A Promise of Iron by Brandon McCoy (the reading list .txt) 📕

Her cheeks flushed at the silent compliment, and she rewarded me with a smile that seemed to invite as much as prohibit. It was not a shy smile.

“Everything seems to be in order here,” she said, severing our moment cleanly with well-practiced professionalism.

She took the reed from the inkwell on the edge of the counter and documented a few lines in her ledger book. As she was writing, I unbuttoned the front of my jacket and gathered the other various purses I had secured away.

She looked at the pile and raised her eyebrow again.

I grinned as I opened the nearest purse and pulled out a cork button fitted with lengths of metal wire. I plucked two strips of silver and placed them next to the ledger. She touched them with two fingers and slid them slightly towards her.

She inspected the two strips of silver and declared, “Vetting two silver strips.”

This time the nearest auditor lifted his head and rose from his chair. Exchanging Rukish currency was common enough at the House, especially this close to the turn of the cycle. Forgeries were not common, owing to the meticulous nature of the auditors taxing said incoming metals and the rather expedient issuing of justice should a counterfeit be discovered.

I watched the man as he stood. She caught the gesture and turned her head casually over her bare shoulder.

The auditor wore long black robes and a silly sort of square-cut hat that all officials of the Imperial Mercantile Guild wore. I wasn’t sure if there was some Imperial significance to the shape or color, but the sight of them bobbing their heads up and down had them looking like a flock of crows nursing the ground for seeds. I noted silver embroidery around the hem of his sleeve, which marked him as a member of the second Satha. He was portly for an auditor and only slightly taller than Lira, which placed him within a foot of my height. Typically, Cyllians were not known for their abundance of size.

“Auditor,” she acknowledged with a slight bow.

He grunted in reply and stepped toward the counter. She held her arms out above the opened documents, turned her palms over, then stepped to the side, making way for him to inspect the transaction.

He reached a hand into his robe pocket and produced his balance, a flat board slightly larger than his palm designed to judge the width, length, and purity of a metal strip. He took my first silver strip and held it up to the light then placed one end of the strip into the round hole at the base of the balance. He pulled down on the wooden latch at the opposite end to measure its length.

Rukish currency had been the same for centuries and had standards of length and width. All metal was precious and formed the backbone of any economy. Cyllians, however, took it a step further. To further tax the people of the North, Rukish currency had to be marked, much like the population, to ensure its compliance to said standards. A purity law for their people and their metals. This metal had yet to be made into currency, which put the burden of the tax as well as the implications of its purity, squarely on my shoulders.

Once vetted, the strips would be cut into four pieces, bits as we called them. They would then be sealed in a clear wax to help protect the metal from corrosion. Finished strips were inventoried into the House Bank at the end of the day for later use and distribution. They were careful to control the amount of currency active in any province as part of the planned economy. While some metal remained to circulate as new currency, most metal extracted from the province was melted down into bars or Cyllian coin before being transported south to the hungry vaults in Cyllia.

The auditor repeated the process with the second strip then took a vial of clear liquid from his pocket. He unscrewed the silver topper and dripped a few drops onto the shallow groove carved out of the right side of the balance. He placed both strips into the slot, rolled them around until they were adequately coated, then held them both back up to the light.

I saw no green. He saw the same, nodding in approval before placing both strips back onto the balance side by side. With a smooth gesture, he pulled the cover closed, and the crimping tool snapped into place. He pulled the lever, and I heard the characteristic popping sound as the two strips were cut into eight bits. He reached for the jar of clear wax that was warming behind Lira’s stall and poured a stream into the open hole at the top of the balance. Warm wax flowed into the small space around the cut strips. With the release of the lever, the lid sprang open, and the vetting process was complete. The auditor took the two strips from the balance and placed them back onto the counter in their original positions.

He stood quietly awaiting the tax, one-tenth the value of the currency vetted, which for this transaction was two copper strips in total. I pulled two wires free from the cork button and placed them next to the newly vetted silver ones. Both coppers were marked and still waxed, so there was no need to inspect them further. Copper in hand, he turned and retook his seat.

Lira stepped back to the counter and faced me. “Two silver strips will satisfy this contract.”

She took her reed once more and signed the contract as complete, first in her ledger, then in my writ book. With a few spots of silver-colored wax from a vile next to the clear one, she stamped both pages with the six-pointed star of Cyllia. The contract complete; she placed her hands to my writ book and nudged it slightly forward.

“Will there be anything else, citizen?” she asked.

“Currency exchange,”