Back when Temeria's legendary King Dezmod was still a child throwing a fit because his bread didn't have enough jam, "dwarves" were already the backbone of the banking industry.
And from that point on, several major dwarven banking families—the Giancardis, the Vivaldis, and the Cianfanellis—kept expanding their services, opening branches one after another in the North's largest cities.
This morning, the banker Golan Vivaldi of Vizima first noticed his right eyelid wouldn't stop twitching. Then one of the fish he kept floated belly-up. Finally, the strap on his slipper snapped. In dwarven tradition, all three were bad omens.
He considered countless possibilities. He even tugged out several carefully groomed beard hairs by accident. He worried that his wife back in Mahakam might have been charmed away by some human or elf. He fretted that the cargo ship loaded with dyes bound for Novigrad might have run into trouble.
Then a young human who looked like a hired sword—an herb satchel slung diagonally across his back—knocked on his front door and handed him a letter pulled from inside his clothing.
And in that instant, every omen finally made sense.
Leaving the visitor alone in his lavish sitting room, the banker hurried into a hidden chamber and tore open the envelope with slightly trembling hands. Sure enough, the first thing he saw was Yaevinn's distinctive elven script—sharp, elegant strokes that looked like they'd been carved rather than written.
"Good day, my dear Mr. Vivaldi. Allow me to humbly inform you that our shared enterprise once again requires your help…"
After reading it in a rush, Golan held the letter over a candle and burned it to ash. The chair that was usually soft felt hard enough today to make his back ache. He sat thinking for a long time before finally picking up his pen and beginning his reply in Common Speech.
In the sitting room, the young man, of course, didn't just sit there like a statue. He got up and wandered around. A wealthy banker living in the Trade Quarter really did have the right kind of home—pure silver candlesticks, a silk tablecloth, and a thick leopard-skin rug laid out before the hearth.
The murals on the wall were interesting too. One was titled First Landing, showing humans arriving on this continent by ship for the first time. Another was The Battle of the Three Hammers, depicting a particular civil war among the dwarves of Mahakam. And then there was Pastoral Idyll, a peaceful scene of farmland and harvest.
But Victor's attention was caught and held by the next oil painting, titled Glory of Kings. It depicted the moment Raffard the White refused a crown.
Raffard had been a legendary mage and alchemist. With wisdom and power, he mediated the long-standing discord between the Northern kings and ended the Six Years' War.
Yet when the people demanded that this mage be crowned King of Temeria, Raffard refused. The story was later sung as a noble and lofty tale—one so cherished that even now, common folk still praised his selflessness in street ballads.
Victor stared at the exquisite painting, imagining the deeds of that alchemist who came before, and remained there for a long while—until a voice spoke from behind him.
"A noble act worth praising, isn't it?" said Golan Vivaldi.
"Do you really think so?" Victor turned calmly. "Maybe. But no matter how you dress it up, he still accepted the post of royal adviser—and became the de facto ruler of Temeria anyway, because the king at the time was an imbecile."
And that whole chain of choices became a model for later spellcasters. One after another, they tried to take the role of "adviser" and steer "imbecile" kings through alliances and rivalries. That was how the tradition of mages meddling in governance took root.
Golan chuckled. "Sounds like you don't quite approve of his way of doing things. I thought every human admired him."
"Approve or not doesn't matter," the young man said, cutting the topic off with cool indifference. "I'm just delivering a letter."
What kind of letter he'd delivered, and roughly what it contained, Victor didn't need to peek to know.
The Scoia'tael outside the city, loudly proclaiming themselves righteous avengers, and a powerful banker inside the city—another nonhuman—weren't exchanging letters about "the family cat had kittens again" or "my houseplant bloomed twice." It wouldn't be good news.
And Yaevinn and Golan didn't look related either. The height difference was absurd, and they weren't even the same kind of nonhuman.
In any case, none of that had anything to do with him. Victor had placed himself firmly in the role of courier—running a few letters back and forth in exchange for the Scoia'tael's unspoken agreement not to attack him, letting him pass through the woods without trouble.
He took Golan's reply and tucked it into his herb satchel. Then, from the sitting room's heavily decorated display shelf, he pulled down two books: The Rudiments of Pathomorphology and Forensic Medicine—an extra gain from looking around. Both were early, foundational works on anatomy, and both were written by Milo Vanderbeck.
"Mind lending me these two?" he said, not sounding like the idea of refusal had even occurred to him. "I'll bring them back the next time I come to deliver a letter."
In truth, Vivaldi didn't refuse. He merely adjusted the method by which the books would leave his home: he sold them to the young man for the price of a full bag of orens.
A banker through and through.
…
A wolf-school apprentice with a spotless reputation and a complete lineage; or a cat-school apprentice with a filthy reputation whose mentor is dead. I, Victor, choose to play the second one—because the second one offers no profit.
And until I have real means of self-defense, I'll never let anyone discover I can make Grapeshot or Dancing Star. Unless I'm looking to ruin my own life, those two tools of slaughter are invitations to disaster.
During her morning reading time, Angoulême recalled what Victor had explained yesterday. "Catherine, why do you think Vic is younger than me, but he can think that far ahead?" The hawk pecked and chewed at raw meat, utterly ignoring Angoulême's foolish question.
Thump, thump. Knocking sounded downstairs, snapping the girl out of her thoughts—and making her freeze for a beat. Ever since they arrived in Vizima, this house had never once had a visitor. Realizing that, Angoulême immediately strapped on her sword first, then hurried downstairs to open the door…
…
It took longer than expected to shop at the market—picking out beef and being picky about spices—so Victor returned home later than he'd planned. At the door, he stopped in surprise when he heard pleasant female conversation and laughter coming from inside.
Two women's voices.
He pushed the door open with a flicker of anticipation, and—unsurprisingly—he saw the long-unseen Shani. Today she wasn't wearing that plague doctor getup. Instead, she wore a simple linen underlayer, a russet high-collared dress, riding trousers and tall boots, and a beige vest over it all.
Meeting her clear, spring-like lake-green eyes, Victor's mouth rose into a bright, sunny smile without him even noticing. There was the advantage of old memories from another life, the bond built through shared time, and—most importantly—no conflicts of interest. Of everyone he'd met in Vizima, she was the person he liked the most. No contest.
"Hi! I had the day off, and I realized there wasn't really anywhere I wanted to go, so I came to visit you. You don't mind the sudden interruption, do you?"
"Of course not. This is the kind of interruption I'd welcome any number of times."
He casually set the other things in his hands into the cupboard, then winked at Angoulême to signal her to keep entertaining the guest. After that, he carried the ingredients into the kitchen.
"Shani, stay for lunch," he called. "Beef braised in red wine. Trust me—you'll like it."
He shut and locked the kitchen door, lit the stove, set a large pot to boil, then dropped in a whole bone-in cut of beef, salt, sugar, and an array of spices. Finally, he opened a bottle of Est Est and poured the entire thing in, glug-glug-glug-glug-glug.
He lifted a long-handled ladle and plunged it into the pot, his mood light and bright.
Today, for Shani's visit, he was going to serve an unbelievable red-wine-braised beef.
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