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Chapter 149: The Merchant from King’s City (Part 2)

“Are you King’s City’s largest saltpeter trader?”

“No.” Margaret said it comfortably, without apology. “I’m not primarily a saltpeter trader at all. I deal in gems, cloth, inn services, taverns, and a number of other things. The saltpeter came to me last month when the previous field owner lost his reserves in my casino and signed the rights over as settlement.” She watched his expression. “I have three fields in the eastern territory. Enough to supply a mid-sized city’s ice needs through a summer.”

He kept his face from reacting. Three fields was a considerable supply — more saltpeter than he had hoped to find, offered by a woman who had traveled here at her own initiative and expense.

Something pressed against his back. One brief contact. She was carrying a God’s Stone: Nightingale was noting it, not warning him. He kept this from his expression too, though the question surfaced about the previous pinch — if a God’s Stone prevented truth-reading, why had there been a warning when Margaret complimented him? He resolved to ask Nightingale about this later and filed it away.

“I need saltpeter,” he said. “As much as you can supply. I’ll take everything from all three fields.”

“The Western Territory is cold, and you’re far from the plains.” She tilted her head. “A cold store in the castle, Your Highness? That seems like a lot of ice for personal use.”

“For food preservation. Fixed-price supply, standard market rate from King’s City. I’ll take whatever you bring.”

“I’m willing,” she said, and then paused in the way of someone who has been leading to the next sentence. “But I don’t want gold royals.”

Roland waited.

“I have enough gold royals to fill a warehouse, and they’re heavy to transport.” She leaned forward slightly. “Your man — Barov’s apprentice — described something he called a self-running black iron creation. Something that needed only fire and water to produce extraordinary power.” She looked at him steadily. “That’s why I came.”

It was not what he had expected her to want.

He had anticipated negotiation over price, perhaps a request for favored-trading status, possibly interest in the ore. He had not anticipated this: a merchant who had crossed the full width of the kingdom and the mountain passes because a low-ranking Town Hall apprentice had mentioned a machine to her at some point during his saltpeter inquiries.

“A steam engine,” Roland said. “It converts water to steam by boiling. The steam drives a piston, which generates force that can be applied to almost any mechanical task. Simple principle. The engineering is more involved.”

“Can you show me one?”

“We use them at the mine. Come and see.”

The mine entrance was loud enough that normal conversation was impossible and had to be replaced with shouting. Margaret stood at the safe distance Roland indicated and watched the machine run.

Her expression went through several things in rapid succession. The first was the polite expectancy of a person who has been promised something impressive and is maintaining reserve judgment. The second was something harder to name — the recalibration that happened when an expectation was not merely met but comprehensively exceeded.

She watched the steam engine pull four loaded carts of ore out of the tunnel in the time it took a man to finish a sentence. The hemp rope, thick as a forearm, went taut and the capstan turned and the carts came out moving, heavy with rock, not slowing at the incline.

She said something that was lost in the noise of the machine.

Roland leaned closer. “What?”

She raised her voice. “I said I thought your man had exaggerated. He understated it.” She stared at the main wheel. “A dozen men couldn’t do this.”

“Two engines here,” Roland said. “One for the ore haulage, one for pumping water from the lower tunnels. We’ve produced three total. They go where they’re needed.”

“Can they go on a ship?”

He had expected this. The Fjord people and their relationship to wind and sail was a known quantity. “They can drive a paddle wheel. A ship with a steam engine attached doesn’t need sail or favorable wind to make headway. It moves at a consistent speed regardless of conditions.”

The implications moved through her face. He watched them arrive.

“Name your price,” she said.

“The mine can’t spare these units. But you can commission new ones. When you deliver the saltpeter, the engines will be ready for pickup.”

“Then I’ll commission ten.”

The number arrived without preamble, which was worse than if she had built up to it. Roland ran the arithmetic: ten engines at the price he had in mind — allowing space for negotiation down, a standard courtesy — was an amount of money that was difficult to make feel real.

“Ten is not a small order,” he said. “The production cost—”

“Is whatever you need it to be.” She said it the way someone says something that is simply true, not as leverage. “A ship that doesn’t depend on wind is worth more than you can charge me for an engine. I know that. I suspect you know it too.” She paused. “I’m also assuming this technology will need maintenance and eventual replacement of parts. I would like to establish an ongoing relationship rather than a single transaction.”

Roland looked at her.

He had spent weeks worrying about Border Town’s financial picture after the Longsong Stronghold campaign — the ore sales, the Duke’s treasury, all of it would eventually be spent or committed, and the question of what came next had been occupying a part of his mind every day. He had known, in the abstract, that industrial products would eventually become their most valuable export. He had been thinking of it as eventually.

“Five hundred gold royals per engine,” he said. “Plus parts and maintenance at cost, with a craftsman dispatched for installation.”

She didn’t flinch. “Agreed. The first saltpeter delivery and the first engine pickup — shall we say two months?”

“Two months.”

She extended her hand across the table in the manner of the Fjord people, palm up. He placed his hand over hers in return. Her grip was firm and brief.

“I’ll want to speak with Lightning,” she said, “when she comes back from the forest.”

“She should be back before the rain stops,” Roland said.

And then he sat with the number in his mind — five thousand gold royals, plus an ongoing trade relationship with a merchant who had three saltpeter fields and a fleet of ships — and thought: this is what it looks like when the economy starts to cycle.

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