Rise of a Merchant Prince. Raymond E. Feist

skill; she actually seemed pleased to discover Roo lying next to her.

      ‘Good morning,’ she said with a wide smile. Running her fingers along his stomach, she said, ‘What a nice way to wake up.’

      As he gathered the girl into his arms, Roo considered himself fortunate. He had no illusions about his looks; he was easily the homeliest boy from Ravensburg, but he had managed to bed two of the local girls in town before he and Erik had been forced to flee. He knew, given enough time, he could charm most anyone, though he rarely tried. But now he was alive, with gold in his belt, and a woman willing to make him feel handsome. It was the start of a wonderful day.

      Later he bid the girl good-bye, realizing that he couldn’t remember if her name was Mary or Marie. He found Erik already dressed and waiting in the antechamber, speaking with a particularly pretty young blonde.

      Erik looked up. ‘Ready to leave?’

      Roo nodded. ‘The others?’

      ‘We’ll see them when we get back from Ravensburg, or at least I will.’ He rose and was still holding on to the girl’s hand.

      There was something about his manner that struck Roo as odd, and as they left the brothel, he remarked, ‘You seemed smitten with that pretty girl.’

      Erik blushed. ‘Nothing of the kind. She’s …’

      After a silent moment, Roo supplied, ‘A whore?’

      The city was busy at that hour of the morning, and they were forced to wend their way through the press. Erik said, ‘I guess. Something more like a lady, I think.’

      Roo shrugged, the gesture lost on Erik. ‘They get paid well, that’s for certain.’ He was now considering the diminishment of his purse as he weighed the cost versus the reward. He decided he needed to husband his capital a bit more carefully. There were far less expensive whores to be found.

      ‘Where to next?’ asked Roo.

      ‘I need to talk to Sebastian Lender.’

      Roo brightened. Barret’s Coffee House was one of the places he wished to visit, and having a social call to make upon one of the solicitors who plied their business there was an eminently acceptable reason.

      They headed to the area of the city known locally as the Merchants’ Quarter, even though it held only a slightly higher percentage of businesses than elsewhere in the city. What marked the Merchants’ Quarter was a high number of very costly homes, many erected behind or above the stores that generated their wealth, the highest concentration of influential men who were not nobility.

      The craftsmen had their guilds – the thieves, too: the Mockers – and the nobility had their rank from birth, but men who pursued their fortune through commerce and trade had only their wits. While a few of them had banded together to create trade associations from time to time, more were independent businessmen without allies but with many competitors.

      So those who survived and became successful had few peers with whom to share their pride of accomplishment, few fellows with whom to boast of their good fortune and perspicacity. A few, like a merchant Roo had met named Helmut Grindle, kept their appearance modest, as if to call attention to themselves might bring ruin. But others chose to shout their success to the world by building huge town houses, rivaling those owned by the nobility, throughout the city. And over the years the nature of the Merchants’ Quarter had changed.

      As more and more rich merchants purchased property in the area, the cost of land rose so high that now few businesses in the Merchants’ Quarter were owned by those who lived there; the price of housing was too dear. There were a few modest storefront enterprises, established by the fathers or grandfathers of those tending them now, that continued to provide conventional goods and services to those in the area – a bakery on one street, a cobbler on another – but they were quickly being replaced by shops specializing in luxurious items for these very wealthy merchants: jewelers, tailors of the finest clothing, and traders in rare goods. And those who lived in the Merchants’ Quarter were now almost exclusively these very wealthy businessmen, those with far-flung financial empires elsewhere in the province or in distant cities. In time the last of the modest merchants would sell their property, as the offers to buy became too good to refuse, and relocate to more distant quarters in the foulburg, that expanding portion of the city beyond the old wall.

      Barret’s Coffee House stood at the corner of a street now known as Arutha’s Way, in honor of the late Prince of Krondor, father to the King – but still called by most locals Sandy Beach Walk – and Miller’s Road, a route that had once led from a mill no longer extant to a farmer’s gate long torn down. Barret’s was a tall building, three stories, with two open doors at the corner, one on each street. Standing in each door was a waiter: a man with a white tunic, black trousers, black boots, and a blue-and-white-striped apron.

      The three other street corners were occupied by a tavern, a ship’s broker, and, diagonally across the street from Barret’s, an abandoned home. It had once been splendid, perhaps one of the finest in Krondor, but misfortune had cost its owner dearly from all appearances. It had been neglected long before it was abandoned, and its past glory was now faded by peeling paint, boarded-up windows, missing tiles from the roof, and dirt everywhere.

      Roo glanced at that building. ‘Maybe someday I’ll buy that house and fix it up.’

      Erik smiled. ‘I don’t doubt it, Roo.’

      Roo and Erik walked past the waiter standing at the door on Miller’s Road, and entered. The two outside doors opened on a simple receiving area, offering several well-upholstered chairs, but otherwise closed off from the main floor of the coffee house by a wooden railing. There was one opening in the railing blocked by a man attired in a manner similar to the two waiters at the door. The main difference was that his apron was black.

      A tall man, he looked eye to eye at Erik, then down at Roo as he said, ‘Yes?’

      Erik said, ‘We’ve come to see Sebastian Lender.’

      The man nodded. ‘Follow me, please.’ He turned and walked onto the main floor of the coffee house.

      Roo and Erik followed and were led through a large area of small tables, several occupied by men drinking coffee, while waiters hurried from table to table. To the left as they reached the center of the room a broad flight of stairs led up to a balcony rather than a true second floor, leaving the center of the room open to the high vaulted ceiling. Looking up, Roo saw there was no third floor, but rather a double set of high windows above the second-floor balcony. Barret’s was a very open, well-lit building as a result. They reached another waist-high railing, which cut off the rear third of the room, and there the waiter said, ‘Please wait here.’

      The waiter moved a small section of the rail that was on hinges, and stepped through and toward a table at the far side of the house. Roo motioned upward and Erik’s eyes went to where he pointed.

      Above them, on the second-floor landing, men sat at tables. Roo said, ‘The brokers.’

      ‘How do you know?’

      ‘I’ve heard a thing or two,’ said Roo.

      Erik laughed and shook his head. Most likely he had heard it from Helmut Grindle, the trader they had traveled with for a while when coming to Krondor. Roo and Grindle had spoken of many things commercial, and while Erik had found some of the conversation diverting, as often as not it put him to sleep.

      A moment later, a dignified-looking man wearing an unadorned but expensive tunic with an overvest and cravat approached. He studied the two young men before him for a moment, then said, ‘My word! Young von Darkmoor and Mr Avery, if I’m not mistaken.’

      Roo nodded as Erik said, ‘Yes, Mr Lender. We gained our pardon.’

      ‘Most unusual,’ said Lender. He motioned for the waiter to open the railing for him to step through. ‘Only members are permitted behind this second railing.’ He indicated with a wave of his hand that Roo and Erik should sit at an empty table a few feet away.

      He