The Way of Kings - By Brandon Sanderson Page 0,188

enough to pay this, considering what they make on the plateaus. We supply them with bottles of sap as often as they need them. All you’d do by exposing us is let monsters like Sadeas keep a few more spheres in their pockets!”

The apothecary was sweating. Kaladin was threatening to topple his entire business on the Shattered Plains. And so much money was being earned on the sap that this could grow very dangerous. Men killed to keep such secrets.

“Line my pocket or line the brightlords’,” Kaladin said. “I guess I can’t argue with that logic.” He set the bottle back on the counter. “I’ll take the deal, provided you throw in some more bandages.”

“Very well,” the apothecary said, relaxing. “But stay away from those reeds. I’m surprised you found any nearby that hadn’t already been harvested. My workers are having an increasingly difficult time.”

They don’t have a windspren guiding them, Kaladin thought. “Then why would you want to discourage me? I could get more of this for you.”

“Well, yes,” the apothecary said. “But—”

“It’s cheaper if you do it yourself,” Kaladin said, leaning down. “But this way you have a clean trail. I provide the sap, charging one skymark. If the lighteyes ever discover what the apothecaries have been doing, you can claim ignorance—all you know is that some bridgeman was selling you sap, and you resold it to the army at a reasonable markup.”

That seemed to appeal to the old man. “Well, perhaps I won’t ask too many questions about how you harvested this. Your business, young man. Your business indeed….” He shuffled to the back of his store, returning with a box of bandages. Kaladin accepted it and left the shop without a word.

“Aren’t you worried?” Syl said, floating up beside his head as he entered the afternoon sunlight. “If Gaz discovers what you’re doing, you could get into trouble.”

“What more could they do to me?” Kaladin asked. “I doubt they’d consider this a crime worth stringing me up for.”

Syl looked backward, forming into little more than a cloud with the faint suggestion of a female form. “I can’t decide if it’s dishonest or not.”

“It’s not dishonest; it’s business.” He grimaced. “Lavis grain is sold the same way. Grown by the farmers and sold at a pittance to merchants, who carry it to the cities and sell it to other merchants, who sell it to people for four or five times what it was originally bought for.”

“So why did it bother you?” Syl asked, frowning as they avoided a troop of soldiers, one of whom tossed the pit of a palafruit at Kaladin’s head. The soldiers laughed.

Kaladin rubbed his temple. “I’ve still got some strange scruples about charging for medical care because of my father.”

“He sounds like he’s a very generous man.”

“For all the good it did him.”

Of course, in a way, Kaladin was just as bad. During his early days as a slave, he’d have done almost anything for a chance to walk around unsupervised like this. The army perimeter was guarded, but if he could sneak the knobweed in, he could probably find a way to sneak himself out.

With that sapphire mark, he even had money to aid him. Yes, he had the slave brand, but some quick if painful work with a knife could turn that into a “battle scar” instead. He could talk and fight like a soldier, so it would be plausible. He’d be taken for a deserter, but he could live with that.

That had been his plan for most of the later months of his enslavement, but he’d never had the means. It took money to travel, to get far enough away from the area where his description would be in circulation. Money to buy lodging in a seedy section of town, a place where nobody asked questions, while he healed from his self-inflicted wound.

In addition, there had always been the others. So he’d stayed, trying to get as many out as he could. Failing every time. And he was doing it again.

“Kaladin?” Syl asked from his shoulder. “You look very serious. What are you thinking?”

“I’m wondering if I should run. Escape this storm-cursed camp and find myself a new life.”

Syl fell silent. “Life is hard here,” she finally said. “I don’t know if anyone would blame you.”

Rock would, he thought. And Teft. They’d worked for that knobweed sap. They didn’t know what it was worth; they thought it was only for healing the sick. If he ran, he’d be betraying them.