THE TRADE WARS

RATS IN THE GOLD One month after the duel. The capital was supposed to be peaceful. But the gold was disappearing. --- Lian stared at the ledger. Numbers didn’t lie. But someone was lying with the numbers. “Three ports,” she said. Voice flat. “Empty. Grain shipments. Gone. Taxes. Half of what they should be.” Caelan flipped another page. His jaw was tight. “Someone’s siphoning. From the inside. And they’ve been doing it for weeks. Maybe months.” Lady Selene bowed. “Your Majesty. The merchants from Valen arrived this morning. But their ships carried half the grain they promised in the treaty.” Lian closed the book,slowly The sound echoed. "Call them in.” --- The hall was cold. Three Valen merchants. Fat. Sweating. Bowing too much. Too fast. “Your Majesty,” the fattest one said. “The seas were cruel this season.” “Storms,” said the second. “Rot,” said the third. “Half the grain spoiled in the hold. A tragedy.” Lian didn’t sit. She walked. Slow. Around them. Her boots were the only sound in the hall. “Storms,” she repeated. “Yes, Majesty.” “Rot.” “Yes, Majesty.” “Same month. Same route. Nine ships.” Silence. She stopped behind them. “Turn around.” They turned. Caelan laid a paper on the table. Then another. Then another. “Harbor tallies,” he said. “Not ours. Yours. Copied out of the Valen customs house by a clerk who loves gold more than he loves King Dorian.” The fat one went gray. Lian picked up the top page. “The Meridia. Left Valen with four hundred tons. Docked here with one hundred and eighty. No storm. No rot. She stopped once. Kessel Bay.” She looked up. “What is in Kessel Bay?” Nobody answered. “Warehouses,” Caelan said. “Rented nine months ago. Paid for in our coin.” Lian set the page down. “So let me say it plainly. We paid for grain. You gave us half. Then you sold the other half back to our own provinces at triple the price. With our gold. Through our ports.” The fat one dropped to his knees. “Majesty — we are merchants. We carry what we are told to carry.” “Told,” Lian said. “By whom.” He looked at the floor. Lian crouched in front of him. Gold eyes. Very close. “I will ask once more,” she said. “Then I stop asking.” “King Dorian,” he whispered. “The orders come sealed. We never see the hand that writes them.” “And the warehouses? Who signs for them?” “A broker. Here. In your capital. We never learned his name. Only his seal.” Lian held out her hand. The merchant fumbled a folded rental paper out of his coat. Caelan opened it. His face changed. That was the part Lian would remember afterward. Not the theft. Not the lie. The way her husband’s face changed. “It is a palace seal,” he said quietly. “Not forged. Issued.” The hall was very cold now. Lian stood. Rats in the gold, she thought. Rats do not come through the gate. They come up through the floor. --- Caelan waited until the hall was empty. “Six people carry a seal like that,” he said. “The treasurer. The harbormaster. Varek. Selene. You. And me.” Lian looked at the rental paper for a long time. “Five,” she said. “Five?” “I did not sign it. So it is five names, and one of them ate at my table last night.” Caelan rubbed his face. “Then we question all five.” “We question no one,” Lian said. “The moment we ask, the guilty one runs, and the only thread I hold runs with him. We say nothing. We watch everything. And we let the thief go on believing the ledger was the worst thing we found.” --- Varek wanted them hanged. “Publicly,” he said. “On the harbor road. Where every Valen sailor can watch.” “No.” “Majesty—” “Hang three fat men and Dorian sends me three thinner ones.” Lian turned from the window. “I don’t want his merchants. I want his hunger.” Caelan folded his arms. “Blockade.” “Blockade.” “That is war, Lian.” “That is war without bodies,” she said. “The only kind I can afford this year.” She counted it on her fingers. “Valen grows wine. Valen digs silver. Valen does not grow bread. It buys bread. From us, and from the southern isles, and the isles ship through our harbor because ours is the only deep water between here and the strait. Close it. Dorian goes hungry politely for a month. Then he writes to me.” Caelan was quiet a moment. Then, almost smiling. “You have been reading the ledgers again.” “All week,” Lian said. “They are better than spies. They never lie to make me happy.” --- The order went out at noon. Every Valen hull turned back at the mouth of the harbor. Every Valen coin in the treasury frozen. Every Valen contract suspended. Not cancelled. Suspended. Cancelled is an ending. Suspended is a leash. The three merchants were put back on their ship with their cargo, their crew, and one sealed letter for their king. Caelan asked what she had written. “Six words,” Lian said. “Which six?” “Send the next thief in person.” --- That night the city did not riot. That surprised her. She had expected fear. Empty stalls. Grain sellers hoarding. Flour at double price by dark. Instead the harbor road filled. Dock hands. Fishwives. Two hundred people who had spent a year watching Valen crates come off half empty, and had been told, every time, that it was the weather. They did not cheer. They only stood there and watched the Valen sails shrink. Lian watched from the wall. “They knew before we did,” she said. “They have been counting crates with their hands while we counted them on paper.” Caelan came and stood beside her the way he always did. Close. Not touching. Waiting to be allowed. “Then next time we ask the men with the hands,” he said. “Next time.” The wind came up off the water. Cold and clean. “It will not stay bloodless,” Caelan said. “I know.” “He will answer.” “I am counting on it.” Lian pulled her cloak tighter. “A quiet enemy is a problem. A furious one is a schedule.” Footsteps behind them. Lady Selene. Out of breath, which was rare. Selene did not run. “Your Majesty.” “Say it.” “A ship came in under a peace flag an hour ago. Valen colors. They did not ask to dock. They left something on the pier and turned about.” Lian did not move. “Left what.” “A chest,” Selene said. “With the royal serpent carved on the lid. A gift, the captain called it. For the Dragon Empress.” Caelan’s hand went to his sword out of habit alone. Lian kept looking at the water. At the last white sail folding into the dark. Eleven hours, she thought. That was fast. Which meant the chest had been packed before the blockade. Which meant Dorian had known exactly what she would do. “Put it in the great hall,” she said. “Touch nothing. Open nothing. And post no one you have not known for ten years.” Selene bowed and went. Caelan looked at her. “You are not going to open it?” “I am going to open it,” Lian said. “In three days. In daylight. With the whole court watching.” “Why three days?” She smiled. It was not a warm thing. “Because whoever put it on that pier is already inside my walls,” she said, “and three days is long enough for a frightened man to do something stupid.”