Economy and Trade

The rule of one silver. Everywhere in the One Land a common worker's day is worth one silver coin. So is a good meal and a bed at an inn. The rule is older than any mint now striking, and every realm's coin has settled around it. A porter on the Granary Steps in Kokrin earns a tsinkya, a porter in Solvaine a flirone, a quay laborer in Hethlend a mark, and a hauler on the Keel Strand at Krasvuv a mark's weight of hacksilver.

Twenty to one. Every realm that strikes gold counts twenty of its silver coins to one of its gold. The silver coins all weigh close to a fifth of an ounce of silver, and the gold coins close to a third of an ounce of gold. In Solvaine gold is worth about twelve times its weight in silver. In Castavar, which digs more silver than every other realm together, gold buys nearer thirteen times its weight, and in Kaishon, which ships silver west every spring as tribute, nearer eleven. Those small differences are why gold drains out of Castavar and silver out of Kaishon, and why the money-changers of the Counting Isles are rich.

No copper. None of the seven powers strikes copper. Small change is silver cut smaller, or something that is not coin at all:

Weight is the last word. Every coin can be weighed back into metal. A pound of silver makes eighty marks or flirones, which is four crowns or four leusores. The Hrodvald do not pretend otherwise, and the Qaflan call them the only honest bankers alive.

Barter and salt. In the villages and among the tribes, worth still moves as grain, salt, furs, cattle, tools, cloth and horses. In the Deep Sands salt is money outright: a slab of Shorooq salt the length of a forearm buys a sheep from the Kumir.

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The coins

The board on Coin Row

Each morning the changers of the Counting Isles chalk their rates on a board at the head of Coin Row, and the printers there run them off as price sheets. Here is the board of the Settling Day of Clauve, 1146 R. A changer buys at the lower figure and sells at the higher.

Local rates in each capital

Why the leusore rules. It has not been debased in 725 years. The Nine Houses check the Vaides' scales against each other. A forger of the leusore is drowned with his coins sewn into his coat. Every realm's clerks turn their sums into leusores before they sign with a foreigner.

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A day's wage, in each realm's own coin.

Some trades are paid another way. A Tsenkin gardener's boy earns a tsinkya a month for throwing stones at macaques. A Hrodvald hrind is paid in meals, a bench and, if the saga pleases, a ring. The Bound of Tharax are fed and paid nothing, and their unpaid labor is what lets Tharax keep its money in iron.

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Everyday goods and services, in each realm's own coin

Wromthalm's prices run close to Hethlend's, with fish cheaper and bread dearer. Faashab-Talodin runs a third above Mazbaaran, and its wine twice as dear. Denekt pays Tharxa's prices, often in goats and cheese. Krasvuv triples its prices at the Vuvud. Livestock is dear in Tharax because Phymon women seldom sell breeding stock.

The same things in flirones, for comparison

Why bread is cheaper in Solvaine than in Hethlend. Caelvenne grows almost no grain, and still it eats cheaper bread than the city that ships it. The Grain Compact fixes what Caelvenne pays for Aldmere's grain, and in 1146 that price stands well below Hethlend's market. The Solvaine loaf is smaller, too, and the cathedral's poor-fund gives bread away. Hethlend's poor know all three things, and they are one reason the Clearance is rising.

Luxuries and strategic goods: what a thing costs where it starts and where it ends

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Public revenues at a glance (1145, rough, in leusores)

The Kingdom of Aldmere

Makes and sells. Crown wheat above all, some ten million bushels a year of it to Caelvenne. Chomkel wool comes second. Then cattle, ale, linen, smoked eel, otter pelts, timber and iron goods, and grain to Tharax in bad years.

Buys. Glass, silk, perfume, wine and credit from Caelvenne; Castavari red, destriers and salt; Zarvani paper and spices; Dunmorrow steel; Frostmarch furs.

Taxes and tolls. - The hearth-tax: one mark a year from every hearth, paid at Harvest Home. About 80,000 crowns. - The Moot's tenth: a tenth of movable goods in the towns and a fifteenth in the shires, when the Moot grants it. It was granted in eleven of the last fifteen years and brings in about 240,000 crowns. - The wool-crown: one crown on every sack of wool that leaves the kingdom, about a tenth of what the sack fetches at the Fleeceward. - Crown road tolls at every crown toll-house: an eighth of a mark for a laden pack-beast, half a mark for a laden cart, a quarter mark for each head of cattle. The Toll House at Wromthalm is the busiest. - Pass tolls at the Vargate, Venei's Throat and the Stair, at the crown's rate of one mark a pack-beast and three a wagon. By the Bridge Treaty the Westmarch keeps a third of the Stair's and the Throat's tolls to garrison them. Duke Durift keeps nearer half. - The chain toll at Hethlend: one mark for every barge that passes the chain towers. - The mint charge: one mark in forty on silver struck at the Chancery. - Crown lands, forests and fines bring in about 200,000 crowns more.

Direction. STABLE, under strain. The whole continent needs Aldmere's grain, but a fifth or more of the crown's income goes to Solvaine.

Tharax

Makes and sells. Barley, goats, cheese and coarse wool, all worked by the Bound; Kokekt iron, hides and Gap falcons, sold only through the Strangers' Yard. Its one great export is its army.

Buys. Salt, which it cannot make; Dunmorrow steel for spear-points and breastplates; grain and Aldmere wool in bad years; wine for the foreigners in the Yard.

Money and taxes. The only lawful money inside Tharax is the iron bar of the Bar Forge, and no Phymon may hold gold. The state takes what it needs in kind: - Each Phymon household sends its mess-share, a fixed measure of barley, cheese and meat, to its man's mess-hall every month. The Bound grow it. - Outdweller craft yards pay a craft levy in bars or finished work, set by the Skekar each year. - Foreigners pay by the Gold House rate of two marks to the bar, which is a tax in all but name, and a Yard fee of a tenth of a bar a night for every beast. At Lokon, caravans pay a pass toll of one bar a beast for the Gap road.

The Gold House lives on the Iron Contract's 100,000 leusores. By the tally of Sithaks the Tally-Keeper it spends about 45,000 a year on Dunmorrow steel, 10,000 on salt, 20,000 on grain in a middling year, and the rest on mules, cart horses and the Yard's business. In 1146 it holds about 135,000 leusores in reserve: three years of steel.

Direction. CONTESTED. The gold ends in 1147, and the only thing Tharax has ever sold abroad is itself.

The Principality of Caelvenne

Makes and sells. Credit first. Then mirrors, glass and lenses, dyed silk, perfume, Ienvaune white, printing, clockwork weapons, jewelry and painting.

Buys. Aldmere grain, which is most of what it eats; Castavari red; coffee "at ruinous cost"; furs; sturgeon roe; pepper, saffron and cacao; Kaishoni silk; and Tharaxi spears.

Taxes and tolls. - The Land Gate twentieth at Claupiose and the Lake Gate twentieth at Solvaine: one part in twenty of the worth of everything that comes in, save Compact grain. Ienvaune and Larvir take the same at their gates. - The Silk Hall's fifth: one part in five laid on eastern silk, won by the Claupiose reelers in 1119. - A lake toll on every foreign hull on the Mirror, one flirone for each ton it can carry, taken at Solvaine and Larvir. The Drift has never paid it. - Ward dues: each house charges the islands it holds a flirone a month for each house and a leusore a year for each shop, for watchmen and lamps. - The Vaides' charge of one part in forty for striking coin. Indulgences and tithes go to the Church, not the state.

Direction. CONTESTED. Caelvenne has never been richer on paper, and nearly all of that paper is owed by people under strain.

The Holy Crown of Castavar

Makes and sells. Silver, some sixty tons a year, more than every other realm together; olives and oil, Llovo red, cork, merino wool, hams, destriers, almonds, rice, lagoon salt, sardines, octopus and tuna.

Buys. Credit, until this year; Dunmorrow armor; Caelvennois clockwork arbalests; Zarvani star tables, in secret; timber for masts.

Taxes. - The royal fifth: the Grandees who own the mines pay the crown a fifth of their silver in ingots at the Royal Mint, about 96,000 larrama a year. - The mint charge of one part in twenty on all silver struck. - The Mouth duty at Tandosa: one part in fifteen on everything loaded for the sea. - The Jevarrie's grant, the sum the Grandees vote the king when he summons them. In 1146 they have voted none. - The spring tuna, which belongs to the crown alone; a larrama on every destrier sold at the Horse Fair. - The Church takes a tenth of every harvest and shares none of it. The Upland Shepherds pay the Grandees a sheep in ten and the king nothing.

Direction. CONTESTED. Castavar strikes more silver than anyone and keeps less of it than anyone.

The Khaasarate of Zarvand

Makes and sells. Dates, silk, carpets, dyes, paper, glass, saffron, pistachios, salt, incense, licensed poppy, star tables, medicine, coffee, camels and starsteel blades, and it carries the south's spices for everyone. It never sells Talodin fire or the Khaasar's horses. The horses are given away, as statecraft.

Buys. Naphtha from the Hizkari, starsteel ingots from the Dunmorrow, Castavari red and silver by way of Daalher even in crusade years, wine and gold from Ienvaune, pepper from the Nhal, and grain when the river is low.

Taxes and tolls. - The Grand Vizier's toll at Vashos-Shushre: one part in ten on caravan goods coming into Mazbaaran and one in twenty on goods going out. - Every Jaarzeb takes one part in twenty at his own city's gates. - The land fifth: a fifth of the date and grain harvest, gathered by the Jaarzebeem, who send half to Mazbaaran and keep the rest. That half is why they behave like kings. - The water-hours: every garden and field fed by a salest channel pays an eighth of a balaal for each hour a week it draws in the growing season, and the salest-diggers keep the count. - The poppy license, the star tables and the Salt Pans belong to the Khaasar. The Salt Gift at every gate is custom, not tax, and caravans that skip it are searched.

Direction. CONTESTED. Zarvand owes no one abroad and earns more than any realm but Kaishon, and it may spend all of it on a war between brothers.

The Jade Dominion of Kaishon

Makes and sells. More of everything than anyone: rice, silk, porcelain, lacquer, tea, paper, iron and steel, ginseng, tuna, mahogany and pepper. Silk, tea and porcelain go west. The steel stays home, and to carry the rearing of the Tsenkin silkworm out of the Dominion is a crime against the state.

Buys. Horses, felt and hides from the steppe, and glass and medicines from the far west. Little else.

Taxes. - The rice-tax: a tenth of every harvest in kind, stored in grain-tax warehouses like those at Yomìn. - Labor service: thirty days a year from every household, on the Rampart, the canals or the roads. - The dock tax, a tenth of landed catch. It is the Chaiyo Boat-People's only tie to Kokrin. - Stall licenses in every market, held in families for generations. - The magistrate's tenth, which is not a tax, is paid everywhere, and a tenth "is considered moderate."

Paper notes are taken at full worth for small taxes and refused for large ones, and forgers in Yomìn print false twentieths because nobody checks them.

Direction. CONTESTED. The largest treasury in the One Land cannot buy an answer to who will sit on the throne.

The Hrodvald Clanholds

Makes and sells. Furs, walrus ivory (its richest export), whale oil, amber, bog iron, dried fish, tar, longships, war hounds and crews for hire.

Buys. Grain above all, then salt, wine, cloth and Dunmorrow steel.

Taxes. The Hearthking levies none. Each stelest takes gifts from his clan and his road. Kruman takes no toll at Ironjaw Hold, but no caravan leaves without a gift, and the gifts are weighed. Clan Barerk takes one whale in five from the Barerk Whalers and cannot make them give more. Since 1145 the Stormbrand Hall takes the weigher's twentieth, one part in twenty of every weighing on the Hinrell, to feed the hall and pay Farisel. Drolak for a killing runs to about a hundred marks' weight in 1146, and less for a wound.

Direction. CONTESTED. The north has begun to trade instead of raid, and has learned what trading on credit costs.

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A word on the Lantern Road. It is a troupe of players and puppeteers, not a road, and the Lantern, a Drift barge-town, has nothing to do with it. The players sell the one thing every market wants and nobody can weigh. They carry news faster than the Qaflan now, and a merchant who hears from a puppeteer in Wromthalm that the Cherüsh are at the fords can sell his Tsanha contracts before the price sheets reach Coin Row. The Quiet Office has noticed.

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The common speeds: a loaded cart or caravan makes about twenty miles a day, twenty-four on Kaishon's imperial roads; a mule train in the passes ten to fifteen; a laden camel twenty; a barge thirty downstream and twelve under tow upstream; a sail or galley on the lake sixty to a hundred; a galleon at sea about eighty; a rider with changes of horse fifty. The mirror towers cross the lake in an hour.

The routes at a glance

A few more times worth knowing. Kokrin to the Jade Gate is ten days by cart, and Kokrin to Tsenkin twelve. Naphtha from the Cinder Teeth takes about a month to reach Mazbaaran by caravan, and to Faashab-Talodin "well over a month." The Isle of the Accord lies two days north of Solvaine by galley. To cross the continent from Tandosa to Chaiyo takes about four months.

The Golden Road

The Wenvorm and the lake carry more weight of goods than every other route together, because water moves a ton for a tenth of what a cart charges. To cart a ton of grain ten miles costs about a mark, so a hundred miles of road adds about a seventh to the Compact price of wheat, while the whole water passage from Hethlend to Solvaine adds a sixteenth. A Wenvorm grain barge carries about 1,200 bushels, and in the harvest months some forty loaded barges a day pass Hethlend's chain towers. The crown road beside the water carries what must not get wet or is in a hurry, and the Wheelwrights keep the back room of the Wheel and Barrel at Claupiose for themselves.

The Tsanha Crossing

Aldmere's own East Road, from Hethlend by Thalmirn and Lulstat, joins the Crossing at Tolmar-Buyor, 1,232 miles and two months from Kokrin. Since 1141 the Cherüsh have taken a passage gift at Tolmar-Buyor, one bolt in twenty or a balaal a beast, whichever the rider asks, and the Tsanha Qaflan are haggling over what it will be next year. At the Jade Gate Kaishon takes a fifth of the worth of all goods coming in and admits caravans only with a ministry license. The Open Gate merchants of Chaiyo want the fifth lowered and more gates opened, and Sarsak Tolmar has said the same to General Dezau. If the Cherüsh take the fords at the lake mouth, the Crossing is cut in two. Kaishoni silk in Solvaine would double in a season, and the Claupiose silk-lofts would do very well.

The Spice Way

Pepper comes up from the Nhal, where the spice-forts buy it from the river villages; Chelpan remembers when they paid fairly. It passes Baamarsh and Vonteen-Shorooq to Feshfaan, where it meets the saffron, and to Mazbaaran, where it meets everything. A load of pepper pays the Salt Gift at every gate, a twentieth at each Jaarzeb's city, a tenth at Vashos-Shushre and a twentieth at Ienvaune's customs. That is why a pound bought for a quarter balaal on the Nhal costs three flirones in Solvaine. A caravanserai charges a balaal for a traveler's bed and supper and a quarter balaal for a camel's water and stall.

The Fur Trail

The Fur-Road Qaflan haul twice a year: north from the Vargate in late spring, to reach Krasvuv before the Vuvud, and south in autumn when the Farvig geese fly. Every caravan stops at Ironjaw Hold, where Kruman feeds it and weighs its gift, and it pays for the food with news. A white Nugag pelt bought on the Hinrell for four marks' weight pays Ironjaw, the Vargate Clans, the crown, the Qaflan and a furrier before it reaches Solvaine at two leusores, ten times what the trapper got. The saying that a Nugag fox is "worth its weight in silver" holds only for the best.

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The Lake Treasury and the Vaides

In 220 the League cities of Solvaine, Claupiose and Ienvaune pooled their money for a galley fleet and called the pool the Lake Treasury. It paid for the fleet through the Marrowmere Wars, and when the Peace of the Nine made Caelvenne in 294 the Treasury became the state's. Its hall is the Vaides, where the first leusore was struck in 421 and where every leusore is still struck and weighed. In 1146 the Vaides mints the coin, gathers the gate twentieths and the lake toll, and pays the navy, the Lilies and the Iron Contract, whose gold leaves under guard every New Year's Day. It also holds the oldest debt in the One Land, Aldmere's Compact debt of 511, for all Nine Houses together.

The Nine Houses and their rules

Farisel, Valcroix and Tésvol are three of the Nine; the other six are old banking and merchant families. Each keeps a counting-house in the Counting Isles, holds islands as wards and lends on its own account. Every realm has learned their rules: - Contracts are signed under the Sun, never in the dark, and never on a day the cathedral dome is in cloud. - Interest falls due on the four Settling Days, the 1st of Punsimor, Clauve, Caudés and Jende. - Closing Day (30th of Gresil) closes the books, and in the Accord Days no debt may be called in anywhere on the continent. - A debtor who cannot pay sits on the Debtors' Hulks until his family pays. - Bills of exchange, printed on Coin Row, let a merchant pay silver in Solvaine and draw it in another city. The fee is one part in fifty for Hethlend, one in forty for Grarañe, and one in twenty-five for Mazbaaran or Kokrin.

Vailine Farisel lent her first kettle of coins at one coin in ten. In 1146 the houses lend to merchants at one in twelve a year, to a sound crown at one in twenty, and to a doubtful borrower at one in eight or worse.

The House of Farisel

Vailine Farisel founded the house in 903 by lending to Aldmere's crown when the older houses would not, and inside a century it held the debts of half the continent. In 1068 it bought the failed House of Tésvol's debts cheap. Its head, Bevele Bansine Farisel, holds that debt is the only honest bond between nations, because it is written down. It is said that Farisel holds the debts of four of the seven great powers. The Kettle House counts them as Aldmere, Castavar, Clan Stormbrand for the Hrodvald, and Caelvenne itself, whose houses owe it more than any foreign crown.

Every debt on the continent, in numbers

The loan made in 511. The Compact debt began as 300,000 leusores lent against Aldmere's grain. The Black Autumn of 801 doubled it, when Aldmere borrowed to buy Kaishoni rice, and the Lords' War of 822–829, won with Tharaxi mercenaries paid in Caelvennois gold, added 250,000. The Vaides has never asked for the principal, because the Compact holds the loan to be the other half of the grain bargain. By the Chancery's own count Aldmere has paid more than fourteen million leusores in interest on it, seventeen times what it borrowed. That is the answer Prince Hethbael wanted in the Moot. At Closing Day 1145 the crown owed Farisel 2,097,340 leusores and 6 flirones, and Lord Chancellor Ownirel keeps the same figure in crowns and marks at the Chancery rate.

Castavar's arithmetic. The Castavari crown takes in about 620,000 leusores a year and owes 300,000 in interest. For ten years it paid Farisel with money Farisel lent it, and in 1146 she stopped. The next Settling Day is the 1st of Caudés. Rislo Litoto reckons the Fourth Crusade at three million leusores and has none of it. That is why he would seize the Grandees' mines "for God."

The Grain Compact

Signed in 511, the Compact is the oldest treaty still kept between two realms, and it is the reason Solvaine eats. The Chancery and the Vaides copy its terms alike: 1. Aldmere gives Caelvenne first call on its spare grain up to the Compact measure, set each New Year's Day. In 1146 it is ten million bushels. 2. Caelvenne pays the Compact price in leusores and takes no customs on that grain at any gate. The price changes only when both the Moot and the Conclave agree. It last changed in 1140, to two marks a bushel delivered at the Grain Quays. 3. The Vaides lends to the Aldmere crown against the Compact at one in twenty-five and does not call the principal while the grain comes. 4. Each realm keeps the grain road open. Caelvenne's galleys guard the lake, and Aldmere may be asked to lend soldiers to guard Caelvenne's grain towns. A company of Southdowns longbowmen is expected on the Wromthalm road, bound for Larvir under this clause.

The Compact moves about a million leusores a year from Solvaine to Aldmere's shires, more than the crown's whole income, and that is the figure in Ownirel's ledger the Clearance never quotes. But the price cuts both ways. In 1143 Crown wheat stood at a mark and a quarter a bushel in the Tirtird, and Caelvenne was paying Aldmere more than Aldmere's own market paid. In the spring of 1146 it stands at two and a half. Aldmere's growers must sell a fixed share of their harvest to Caelvenne for less than their neighbors pay, and Hethlend's loaf has gone from a sixteenth of a mark to an eighth while Solvaine's has not moved.

The Iron Contract

King Kenithor signed it in 1131 over King Lekakor's vote. It has four terms: 1. Caelvenne pays Tharax 100,000 leusores in gold each New Year's Day, delivered to the Gold House. 2. Tharax keeps about three thousand spears on Caelvenne's shore in peacetime, camped outside the walls; no Phymon sleeps inside Solvaine. 3. If Caelvenne is attacked, a Tharaxi army marches to defend it. 4. At Caelvenne's asking, Tharax gives safe-conduct and flank-guard to Caelvenne's allies. That is why the Third Crusade passed the Gap in 1139, and why King Kenithor's arm was broken guarding it.

The Contract lapses in 1147, and the Thirty are expected to vote against renewing it.

The tribute to the Cherüsh

Kaishon began paying the Cherüsh in 971–975 and calls the payments "gifts." It stopped in 1082 when the Horde split, and began again in 1141 when Sarsak Tolmar made it one. Each spring the clerks of the Silver Scales weigh out about 1,500,000 tsinkya, some nineteen thousand pounds of silver, and add 20,000 bolts of plain silk and a thousand chests of Shanyo tea. The Cherüsh escort camps outside the Tribute Gate and never comes in, and Sarsak wears one of the silk sashes. The whole comes to about 100,000 leusores, one part in ninety of what the Dominion takes in, and the Open Gate says one open gate would earn more than the tribute costs.

Borrowing elsewhere

• Zarvand borrows from no foreign house. Its merchants lend to each other on contracts sworn before a fire, and a man proved to have broken a Flame-sworn oath can never swear another. Changers like Zarrit hold deposits and write bills on Solvaine.
• Kaishon lends grain from the state granaries in bad years, repaid in rice at harvest, and the Chaiyo counting-houses in Rókshái lend on silk and tea.
• Hrodvald borrows by gift: a stelest who feeds your clan in a bad winter owns a share of your spears. Selra borrowed from Farisel instead, and the north is still arguing which kind of debt is worse.

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The Qaflan

The Qaflan are about 40,000 people in twelve caravan clans, each with its road: the Wheelwrights on the Golden Road, the Salt-Bearers on the Spice Way, the Fur-Road Qaflan, the Tsanha Qaflan, the Ember-Carriers, who shelter the Pilgrims, and seven smaller clans. Their Council of Wheels, under Mother Hamen, sits in the Accord Days.

What they sell. Carriage, first. The common Qaflan rate on a good road is about a mark or a flirone for each ton carried ten miles, rising to a balaal for each camel-load for each day in the desert. Letters, second, from letter-houses in every capital, like the one in Grarañe's Mint Ward with its coin-bowl for the Road Spirit. Debts, third. A merchant in Mazbaaran can pay the Salt-Bearers there and take a wheel-letter that any Qaflan letter-house on the continent will pay out, less one part in thirty for a letter inside one realm and one in fifteen for a letter carried across the continent. Wheel-letters are honored because Mother Hamen remembers every debt owed the Qaflan since her grandmother's time, and because no Qaflan clan in living memory has failed to pay one.

Everyone needs them, so no one robs them, and the Neutrality Oath forbids them to take a side. Zesose the Wheel's Wheel-Breakers break the Oath for pay on the Spice Way, and every counting-house is watching to see whether a Wheel-Breaker's wheel-letter is worth anything.

The Drift

The Drift are about 8,000 people in nine barge-towns on the Wenvorm, the Nollen, the Tsanha and the lake, and they have never paid a tax to anyone. Threeoars has drifted between Aldmere and Caelvenne for thirty years and paid neither. The chain toll, the lake toll and the Lake Gate twentieth all go unpaid. The quay-masters are paid something else, and Pell knows which ones take it.

The Drift ferry people and carts across the rivers, an eighth of a mark for a cart at a Wenvorm crossing. They carry cargo for about two thirds of what an Aldmeri bargeman asks, because they pay no tolls, and they smuggle whatever pays. Tsanha-Drift carries the river half of the Crossing. Ford's End, moored beside Tolmar-Buyor under Cherüsh protection since 1141, trades sturgeon, ford carp and whatever the Horde wants carried. Surmave Float carries on the lake whatever the customs boats miss. After the Helms' Moot at the Wenvorm mouth on New Year's Day, cargo on the lake is cheap for a week.

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The smuggling trades

The Salt Brotherhood

The Brotherhood of the Shattered Isles is about 12,000 people in nine crews under Captain-Queen Sormerva Vex, and it lives on Castavari shipping. Its trade has a shape:

• Taking. The Brotherhood takes ships on the Salt Sea Lanes and hangs no one. That is Vex's rule and her pride. Crews are offered a berth or put ashore. Captains are ransomed for fifty larrama each, and the ships are sold back to their owners through the Tandosa Ghosts when the owners can pay.
• Sharing. Chobecho Two-Fathom runs the shares. A prize is split one tenth to Two-Fathom's Hold, the stores fleet that never fights and always eats, one tenth to the council, and the rest by shares, a captain taking two and every hand one.
• Selling. Castavari silver, wine and oil go to the Coastwrights, to the Waheli of Moss Harbor, and east with the Long Reach to Chaiyo, where the Boat-People trade with them "more often than Kokrin knows." Some of it comes back into Tandosa's Mouth on Coastwright boats written down as fishermen.
• Making. Isle agave gives the Brotherhood rope and a rough spirit.

What Vex wants is not a bigger share but a treaty: the Isles owned as a free kingdom, in return for the Brotherhood's fleet.

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Naphtha

Talodin fire is made from the naphtha of the Cinder Teeth seeps, and Zarvand alone knows how. The Hizkari sold it for salt until 851, when the Iron Matron of that day demanded gold and Khaasar Talodeer paid; the Matron now living has quadrupled the price in her lifetime. In 1146 the Khaasar buys about twelve thousand carrying jars a year at a talod a jar, with a slab of salt in every ten, because fire sold without salt in the bargain is stolen from the mountain. The cost is small. The danger is not. Hizikaad the Younger alone knows where every seep lies, and he wants to sell to Castavar. The Matron has received Castavari envoys since 1140, and one of them came home this year with an empty silver chest.

Silver

Castavar digs about sixty tons a year and keeps little of it. It leaves as interest to Farisel, as pay for Dunmorrow armor and Caelvennois clockwork, and through Daalher into Zarvand, where Zarrit has changed more Castavari silver this year than in the last five, for men who are not merchants. Kaishon's silver leaves the other way, as tribute. The Hrodvald have almost none of their own and chop what they get.

Starsteel

The finest blades in the One Land are forged in the Citadel's armories at Mazbaaran, from ingots only the Dunmorrow make. Thane Grurn sells starsteel to Zarvand, armor to Castavar, and the same secrets to both. An ingot for one blade costs about four leusores at the Harrowdeep gate, and the sword sells for fifteen talod and up. If the Restorers ever shut the holds under an Underking, Zarvand's swords and Castavar's armor would stop together, as the holds' steel stopped in 555 when Grarg the Proud demanded gold.

Silk

Kaishon makes the most silk, sells a plain bolt for a mihomau, and hangs anyone who carries its silkworms out. Claupiose sells a raw bolt for four leusores and a dyed one for six, and Zarvand weaves its own in the Mulberry Quarter. The Silk Hall's fifth keeps eastern silk dear in Solvaine, and Caelvenne's reelers would welcome anything that closed the Tsanha, save what it would do to everything else.

Saffron

Feshfaan saffron is the dearest spice in the world: a talod an ounce in the fields, two in Mazbaaran, three leusores in Solvaine. Since 1145 the Feshfaan fields have been governed by Prince Durkaad, who carries a saffron stain on his sleeve. So the richest spice on the continent sits under the prince the Unfading would have to arrest first.

Grain, salt and horses

Grain is Aldmere's power, and the Chancellor has reckoned what becomes of the grain if the Gray Choir, which will not sow winter wheat, triples. Salt is money in the Sunmaw, and Tharax and the Frostmarch have none of their own. Horses are war: the destrier is sold only with a Grandee's letter, the Khaasar's horses are never sold, and every Cherüsh rider owns ten.

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Five things press on the money of the continent at once. Farisel has stopped lending to Castavar. The crusade debts are due. The Iron Contract is ending. The Cherüsh sit on the east road while Kaishon pays them. And the Talodin is low.

Aldmere. The crown pays about 139,000 leusores a year in interest, a fifth of its income in a good year and nearly a third in a bad one. Bread in Hethlend has doubled since 1143, because Caelvennois factors bought ahead against a Cherüsh war and the Gray Choir left Chomkel fields unsown, and Codorn the Tanner has sworn to march on the Chancery if it doubles again. The Compact price holds Aldmere's grain below its own market. The Clearance would sell royal forests and raise tolls to pay the debt off, and the prince agrees, loudly.

Tharax. Without the Contract, the Gold House can buy steel for three more years. After that Tharax must sell something new, and it has nothing but spears. Taking double to garrison the fords would pay for Lekakor's Wide Anvil and make Tharax more Caelvenne's than ever. The Outdwellers' hidden hoards of jabirga and marks are the only private savings in the realm, and they are against the law.

Caelvenne. Farisel's largest loan is going bad. If Castavar fails to pay on the Caudés Settling Day, Farisel loses nearly half its interest at a stroke, and the four houses that owe her will find their own loans called. The Iron Contract ends in 1147, and Caelvenne must buy another army. Its eastern trade runs past Cherüsh riders, the Clearance could refuse the Compact debt outright, and the Bells ring whenever the bread board shows a bad number two days running.

Castavar. Half its income goes to Farisel, and Farisel will lend no more. The Fourth Crusade needs three million leusores that do not exist, the Rislo wants the Grandees' mines, and the Grandees have stopped voting the king his grant. The jabirga has lost a flirone in twenty on Coin Row since New Year, gold is leaving the kingdom, and the navy's silver is late, so Tandosa lives on credit between paydays. Its yards are building troop transports anyway, and a sealed letter from Captain-Queen Vex is said to have reached the Bairnaro Drosdo.

Zarvand. Zarvand owes nothing abroad. But its treasury is in the hands of a Grand Vizier who serves a dying man, and its army in the hands of a prince who wants the throne. The Hizkari price climbs, and the Matron is talking to Castavar. The water at the Cold Stair stands a hand lower every summer, and a low river means smaller date harvests, fewer water-hours and a smaller land fifth. The House of Learning's copy rooms work all night, and the Qaflan are buying paper by the bale.

Kaishon. The tribute costs Kaishon little money and a great deal of face. The ministers will not take Sarsak's offer of trade, because to take it is to admit the steppe is a neighbor, and the Open Gate merchants lose every year the gate stays shut. In the Southern Reach, Magistrate Tsehei Kaukai turns mahogany and pepper into jade while the Tzalan kill his garrisons. The Dominion is rich enough to wait, and it is waiting.

Hrodvald. Selra's grain was bought on credit, the Debt Barn is half empty, and Farisel's factor is coming up the Fur Trail. Every winter the grain fails to reach a clan, more men go up the trail to Ironjaw Hold, where Kruman feeds them and asks only for loyalty. If Kruman wins on the Speaking Mound, the north goes back to raiding, and the Fur Trail goes back to being a road for war bands.

CONTESTED. The trade of the One Land is richer than it has ever been, and more tightly knotted. Aldmere's grain feeds Caelvenne, Caelvenne's gold pays Tharax, Tharax guards Caelvenne's allies, Castavar's silver pays Caelvenne, Kaishon's silver pays the Cherüsh, and the Hizkari's naphtha keeps Zarvand's river safe. Every knot is under strain at once, and most of them run through the Kettle House. The changers on Coin Row tell a tale they call The Auditor's War: Bansine Farisel calls in every debt on the continent in a single month, four realms fail together, and the Tharaxi, who kept iron bars, find they are the richest people alive. It has not happened. They tell it anyway, and in 1146 they chalk the jabirga lower every week.