The Price Of Command

“All right, gentlemen,” she said, waving to the cousins to precede her. “If you’ll follow me, we can expedite this transaction as quickly as even you might want.”

Sa’dassan weighed the first of three heavy pouches in her hand as she held the other two in the crook of one arm. She smiled, watching as the last of the Valdemaran horse-handlers urged a straggler to catch up with the rest of the herd and out past the corrals. Kero coughed at the dust they raised, and quirked her eyebrow at the Shin’a’in trainer. “Well, they certainly paid enough. Are you content, cousin?”

“More than content,” Sa’dassan said with certainty. “Kra’heera has kept watch on their minds. Their ruler is a good one; this, their Queen, has sold some of her wedding gifts to give to these men, that they might purchase the best mounts they could find. She thinks first of her people, their lands, and their beasts, and only then of herself.”

“That’s what I’d heard from El—from a Herald I knew,” Kero said, hastily avoiding Eldan’s name. “I didn’t know whether to believe it or not, frankly. You know, if all monarchs took care of their people that way, there might be fewer wars.”

“Perhaps.” Sa’dassan put the pouch with the others, cradled like a baby. “Perhaps. We, we do not place much store in Kings and the like. You have a good one in this year—who is to say that the one that follows him will be as good?”

“Nothing, unless you have a system like the Rethwellans have, with the sword that chooses the King.” She shrugged. “And then, of course, you could lose the sword, or someone enchants it, or puts in a substitute. Besides, if there were fewer wars, I’d be out of work. So, what do you plan to do now? You’ve sold most of your string all at once.”

Sa’dassan glanced toward the temporary corrals. “It has been a good three years,” she observed. “Our mares bred widely, and many foaled twins. And the first of the young ones are coming upon the market—we had a fear to glut it and bring prices down.”

Kero laughed to hear the Shin’a’in—reputed to be the most ruthless fighters in the world—talking like a merchant.

“Which was one reason, no doubt, why Liha’irden sent their string with ours.”

Kero raised her eyebrow a little higher. “So what did you have in mind?”

“That I shall intercept those Clans going to the Anduras Fair in Jkatha and send them here. It is not so far from here, a week’s ride, and they were going out behind us. Some Clans drew lots to send their beasts abroad beyond Kata’shin’a’in, and that was one of the places. They were to wait for us and your armed escort before returning to the Plains.”

The last time that the Shin’a’in had gone to Anduras Fair was when Tale’sedrin had been ambushed on the way home, and only Tarma left as a survivor. Kero clamped her teeth on her first reaction; that the fear of glut must have been very great to send horses again to a place so ill-omened.

“As I said, they set out after us; and Anduras is not so great a distance that we cannot coax the buyers here to wait, I think.” Sa’dassan smiled slyly, and Kero chuckled.

“And in return for that coaxing, you will, of course, get a percentage of their profits.” She shook her head.

Sa’dassan spread her hands wide. “Value for value, and reward for the deserving—that is how the Clans have always been, cousin. And lest you hold up to me that first fair, and the horses we brought you—let me point out that you are Clan by blood, and we only delivered to you your own share that had been unclaimed.”

Kero shrugged. “I won’t argue with you, if that’s the way you see it—but look, will you trust me and mine with your earnings in return? You’re going to lose time going down and back and the best is going to be gone by the time you return; if you’ll leave your needs and your coin with Scratcher, I think he can get everything you want at the price you want.”

Sa’dassan thought the idea over with her head tilted to the side, then nodded. “He provisions your people; doubtless he has the skill and the contacts. Done, then, and that is a kinly offer.”

I think they’re going to get a pleasant surprise, Kero thought, leading Sa’dassan back to the accounting office and Scratcher’s domain. They’re good—but he’s better! He hasn’t lost a bargaining session once that I ever heard of!

With that settled, the Shin’a’in saw no reason to linger; they left their tents, but gathered up their belongings and headed south with a speed and efficiency that Kero could only envy. She saw them off, then made her rounds of town and fortress—

Only to discover that everything was running perfectly smoothly. By nightfall she had inspected every aspect of fair and training and provisioning, and concluded that she might as well not even be there.