Gunpowder Empire (ct-1) by Harry Turtledove

Author:Harry Turtledove [Turtledove, Harry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf

The market square was a busy place these days. Everybody who lived in Polisso was trying to get hold of enough food to last out a siege. The soldiers who'd come to reinforce the garrison were laying in food, too. They all reminded Jeremy of squirrels gathering nuts for the winter. But that was important business for the squirrels, and this was important business for the locals.

If you had grain to sell, you could pretty much name your price. Somebody would pay it. Jeremy knew how many modii of wheat were stored under the house. He didn't want to sell them, though, even if he could make a lot of silver on the deal. The local authorities already wondered about Amanda and him. They would ask why those sacks of wheat hadn't left the city, the way they thought the grain had. They would accuse him of profiteering if he sold now.

A soldier was arguing with a farmer. “You should take less,” he said.

“How come?” the farmer said. “When am I going to get another chance to make this kind of money?”

“But you're cheating me,” the soldier said.

“By the gods, I'm not,” the farmer answered. He was a big, burly man, almost as tall as Jeremy and half again as wide through the shoulders. Next to him, the soldier was a skinny, yappy little terrier. The farmer went on, “If you don't want to pay what I ask, you don't have to. I'll find other customers.”

“Not if the city prefect or the commandant sets a top price,” the soldier said. “They can do that. All they have to do is declare danger of siege. Everybody knows that's real. Then fixing prices is as legal as buying and selling slaves.”

“Oh, yes. It's legal. But prefects don't try it very often,” the farmer said. “And do you know why? Because when they set a top price, they always set it too cursed low. Then nobody wants to sell any grain. It just disappears from the market, and people start going hungry.“

“You- You-” The soldier looked as if he couldn't find anything bad enough to call the farmer. “To the crows with you!” he snarled at last, and stalked off. Disgust showed in every line of his body.

Laughing, the farmer turned to Jeremy and said, “I'd like to see him get a better deal from anybody else.”

Jeremy nodded. The farmer thought the way a merchant had to think. But if your city was in danger, didn't you have to ease off on that approach? If you didn't, wouldn't you end up without a city to do business in? Who decided when you did that? How did whoever it was draw the line?

Those were all good questions. Jeremy didn't have good answers for any of them. He was scratching his head as he went on to the temple dedicated to the Emperor's spirit.

When he stopped in the narthex to get a pinch of incense to light on the altar, the clerk who took his three denari for it looked puzzled.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.