Wester and Yardem exchanged a silent glance, and the captain sighed. Cithrin stood and walked across to the unsealed books. Her feet were perfectly steady. Her hands didn’t waver as she pulled out the black leather binding. She opened to the first pages and handed them to the captain.
“Documents of foundation,” she said. “We write up a copy of our own, but for Porte Oliva instead of Vanai. We’ve got a hundred documents with Magister Imaniel’s signature and thumb. We can pick some minor contract and use it to forge letters of foundation. File the documents with the governor, pay the fees and bribes, and then I can invest all of this.”
“Invest it,” the captain said as if she’d said eat it.
“The silk and tobacco and spices I can place on consignment. Even if they’re stolen from the merchants, the bank would be paid. We can do the same with the jewelry or sell it outright for funds, and then make loans. Or buy into local businesses. We’ll have to hold back some portion. Five hundredths, perhaps? But with the name of the Medean bank behind me, I could turn over nine-tenths of what we have in this room into papers of absolutely no value to anyone else before the trade ships come from Narinisle. What was left wouldn’t be too tempting to guard.”
“You are very, very drunk,” Wester said. “The way you steal is you take something and then you leave.”
“I’m not stealing it. I’m keeping it safe,” Cithrin said. “This is how banks work. You never keep all the money there to be stolen by whoever finds a way to break your strongbox. You put it out into the world. If you take a loss or someone steals your working funds, you still have all your incomes and agreements. You can recover. And if it all goes wrong, what? We get thrown in prison?”
“Prison is bad,” Yardem rumbled.
“Not as bad as killed and dropped in the sea,” Cithrin said. “If you do what I say, the chances of keeping the money go up and the consequences of failure go down.”
“You want,” Captain Wester said, his voice tight, “to take a great deal of money that isn’t yours and start your own branch of the bank that you’re stealing the money from? They’ll come for you.”
“Of course they will,” Cithrin said. “And when they do, I’ll have what’s theirs and more besides. If I’ve done it right.”
Cithrin saw the disbelief in his face wavering on the border between amusement and outrage. She stamped her foot.
“Listen to me,” she said. “Listen to my voice, Captain. I can do this.”
Marcus
Be careful,” Marcus said.
“I am being careful, sir.”
“Well, be more careful.”
Seven previous attempts lay on the floor between them: contracts and agreements between dead men over burned wealth, meaningless now. But, as Cithrin had said, each of them bore the signature and bloody thumbprint of Magister Imaniel of Vanai. The trick was to dip the parchment into the wax so that it covered the name and thumb, but nothing else. Then the page could be set in a wash of salt and rendered oil to loosen the ink. After a day in the bath, they could use a scrivener’s stone to scrape away the ink, then a wash of urine to bleach away any remaining marks. In the end, they would have a blank page, ready to take whatever carefully practiced words Cithrin put on it, already signed and endorsed by the former head of the bank. A man, the story would have it, who foresaw the coming death of his city at Antean hands and concocted a scheme to refound his branch in Porte Oliva with Cithrin as his agent.
Provided they could put the wax in the right spot. Marcus leaned forward, fingers reaching toward the side of the document.
“If you just—”
“Sir?”
“Yardem?”
The Tralgu’s ears sloped backward, set so close to his head that the earrings rested on his scalp.
“Go over there, sir.”
“But I—”
“Go.”
Marcus tapped at the air just before the parchment, grunted, and turned away. The boxes in the small rooms above the gambler’s stall had been shifted and rearranged, making what had been one small room into two tiny ones. Outside, a warm spring wind hissed, rattling the shutters and making the world in general seem uneasy and restless. It had been a long time since Marcus had broken the thaw in a southern port, and the rich salt-stink of the bay reminded him of yesterday’s fish. Cithrin sat on a stool, dressed in her carter’s rough, with Cary squeezed in close beside her. Master Kit stood a few steps away, his arms crossed over his chest.
“That was better,” Master Kit said, “but I think you’ve gone a little too far in the other direction. I don’t want you to seem burdened. Instead of thinking of weight, imagine how you would move in a heavy wool cloak.”
Cary put her hand to Cithrin’s back.
“You’re too tight here,” Cary said. “Relax that and put the tension up here.”
Cithrin frowned, tiny half moons appearing at the corners of her mouth.
“Like your breasts were too heavy,” Cary said.
“Oh,” Cithrin said, brightening. “Right.”
She rose from her stool, took a step toward Master Kit, turned, and sat back down. Marcus couldn’t have said what had changed in the way the girl moved, only that it was different. Older. Master Kit and Cary smiled at each other.
“Progress,” Master Kit said. “Unquestionable progress.”
“I think we’re ready to walk down to the square,” Cary said.
“With my blessing,” Master Kit said, stepping back until he was almost pressed to Marcus’s belly. The two women made their way across the thin strip of floor to the head of the stairway, hand in hand.
“Lower in the hips,” Master Kit said. “Sink into them. Don’t walk from your ankles.”
The creak of boards descended until the pair were out in the street and gone. The wind gusted up the stairway, and the door at the bottom slammed shut. Marcus blew out his breath and sat on the newly vacant stool.
“I think she’s quite good,” Master Kit said. “Not much natural sense of her own body, but no particular fear of it either, and I find that’s half the work.”
“That’s good,” Marcus said.
“It seems the cuts on her thumbs are scarring nicely. I expect she’ll have a good callus when that’s through. Like she’s been signing contracts for years. Did you put lye in the wounds?”
“Ash and honey,” Marcus said. “Just as good, and it doesn’t tend to go septic.”
“Fair point. I thought that calling her three-quarters Cinnae was a good choice. If she’s nearer full-blood, the Firstblood thickness may read more as years than parentage.”
“I’ve always thought Cinnae look to be about twelve anyway,” Marcus said. “Terrible in a fight. No weight behind the blows.”
Master Kit leaned a shoulder against the wall. His dark eyes flitted across Marcus as if the actor were reading a book.
“And how are you, Captain?”
“I hate this,” Marcus said. “I hate this plan. I hate that we’re forging documents. I hate that Cithrin pulled you and yours into it. There’s nothing about the entire scheme I don’t hate.”
“And yet it seems you’ve chosen to come along.”
“I don’t have a better idea,” Marcus said. “Except fill our pockets and walk away. That’s still got some charm.”
“So why don’t you do that? The boxes are here. I’d say you’ve more than earned your pay.”
Marcus let out a mirthless chuckle and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. From the far side of the room, Yardem made a satisfied grunt. The wax dip had worked this time.
“There are going to be consequences,” Marcus said. “She can’t just say it’s all hers now and make it true. It’s like walking into Cabral and casually announcing that you’re the new mayor of Upurt Marion, and all the port taxes go to you now. And what’s it going to upset? We don’t know. By the end of the season, every trading house and royal court is going to have a theory of what exactly Komme Medean is signaling by investing in Porte Oliva. It’s going to mean something about the relationship of Birancour and Cabral, and whether the freight from Qart-hadath is landing here or there. Why isn’t there a branch here already? Is it because the queen warned them off? We might be violating half a dozen treaties and agreements right now, and we wouldn’t know it.”