have had a hand in it.”

“…You are a far bigger figure than I had thought.”

The apostle’s token.

There was no immediate use for it in my hands in any case. I could have made the trip to Pirberk myself, but with Lilian along there was no sense in spending time to no purpose. Better to hand the token over and move quickly on to the next destination.

He took charge of the pendant and nodded.

“We are in the same boat now, so I had better introduce myself. Leonid Balzenov.”
“Roan Belgard.”

I looked round. Lilian had polished off every last one of the refreshments and was gazing out of the window. She scratched her nose.

“Do I have to introduce myself too? Everyone knows my name.”
“When you are torn over whether to do a thing or not, it is usually better to do it.”

“…All right.”

Lilian wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then wiped the back of her hand with a handkerchief.

“I’m Lilian. Pleased to meet you.”