Miran took Green’s arm, something he’d never have done outside the House, and led him off to a curtained booth where they could get as much privacy as they wished. He matched Green for drinks; Green lost, and Miran ordered a large pitcher of Chalousma.
“Nothing but the best for yours truly – whenever someone else is paying,” Miran said jovially. “Now, I’m a great one for fun, but I’m here primarily for business. So – let’s have your proposal at once, if you please,”
“First I must have your solemn oath that you will tell absolutely no one what you hear in this booth. Second, that if you reject my idea you do not then use it later on. Third, that if you do accept you will never attempt later on to kill me or get rid of me and thus reap the profits.”
Miran’s face had been blank, but at the word “profits” it twisted into many folds and creases, all expressive of joy.
He reached into the huge purse he carried slung over his shoulder and pulled out a little golden idol of the patron deity of the Clan Effenycan. Putting his right hand upon its ugly head, he lifted his left and said, “I swear by Zaceffucanquanr that I will obey your wishes in this matter. May he strike me with lice, leprosy, lecher’s disease and lightning if I should break this, my solemn vow.”
Satisfied, Green said, “First I want you to arrange for me to be aboard your windroller when you leave for Estorya.”
Miran choked on his wine and coughed and sputtered until Green pounded his back.
“I do not ask that you give me passage back. Now, here’s my idea. You plan to be taking a large cargo of dried fish because the Estoryans’ religion requires that they eat them at every meal and because they use them in great quantities at their numerous festivals.”
“True, true. Do you know, I’ve never been able to figure out why they should worship a fish-goddess. They live over five thousand miles from the sea, and there’s no evidence that any of them have ever been to the sea. Yet, they demand saltwater fish, won’t use the fish from a nearby lake.”
“There’re many mysteries about the Xurdimur. However, they needn’t concern us. Now, do you know that the Estoryans’ Book of Gods places much more ritual-power in freshly killed and cooked fish than in smoked fish? However, they’ve always had to be content with the dried fish the windrollers brought them. What price would they not pay for living sea-fish?”
Miran rubbed his palms together. “Indeed it does make one wonder…?”
Green then outlined his idea. Miran sat stunned. Not at the audacity or originality of the plan, but because it was so obvious that he wondered why neither he nor anyone else had ever thought of it. He said so.
Green drank his wine and said, “I suppose that people wondered the same when the first wheel or bow and arrow were invented. So obvious, yet no one thought of them until then.”
“Let me get this straight,” said Miran. “You want me to buy a caravan of wagons, build water-tight tanks into them and use them to transport ocean fish back to here? Then the wagon bodies, with their contents, will be lifted onto my windroller and fitted into specially prepared racks – or perhaps, holes – on the middeck? Also, you will show me how to analyze sea water so that its formula may be sold to the Estoryans, and they can thus keep the fish alive in their own tanks?”
“That’s right.”
“Hmmm.” Miran ran his fat, ring-studded finger over his hook nose and the square gold ornament hanging therefrom. His single eye glared pale-bluely at Green. The other was covered with a white patch to hide the emptiness left after a ball from a Ving musket had struck it.
“It’s four weeks until the very last day on which I can set sail from here and still get to Estorya and back before the rains come. It’s just barely possible to have the tanks built, get them convoyed down to the seashore, get the fish in and bring them back. Meantime, I can be having the deck altered. If my men work day and night we can make it.”