Of course, if they were less than diligent in their pursuit of finding heirs, it would also be a quick way to pad their own accounts. Too much of that, though, would hurt their reputation. A bank was only as good as its reputation. So the appearance of punctilious virtue had to be of the utmost import. Of course, generations of the Onestos now long dead had built that reputation to such a height, it was quite possible Turgal and his compeers felt they could coast on it to enrich themselves.

And if they thought that, they probably thought right. Their children and grandchildren would pay for it, of course, but Karris wouldn’t be there to feel vindicated.

“Before you came here,” Karris said, “you looked up all of my husband’s accounts to see what I would be talking to you about. Did you bring them?”

He blinked. “I can’t comment on the existence or status—”

“Which is a yes. And you brought them. You wrote them down.” It would, the White had guessed, be quite a few different numbers, and Turgal Onesto didn’t have his ancestors’ head for numbers. The White said writing down the account numbers would be a direct violation of family policy. They believed in memorizing everything. What was in your head couldn’t be stolen, at least not without your knowledge of the theft.

Karris was surprised that the White would know so much about a mere merchant family, but the White believed in knowing as much as possible about those who had any kind of power. In a hundred years, she said, the Onestos would probably be more respected and more titled than most of the remaining eighty-seven and a half out of a hundred noble houses in the Seven Satrapies.

It had been a joke, and Karris hadn’t caught the punch line. Twelve and a half percent was the typical rate of interest the Onestos charged. Twelve and a half, out of a hundred left … Ah. Then she got it. Here she’d been wondering if there really were exactly one hundred noble families in the satrapies. Even the jokes told Karris how much she had to learn.

He reached for the slender scroll case he kept slung across his back.

But in addition to being given a network of eyes and ears, the White had also been directing Karris to some fingers as well. Some of which were very light.

Turgal Onesto reached in the scroll case and found nothing. He upended it. Nothing. Empty. His face lost all color, then went green.

“Tell me you at least wrote it in code. Your family must have a dozen ciphers.”

“Of course. Of course. Setback, not a disaster. It’s right…” He reached into the satchel he’d brought. Groped. Blanched once more.

“You brought the key to the cipher along with the message?” Karris rubbed her forehead. “You’re not making some very poor jest, are you?”

Turgal’s wide eyes told the tale.

“Your grandfather is going to be so very displeased.”

“Most people don’t even know it’s a cipher!” Turgal said. “It’s just a piece of wood, a cone. If you don’t have exactly the same…” He trailed off. “You! You did it.”

“Turgal, listen to me.”

The veins on his neck were standing out. A temper, huh? Well, let him try something, please. She’d see just how much freedom of movement she had in this thobe after all. And for however embarrassing a man might find it to have his bung packed by an Archer, how much more embarrassing would it be to be humiliated by a woman in a thobe?

But then again, the Blackguard clothes were an armor that kept Karris out of fights. Bullies didn’t want to fight and lose. New garb, new rules.

She realized then that his lack of cooperation in the first place might have something to do with her choice of Parian garb. The Onestos were originally Ilytian, and there had long been strife between them and Paria. Especially among the rich, who felt unfairly taxed when they used Parian overland routes for trade during the winters.

Many nobles who were raised on Big Jasper prided themselves on putting those petty struggles in the past, but Turgal hadn’t been raised here. He looked like another young rich urban fop, but he had the biases of his elders.

Karris suddenly wondered if Marissia had dressed her like this on purpose. But Karris hadn’t said anything about meeting with an Ilytian, had she? Had she let something slip, and this was Marissia sabotaging her, or had she not said anything and Marissia would have helped her avoid it if she had?

“Turgal, I could have played this a dozen different ways. I could have delayed our meeting and showed up in front of your father with all the correct numbers. I could now expose you and destroy you. Instead, this.” Karris fished the cone out of her bag, along with paper. She handed both back, and pulled out a third paper, with the cipher correctly translated and put on flat paper. All done in the time that he’d taken to walk to this meeting. “I don’t wish to destroy you,” Karris said. “But I will have your respect.”

The spine went right out of him. “You have it. Please, I’m on my last leg with my grandfather. He’ll disown me. If he does that, I can’t be any use to you, right? Right?”

“I have no intention of destroying you, Turgal. I want you to take all these monies and transfer them to a new account—just in case someone else also has these numbers. This will happen today.”

“I can do that,” he said.

“High Luxlord Andross Guile might come after this money.”

“My grandfather always deals with him personally. But if the monies are in a new account, even Andross Guile won’t get them out.”

Smart of the grandfather, then. Turgal wouldn’t last two minutes with the old man. “Good,” Karris said. “Now, as a gesture of goodwill: your old rivals, the Adini family, have been planning to move their main Abornean warehouses from the Darks to Eastland. They need more storage and the harbor there is better. They’ve found exactly the area they need, and have been quietly buying up the deeds. There are a few holdouts, whom they’ve begun harassing. If your family wishes, you can buy these properties simply by telling the owners, ‘The sun shines on the obedient.’ The White expects that you will still allow each of them a fair profit, because they will sell to you. You, in turn, can sell those properties at a huge profit to the Adini—or if you so desire, deny the sale in order to hurt them. Tell your grandfather that he must protect the families who sell to him from Adini retribution and that he ought to send his fastest ship, whatever he decides. This matter is three weeks old already.”

Turgal’s eyes lit up. “If this is true, this will make me look indispensable to my grandfather. This is…”

“Very gracious of us. You’re in business with us, Turgal Onesto, and you will find us good partners. It is in our interest that you rise, but only so long as we help each other.”

“Yes,” he said. “That makes complete sense.”

“Please understand me, Turgal. Some interpret kindness like this as a lack of will. If there is one thing that we at the Chromeria have in abundance, it is will. If you cross us … but that need never happen. We won’t ask of you more than you can bear to give. Do you understand?”

He did. She saw in his eyes that he had gone from scared to saved to vassal, in the space of minutes. Karris only wished that she had been able to do any of this on her own. Instead, every pressure point and bribe had been the White’s suggestion.