"The contract expires in five years," said Hrafn, running a hand through his hair. "And the grain of light comes now."
He and Alva had been negotiating for hours. She was clever, cleverer than Hrafn would have liked to admit. She had come prepared, with numbers, precedents and measured concessions. To his good fortune, however, she had taken him for being too brutish and she had spoken more than she should have.
"And you will answer up to three calls per quarter," Alva shot back. "You will also be my champion in formal disputes." There was more life in her voice at that part, and that said quite a lot.
Hrafn was not satisfied with the final result, nor did she seem to be, from what little he could read behind the composure. Which meant the business had probably ended at the right point. Saga had taught him that a fair agreement was the sort of agreement in which everyone walked away slightly offended.
"Good enough," said Hrafn. "Make it official."
Lady Alva nodded and rose before the maid could even help her. Not rudely only quickly enough to make it seem that remaining there for one moment more was already beginning to cost her something.
"The contract will be ready by the end of the week," she said, inclining herself only as much as was necessary not to scandalize his butler. "By your leave."
I'm going to have work.
The agreement benefited him in many ways, benefited Alva even more in some, and would demand time from both of them.
The marques daughter was more capable than he had expected from a lady in eighteenth place. She had taken the little they had given her and made it pay. Over the years she had managed to widen her own space, take control of two caravans and keep them working without having them drown halfway along the road, which in this world, already bordered on an administrative miracle. Caravans were not wagons with goods, they were good men and routes, expensive tolls, hunger and unforeseen trouble. One piece went wrong and everything else rotted with it, but her greatest problem was another... she lacked voroirs.
Without allies like that, the caravans could not go far enough for the goods to be worth the risk. That was where Hrafn came in. "What do you think, Ed?" he asked, noticing the butler back at his side.
"It seems a fair agreement, my lord," Edvard replied. "The grain of light was a surprise. Being her champion however, may bring problems."
"Yes," said Hrafn, drumming his fingers on the table. "I thought as much."
The grain of light had been the best part, a good surprise and rare enough to be suspicious. Alva had let the information slip at the wrong moment, and Hrafn saw no reason at all to give it up after that. "Do you know how they're made, Ed?" he asked.
"I would not dare speculate, my lord," he answered.
seemed like fear.
The grain of light acted upon megin in different ways, depending on who received it. But it always acted for the better, itt was rare and limited, distributed in quotas, and could not be bought. At least that was what Edvard had told him, which raised Alva another step in the count Hrafn kept of her. And it added caution.
As for the rest of the agreement, the worst part was being champion. Answering the caravan's calls did not trouble him quite as much, there were similar responsibilities within the Hird itself, and many worse. Besides, serving trade was in the end, serving the same machine, if Alva gained more coin, pushed the caravans farther and amassed more influence, part of that would trickle upward as it always did.
The Crown would gain, the Church would gain. They always do.
"But the margin may make up for it," said Edvard. And he was right, if he had been only a fylkirn, Hrafn would not even have negotiated, they would have decided for him and sent him where they pleased, to the Hird they found suitable, in the role most useful to the kingdom, the faith or the whim of some well-shaven superior. Even some newly formed voroirs might not receive a better offer from the nobility and would end up remaining under the Hird's full arm for lack of choice. People like Alva did not usually stake the future of their own business on a stranger, newly elevated and from nowhere.
The houses fostered their own voroirs for a reason, so he could be said to have luck, in still being able to negotiate his own future with a nobler woman, one greedy enough to take risks, willing to make arrangements more prudent people would avoid. What he gained from that was some influence over which battles he would fight.
He would have more freedom but he would receive fewer benefits from the Hird. And in an extreme case, he would still serve when called, as everyone served. Hrafn understood that, even if he wanted to refuse or flee, there was nowhere to go. It was like that everywhere that mattered, when the night showed its teeth voroirs were put in front of it.
Unlike many however, Hrafn preferred it that way, preferring an agreement with a noblewoman to a direct agreement with the Hird. He had never been a man of faith, as never had a special appetite for dying in its name.
The true problem was being champion, internal wars were too troublesome for the kingdom to afford them, there were too many enemies outside. So the lesser disputes, the ones that still needed to wound someone in order to be resolved, were usually handed over to a duel between champions.
"There is room for sabotage," said Hrafn. "Killing me in a duel would be easy. It would stand within the laws of the kingdom and the Church."
He would have to remain on Alva's good side now. He did not imagine she was insane enough for that, but he was not in the habit of granting too much sense to others when his own skin was involved. All it would take was one bad disagreement or one especially profitable opportunity for someone to decide that a duel and his death were an acceptable price.
"I do not imagine you need worry about that, my lord," said Edvard, pulling the chair back so that Hrafn could rise. "You are far more valuable alive." Hrafn cast him a brief look. The answer had come out clean morbid, far too practical to be pretty.
"You are growing more sincere, Ed," he said. "That is good."
"Thank you, my lord."
"Your bath is ready," he continued. "Your instructor arrives at the tenth hour of the Star. And the books you requested have already been taken to the new property."
That was the other part of the agreement, lesser for Alva, important for him. The girl had scarcely troubled herself to negotiate that point. As it seemed, a small manor in Sahirid's second district meant little in the eyes of a masques daughter. For Hrafn however, it was necessary if he was to leave the Hird's military wing in order to operate under another arrangement, he would need a place of his own.
Edvardre came along with the agreement, having him nearby and all those years of experience kept behind that marble face was becoming indispensable. Especially now that the two of them were beginning to understand one another. It had been a long time since he had spoken with so much freedom to anyone who was not Saga. He liked the practical, silent and useful man, he almost never pretended to virtues he did not need.
Besides, the butler filled gaps and arranged the world with such precision that Hrafn could almost have taken him for a voroir of the mind. Hrafn had seen other butlers, good professionals. Edvard however, was of another species.