“Exaltations and blessings upon your house, family, and companions,” Nuel Hammon greeted, extending a hand.
She blinked, not expecting this highly formal greeting, but managed to accept the hand with a firm grip and reply in kind, “Exaltations and joy to you and yours.”
Judging from that slightly startled look from Hammon, he hadn’t expected her to know the proper way to respond, but was pleased by it. Why he thought that, she had no idea. Anyone spending any amount of time around Markl would pick up on all the niceties eventually. She’d never met a more polite man. “Thank you. Forgive my surprise, Guildmaster Maley. I have heard of you and your reputation is excellent, but I had not thought you to be so young.”
Siobhan couldn’t help but laugh ruefully. “I was made guildmaster at a ridiculously early age. I am relieved to see that you arrived here without trouble, sir.”
“I’m just as glad to be here without being attacked, although I am very sorry that Lirah Darrens’ party was not as fortunate. Markl has told me what you have discovered and I have some theories regarding the matter.”
She cocked her head slightly. “I would certainly like to hear them. My mind has twisted itself into knots trying to make sense of this.”
He waved her to a nearby chair, silently inviting her to make herself comfortable. After the day she’d had, he didn’t have to twist her arm. She promptly settled herself into a wing backed chair that faced the couch.
The common room had been designed to either conduct business meetings in or for socializing. It had a variety of chairs, couches, and settees that were arranged in small circles so that people could comfortably sit and converse. It had no windows here, as it sat in the middle of the building, but someone had installed skylights in the ceiling which cast enough natural light for the room to naturally glow. One spot of sunlight hit the chair she sat in and warmed it up quite pleasantly. She unconsciously smiled as the warmth settled along her back.
As soon as she’d settled, Hammon relaxed back into his own seat, legs comfortably crossed and hands resting on his stomach. “Markl tells me that you’re aware of the purpose of Silver Moon, Blackstone and Iron Dragain all meeting?”
“To form a trade monopoly,” she responded bluntly.
“Quite so.” A brief smile darted over his face. “We’d hoped that by doing so we could afford to expand and raise the levels of the bridges, as I’m afraid that if we don’t start fixing them now, they’ll become nigh unusable in fifty years.”
He might very well be right. It took luck, timing, and speed to cross the bridges now, and the larger caravans had to do it in stages in order to clear them before the tides rose to a dangerous level. If something wasn’t done about them soon, it would be impossible to cross the bridges quickly enough, and they’d have to abandon them altogether and start shipping everything by sea. Just the idea made her wince. “So, the monopoly was in fact proposed to finance the project.”
He spread his hands in a helpless shrug. “We couldn’t come up with another viable option. No one guild has the means to do such a thing, and it’s dangerous for just one guild to be in charge of the project to begin with. It would encourage a sense of…ownership, I’m afraid. And if they feel that they own the bridge, all sorts of trouble will eventually arise from it.”
Like levies and taxes that no one would be willing to pay but would be willing to fight about. Yes, didn’t that picture just give her a headache. “I see your point.”
“We’d thought that with three of us, we’d have the means to fix the bridges, and no one guild would be responsible for it, so it would avoid trouble. Of course, many are going to be unhappy about our creating a monopoly on select trade goods in order to manage this…but we’ve only so many resources to draw upon. In order to make this happen, something needs to be sacrificed.”
She lifted a hand and rubbed at one temple. “Someone in Coravine disagrees with you, sir.”
He grimaced. “And more vehemently than I predicted, too. We knew that people would be unhappy with what we did here, at least in the beginning, but to actually send assassins? That was completely outside of our predictions.”