Mark of the Fool

“Sixty-five thousand would be a very fair price, I would say.” Govert’s eyes narrowed as Troy tottered back into the room, bearing two hot cups of cider.

He carefully placed them on the table away from the contract.

“Your drinks, sirs,” the assistant said stiffly before returning to his spot behind the counter. There he stayed. There he watched.

“If you look at the location and the fact that you’d already have regular clients eager to frequent the business on a daily basis,” Govert said. “You’ll see this is a real steal. You’ll make your upfront costs back in less than a year, I can guarantee that. The place needs some love and care for sure, but if you’re a crafter at Shale’s, then you should be up to the challenge. A fine project that you can turn into a place of your own!”

“Hmmmm,” Alex glanced around. “A place to make my own…” he murmured, as though amazed by the possibilities.

He could almost feel the glee radiating off Govert.

Which instantly melted when Alex uttered the following words and dropped the naive smile like a hot rock.

“Sixty-five thousand?” His eyebrow rose. “Govert, you must think I’m a real fool, don’t you?”

“Erm…” the business owner stuttered, caught off guard by Alex’s shift in tone. “I don’t follow.”

“The average price of a townhome in this district is sixty thousand,” the young, Thaemish wizard said. “And that’s for homes that are move in ready. Trust me, I’ve done my homework. And this…this is not move in ready. There’s the sea of trash upstairs, for example, which I’m fairly sure you’ll promise to remove…right up until you receive your chests of gold and then you’ll be gone so fast that even Chancellor Baelin couldn’t catch you.”

“Um, I’m not sure I like what you’re implying,” Govert frowned, his cheeks growing pink. Behind him, Troy stifled a giggle.

“I am no thief.”

“Not technically,” Alex agreed. “But you did just try to sell me a rotten egg while claiming it was fresh.”

“I don’t think—”

“This place is infested with vermin, as you well know. There’s probably more cockroaches living here than there are fish in the Prinean. And of course, I heard squeaking coming from downstairs that sounded like dire rats to me.”

Govert turned pale. “I don’t think—”

“Now just a minute, I’m not done,” Alex continued. “There’s removing the trash up and downstairs, then the costs of rehabilitating the reputation of this place….to be honest, I could see any number of buyers running as soon as the first roach appeared. Don’t you think sixty-five thousand’s a bit much?”

“Now see here,” the older man frowned. “I don’t see why I should let you—someone who doesn’t even have the full price—come in here and dictate to me what I should or should not sell my building for. I think I’m going to ask you to leave.”

He began to rise from the table, pushing his chair away.

“Oh, sit down, will you?” Alex said calmly, waving Govert back down. “We’re bargaining here.”

“We are not. You’re insulting me. Now get out of my shop before I call the guards!” The business owner demanded.

“I could leave,” Alex shrugged. “And I could also stop by the baker’s guild on my way home and maybe drop a word or two about certain…things they should be looking at in your building.”

Govert paused.

“I don’t know about Generasi,” Alex continued. “But any food business back in my hometown…with such clear violations of guild policy, I’d suspect the fines you’d receive would be very, very hefty. Not to mention being forced to shut down. The place could be condemned. Hells, you might be arrested.”

Govert’s lip twitched. “I’m…I’m in good standing with the guild.”

“Are you?” Alex cocked his head. “Maybe. Maybe not. I reckon in a big city like this—for a shop as old as this one—that as long as you keep paying your dues, they probably wouldn’t come in to check on you, now would they? Maybe if they received complaints, but they obviously didn’t. Layfolk don’t often think to complain to guilds, do they? My old boss said some choice things to some of us and wasn’t well liked back in my home town, but no guild official ever came in to check on him.”

He leaned forward. “But I wonder what would happen if I were to just, oh I don’t know, lead them back here?”

Govert had gone pale. “You—why…what—”

Troy was doubled over the counter, shaking with silent laughter. Claygon had turned around, watching the exchange closely.

“You’re not too bright, are you?” Alex asked.

“What? How dare you—” Govert growled.

“Sit down,” the young, Thameish wizard snapped, channelling Baelin and Khalik’s authoritative voices into a commanding tone. “I’m about to do you a bloody favour, the least you could do is have a seat and not bellow at me.”

The businessman watched him closely, grumbling as he sank back into the chair. “You’re not going to bully me out of my own business.”

“I don’t see how you have a way out of it,” Alex said calmly. “I’m sure you thought yourself clever. Your business will be soon going on the market…next week, I’m guessing? Or maybe a couple of weeks from now?” He made sure that it seemed like a guess, not wanting to reveal Troy’s hand in any of this. Not yet, at least. “I can see the plan you had cooking: you’d come in, hire a bunch of labourers to clean the place up then sell it to some poor unsuspecting fool.”

Govert swallowed, but didn’t answer.

Alex continued. “But, I saw it first. All of it. All before you had the chance to have the filth removed, and so…here we find ourselves.”

“Troy!” Govert snapped. “Why did you show him around?”

“Don’t blame him: you wanted a buyer, and he was just doing his job,” Alex shrugged, much like Hart would have. “And you still have a buyer, my friend. Just not one who’s going to get ripped off by you.”

“What?” The businessman murmured.

“It’s simple, I want your place,” Alex said. “I want to buy it outright, and if we settle this by say…tomorrow, I see no reason to get the guild involved. You wouldn’t have to pay for any trash removal—I’d have all of that done myself—and then you could be on your merry way and this would aaaaall be behind you.”

Govert snarled. “How…much?”

“Oh, for this place? Why don’t we say ten thousand?”

“Ten thousand?” The man sputtered. Even Troy gasped from behind the counter. “Ten thou—Now you’re robbing me! You wouldn’t be able to buy a cheap flat for that price! Not in this district!”

“I think it’s a good price,” Alex said. “After all, I can’t move in. I can’t use it as a business until I join the guild of bakers, which means taking on the massive task of cleaning up and removing any disease spreading agents first…really, you’re actually more selling me piles of filth and disease vectors than any home.”

“Ten thousand…that’ll ruin me!” Govert insisted.

“Will it?” Alex wondered. “Personally, I think it’s more than fair to you: you inherited this place, after all. Got it for free and then tarnished your father’s life's work. I don’t see you having put much—if any—coin in here, so ten thousand would be almost pure profit for you, wouldn’t it? It’s a good deal.”

“This building’s worth at least sixty thousand!” The older man hissed.

“In good condition, yes,” Alex said. “And…once you cleaned it up, you’d probably be able to get a number of offers on it. Maybe you’d manage to get fifty thousand for it.”

“Fifty thousand!” Govert’s eyes lit up. “That’s a more reasonable number—”

“Reasonable numbers belong to reasonable homes, my friend,” Alex said. “Not this. Reason left this place a long, long time ago, so ten thousand suits it well.”

Govert sputtered like a pot about to boil over. “You’re robbing me!”

“You already said that,” Alex pointed out, “And I’m not robbing you, I’m doing you a favour. Think of it this way: what would happen if you had buyers come in and say…take a long look around, they’d likely come to a similar conclusion as I did. One guild report later, and you’d be fined and jailed. I’m just giving you a way out…”

“My father would spin in his grave if he knew you were trying to swindle me like this!” Govert snapped.

“He probably already is, I’d reckon seeing as how you let his life’s work go to seed…but that’s none of my business, really. Ten thousand, and you can walk away. This’ll never haunt you again.” Alex softened his tone, slowly sliding the contract toward the businessman. “Think of it this way: you get ten thousand gold tomorrow and never have to worry again. You can use it to invest in some merchant venture, or you can use it to buy a small property, or a larger one elsewhere in a cheaper district. And! You won’t have to bother hiring labourers to do any clean up. Come on, be reasonable! This is more than fair.”

Govert twitched. “Ten…ten thousand’s too low. Much too low!”

“Name a price, then,” Alex said simply.

“F-forty thousand,” the businessman countered.

“No.”

“Th-thirty-five?”

Alex looked at Troy. “How long of a walk is it to the baker’s guild?”

“Alright! Alright!” Govert snapped. “T-twenty thousand. That’s less than a third of my original asking price.”

“Hmmmm,” Alex did a few swift calculations in his head. At his current rate of pay at Shale’s he’d pay that sum off in a few years. Less if he threw some of his savings into it.

Of course, if his plan worked out, he’d have the whole thing paid off in little over a couple of months.

“Twenty thousand seems fair,” Alex said, sliding the contract over to Govert. He snapped his fingers and a Wizard’s Hand swooped in, floating at eye level with the businessman. “Shall we sign?”

Govert’s jaw trembled. “What about twenty-five—”

“How about the guild?”

“Damn you!” He snapped, snatching the pen from the spell’s grip and hastily scrawling both the price and his name. “You’re a damned devil, you are, and I hope this place ruins you!”

“A devil would’ve gotten a lot more out of you than this, trust me,” Alex said as another Wizard’s Hand snatched the contract and brought it to him. “In a way, this is a mercy. Just look at it that way: it’ll make you feel better.”

He grinned as Govert uttered some vile curse words. “You’d better hope that this boss of yours gives me the coin tomorrow or I swear I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Alex asked lightly, rising from his chair. “Just to warn you, my golem doesn’t take too kindly to threats on my person. I don’t know if you want to go all ‘criminal’ on me, but unless you’re hiring a dragon to come break my legs, I don’t think you want to go down that road.”

“Agh!” The businessman sputtered, storming out of the building as Alex’s radiant smile followed him out the door.

“Well, that went better than I thought it would.” He said, listening as cursing faded down the road as he turned to Troy and Claygon, one of them was openly gaping. “Troy! My friend, you need a job?”

“Eh, oh uh…” the baker stammered. “What? What just happened?”

“I just bought this business.” Alex smiled. “Which means that I need at least one staff member. How much did that goon pay you?”

“Oh er…six silvers a shift,” Troy said reluctantly.

“Let’s start you off at eight, then, and go up from there.”

“What?” Eight—this isn’t a joke, is it?” The baker’s assistant’s eyes were wide. “Maybe I did eat some bad mushrooms.”

“No, my friend, no bad mushrooms.” Alex reached into his pocket, drawing out eight silver coins and walking over to press them into a stunned Troy’s hand. “As a matter of fact, I want every ‘bad mushroom’ gone from here. Close up the shop and get rid of all of those rotten ingredients.”

“I…” Troy looked to be on the verge of tears, staring down at the coins. “Are…are you going to reopen this place? Make it good again?”

“Absolutely, once it’s been purged of Govert’s neglect.” Alex said. “And I’ll need someone with experience to help bring it back from the brink. Would you be with me on that?”

“Hells yes!” Troy cried. “I’ll start throwing out all the old crap right now!”

With a laugh, the baker’s assistant hung up the closed sign in the front window and rushed to the back, humming happily while he emptied the larder of all signs of rotten food.

Alex smiled broadly. “Not bad for a day’s work.”

‘Father…’ Claygon asked. ‘I…didn’t attack that man. Is that…good?’

“Yes it is, Claygon,” the young wizard said. “And I’m proud of you. You’re learning! Speaking of which, we should have that conversation now. There’s a lot I need to teach you, but we’ll start with the basics.”

‘Can…we do that near the aeld tree?’ Claygon asked. ‘...I miss it.’

“Awww, of course, Claygon, of course,” Alex said. “Classes are done! We can nip back to Thameland for our talk. Hells, maybe we could dance while we’re there. I’d like to see how much of our lessons you remember.”