The income from such an estate would support a household with a dozen servants, as well as horses to draw a fine carriage. A family could remain wealthy forever from such a place, if they didn’t divide the lands.
And that was what a single purse was worth, if anyone had ever minted such a coin; Father said that sums that large would exist only as abstractions in the records of banks and the treasury, or as writing on notes of value.
One thing was certain: Father did not acquire these gems by being frugal with the money from the pelts they sold.
Rigg remembered spilling his money on the counter at Loaf’s tavern, and wondered what Mr. Cooper would think if Rigg showed him the other gems and asked what he thought the aggregate was worth. But of course he would not do it; Rigg doubted that any jeweler in town would have the means of buying even the single gem for ready money. Instead, they would give Cooper something on deposit, the rest to be paid when they sold it to a jeweler in Aressa Sessamo.
But the contract with the jeweler would be enough for Cooper to advance Rigg any amount of ready money he might reasonably ask for-perhaps a pair of glimmers. It would be too much to ask for a banker in O to give him a spill, and where would he spend it? The rest of the value would be marked on a letter of credit that Rigg would take to the bankers in Aressa Sessamo. There Rigg would divide his funds among several reputable banks, and appoint bonded agents to buy and manage lands and businesses for him.
He had learned all this as a series of intellectual problems; the thought of actually doing it, with real cost to him if he did it badly or someone cheated him, was daunting. Is this how I am to spend my life? Looking after managers and bankers, checking on them to make sure they stay reasonably honest, deciding other men’s futures by my whim of what to buy and when to sell? It’s the forest that I love, not rooms like Mr. Cooper’s lair, however bright it is with windows.
When all was copied, all copies signed, the papers folded, and the light-blue jewel placed in a little box, Mr. Cooper looked almost radiant. Rigg suspected that at a stroke, this gem would triple-at least-the assets of the Cooper bank. Most of the funds would soon enough be passed along to banks in Aressa Sessamo, but every hand that touched the money or the jewel would make a good profit, and Mr. Cooper would rise in the estimation of everyone doing business in O, for the tale of it would spread. Cooper himself would see to that, and the jewelers would be his witnesses.
“I don’t mean to hasten you on your way,” Mr. Cooper said, “but I must be off to get the bids from the jewelers, and to do that I will close the bank and take my guard, Beck Brewer, with me through the streets.”
“Is that unusual?” asked Loaf, ever careful. “Will that alert people that you have something worth stealing?”
“It’s prudent of you to ask,” said Mr. Cooper. “But I always take him with me when I’m out during the day, and everyone knows I take no money with me when I leave the bank for the day, or come in the morning. It will be safe enough-at least until one jeweler blabs.” Then Cooper’s face reddened a little, because “blabs” was not a word a man of his dignity should have used.
Well, no matter, Mr. Cooper, thought Rigg. We’re all posers here.
Within the hour, they were settled into a vast suite of rooms in the first lodging Cooper had recommended to them. “Aren’t we going to check the other two?” asked Umbo.
“This one’s good enough, and I need a bath,” said Loaf. Then he waved the servants away and they were alone.
“I asked for three recommendations,” said Rigg, “so that Mr. Cooper would know we didn’t intend to let him steer us to a place where he had an arrangement with the hotelier for a percentage of whatever we spend.”
“People do that?” asked Umbo.
Loaf chuckled. “He probably has an arrangement with all three of these. And spies watching what we do, as well. He struck me as a careful man.”
“But I had to keep up appearances,” said Rigg.
“Appearances,” snorted Loaf. “Where did you learn to talk like that? You spoke high enough with me and Leaky that I thought you were putting on airs, but never like how you talked to Mr. Cooper!”
“I thought he’d wet his pants,” murmured Umbo.
“I used an educated accent with you and Leaky, because people downriver were having trouble understanding the way we talk in Fall Ford,” said Rigg. “But Mr. Cooper needed more than an accent. He needed to hear a lordly dialect and the attitude to go with it. Would talking rich have worked on you?” Rigg asked Loaf. “Or on Leaky?”
“Not a bit on me, and less on her.”
“So to you I talked like a boy of some education, but still one who grew up in a smallish town upriver. Father always said, If you talk like someone used to being obeyed, people will obey you. But if you talk like someone who fears being disobeyed, they will despise you.”
“What else did he say?” asked Umbo. “He never taught me that.”
There was no use trying to explain to Umbo how Father spent all day every day teaching and testing Rigg about things that Rigg thought he’d never use in his life. “I wish in all his saying he had given me a hint of where he found a jewel as valuable as that.”
“Nineteen of them,” said Loaf. “I think you carry in your crotch most of the wealth of this wallfold.” Then he laughed. “But that’s how all young men feel, isn’t it!”
Three baths and a dinner later, they were all napping on soft beds in their own rooms when a soft rap came at the door. Loaf got up and answered it. Rigg assumed it would be a summons from the banker, but it wasn’t-it was the banker himself. Loaf ushered him into the parlor of the suite and soon enough they had the tale.
“All three jewelers said the same, my lord,” said Mr. Cooper to Rigg. “This is every bit the gem I thought it was, but alas, it is more, too much more. This is a famous jewel, recognizable by particular marks which each of them identified with no prompting from me. I was told by one that it was the centerpiece of an ancient crown of a royal family from far northwest, in a kingdom whose name I had never heard of. It was won as a prize in battle by a great general, a hero. I thought the man was a mere legend, not real, but the jewelers believed in him. The story is that he struck the jewel from the crown-hence the mark-and bestowed it as a gift upon his great friend, the hero Wallwatcher, who walked the borders of the world, they say. However the skyblue gem of Wallwatcher might have come into your father’s hands, it is that very jewel, they’re sure of it. The value is so far beyond a purse that none of them will buy it, because they know of no one they could sell it to.”
Rigg felt a stab of fear when Mr. Cooper made his veiled reference to how Father might have got possession of the jewel. Might he declare that the jewel was stolen? No-if that were so, the People’s Revolutionary Council would confiscate it, and Mr. Cooper wouldn’t get a pigface. No, Mr. Cooper was merely explaining that he did not know how to sell it. Rigg calmed himself and began planning how to get around the problem.
Meanwhile, Loaf asked, “How far beyond a purse?”
“Without a buyer, who can say? A pounce at least. But who in this People’s Republic has wealth enough to buy it, or would admit it if they did, knowing it would just be taken from him?”
“Why is this a problem?” asked Rigg. “The jewel merely has to be sold privately, to someone who would value it without declaring to any other what he had.”
“But the price would be drastically discounted. Instead of fifty purses, no more than five, and in all likelihood less than that. Perhaps only two.”
“What about a consortium?” asked Rigg. “Would the three of them together undertake the purchase and the sale?”
“They might, if I suggested it. Perhaps a partnership among the three, with me as well.”
“Thereby converting your commission into a share of profit?”
“Unless your lordship disapproves,” said Mr. Cooper.
“I’m not a lord-or at least if my father was, he never told me so. Please call me Master Rigg and nothing more.”
“Of course, sir,” said Cooper.
“I see we’ll have to stay here longer than I intended. But I expect you to make this happen as I have described. I imagine that a jeweler in Aressa Sessamo will secretly sell the stone for a bargain price of three purses to a private party, and pass along two-and-a-half purses to this partnership you speak of, and you will credit me with two purses, telling me that you’re each making only a spill apiece.” Rigg said it with a smile, and
