Unlike the people of the rest of the world, the Perquaines worshiped a female deity. That seemed profoundly unnatural to most people – either in civilization or out on the frontiers – but there was a certain logic to it. The entire culture of Perquaine rested on the vast fields of grain, and the Perquaines were absolutely obsessed with fertility. When Althalus reached the city of Maghu, he discovered that the largest and most magnificent building in the entire city was the temple of Dweia, the Goddess of fertility. He briefly stopped at the temple to look inside, and the colossal statue of the fertility goddess seemed almost to leap at him. The sculptor who’d carved the statue had quite obviously been either totally insane or caught up in the grip of religious ecstasy when he’d created that monstrosity. There was a certain warped logic to it, Althalus was forced to concede. Fertility meant motherhood, and motherhood involved the suckling of the young. The statue suggested that the goddess Dweia was equipped to suckle hundreds of babies all at the same time.
The land of Perquaine had been settled more recently than Treborea or Equero, and the Perquaines still had a few rough edges that made them much more like the people of the frontiers than the stuffier people to the east. The taverns in the seedier parts of Maghu were rowdier than had been the case in Deika or Kanthon, but that didn’t particularly bother Althalus. He drifted around town until he finally located a place where the patrons were talking instead of brawling, and he sat down in a corner to listen.
‘Druigor’s strongbox is absolutely bulging with money,’ one patron was telling his friends. ‘I stopped by his counting-house the other day, and his box was standing wide open, and it was packed so full that he was having trouble latching down the lid.’
‘That stands to reason,’ another man said. ‘Druigor drives very hard bargains. He can always find some way to get the best of anybody he deals with.’
‘I hear tell that he’s thinking about standing for election to the Senate,’ a wispy looking fellow added.
‘He’s out of his mind,’ the first man snorted. ‘He doesn’t qualify. He doesn’t have a title.’
The wispy man shrugged. ‘He’ll buy one. There are always nobles running around with nothing in their purses but their titles.’
The conversation drifted on to other topics, so Althalus got up and quietly left the tavern. He went some distance down the narrow, cobblestoned street and stopped a fairly well-dressed passer-by. ‘Excuse me,’ he said politely, ‘but I’m looking for the counting house of a man named Druigor. Do you by any chance happen to know where it is?’
‘Everybody in Maghu knows where Druigor’s establishment’s located,’ the man replied.
‘I’m a stranger here,’ Althalus replied.
‘Ah, that explains it then. Druigor does business over by the west gate. Anybody over in that neighborhood can direct you to his establishment.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Althalus said. Then he walked on.
The area near the west gate was largely given over to barn-like warehouses, and a helpful fellow pointed out the one which belonged to Druigor. It seemed to be fairly busy. People were going in and out through the front door and there were wagons filled with bulging sacks waiting near a loading-dock on one side. Althalus watched for a while. The steady stream of men going in and out through the front door indicated that Druigor was doing a lot of business. That was always promising.
He went on up the street and entered another, quieter warehouse. A sweating man was dragging heavy sacks across the floor and stacking them against a wall. ‘Excuse me, neighbor,’ Althalus said. ‘Who does this place belong to?’
‘This is Garwin’s warehouse,’ the sweating man replied. ‘He’s not here right now, though.’
‘Oh,’ Althalus said. ‘Sorry I missed him. I’ll come back later.’ Then he turned, went back out into the street, and walked on down to Druigor’s warehouse again. He went inside and joined the others who were waiting to speak with the owner of the place.
When his turn came he went into a cluttered room where a hard-eyed man sat at a table. ‘Yes?’ the hard-eyed man said.
‘You’re a very busy man, I see,’ Althalus said, his eyes covering everything in the room.
‘Yes, I am, so get to the point.’
Althalus had already seen what he’d come to see, however. In the comer of the room stood a bulky bronze box with an elaborate latch holding it shut.
‘I’ve been told that you’re a fair man, Master Garwin,’ Althalus said in his most ingratiating manner, his eyes still busy.
‘You’ve come to the wrong place,’ the man at the table said. ‘I’m Druigor. Garwin’s establishment’s over to the north – four or five doors.’
Althalus threw his hands up in the air. ‘I should have known better than to trust a drunkard,’ he said. ‘The man who told me that this was Garwin’s place of business could barely stand up. I think I’ll go back out into the street and punch that sot right in the mouth. Sorry to have bothered you, Master Druigor. I’ll revenge the both of us on that sodden idiot’
‘Did you want to see Garwin on business?’ Druigor asked curiously. ‘I can beat his prices on just about anything you can name.’
‘I’m terribly sorry, Master Druigor,’ Althalus said, ‘but my hands are tied this time. My idiot brother made some promises to Garwin, and I can’t think of any way to wriggle out of them. When I get back home, I think I’ll take my brother out behind the house and brick his mouth shut. Then, the next time I come to Maghu, you and I might want to have a little chat.’
‘I’ll look forward to it, Master –?’
‘Kweso,’ Althalus picked a name at random.
‘Are you by any chance a relation of that salt merchant in Deika?’
‘He’s our father’s cousin,’ Althalus replied glibly. ‘They aren’t talking to each other right now, though. It’s one of those family squabbles. Well, you’re busy, Master Druigor, so if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go have some words with that drunkard and then visit Master Garwin and find out how much of the family holdings my half-wit brother’s given away.’
‘I’ll see you next time you come to Maghu, then?’
‘You can count on it. Master Druigor.’ Althalus bowed slightly, and then he left.
It was well after midnight when Althalus broke in through the door on Druigor’s loading-dock. He went on silent feet through the wheat-fragrant warehouse to the room where he’d spoken with Druigor that afternoon. The door to the room was locked, but that, of course, was no problem. Once Althalus was inside the room, he quickly ignited his tinder with his flints and lit a candle sitting on Druigor’s table. Then he closely examined the complex latch that held the bulky lid of the bronze strongbox shut. As was usually the case, the complexity had been designed to confuse anyone who might be curious about the contents of the box. Althalus was quite familiar with the design, so he had the latch open in only a few moments.
He lifted the lid and reached inside, his fingers trembling with anticipation.
There were no coins inside the box, however. Instead, it was filled to overflowing with scraps of paper. Althalus lifted out a handful of the scraps and examined them closely. They all seemed to have pictures drawn on them, but Althalus couldn’t make any sense of those pictures. He dropped them on the floor and dug out another handful. There were more pictures.
Althalus desperately pawed around inside the box, but his hands did not encounter anything at all that felt anything like money.
This made no sense whatsoever. Why would anybody go to the trouble to lock up stacks of worthless paper?
After about a quarter of an hour, he gave up. He briefly considered piling all that paper in a heap on the floor and setting fire to it, but he discarded that idea almost as soon as it came to him. A fire would almost certainly spread, and a burning warehouse would attract attention. He muttered a few choice swear-words, and then he left.
He gave some thought to returning to the tavern he’d visited on his first day in Maghu and having some words with the tavern loafer who’d spoken so glowingly about the contents of Druigor’s strongbox, but he decided against it. The sting of constant disappointments he’d endured this summer were making him very short-tempered, and he wasn’t entirely positive that he’d be able to restrain himself once he started chastising somebody. In his present mood, chastisement might very well be looked upon as murder in some circles.
He sourly returned to the inn where his horse was stabled and spent the rest of the night sitting on his bed glaring at the single piece of paper he’d taken from Druigor’s strongbox. The pictures drawn on the paper weren’t really very good. Why in the world had Druigor bothered to lock them up? When morning finally arrived, Althalus roused the innkeeper and settled accounts with him. Then he reached into his pocket. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I just remembered something.’ He drew out the piece of paper, ‘I found this in the street. Do you have any idea at all what it means?’
‘Of course,’ the innkeeper replied. ‘That’s money.’
‘Money? I don’t follow you. Money’s made out of gold or silver – sometimes copper or brass. This is just paper. It’s not worth anything, is it?’
‘If you take that to the treasury behind the Senate, they’ll give you a silver coin for it.’
‘Why would they do that? It’s just paper.’
‘It has the seal of the Senate on it. That makes it as good as real silver. Haven’t you ever seen paper money before?’
A sense of total defeat came crashing down on Althalus as he went to the stable to pick up his horse. His luck had abandoned him. This had been the worst summer in his entire life. Evidently, his luck didn’t want him down here. There was wealth beyond counting in these cities of the plain, but no matter how hard he’d tried, he hadn’t managed to get his hands on any of it. As he mounted his horse, he amended that thought. Last night in Druigor’s counting house, he’d had his hands on more money than he’d likely ever see in the rest of his entire life, but he’d just walked away from it, because he hadn’t realized that it was money.
He ruefully conceded that he had no business down here. He belonged back on the frontier. Things were just too complicated down here.
He mournfully rode his horse to the central marketplace of Maghu to trade his civilized clothes for apparel more suitable to the frontier where he belonged.
The clothier swindled him, but he’d more or less expected that. Nothing down here was ever going to go well for him.
He wasn’t even particularly surprised to discover when he came out of the clothier’s shop that someone had stolen his horse.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_b33f76f9-95dd-562b-9e95-ee57eb52669c)
