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Women Is online dating easier for single female expats in Germany than for their male counterparts? For last week, the average outstanding cost was about 37 iron bridges per day. Anything else? See you next week unless something changes. They approached the table covered in woodblocks. Looking down on the hundreds of blocks, many of them painted, they made an intricate pattern. He spotted some writing in one of the open areas not covered by the blocks and leaned closer to read it in the dim morning light.
Fish Market it read. While many of the blocks of wood were unpainted, he now spotted a pattern to the more colorful ones, plus a few more intricately carved blocks here and there.
There was a tiny bank building with its stone columns carved in intricate detail and painted. Miniature blue information kiosks were positioned in their market squares, including both the produce, fish, and meat markets. The castle itself was sitting on a large carved block, presumably representing the hill it stood on. From above, it was apparent the town had been laid out to a larger plan than Aedar had previously realized. Near the castle, the roads circled the hill and the houses all shared walls with each other.
If this map was to be believed, most houses had a flat roof that made them into a series of walls, slowly stepping down the hill.
Meanwhile, outside of that one distinct and the port, the rest of the town was laid out in a neat, rectangular grid. Most houses faced the streets that ran east and west. If a house faced north, it had a yard behind it both to take advantage of the sunlight coming from the south, and to let the light into the back of the house.
Meanwhile the same was true for houses facing the street to their south, with the light coming in the front of the house. That was easy at least. The table was even oriented so the miniature gate was near the north edge of the table, just like the real Northgate was compared to where Aedar was standing right now. Dry Goods Market. It was where you could buy flour the cheapest, but also leather, metal, wood, or woven goods.
Or anything else processed or manufactured. It was also to the north, closest to the blacksmiths and bakers where the smoke from their fires would mostly blow away from the town, no matter if the wind came from the east or west. The tanners were the furthest out, with their awful smelling vats. It was near the river and massive pipes brought water from far upstream to power the numerous water wheels in the area.
The blacksmiths used the waterpower to lift their massive hammers and power their bellows. Even some of the woodworkers were set up in the area, their water wheels powering lathes to produce everything from rocking chairs to wagon spokes and axles to bobbins and machine parts for the cloth industry. He pointed. It was outside the town to the east, and the town, and especially Oss, was slowly spreading in that direction.
The bridge provided access both across the river, as well as to the towns and farms up the coast and across the river, as the river road was on the far side of the river. Captain Jay picked up a stack of small paper cards, and read off the top one. It was just down the block and on the Financial Square. There is no such company anywhere in the known world, much less here in Redbridge.
Aedar shrunk back while mentally cursing himself. It was a short street that was an offshoot from Smith Street. There were only a few smiths who worked in tin, after all. It was pointed out to him and he was gruffly told to remember it for next time. He noticed the small card for the Sunset Whaling Cooperative Captain Jay was reading from was set on a new pile than the ones Aedar had gotten right. Aedar realized he would be seeing that again soon, along with any others he missed.
They went on like that for a while. At least the vast majority of the residential streets were numbered and in order, rather than named. The worst were places like the smaller alleys which had three different names to three different people.
It seemed like Captain Jay knew every one of the possible names. It should have been easy compared to the running in the last two days, yet it left him feeling like he had just delivered a message to the castle gatehouse, then another to the port, then back up the hill to the castle gatehouse again immediately.
His break came to an end all too soon. Captain Jay settled down behind his desk and gestured for him to pull up a chair. I will hand you a message. Without damaging the message, and as fast as possible, you will open the message, read the message quietly or silently if you can, fold the message again, and put it on my desk.
From memory, you will then read the message to me. Aedar opened the message, read it, and refolded it. That is all that was written. Here is your next one. After a few seconds of thought, he slid the ribbon over the end of the paper, so he could slide it back on without worrying about retying it.
He read it, sealed it again, passed it back, before repeating it aloud from memory. Aedar quickly unfolded a note similar to his first message, careful to not flatten the page so he could refold it easier. He read it, folded, returned, and read it aloud. No problems. The next note he got shouted at for smudging the poor quality, greasy ink with his thumb as he unfolded it. And then a memorization exercise. And then more letters, but this time the handwriting was terrible, and the spelling was worse.
Each one seemed to compete with the earlier ones to be even less legible. Then Captain Jay grabbed an old, patched cloak and they sat on the corner of two busy streets, while Jay would occasionally ask a question about someone who had walked by within the last two minutes.
Was that merchant wearing a coin purse? On what side of his body? Captain Jay grumbled as they walked back to the office and told him to practice this every chance he got. Back in the office, Jay sat him down at a seat in the corner with a large, thin book.
The book turned out to be mainly paintings. The first section was about different hair types, each type with its name, with associated cultures and peoples that most often had that type of hair. The next section in the book was hair color. Then eye shape.
Then eye color. Then nose shape. Then mouth shape. Then ear shape. Finally how to differentiate distinguishing features such as the difference between a knife scar versus a burn scar. That section was at least a bit interesting. He feared he would be tested on this sooner rather than later. He was right. At least he was getting paid for this.
Not bringing in enough rumors and messages could get a messenger assigned to less desirable posts, or even less frequent shifts. He would occasionally run a message, although they seemed few and far between. He thought it might be due to the neighborhood being relatively poorer than most others. The messages only cost a single iron brick, the smallest denomination of iron coin, but he supposed his fellow recent immigrants shared his habit of hoarding every coin he could his hands on.
He could easily feed himself from his base wage, so missing out on extra from tips was a bit annoying, but not truly problematic. At least he got plenty of practice in studying people as Captain Jay wanted him to do. Aedar would help some of his new neighbors fill water by pulling the rope while they held their buckets, jugs, and pots under the downspout, so at least he got to meet more of the neighborhood, plus re-introduce himself to a few he recognized from his childhood.
He occasionally carried messages for them, mostly verbal messages as they were commonly illiterate, but sometimes someone wanted him to carry a written message, or more commonly help write out a written message, before delivering it either to the post office or to the recipient.
He soon found himself assisting more and more with reading and writing when on duty near the fountain as word got around. He also realized that most of his information he delivered to Captain Jay was coming from these idle conversations, especially with the grandmothers and other queens of gossip from the neighborhood.
Afternoon shifts were spent in the office with more training unless Captain Jay was out of the office on other duties. The number of things to memorize seemed to always be growing. Recognizing the difference between a fire bell and the general alarm bell.
What to do if he was on duty during a fire bell? Go to the fire, look for suspicious characters, and wait to be dispatched by any guard or one of the captains of the volunteer fire brigade.
Which gatehouse should he report to for the general alarm bell? Most of it was boring, but he was soon offered extra shifts for extra pay and told to maintain his progress if he wanted to keep getting them. That helped focus the mind, to be sure. The extra shifts soon proved his suspicions on tips from the Oss quarter: Getting assigned a shift in nearly any other part of the town proved more profitable than even two or three shifts in the tips from the Oss quarter.
He had quickly come to suspect he was primarily assigned to the Oss quarter due to his Essosi heritage making him fit in better. The young ladies being trained there had been kind and seemed to know what they were doing. Getting assigned to an occasional shift at the castle gatehouse was interesting. Pages seemed to have many duties including running messages, especially within the castle. Unlike every other messenger post, instead of one or two messengers being stationed at a market or square or the docks, the castle assignment usually had two or three messengers every single shift, plus bicycles too.
And then move on to checking the taverns. The harbormaster seemed to enjoy working out of the taverns, to be sure. A week after Aedar had completed training, Captain Jay held him back after receiving his pay for a shift and told him he was proud of his progress and presented him with a voucher for a free pair of shoes from the cordwainer the guards had a supply contract with.
It was the nicest gift he had ever received, and certainly the only time he had ever owned a pair of new shoes. Captain Jay made him promise to keep the shoes in good repair and directed him to a cobbler who was better at shoe repairs than the cordwainer. Cheaper too. He and several of the other messengers were told to show up out of uniform to the office a bit later than normal. When Aedar arrived, the office was more crowded than he had ever seen it.
Several men he recognized as officers in the guards, plus Captain Jay, were all present. In addition to his fellow messengers, there were nearly a dozen young men Aedar quickly realized were guards in training, which merely heightened his curiosity for what they would be doing.
It turned out the training was recognizing tools burglars, pickpockets, and others up to mischief might use. For catching cutpurses, they were shown a few types of rings and bracelets that concealed a blade used to cut the purse strings that secured the purse to the belt. For burglars, they were shown various tools for opening doors and windows, and the most common signs of damage these tools would leave behind.
That afternoon the training continued, but with two new experts being dragged to the front of the room and introduced to the group. Both readily admitted they were a former pickpocket team that was working with the guard for a reduced sentence. The most shocking thing was the younger pickpocket was much younger than Aedar himself, perhaps around 12 years old. Soon, not 3 but 5 victims were shamefully collecting their belongings the thieves had produced. The thieves shrugged and said they were going for two each but if they were just offering their belongings for the taking, how could they resist?
That annoyed several of the guard trainees, and one of them started insulting the thieves, their heritage, and most especially the occupations of their mothers. Perhaps an hour later, during what was already the most fascinating lesson Aedar had ever attended, the young thief moved past the mouthy trainee and tumbled to the ground. He was soon convulsing, and when rolled onto his back he was foaming at the mouth, with thick white bubbles pouring down his cheek, his eyes wide in panic as he struggled to breathe.
Panic ensued as various guard trainees started moving and shouting and trying to render assistance and generally stumbling all over each other. Accusations and counter-accusations flew wildly, with many of the uninvolved trainee guards seemingly pulled in multiple directions at the same time. Near a minute of chaos ensued, before the gravely poisoned thief promptly stood up and laughed in the face of the accused. Some simple tricks, backed up by some acting, they explained, and completely distracted the entire room for almost two minutes.
Plenty of time for a third accomplice to knife someone and escape, or to steal a key, or to unbar a gate, or throw some smuggled goods over a wall. Faked or inflicted injuries, scattered coins, broken pottery, or a cute girl pushed into a puddle would immediately distract a huge crowd to allow any number of crimes to occur in broad daylight during the chaos. Distractions were the friend of the criminal, they explained over and over.
The room was a bit soberer and much more attentive after that. The lesson ended with more concrete demonstrations of their specific pickpocketing skills, with them demonstrating silently stealing coin pouches and small bells from the pockets of a jacket hung from the ceiling for that purpose. They challenged anyone to beat their speed and stealth. Even the instructors gave it a shot, with all failing miserably before masters of their craft.
Needless to say, after the lesson Captain Jay had much to say about improving their observational skills and drilling them on how to recognize potential criminal behavior, and the proper procedure to follow regarding observing from a distance, memorizing suspects, and reporting to Jay even in the middle of a shift.
He arrived and was soon joined by two other messengers pulled from their posts. Aedar and his fellow messengers exchanged a glance, each as confused as the others, and within 30 seconds of heading down the narrow stairs and out onto the Financial Square, they found themselves entering one of the many other offices that surrounded the square. They were greeted by a tall, thin man wearing very expensive clothes. They were joined a few minutes later by two scribes, or so Aedar assumed them to be from their carried equipment.
A third man soon followed, and once they were all seated and the door firmly closed, Master Purdock launched into his clearly prepared speech. And you are called to assist me to the greatest extent of your abilities. A moment of silence passed. And what do you require of us, Master Purdock?
Quick on your feet! And that will be the lever by which I will move the world! No one spoke up. Let me go over exactly what I need each of you to do. No, he was the most important trader in all of the North! The reality was� a little different. Purdock himself would be operating as a middleman. Both were known vessels, hailing from the Westerlands and the Reach respectively. Both were independently owned and operated, without any significant ties to a lord paramount.
In other words, they represented a potential opportunity to improve the prosperity of Redbridge and Purdock was willing to risk his name to prove it. Master Purdock hypothesized that what Redbridge and the Exchange needed was to be able to get independent ships like these to visit more often.
Yet the problem was how to incentivize them to return every two or three months rather than every 15 or so months that seemed to be the average. But the problem was any change would be disruptive and they had been coming to Redbridge on and off for years, and likely had certain expectations when it came to the price, availability of goods, and such. With decorations Master Purdock had apparently begged and borrowed from both Lord Ragnar and the bank that was financing this little experiment, he had the messengers hanging fancy whale oil lamps to provide light to the positioned desks, while the secretaries used the finest paper to draft an elaborate invitation that would be handed to each merchant arriving at the docks.
Two guards with a rather amused guard captain arrived with a wagon and supervised the unloading of some valuables from the castle. The accountant had been studying the prepared and faked transaction book and was laying out his desk to be ready to quickly return any requested calculations. Finally, Master Trader Purdock hung his own nameplate on the door of his office, looked around the office carefully.
He looked a bit� nervous, perhaps? But especially to make sure they made their way to the new office soon. Aedar soon found himself guiding a newly arrived merchant first to the finest inn near the docks to secure a room, then to the office that a mere hour before had looked like� well it had not looked like much at all.
There was no such thing as a priority message, or even a Northriver Trading Company as far as he knew, but he took the message a mere two blocks to the townhouse they had been told to deliver all messages departing from his office to unless indicated otherwise by a secret sign.
By comparison to her son, she was very pleasant, much more down to planetos, and quite a good host. Aedar quite appreciated the drink of cool water and a snack while he waited. She had several hourglasses, and when he arrived she rolled a pair of dice and told him he could depart in 7 minutes, apparently using the dice as his delay. He handed off the message to one of the secretaries, who opened it and put on a look concentration before marching the message into Purdocks back office.
The accountant and remaining secretary continued their busy, but unhurried work, writing in books, digging into papers, and passing notes back and forth.
Master Purdock looked right in his element as he smugly ignored the immediate indignation, shouts, demands, and threats of the just arrived traders. The merchants started whispering to each other and wringing their hands. Two of them quickly rushed out, seemingly intent on confirming the news.
They too were soon back and looking rather worried. At that point, Master Trader Purdock swept out of his office, deposited several messages to go out, and invited the longest waiting merchant to his back office to have a private conversation with him. Aedar quickly grew to enjoy the front row seat he had at the life-sized puppet show being acted out in front of him. Every hour he got to spend in the outer office was more outlandish than the one before.
There was drama! And lots and lots of acting. Midmorning an employee of the bank showed up with two heavy chests carried by four strong guards. In the privacy of his mind, Aedar wondered if the chests were full of coins or gravel.
The next morning Aedar showed up bright and early as directed. Soon after the office opened several of the merchants showed up. Two appeared rather nervous, while another looked to be drunk. Around lunchtime, Aedar arrived back in time to see the president of the Northern Wind Shipping Company arrive and greet Master Purdock warmly. Tip them well too! Aedar headed out immediately, wondering if this was another setup for the poor merchants. The Golden Field Inn was one of the nicest inns in the financial district, and probably one of the Wooden Ship Building And The Interpretation Of Shipwrecks Mobile most expensive ones in the entire town.
With that, he opened the purse to see how much he had to work with. He was� unpleasantly surprised to find that the purse was filled with iron bricks, the lowest value coins available. He emptied the purse into his hat without finding even a hint of copper, much less any silver. When he arrived and explained the predicament, she just shook her head and muttered something about big talking blowhards under her breath.
She told him to try to flag down a few messengers he would trust with a few coins so they could send them shopping in different directions.
Aedar knew that if he ever did something as crass as stealing, Captain Jay would happily hunt him down personally. Aedar was happier than ever to see the messengers were both present and not away on a delivery. He explained what he needed them to do. A mere 15 minutes later he coordinated 6 other messengers in carrying 12 quickly prepared meals to the office. The fish stew came from the best stall on the docks, they had been amused to have 3 messengers show up asking for them to fill a pot with their stew.
The fresh bread came straight from the oven, fetched by another messenger using a blanket as a bag. They were quickly combined into bread bowl soup. Aedar had picked out an assortment of fruits from the Produce Market. The merchants and office staff were quite surprised to be served while they waited and worked respectively. Your requested meal is here. Aedar lowered his voice. Also, you owe me 16 bricks. It smells delicious!
A flurry of messages, real ones this time, went out. First to summon an insurance agent and witness from the bank, next to the castle to let them know a large business deal would be requesting a representative of the lord to act as a witness for a document signing shortly. After Purdock and the merchant returned from the castle full of smiles and handshakes, another flurry of messages went out to authorize various goods held in warehouses that could be claimed by the purchasers.
The remaining merchants seemed to lose some of their remaining backbone. A quick series of private meetings, one after the other, seemingly made more progress in 20 minutes than the prior day and a half. The bank representative was summoned again, and this time stuck around completing their section of one contract after the next as the scribes completed the documents for final review, then further trips to the castle, and then another flurry of messages.
Aedar wondered if the stevedores would be running their handcarts through the streets late into the night getting the ships loaded. As soon as the final merchant left, Purdock closed the outer door and ordered half the lamps to be extinguished. He threw off his fancy jacket slumped down, laying right on the floor. Aedar wondered if the show was finally over.
The deals were good. Actually, better than good. Lord Ragnar will be very happy. The Exchange will probably be even happier if this works out even half as well as I expect. I surely am very happy with this result. It seems like most of them operate by only buying or selling when something seems like a good deal. Then you do more of what worked best for specific customers, suppliers, and harbors! Sure he also brought even more raw wool, wine, iron nails, and pitch that between myself and the Exchange we happily bought, but there was so much wasted profit!
And cargo space! Profit and cargo space we could have used to sell him more of our exports! I admit I was surprised by this realization. That is when I started making real progress. They were happy to agree to practically the same terms I offered them the first morning which they vehemently refused initially. The new deal is we pay them a bit less for some specific goods, but the price is a minimum guaranteed ahead of time, and if they deliver enough goods from our Strategic Imports Priority A list in a six month period, mainly wool but it does include other things, we'll give them a bonus that is based on the volume of delivered goods.
But that is the point; for many goods like wool and wine and sugar and processed metal and a few others, Redbridge already profits hugely on them. We just need more. So the limiting factor is the number of ships and the network of suppliers they need to further develop in different ports along the Riverlands, the Westerlands, and the Reach. Perhaps in the future, some ships will be fetching specific goods from Dorne or the Stormlands or even Essos for us.
On our behalf, they will be driving up the price of these priority A goods. It is clearly in their best interest to pass along a bit more of the profits rather than just these shippers soaking up as much of the profit as they can. That will in turn open up the market to supply thread and broadcloth back to these same markets. At the same time, every farmer or lord who profits from wool will dedicate more of their resources to producing more wool.
And that will let us more easily import ever-larger amounts, which allows further labor specialization here in Redbridge. And further, as we get both more frequent ships and a higher percentage of cargo being wool or other essential imports to sell our exports to. And some of those merchants will have the confidence and the capital to either rent more cargo space on a different ship or contract an entire ship of goods. For these traders, their view of the world does fit in rather well with a mercantilist model, but writ small.
Their lack of proper accounting prevented many of them from conducting an honest analysis of the situation and turned what I expected to be a rational decision into a gut feeling decision. Well, the true test will be if this system will scale up with further merchants and if they will truly be incentivized to return more frequently.
Each of you should submit your hours and expenses for me to sign so you can be paid via your regular employers over the next few days. If there are any issues you can ask for me at the University.
He wrote down a respectable tip for each of the messengers who had assisted him with lunch. Usually, around here it is farmers getting farm machinery and horses, but in that case, the loan is backed by the value of the equipment and animals resulting in a lower interest rate, and in such situations the farmer never sees the coinage reducing the temptation of fraud.
The math was tricky, but rounding made it easier to be approximate. He added a new line item of 4 iron bricks of interest. High interest for a risky loan sounded about right for the situation. He passed the sheet over to Purdock and tried to keep a straight face as Purdock squinted at the line items and total, then at Aedar.
Purdock shook his head and grumbled something about cornering the market, before signing and returning the sheet with one last glance at Aedar. The thread and cloth were wool, of course.
He liked the thought that perhaps some of the wool his mother or siblings were wearing was from one of the trades he had helped with, at least in a small way. Aedar had moved on from getting trained to occasionally helping Captain Jay teach new messengers, at least with some of the lessons. He thought he was rather good at giving tips at spotting suspicious characters, as well as keeping track of them without being spotted out.
He was certainly appreciative of the bonus he got for his tipoff leading to the bust of an innkeeper running a small, unlicensed brothel as a side business.
He was pretty sure his bonus was based on a few percent of the fines collected. As he was collecting his pay at the end of his latest shift, Captain Jay asked him to stick around. He was immediately excited, often these private conversations lead to interesting, special duties. There is an opportunity for you to consider. He was keeping an eye on his growing savings and hoped he would have enough for an apprenticeship either before or to start during the next winter.
From some of the friends he had made, he knew for many of the apprentices wintertime involved less grunt work and more direct lessons, although there were some exceptions. I would like you to go through some basic training as a trainee Postman with the Postal Service. There was recently a kerfuffle with both of the long-distance postmen working the Osend to Stonefisk route, as well as one of the three postmen working the Osend to Silverhold route.
This particular postman has worked both of those routes recently, and we know he has had contact with some of the indicted people. Do you have any questions? He would get to try a job with no risk of losing his current one. From here to Silverhold. The route follows the river up into the mountains then back down again, it is a road the entire way. That seemed fine. Or would everything be provided? By the way, how long would the journey to Silverhold be? And back, I presume. Here he was thinking it would only be a week total.
Well, it would give him plenty of time and exposure to the work of a postman to see if he wanted to continue with the job. He was learning things, but learning how to pack a wagon securely, or how to properly wrap a package and to calculate the proper postage rates was quite dull. There were numerous other services provided by the traveling postmen, some he was introduced to others were left to on the road training.
On the other hand, he got to learn how to ride a horse, although he was told most of the route would be riding a wagon, horse riding was still helpful if the wagon broke down or he had an injury that required him to hurry for help. Somewhat more interesting was evening tutoring with his old acquaintance Accountant Durburry, who taught him a few auditors tricks for finding fraud.
He learned to count up the leading digit of every number on a page, and compare the frequency of 1s, to 2s, to 3s, etc. Somehow, the number of 1s should be more than the number of 2s, more than the number of 3s, etc. If numbers were being faked or manipulated, this would often lead to a distribution of numbers not following this pattern. Durburry also showed how some numbers like 1s could be turned into a 7, and a 9 or 0 could be turned into an 8, but not vice versa.
This was especially a problem with signed contracts or receipts. He also had three thin sheets of a special stone that were nearly perfectly transparent. Each was dyed a different color, one being red, another green, and the third blue. When a suspect document was placed in the direct sun, and a colored sheet of stone held above it, the resulting colored light could reveal tampering such as rubbing out sections and replacing them with a different ink.
Captain Jay joined him for most of these lessons as they were held in his office, and he later cautioned Aedar to look for simpler forms of employee fraud such as theft, accepting kickbacks, intentionally misweighing or mischarging customers, rather than the more advanced forms Durburry focused on. They met with the director and Aedar soon was getting a lot more orders regarding his mission. The position of Postman is highly sensitive and can have nearly as big of an impact as a corrupt taxman.
They realized our security was lax for the lower value postage items. Additionally, it seems at least some of the employees were accepting bribes or gifts in exchange for reducing the price of services, and not recording these payments.
Defrauding the postal service. Now, do you have any questions? The postman is now in town and knows he has a fresh trainee for his next run. The man was gruff and quiet. Both days had gone by with barely a handful of words being spoken, and most of those were directions for how to do his job.
It was quite a different experience from his normal day working as a messenger, where he would regularly converse with dozens of friends and acquaintances, especially while on duty. The other day was camping on the side of the road. Every mile or two there would be a clearing on the side of the road set up for travelers. Most had both a small line of firewood with a few boards to keep it dry, a simple toilet, and a trail to a water source which was usually a creek.
It was pretty common for the camps to have a highline and water trough for tying up the horses at night. Each evening before they reached their camp, Jolf would send Aedar into the woods to gather some dried wood for their fire. Some of the villages they stopped at or passed through would have an inn with rooms to rent, but so far they had not indulged.
Jolf was a fairly large man and was even more noticeable due to him missing his left arm below the elbow. Each stop was brief, usually only lasting minutes unless it was close to evening in which case they might spend the night. Their wagon was quite ridiculous looking. First of all, it was a large 4 wheeled wagon. However, what was behind the wagon was what made it stand out. No less than three farming machines of various types, partially disassembled, were towed behind them.
One piece of large machinery was towed immediately behind them, while the other two smaller machines were attached to a small cart by a second horse team that was tied by a long lead to the back of the wagon. Every time Aedar looked at the rig he had to shake his head. Aedar could see indications they were getting close to their next stop. There were pastures and even a few fields visible through trees, and while the road was still in good shape he could see signs of heavier usage.
It was a sure sign that rather than a farmstead or three, they were approaching a larger village. Sure enough, a few minutes later the trees grew sparse enough that across numerous fields houses were visible, most of them tightly clustered together.
Soon Jolf was turning off the main road and leaving a signpost indicating they were at Sweetbrook, while another sign indicated Redbridge was 73 kilometers away. As Jolf drove the postal wagon into the center of the village, Aedar estimated there might be as many as 20 houses, making this one of the larger villages they had seen so far. Numerous children were around, and as they spotted the wagon some went running inside houses, presumably to let their parents know that a visitor was in town.
The wagon was soon stopped along the village green, next to the entrance of a large barn. Aedar hurried to do so, although he was rather surprised. It was only midmorning, and every one of their prior stops in villages large and small had only been a few minutes before departing again. He took the horses two at a time to the stable and was glad a boy emerged to help him. They had a total of four horses pulling the wagon, two more pulling an extra towing cart, and another two horses following on leads.
He returned to where the wagon had been left next to the barn. It seemed like half the village was already present. Jolf had acquired a small desk and table from somewhere and was writing something on the inside of the now open barn doors while a line of villages waited in line in front of his table. On the outside of the barn, was a large board with about 25 trade goods listed. Each trade good had a name, a quantity, and two prices but those were hung on wood blocks that could be removed and updated.
The very first row was Wheat, 4 stone sack, 4. Aedar took that to mean the farmer could haul their wheat to the Exchange and get 4. He wondered if their already rather heavy wagon was going to be even more loaded down by the time they left.
Jolf was able to quickly update 4 of the prices before he ordered Aedar to bring him the sack of mail from the wagon.
Jolf opened it, pulling out numerous smaller sacks. Each was tied closed and had a label written on a paper tag.
Jolf found the one sack he was looking for and opened it. He pulled out about 10 envelopes and another 6 small packages. Three more slips of paper came out of the sack and were handed to Aedar. Aedar looked at the first slip of paper. Tythis Ulen Desc: Medium size. Aedar climbed into the back of the wagon and started looking at the various packages.
He looked at the next slip of paper. After a few more minutes of looking through the stacked packages and he found his target. Aedar looked at the third slip of paper. He took the two packages and the slips back to Jolf who seemed to be transcribing a letter on behalf of a farmer. As the farmer paid then stepped back, Jolf looked over the packages. Should I fetch it? Some were addressed to family names, others specific individuals. Some came forward immediately and got their envelope or package and departed, others did not seem to be present.
Jolf arranged for villagers to let their missing neighbors know that something had arrived and was waiting for pickup and would be available until early the next day. Many of the kids in the crowd seemed unduly fascinated with Aedar and he tried to ignore the staring and whispers. Jolf passed Aedar a few sheets of paper. It was a familiar format. He recognized some of the messages, word for word. Sit up on the wagon seat and call them out in a loud voice.
Pause between each message. No experience necessary! Land may be requested near existing villages. There were many more announcements than he normally had on any given day as a messenger.
Businesses offering farming machines and parts, trade goods and tools available by mail order, even how to hire a crew of lumberjacks to clear land via letter. Public service announcements regarding health and safety, services offered including the Exchange, banking, and crop insurance, announcements about winter school, and how a town could request a teacher before winter started.
The last page was different still. It seemed to be entirely news. The harbor at Redbridge was the busiest port not just in the Ragnar lands but also the busiest Northern port on the Sunset Sea, with 7 out of 10 of all sailings departing from its harbor!
While there were more announcements than he normally made at any one time, the thing that struck Aedar the most was the reaction of the villagers.
When he read announcements in Redbridge, even a new message would barely get any reaction from most listeners. Here, however, the crowd grew quiet and focused on him. When he glanced up when switching to the next page, he could see that the crowd had grown even larger.
When he finished all of the announcements, he had the rather strange experience of being thanked by children and adults, something that had certainly never happened no matter where he had been stationed in Redbridge.
A few were sending letters, sometimes needing to buy supplies or get assistance, other times just buying stamps. Many more stamps sold than letters were mailed. Jolf assisted one in writing out a legal complaint. A few needed to send packages, which involved measuring, weighing, and looking up the cost based on the destination on a small reference sheet.
One of the village women was asking for a magazine and Jolf volunteered Aedar to assist. He quickly found himself sitting in the wagon seat surrounded by several villagers as he read the tiny print of the mail order magazines in response to various requests. The larger magazines were ordered by type of goods but had so many offerings. Other categories were even broader. Supplies like barrels, buckets, blankets, rope, needles, thread, resealable ceramic jars, knives, bows, arrows, arrowheads, feathers for bedding, skis, and snowshoes, and every type of clothing imaginable.
Toys including balls, ice skates, cards, dolls, toy carts, and board games. Food from flour to salted fish to hardtack. If you wanted to go big, you could get a sink and pipes would you prefer the copper or wood piping? Several magazines had overlapping stock. Some were narrower in focus, like one on livestock but offered accessories like horse tack, carts, wagons, cattle brands, or designs for chicken and duck sheds. Prices, products, and minimum quantities varied.
Some required full payment by mail, others had different terms, and a few large items offered financing with approval from the Royal Bank of the North. Many mentioned accepting transfer checks from the bank, others mentioned accepting stamps or postal checks. Money or a different payment method could be included in the envelope. Several villagers and most of the listening children started wandering off, but a few started asking him more questions.
How much was the 6 pack of needles from one supplier, versus the 10 pack from the other? Was there a picture in the magazine of the maple tree tapping equipment? Did the Belethor's General Goods accept Exchange transfers or only direct payments?
Did any of the magazines guarantee the price of flour if paid on arrival? A whole new round of squinting at details written in small letters followed. Villagers still came by on occasion, although as the afternoon wore on less mail was being sent, and more other services being requested.
Jolf had a very secure, very heavy small chest that contained all of the coins, stamps, checks, record books, and material needed to witness or verify something, as well as record every transaction. It was heavy enough that Aedar had to be the one to unload and haul it as apparently doing so with his one hand was rather tricky. Each cart or wagon would pull up to the barn doors, and start unloading. Most goods including grains various kinds of wheat and barley , peas, beans, corn, beets, carrots, turnips, flax, wool were all measured and transacted in sacks measuring 4 stone.
Animal feeds including clover plus the stalks and leaves of some other crops were sold by volume, and various local spices and specialty products like fruits, garlic, mustard, mushrooms, ginseng, and chives were sold in smaller measures of weight in either small sacks or small barrels.
It was rather apparent that the Exchange had come to them, at least on this one day, in the form of Jolf, his records, and his scale. Each sack or occasional barrel of goods examined, approved, and sealed shut. The sack strings were knotted, a thin strip of paper with a number repeated several times wrapped around, a drop of wax was poured into one seal and a second seal applied, one on each side trapping the numbered paper and string inside.
The now measured, recorded, and sealed containers were placed inside the barn to be sorted. After each deal was finalized, the farmer was given the same number of empty sacks and empty barrels from the barn to take home, presumably for the next harvest. Between wagons, Aedar was taught that Jolf was filling out two books. Seeing no other wagons approaching, he decided to ask. This is the JM booklet, so each number starts with JM. Then it is a five-digit number, counting up each time.
Aedar was surprised, the man had been so taciturn so far. No villagers were nearby. No signs of animals breaking in, or goods spilling out or anything. He arrived back next to Jolf. The afternoon sun beat down on them.
They threw out a big sheet, I think it was one of those sails you see on the boats. They dumped out one sack of grain at a time. I know a Postman who got fired because he kept delivering wet goods. Some goods that don't matter, but grain or vegetables? Good way to ruin it right quick. I think they used the numbers to figure out what cart the bad goods kept traveling in and used it against him. Still, he fucked up.
There is a lesson for you, take time to do things right. These folks buy stamps not just for mailing but to pay each other or buy goods from Redbridge by mail. Slows me down to be sure. Easier to mail an envelope full of stamps. Probably less likely for it Wooden Ship Building And The Interpretation Of Shipwrecks With to go missing too, versus an envelope full of copper or silver. Of course, that is what the postal checks are for.
They give me the goods or money and I can write out a check for them. Those are safer too. There is a small fee for a check, so it seems like most would rather go with the stamps. Of course more than half of the goods today were either for bank payments or taxes for Lord Ragnar. A few of these goods were presold. There are a couple of terms for it. Future Contract. Put Option. Then when the crop is grown he delivers it fulfilling his end of the contract, then gets paid out the remainder of the deposit.
Only farmers with a solid history of operating with the bank can do it, but it lets a farmer raise money. The smart ones use that money to expand a field or hire help or maybe buy a farming machine they can rent to others. The not so smart ones might just be trying to get out of a hole, and end up digging it deeper. Why not just use coins? Their farm goods are worth good coin, and Redbridge traders or visiting ships or the Exchange are happy to buy, but you need to wait for a trader to come around or to get the goods to Redbridge yourself.
There just aren't enough coins to go around. And to be fair there are more coins around in the villages closer to there. But out here, several days by wagon from Redbridge? Not enough merchants I suppose. They bring goods, they buy goods. So most of the trade is goods for goods.
At least not chests and chests of coppers. Why would they, when a small sack of gold or a small chest of silver will buy more than six large chests of copper coins?
I know there are a lot of smiths around. Do you know what Silver mines make? Silver bars. Silver coins. You carefully weigh them with my scale, and you see they weigh the same amount.
You following? So they weigh the same, and the metal is the same. Which one is worth more, the silver bar or the silver coins? I had a long, interesting discussion with a man from the University about it too, once. Turns out, the coins are worth more. Coins are referred to as liquid value or liquidity , or how easy they are to spend.
A coin is more liquid than a bar of silver, but both are more liquid than say a sack of spice or a horse. Almost anyone will accept your coin, but not everyone will value something like a horse. Think about a coin, and how much work goes into it. And worse, taxes. The King takes his tax on every coin made.
So how does a mint make money? Well to start with, my premise was a bit misleading. It means each coin is worth more than the metal in it. Imagine if you took any coin, and put it in a bowl, and melted it down over a fire. Now say you took that little blob of metal to the mint and asked for them to turn it back into one coin.
They could do that, right? All the metal is there, after all. If every coin was worth what is in the metal, what would every lord, merchant, and king do when they got some foreign gold coins? Foreign coins are worth something, after all, but everyone around here would rather have good Gold Dragons. If these coins could be melted down and turned into Gold Dragons, at least without too much cost, they surely would do so.
If you want dragons, it is better to go to a money changer, even if you lose a bit on the trade, it is still cheaper than going to the mint. A man walked up and asked about the delivery of his new horse. Jolf checked his name, had him sign a paper, and they all headed to the barn. The man carefully inspected the horse before declaring himself satisfied and heading off with his new work animal. They settled back down again. A bad situation, but it happens. Say a king is greedy. Or in a war.
What could he possibly do? Well, every Master of Coin or mint owner knows full well that there is an easy way to get more money, and for free at that. This sounded like the start of a joke or a trick. It works. And such a change works. Where before you could make coins from a quantity of pure gold or silver or copper, now you can make coins from the same amount.
Or something like that. Math was never my strong suit. But the mint has just created more money out of the same amount of precious metal than it had to use before.
The king is happy, he has a bit more in mint tax. The mint owner is happy, he just made a bigger profit on the same materials. It isn't even hard to do. A good mint owner is always watching the purity of his coins anyway, after all, that is one way for his employees to steal from him.
The war is won, the famine is over, whatnot. Everything goes back to normal.
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