The men walking towards the Mackenzie chieftain had more uses for the water in mind: Tom Brannigan, and two others in the brown jean trousers and four-pocket wool jackets common among the well-to-do in Corvallis, with businesslike short swords by their sides and broad-brimmed hats on their heads. One was a short, stocky dark man, and the other a tall lanky woman with her barley-colored hair gathered in a ponytail. They were sweating a little in the warm late-August sun; Juniper nodded politely, but kept to her saddle.
Height as a psychological advantage is not to be despised, she thought. And as one shorter than most for most of my life, don't I know it!
"You don't like them, do you?" Loring murmured.
She shot him a glance. Perceptive of you, Nigel, she thought. I'm not an easy person to read, when I don't wish to be. Aloud: "Not much, but we can do business with them, perhaps. Tom Brannigan likes to do well out of a bargain, which I don't grudge him. Those two might as well be adding machines in human form, and that I do not like. Besides which, they're also leaders of the faction in Corvallis that thinks it can do business with the Portland Protective Association. The which I do not like or sympathize with or agree with at all, so."
The Corvallis men cut the pleasantries shorter than most Mackenzies would have considered polite, and came to business sooner:
"It's a viable proposition," one said; his name was Turner, and he was as close as the Willamette Valley came to a banker these days, as well as half-owner of a big met-alworking shop and foundry. "Provided the contract is reasonable. Obviously, a project this big requires long-term guarantees for the amount of capital we'll have tied up. It's not like selling a load of anvils or sledgehammers."
"My thought exactly, Mr. Turner," she said. "And your papers were quite detailed. Ms. Kowalski, we've done business before."
She cast a sidelong glance at Nigel before she went on: "That's why I'm inclined to reject the deal as it stands. Or to recommend to the town's assembly that it be rejected, that is. Of course, if you can persuade them better than me, or refer it to the Clan as a whole:
"
Turner's eyes went wide; Brannigan's closed in a wince. The chance of Dun Sutterdown's adults voting the two-thirds majority required to override the Chief was somewhere between nil and nothing. Even a simple majority would be vanishingly unlikely without Lady Juniper's agreement.
"Why?" the Corvallan said. "Lady Juniper, breaking and scutching flax and slubbing and carding raw wool by hand are a lot of work, but they're easy and simple to do with powered machinery. Granted there isn't the market or population to support a full-blown mechanized spinning and weaving industry yet, but we could make a start. Cloth's getting more and more expensive."
Juniper nodded, smiling sweetly. "Yes, both those are sort of labor-intensive. I've done both myself, on many a long winter's day. And everyone needs to make more cloth, now that we're finally running out of the last of what was left from before the Change."
"Well, then," Turner said. "This is a perfect location for a slubbing and scutching mill. And there's plenty of wool and flax available, and more wool from the CORA country over the mountains."
"Processing it here makes sense-it cuts down on transport costs," Agnes Kowalski added. "The finished goods are a hell of a lot less bulky to ship. Particularly getting the fiber out of the raw flax, that's got to be done close to the point of production."
They'd known each other-slightly-before the Change; Kowalski had made and sold handlooms to hobbyist weavers like Juniper. After things stabilized in the Corvallis area, she'd taken up the trade again, then to renting looms to those who couldn't afford to buy them, buying wool as well in bulk, doling it out on credit to the weavers using her looms and taking the output in payment at a fixed, usually low, price. These days she had a dozen workmen building and repairing looms, and several score weavers and spinsters in and around Corvallis working for her on contract.
Ken Larsson had told Juniper once that had been known as the "putting-out system" in Europe in the old days, and Juniper disliked both it and the woman who'd reinvented the idea all on her own.
"Yes," Juniper said patiently once more. "But you two had best understand that we're not interested in a wonderful mill the wonderfulness of which benefits only you. Corvallis, in my opinion, is too given to falling in love with toys for their own sake. And you, Tom, but it's mostly Mr. Turner and Ms. Kowalski I'm concerned with. You see, most of the flax-breaking and wool-carding gets done in the winter, as I've said, when our crofters have little else to do, particularly now that most of our duns have threshing machines and they don't need to beat the grain out with flails in the off-season. If the slubbing and scutching's to be done in a mill instead, then the crofters have to sell their raw flax and wool, and buy them back for spinning and weaving."
"If it's still cheaper-" Kowalski said.
"Then yes, they'll benefit, because they can spin and weave the more, or make shoes, or whatever takes their fancy and suits their skills. But that depends on how much of their produce they have to pay to the owners of the mill for the processing of their materials, doesn't it?"
Turner closed his mouth with a comment unspoken. Didn't think I'd understand that, did you? Juniper thought. And thanks to Nigel I know just how much of the added productivity you were planning on keeping for yourselves.
"What's your objection to the contract, Lady Juniper?" he said.
"That you plan on renting us the millwork," she said. "And we end up paying you for it forever, the more so as you seem to feel we should take all responsibility for breakage, wear and replacement as needed. I've no objection to paying you a fair price for your contributions. Mr. Turner, you've got forges that can do castings on that scale and we don't and it would be expensive for us to duplicate them, and Ms. Kowalski, you've got useful outlets for our produce. That doesn't mean we're going to be your tenants. At seventh and last, we can do without you more easily than you can without us. You'd have built these mills in Corvallis territory if you could get the water-power as cheaply and a location as good, and that's just the start of why you want to locate here."
Turner was a short stocky man, with burn scars on the spade-shaped hands below his embroidered shirt cuffs. He took off his felt hat and slapped it against his thigh.
"What's your counteroffer, my lady?" he said, his voice clipped.
''Oh, it's not my place to tell Sutterdown and its people what to do with their own," Juniper said lightly, and watched Turner surreptitiously grind his teeth. "I would suggest to them that they keep full ownership, with a phased purchase arrangement: "
When the talk was over the short muscular Turner and his tall lanky companion walked away towards their tethered horses to give the matter further consideration.
Which means they'll take our terms, in the end, more or less, Juniper mused with satisfaction. I thought so.
"OK," Brannigan said. "I got too hungry and jumped at the fly without looking at the hook."
"Let that be a lesson to you, Tom," she said. "And thank Sir Nigel here, too. I smelled a rat, but it was he skinned the beast for me and read its entrails, sure."
When the mayor had gone, she let her hand rest on the pommel of her saddle and looked at the town, the checkerboard of small farms about it, and the tents and rope corrals of the folk arriving for the horse fair.
"This is what I should be doing, if I have to be Chief," she said after a moment, surprised at the passion in her own voice. "Helping my people better their lives! Instead I have to spend most of my time thinking about wars and threats. I hate it!"