Way of the Argosi by Sebastien de Castell

Author:Sebastien de Castell [Castell, Sebastien de]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bonnier Publishing Fiction
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

26

Priceless Dreams

Priceless.

The coin I carried hidden upon my person – don’t ask where, it’s not a pretty story – was, in every sense of the word, priceless.

Now, you might assume a coin must always have a predictable value. After all, if ten copper spits make a tenth, and ten tenths make a noble, and fifty nobs make a sovereign, and one hundred sovs make up an empire, then mathematically an empire is worth half a million copper spits.

(You have a lot of time to add things up in your head when you’re trudging for three straight days with a gold-and-sapphire coin lodged in your . . . but let’s get back to my maths problem).

In most villages, you can buy a half-loaf of bread for a single copper spit. It’s more expensive in a city, of course, but that’s beside the point. What matters is that, in theory, my empire coin was worth roughly a quarter-million loaves of bread. No baker on the continent can sell you such a quantity, nor will they sell you a few loaves and give you change for your once-shiny empire. In fact, the only place you could tender an empire coin would be a royal Daroman bank, where someone like me could trade it for a fifty-year sentence on charges of – and this is really what they call it – magnificent larceny. Alternatively, I could take it to a large criminal organisation, who would gladly exchange my precious coin for a slit throat.

So what you have to do is find a minor country noble – somebody with enough money on hand to buy it from you for, say, one spit on the tenth. In my case, it was a nice, elderly, tremendously corrupt lady by the name of Daldira, Countess of Pluvia. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because back in my Black Galleon days, Rudger had sent Bindle and Leaf to pick pockets at her funeral, only Bindle had noticed that the woman in the coffin had all the fingers on her left hand, whereas rumour had it the real Countess of Pluvia had once been a duellist who’d . . . you know what? This really isn’t the important part of the story.

Suffice it to say, like any savvy negotiator who understands the economics of their crime, I traded my empire for one spit on the tenth, which is to say, the equivalent of ten sovereigns. Did that kindly old countess rip me off? Sure, but the deal had to be so good there was no value in her turning me over to the constables or just paying the ten sovereigns it would’ve cost to have me killed.

With ten sovereigns I could still live large for a good long while. No more relying on the kindness of strangers for a few short hours before they tried to kill me. When you have money, you don’t need friends. Unfortunately, being flush with coin made me forget Rule Number Two.

Sometimes you’ll wish you were alone.

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