The Price of One Sack of Wheat

"What's the price of one sack of wheat in the capital today?"

Odelia Rusk shot the question back at the attendant who'd asked about the Grand Duke of the North's preferences.

The imperial welcome parlor had been arranged for her with southern red roses and a portrait of Theorn. The nameplate the attendant handed her read "Marriage Candidate for the Grand Duke of the North." Odelia turned it over and set an abacus on top.

"Yesterday's closing price was twenty eight. This morning it's thirty four. Once the northern tribal report went public, it jumped by six."

The abacus beads clicked fast. On the back of the nameplate she wrote out the prices from three regions side by side: the capital, the south, and the border. Only the capital's price had risen; the southern growing regions stayed the same. That meant the grain itself wasn't scarce. Something along the road into the capital was holding the price hostage.

Darius offered his welcome. "Lady Odelia, thank you for making the long journey. His Grace will be pleased to see the south's good faith."

"Before good faith, let's confirm the voting rights I've been delegated to represent."

The laughter in the parlor cut off awkwardly. Odelia kept her smile. "I've come holding the delegated voting rights of the southern grain trading houses. I didn't bring marital suitability with me. I brought shipping networks and votes."

When the attendant tried to clear away her ledger, she pressed it down with her palm. Each of her fingers wore a different trading house's ring, though she didn't say exactly how many votes each one represented.

"Before asking about the Grand Duke's preferences, bring me Clause Seventeen of the merger treaty. I want to see who's getting the rights to transport northern military provisions."

Darius's smile stiffened. "If you understood how long our two houses sacrificed to bind north and south together, you'd understand the order in which the practical matters get settled after a marriage is arranged. So for now, respect the agreement already reached with His Grace."

He unfolded a list of transport bonds the Vellen family had repaid on the south's behalf ten years ago, during the southern flood. It was real money the house had actually paid. Attached to the last page was a new condition: Odelia's access would only be recognized once the marriage was finalized. It was a way of billing today's bargaining power against yesterday's sacrifice.

Odelia didn't deny the old debt. Instead she folded away only the new condition and pushed it back toward Darius. "I'll repay the ten year old principal. Just don't offset it against my say today."

"The word 'naturally' is usually how people hide who actually benefits."

Odelia didn't declare that she was refusing the marriage proposal. A refusal could close the southern trading houses' access to the imperial court. Instead she pushed the marriage to the bottom of the agenda and put grain prices and shipping monopolies above it.

The head steward opened three boxes and told her to choose jewelry for the welcome ball. Odelia only flipped over the price tags attached to each piece. The first box's price matched the insurance premium for eighteen wagons of wheat bound north, and the second necklace cost as much as feeding two hundred starving horses for a month.

"Wearing this will win His Grace's interest," the head steward said.

"Does the Grand Duke's interest move wagons?"

"At court, it does."

Odelia picked out the most expensive necklace, but instead of putting it on, she set it on one side of a scale. On the other side she placed the standard weight for one sack of southern wheat. The jewelry side rose lightly into the air.

"In that case, register this as trading house collateral. I'll turn the welcome expenses into wagon insurance. On the condition that it's returned if the marriage falls through."

Before Darius could speak, two representatives of the southern trading houses wrote the same collateral number on both the jewelry box and the wagon insurance certificate. The head steward never got the necklace back.

Eira stood at the threshold of the parlor. Her gray arbiter's coat bore the mark of a frozen deposit. The court had been waiting for the moment when the two women would size each other up with Theorn between them.

Odelia looked at the review copy in Eira's hand before she looked at her face. "Do you have Clause Seventeen?"

"I do."

"Who benefits?"

"An imperially designated transporter."

"You're missing the method of designation, not the name."

Eira opened the copy and laid the three lines of prices Odelia had written, the growing region, the capital, the border, next to the beneficiary column of Clause Seventeen.

"What are the odds the southern trading houses get designated?"

"High," Odelia answered at once. "We have the most wagons, and that's one of the reasons I'm here today."

"Will you disclose the profit you'd gain if the treaty passes?"

"Show me the monopoly term and the toll rates and I'll calculate it for you. But there's no such thing as free information."

Darius cut in. "Eira, don't interrogate our guest."

Odelia smiled at him. "I'd rather be interrogated. It's hard to raise a price while being praised as a marriage candidate."

She held out the back of her nameplate to Eira. Beside the wheat price, the column for payment was blank.

"I'll fill it in at this afternoon's open negotiation. If my information ends up being used to stop the treaty, what can you give me?"

"First, write your information and your own interests separately."

"Fine. Since I'm not hiding my terms, we'll save time."

Odelia left the parlor without touching the welcome roses, taking only her ledger and nameplate. The attendants moved Theorn's portrait back against the wall.

That afternoon, three hundred model wagons bound for the north were set out on the floor map at the open trading house negotiation. Odelia marked two hundred wagons that could depart from the southern growing regions with red tags, and a rival trading house's hundred wagons with gray tags. Once Clause Seventeen of the merger treaty took effect, every gray wagon would be pushed off the road, and only the Rusk trading house would pass through the northern gate for seven years.

She swept the gray models off the map with her own hand. With the red wagons lined up in a single row, supply looked faster, but the shipping routes and pricing information also concentrated in one trading house.

"This is the option I want." Odelia wrote the projected first year profit of one hundred and twenty thousand gold coins and the risk of idle wagons on the open board together. "If the monopoly breaks, a good number of the three hundred wagons sit idle. If it holds, we get control over prices."

One of the southern merchant representatives picked up a gray wagon and set it back on the map. "If it's a joint shipment, how many can we send the first winter?"

Odelia pulled back eighty of the red wagons. "If we split the road with rival trading houses, our share is one hundred and twenty. Overall supply is slower, but if one house stops, the road stays open."

Eira had a court clerk sketch both arrangements. In the monopoly plan, only red wagons remained. In the joint plan, the slower gray road forked into two.

Odelia went on to open, without tearing out a single page, the southern departure ledger. The volume leaving the growing regions hadn't dropped. Only the sacks in the joint wagons, after relay through the capital, had grown lighter by an average of five geun each. The Rusk owned carriages had suffered almost no loss. She marked even the line showing her own trading house's favorable treatment with a red tag.

"The relay shortage raised prices, and we profited from that too. We haven't decided yet on returning it."

The northern aides erupted in complaints, but Odelia didn't smile. She didn't hide the profit, but she didn't promise to give any of it back either.

Theorn arrived at the negotiation late. When a court attendant tried to introduce Odelia as the new marriage candidate, he checked the price tag on the back of her nameplate first.

"The marriage proposal is off the agenda," Eira said.

Odelia flicked a single abacus bead. "Does my access remain?"

"It remains, as an information provider. Not in exchange for marriage."

"Then my vote is priced separately."

Theorn pointed to part of the military provisions ledger. "If the southern trading houses release the original, we can cross check it against the outflow volume from the capital's relay warehouse."

"I can't give you all of it. It includes rival trading houses' customer lists too."

Eira narrowed the scope of disclosure. Departure times for northbound grain, sack counts, wagon markings, relay seals. Customer names and inland southern prices would stay sealed.

Odelia read the terms and wrote in the payment column. "Put the shipping monopoly clause on the open hearing agenda. Any alternative must include a sunset date and civilian audit."

She pulled two of the five trading house rings off her fingers and set them on top of the terms sheet. "Until the data verification is finished, I won't exercise the votes tied to these two houses. As for the other three votes, I haven't yet proven they're mine, so don't call them collateral."

Eira recorded only the number of rings. She left blank the exact source of the votes and the terms of their combination. It was now on record both that Odelia had tied up part of her rights first, and that she'd kept the rest hidden.

"That's not the same as a condition for giving up the monopoly," Eira said.

"If I gave it up, why would I have come? Instead, I can shorten seven years to one, and open the price ledger to civilian audit. That would cut into the profit just as much."

"What guarantees that the civilian auditors have no stake in the southern trading houses?"

"Of the three, you pick one. One from the north, one from the merchant guild. If they all dislike each other, they'll watch each other closely."

Theorn didn't look at Eira. He read the terms sheet instead. "What about supply speed?"

"With a one year monopoly, we can put two hundred wagons on the road north immediately. Without it, one hundred and twenty. More trading houses join in, but the first winter is slower."

On the map, the monopoly plan's red wagons reached the north first, while the joint plan's gray wagons lagged behind but left the road forked in two.

Eira didn't reach the conclusion for them. "Both proposals go to the open hearing. Your information will be accepted conditionally."

Odelia handed the court clerk a copy of the ledger, but put the original back into her locked bag and hung the key around her neck.

"One more thing," Eira said. "I heard you brought five votes. Name their source."

Odelia's fingers stopped on the rings. "That's not part of today's payment."

"Those votes could affect the outcome of the hearing."

"That's right. Which is why I'll disclose them before I exercise them. If I disclose them now, there are people in the south who'd take my shares back."

Eira marked the source of the three votes as an unresolved conflict of interest, and noted on the receipt for the information that only the suspension of voting rights on the two rings was in effect.

Outside the negotiation hall, imperial magistrates had gathered. One held a report on responsibility for the leak of the original document.

"Only Nilo Sen knew the exact location where the treaty original was stored. Someone has to be found responsible for the leak."

Odelia had been getting ready to leave, but she stopped and read the list of evidence written under Nilo's name first.

Eira laid the report bearing Nilo's name next to Odelia's conditional ledger. New interests had formed, and an old witness had started coming under attack.