01 - The Price of Talent (47 page)

              Over the course of the morning, I talked to most of the food venders and innkeepers in this section of the city. As I had suspected earlier, with the long autumn, most of them had plenty of stock. This meant that I was forced to sell my root vegetables for less than I would have liked. This isn’t to say I didn’t manage to eke out some profit, but it only worked to a profit due to not having to pay for our room in the inn. On the other hand, there was quite a demand for the cloth we brought with us. After having talked to a few vendors of cloth and clothing, I managed to make a tidy profit on them. Apparently the recent snows had increased the demand for clothing materials. This made me feel a little better about my skills as a merchant.

              In my dealings with the various merchants, I managed to find out a little about the city. The priest in charge of the castle had been there for years and generally let the town go about its own affairs unhindered. Despite the history of this city as being a border fort to defend against incursions from the north or east, it had been generations since they had to deal with any kind of strife. This was because, while the Priest in charge let the town run its own affairs, he was very proactive about patrolling the area around Nordshire and its trade routes.

              As I was talking to the various merchants, I learned that there was a small tax on sales that had to be paid at the castle before we left the city. Apparently the gate guards were supposed to tell me this when I came in, but didn’t bother. This did give me a good excuse to go visit the castle that would not cause undo suspicion to fall on me. However, by the time I had gotten all this information, it was time for lunch.

              Since I had made a small profit on the sales, I had the cash to buy some food in the market. It had been years since I had sausage with peppers and onions on a bun from a vendor. Last time was with my father after the spring harvest, well over a year ago. Eating it and washing it down with some more of the good local tea made me reminisce on old times with my family in Forsburg. Fortunately, I finished my meal before getting too maudlin or weepy. But it did remind me of my old farming life.

              After lunch, as much to walk off the sadness as to get useful information, I headed off up the road to the castle. I did this by foot, having disposed of all my trade goods, and because I would be doing it by foot when we made our rescue attempt. It was quite a walk to the castle from the market. While all roads to the castle were uphill, I managed to pick the main way to it, which was quite busy despite the cold winter air. It took me almost an hour to make it to the front gate of the keep.

              The gate to the keep was much smaller than the gate to the town. This one was only big enough for a single cart to get through. This was part of the reason why it took so long to get there, it created a natural bottleneck to traffic heading to the castle to pay taxes and conduct other business with the church.

              Once through the gate’s single portcullis, I got a better view of the inner grounds of the castle. There was an officious looking man attending to all the entrants. When he was done with the person that had been ahead of me in line, he bustled over to me. He was carrying a quill, an ink bottle, paper and clip board.

“Young sir, what brings you to Caer Nord?” He asked.

“Uh, I just sold a bunch of vegetables in the market and was told there was a tax for all sales within the town.” I replied, deciding to play up the whole young and inexperienced merchant thing.

“New at this then? No matter. Head over to that building there, yes the one with all those people waiting in line. That is where you can pay your taxes.” He replied.

              With that said he bustled on over to the next person in line. The building he pointed to was attached to the tower, but off on the side. And as he had indicated, there was quite a line of merchants and their assistants waiting to pay taxes on their goods.

              While walking over to the next line I had to wait in, I examined the castle grounds. It looked very much like a smaller version of Caer Sud. The walls had patrols on them, but they didn’t seem that attentive. The area with the most attention paid was the main entrance through which everyone who had business at the castle was traversing. Peering around the back of the tax building, the hustle and bustle was gone. Just an open yard for grazing horses and a stable. There were also very few guards. So, assuming they didn’t tighten up security at night, this seemed like the best point of entry. Unfortunately, the only entrance to this part of the castle that was obvious was a small door in the guard tower in the back that was closed and clearly locked. Clear as in it was barred and the portcullis was down. That was going to be a problem.

              Unfortunately, the line did move at fairly regular intervals, so eventually my view of the back of the castle was obscured by the tax building. It took another half hour for me to get inside, and during that time I didn’t learn anything of interest about the castle’s security.

              Once inside, I was presented with a view of a room full of clerks. Each had a desk with writing equipment. It suddenly dawned on me that these people would likely need a name to go with the tax chit I would receive as proof of payment. I couldn’t give them my real name, as that would risk discovery should news from Caer Sud have arrived concerning my and Meredith’s escape. I was still mulling this over as I was again confronted by an official sending people to various available clerks to pay their taxes.

“So, what are you here for?” He asked.

“Uh, I’m here to pay duties on sold goods,” I said.

“Oh, another merchant eh? Well, go to the end of the row over there and talk to the clerk on the far desk,” he said before moving on.

              Not knowing what else to do I followed his directions over to the clerk. When I sat down I was surprised to see that this clerk was a young woman. Most of the officials I had been dealing with today had been men of middling years, so it was a nice change of pace. If nothing else, she was easier on the eyes.

“You’re a merchant here to pay duties?” she asked.

“Yes ma’am.” I said, and immediately regretted it, as again, she was not quite at “ma’am” age.

              Fortunately she just rolled her eyes at me. The look she gave me indicated I was not the first person to “ma’am” her today, and I would likely not be the last. Still, I was a little embarrassed.

“I’ll need your name, amount of goods sold and what sorts of goods they were,” she said.

“Uh, I’m… Donar Janus, and I sold four barrels of root vegetables and 6 bolts of cloth,” I said.

              It was only after I blurted out the name that I realized I had given my father’s name. I had heard him say it to clerks before in similar situations, so I guess it seemed natural to adopt it as my pseudonym. Still, it struck me as being too close to my actual name, since it was the same last name. Too late to come up with a better one though.

“Well Mr. Janus, SIR, that will be 4 copper for the vegetables and 12 for the cloth,” she said.

I couldn’t help but notice her over emphasis of “sir” despite our ages being so similar. Payback I guess for calling her “ma’am”. I spent more time thinking of this than on the taxes, which I handed over without comment. Instead, I decided to see if I could extract any useful information from her.

“Is it always this busy here?” I asked. “I’m fairly new to this region and was surprised at the wait to get in here.”

“This?” She asked. “This is fairly typical for this time of year. It tends to quiet down towards night. We rarely get any visitors after that, unless a drunk starts a fight down at an inn and gets dragged here by the guards.”

“I wouldn’t have thought this was so rough a town,” I replied. “Do people get hauled off to jail here a lot?”

“No, not a lot,” she said. “But those that do get tossed into the jail out back to sober up. Once they have paid off their fine and repaid any damages they have caused, they are released the next morning.”

“Funny, I didn’t notice a jail on my way in here,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Oh it’s that building on the back side of the castle,” she said. “It’s not all that big, so you’d hardly notice it.”

“I see,” I replied. “Well, I’ve probably taken up too much of your time. Have a good day.”

              With that I vacated my seat for the next person to pay their taxes. I was so consumed with thought I almost forgot my tax chit, proof of payment of taxes that would likely be required by the guards as I left the city. The tax amount seemed reasonable, especially considering I had made a decent profit on the cloth. If I had only been selling vegetables, it would have been more onerous given the slim profits I made there. Once outside, I walked around the front yard towards the gate, but glanced back at the building the clerk had indicated was the jail. It was a building just like the others, except that it had a single guard standing outside. I made a mental note of where it was, but kept heading towards the front gate.

              My trip back to the inn was uneventful, if equally long. The flow to and from the castle was slackening as the day wore on into late afternoon, but there were still enough people out and about to make the walk a slow one. Once at the inn, I checked the common room to see if Meredith was back yet. Finding she was not in the common room I headed back to our private room.

              The room was empty, so not knowing what else to do, I took off my boots and laid down on the bed to relax and wait for Meredith to get back. I’m not entirely sure when I fell asleep, but I was woken up some time later by the door opening up. It was Meredith, so I quickly relaxed and decided not to get off the bed.

“Napping are we?” She asked after closing the door. “Here I spend all day doing reconnaissance work and I find you lazing away in bed. Did you at least manage to sell our goods?”

“Hah! I was just waiting for you to get back,” I said. “And I not only sold our goods for a profit, well a small profit anyway, I also got some reconnaissance in when I went to pay our taxes at the castle.”

“The castle?” She asked looking a little exasperated. “I thought we agreed I was going to do the reconnaissance work?”

“I found out that all merchants owe a tax to the church on goods sold in town,” I replied. “It would have brought undue attention to us if I didn’t. Not to mention it would make leaving the city difficult, since we wouldn’t have a tax chit to show the guards.”

“Well, I guess that makes sense,” she replied. “Regardless, I managed to accomplish some things as well…”

              She proceeded to tell me about her day. She had spent a good amount of time walking around the castle and the few streets directly below the wall. The only entrance she saw that was open was the main one, same as I had seen from inside the castle grounds. She also had found out that while they leave the front gate open at night, it was guarded. This left us with no real means of entering the castle. Fortunately, Meredith had thought of this too and purchased a large amount of rope. Unfortunately, the rope had no grapnel on it for catching on the crenellations of the wall.

“So, your plan is that we scale the wall with the rope?” I asked.

“Yup!” She said.

“Uh, how are we going to secure it to the wall to climb up?” I asked.

“Well, I couldn’t very well go out and buy a large amount of rope and a hook or whatever could I?” She said. “That wouldn’t look suspicious at all!”

“I see your point, but it still leaves open the question of securing the rope to the wall,” I said.

“Tyr, have you forgotten that you can fly?” She asked.

“Meredith, there’s a big difference between flying between your bed and the floor of your room and up a wall!” I said. “Besides I haven’t practiced since we left Caer Sud!”

“Bah, you’ll do fine!” She said. “It shouldn’t be too hard anyway, the castle isn’t all that well patrolled.”

              While I was glad that she had faith in my abilities, I was more than a little nervous at the prospect. When I screwed up in my room in Caer Sud, all I fell on was the bed. At worst, I would hit the floor from only a few feet up. Flying up a defensive wall was another proposition entirely. But short of having a better idea on how to get in there, which I didn’t, that was the plan. I decided it wasn’t worth arguing about.