had always disapproved of slavery. Ronica thought it was something that most slaves had brought on themselves, but somehow it seemed disrespectful to Ephron to condemn this woman to slavery when she had helped care for him as he was dying. No matter how poorly she had helped.
‘Well?’ she asked tartly of Rache when she just stood there.
‘Davad is here to see you, lady,’ Rache mumbled.
‘Trader Restart, you mean?’ Ronica corrected her.
Rache bobbed her head in silent acknowledgement. Ronica set her teeth, then gave it up. ‘I’ll see him in the sitting room,’ she instructed Rache, and then followed the girl’s sullen eyes to where Davad already stood in the door.
As always he was immaculately groomed, and as always everything about his clothes was subtly wrong. His leggings bagged slightly at the knees, and the embroidered doublet he wore was laced just tightly enough that he had spoiled the lines of it: it made his modest belly seem a bulging pot. He had oiled his dark hair into ringlets, but most of the curl had fallen from them so it hung in greasy locks. Even if the curl had stayed, it was a style more suited to a much younger man.
Somewhere Ronica found the aplomb to smile back at him as she set down her pen and shut her account book. She hoped the ink was dry. She started to rise, but Davad motioned her to stay as she was. Another small gesture from him sent Rache scurrying from the room as Davad advanced to Ephron’s bedside.
‘How is he?’ Davad asked, softening his deep voice.
‘As you see,’ Ronica replied quietly. She set aside her irritation at his calm assumption of welcome in her husband’s sickroom. She also put aside her embarrassment that he had caught her at her totting up, with ink on the side of her hand and her brow wrinkled from staring at her own finely penned numbers. Davad meant well, she was sure. How he had managed to grow up in one of Bingtown’s old Trader families and still have such a hazy idea of good manners, she would never know. Without invitation, he drew up a chair to sit on the other side of Ephron’s bed. Ronica winced as he dragged it across the floor, but Ephron did not stir. When the portly Trader was settled, he gestured at her accounting books.
‘And how do they go?’ he asked familiarly.
‘No better nor worse than any other Trader’s these days, I am sure.’ She evaded his prying. ‘War, blight and pirates trouble all of us. All we can do is to persevere and wait for better days. And how are you today, Davad?’ She tried to recall him to his manners. He put a splay-fingered hand on his belly meaningfully. ‘I have been better. I have just come from Fullerjon’s table; his cook has an abominable hand with the spices, and Fullerjon has not the tongue to tell it.’ He leaned back in his chair and heaved a martyred sigh. ‘But one must be polite, and eat what is offered, I suppose.’
Ronica stifled her irritation. She gestured toward the door. ‘We could take our conversation to the terrace. A glass of buttermilk might help to settle your indigestion as well.’ She made as if to rise, but Davad did not budge.
‘No, no, thank you all the same. I’ve but come on a brief errand. A glass of wine would be welcome, however. You and Ephron always did keep the best cellars in town.’
‘I do not wish Ephron disturbed,’ she said bluntly.
‘Oh, I’ll take care to speak softly. Though, to be frank, I would rather bring this offer to him than to his wife. Do you expect him to wake soon?’
‘No.’ Ronica heard the edge in her voice, and coughed slightly, as if it had been the result of a dry throat. ‘But if you wish to tell me the terms of whatever offer you bring, I shall present it to Ephron as soon as he awakens.’ She pretended to have forgotten his request for wine. It was petty, but she had learned to take her small satisfactions where she could.
‘Certainly, certainly. All Bingtown knows you hold his purse-strings. And his trust, I might add, of course.’ He nodded jovially at her as if this were a high compliment.
‘The offer?’ Ronica pushed.
‘From Fullerjon, of course. I believe it was his sole purpose in inviting me to share his table this noon, if you can credit that. The little upstart seems to think I have nothing better to do than act as his go-between with the better families in town. Did I not think that you and Ephron could benefit from his offer just now, I’d have told him as much. As things stand, I did not want to alienate him, you understand. He’s no more than a greedy little merchant, but…’ He shrugged his shoulders eloquently. ‘One can scarce do business in Bingtown these days without them.’
‘And his offer was?’ Ronica prompted.
‘Ah yes. Your bottom lands. He wishes to buy them.’ He espied the platter of small biscuits and fruits that she kept at Ephron’s bedside and helped himself to a biscuit.
Ronica was shocked. ‘Those are part of the original grant lands of the Vestrit family. Satrap Esclepius himself granted those lands.’
‘Ah, well, you and I know the significance of such things, but newcomers such as Fullerjon…’ Davad began placatingly.
‘The granting of those lands was what made the Vestrit family a Trader family. They were part of the Satrap’s agreement with the Traders. Two hundred leffers of good land, to any family willing to go north and settle on the Cursed Shores, to brave the dangers of life near Rain River. There were few enough willing to in those days. All know that strangeness flows down the Rain River as swiftly as the waters. Those bottom lands, and a share in the monopoly on the trade goods of the Rain River are what make the Vestrits a Trader family. Can you seriously think any Trader family would sell off their grant lands?’ She was angry now.
‘You needn’t give me a history lesson, Ronica Vestrit.’ Davad rebuked her mildly. He helped himself to another biscuit. ‘Need I remind you that my family came here in the same expedition? The Restarts are as much Traders as the Vestrits. I know what those lands mean.’
‘Then how can you even bring such an offer here?’ she demanded hotly.
‘Because half of Bingtown knows how desperate things have become for you. Look here, woman. You haven’t the capital to hire the workers to farm those lands properly. Fullerjon does. And buying them would increase his land ownership to the point where he’d be qualified to petition for a seat on the Bingtown Council. Between the two of us, I think that’s all he’s really after anyway. It needn’t be your bottom lands, though that is what he’d like. Offer him something else; he’ll probably buy it from you.’ Davad leaned back with a dissatisfied look on his face. ‘Sell him the wheat fields. You can’t work them properly anyway.’
‘And he can gain a seat on the Bingtown Council. So he can vote to bring slaves to Bingtown. And work the lands I’ve sold him with slaves and sell the grain he grows cheaper than I can compete with. Or you, for that matter, or any other honest Trader. Davad Restart, use your mind. This offer not only asks me to betray the Vestrit family, but all of us. We’ve enough greedy little merchants on the Bingtown Council already. The Old Traders’ Council is barely able to keep them in check. I shan’t be the one to sell land and a council seat to another latecomer upstart.’
Davad started to speak, then visibly controlled himself. He folded his small hands on his lap. ‘It’s going to happen, Ronica.’ She heard true regret in his voice. ‘The day of the Old Traders is fading. The wars and the pirates bit into us too deeply. And now that the wars are mostly over, these merchants have come, swarming over us like fleas on a dying rabbit. They’ll suck us dry. We need
