"Hambly,.Barbara.-.Sun.Wolf.1.-.Ladies.Of.Mandrigyn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

Gilding was not cheap.

"Nevertheless," the President went on, leaning forward a little and lowering his voice to a confiding tone, which the Outland Captain had told Sun Wolf meant he was about to tighten up the screws, "we should be able to meet the agreed-upon amount in gold coinage in four weeks, when the amber convoys come in from the mountains. If you are willing to wait, all can be arranged to your satisfaction."

Except that my men and I will not be stuck on the hostile Peninsula for the winter, the Wolf thought dryly. If they were paid promptly and left at the end of this week, they might make it over the Gniss River, which separated the Peninsula from the rolling wastelands beyond, before it became impassable with winter floods. If they waited four weeks, the river would be thirty feet higher than it was now in the gorges, and the Silver Hills beyond clogged with snow and blistered by winds. If they waited four weeks to be paid, many of the men might never make it back to winter quarters in Wrynde at all.

He folded his hands and regarded the President in silence. The moment elongated itself uncomfortably into a minute, then two. The next offer would be for local currency, of courseЧ stipulated at a far higher rate than he could get in Wrynde. Silver coinage tended to fluctuate in value, and right now the silver content wasn't going to be high. But he let the silence run on, knowing the effect of it on men already a little nervous about that corps of storm troops camped by the walls of Mel-plith.

It was General Gradduck, the head of all the Kedwyr forces who had taken most of the credit for breaking the siege, who finally spoke. "But if you are willing to accept local currency ..." he began, and left the bait dangling.

They expected the Wolf to start grudgingly stipulating silver content on coinageЧimpossible to guarantee unless he wanted to have every coin assayed individually. Instead he said, "You mean you'd like to renegotiate the contract?"

"WellЧ" the President said, irritated.

THE LADIES OF MANDRICYN

19

"Contractually, you're obligated for gold," Sun Wolf said. "But if you are willing to renegotiate, I certainly am. I believe, in matters regarding international trade, the custom in the Peninsula is to impanel a jury of impartial representatives of the other states hereabouts, to determine equivalent local currency values for thirty-five hundred in gold."

The President did not quite turn pale at the thought of representatives from the other Peninsular states setting the amount of money he'd have to pay this mercenary and his men. The other states, already alarmed by Kedwyr's attack on its rival MelpHth, would love to be given the opportunity to disrupt Kedwyr's economy in that fashionЧnot to mention doing Sun Wolf a favor that could be tendered as part of the payment the next time they needed a mercenary troop.

He was clearly sorry he had mentioned it.

A pinch-faced little councilman down at the end of the table quavered, "Of all the nerve!"

The President forced one last smile. "Of course, Captain, such negotiations could be badly drawn out."

Sun Wolf nodded equably. "I realize the drain that's already been put on you by our presence here. I'm sure my men could be put up in some other city in the vicinity, such as Ciselfarge."

It had been a toss-up whether Kedwyr would invade MelpHth or Ciselfarge in this latest power struggle for the amber and silk trades, and Sun Wolf knew it. If the President hadn't just returned from swearing lasting peace and brotherhood with Ciselfarge's prince, the remark could have been construed as an open threat.

Grimly, the President said, "I am sure that such a delay will not be necessary."

The bar of sunlight slid along the table, glared for a time in Sun Wolf's eyes, then shifted its gleam to the wall above his head. Servants came in to light the lamps before the negotiations were done. Once or twice. Sun Wolf went down to the square outside the Town Hall to speak to the men he'd brought into the town with him, ostensibly to make sure they weren't drinking themselves insensible in the taverns around the square, but in fact to let them know he was still alive. The men, like most of the Wolf's men, didn't drink nearly as much as they seemed toЧthis trip counted as campaign, not recreation.

The third time the Wolf came down the wide staircase, it was with the fat Captain Gobaris of the Outland Levies and

20 Barbara Hambly

the thin, bitter, handsome Commander Breg of the Kedwyr City Guards. The Outland Captain was chuckling juicily over the discomfiture of the Council at Sun Wolf s hands. "I thought we'd lose our President to the apoplexy, for sure, when you specified the currency had to be delivered tomorrow."

"If I'd given him the week he'd asked for, he'd have had time to get another run of it from the City Mint," the Wolf said reasonably. "There'd be half the silver content of the current coins, and he'd pay me off in that."

The Guards Commander glanced sideways at him with black, gloomy eyes. "I suspect it's what he did last year, when the city contracts were signed," he said. "We contracted for five years at sixty stallins a year, and that was when stallins were forty to a gold piece. Within two months they were down to sixty-five."

"Oh, there's not much 1 wouldn't put past that slick bastard." Gobaris chuckled as they stepped through the great doors. Before them, the town square lay in a checkwork of moonlight and shadow, bordered with the embroidered gold of a hundred lamps from the taverns that rimmed it. Music drifted on the wind, with the smell of the sea.

No, Sun Wolf thought, signaling to his men. And that's why I didn't come to this town alone.