I smile.
"You are hired," I say.
Torvald blinks. "I am?"
"You are. But you do not report to me," I point a finger at the side table. "You report to Master Olin."
Torvald's face falls. "Him? He'll count the nails in my boots."
"Exactly," I say. "You will build the strongest pier in history, Torvald. And Master Olin will ensure you do not bankrupt me while doing it. If you need lead, convince him. If he says no, convince me."
I stand up.
"Can you break ground tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow?" Torvald laughs, a deep, rumbling sound. "I can break ground in an hour. I have a crew of fifty men sitting in the tavern waiting for me to give the signal."
"Then go," I command. "I want the first pylon driven before sunset. I want to hear the sound of industry."
Torvald grabs his plans. He nods to Kenric, offers a grudging nod to Olin, and stomps out.
The room is quiet for a moment.
"He is going to be a nightmare to manage," Olin sighs, opening a fresh page in his ledger. "Lead-poured clamps... honestly."
"He is perfect," I say, walking to the window to watch Torvald emerge below, bellowing orders at a group of men who immediately jump to attention.
"Kenric," I say. "Draft the contracts. Sixty thousand gold crowns. Released in tranches, subject to Master Olin's approval."
"Yes, Víl?," Kenric says, dipping his quill.
I look at the sea. The waves are gray and cold.
"Now," I murmur. "I have the money. I have the builder. Now I just need to ensure the King doesn't sell the rest of the country while my back is turned."
We have the money man. We have the builder. Now we need the gatekeeper.
The temporary office in Duke Jellema’s study is becoming crowded. Master Olin is already encamped in the corner, building a fortress out of ledgers and intimidating the servants. Torvald has been in and out twice, leaving muddy boot prints on the carpet each time, much to Olin’s despair.
"We need a secretary," I announce, stepping over a roll of blueprints. "Someone to run the Embassy branch. They need to speak the trade tongues, Centis, High Fey, the Southern Dialects, and perhaps the Merchant Cant. They need to handle correspondence. And most importantly, they need to be able to look a screaming ship captain in the eye and make him wait."
Kenric looks at his list. "Jellema suggested a few scribes from the Guild."
"Let's see them."
The first candidate is a young man named Pip. He has beautiful handwriting. He is also terrified of me. When I ask him to take dictation, he drops his quill three times.
"Next," I say gently. "Before he faints."
The second is a woman named Mistress Vane. She is efficient, but she sniffs constantly. She looks at Torvald, who has just entered with a chunk of granite, like he is a contagious disease.
"I cannot work with... laborers," she says, wrinkling her nose. "And really, Princess, a woman in the front office? In Varpua? The captains will not respect me. They will ask to see my husband."
I sigh. She is annoying, but she is right about the captains. Centis is a backward place.
"You are dismissed," I say. "Next."
The third is a man who speaks four languages but admits, under pressure, that he was fired from his last post for "misplacing" confidential documents.
"Incompetence I can tolerate," I tell him. "Loose lips I cannot. Goodbye."
I sit back, frustrated. "Is there no one in this city who is both competent and formidable? This is a port, Kenric. The Embassy here will deal with smugglers, pirates, and angry merchants. I don't need a scribe. I need a bouncer who can spell."
"There is... one more name," Kenric says, hesitating. "But Jellema crossed it out."
"Why?"
"He wrote: 'Too volatile. Unemployable.'"
I perk up immediately. "Unemployable is my favorite category. What is the name?"
"Sander," Kenric reads. "He works, or worked, as a translator for the Dock Master. Apparently, he was let go after an incident involving a visiting dignitary and a jar of ink."
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
"Where is he now?"
"The note says he sits at 'The Rusty Anchor' tavern, writing letters for illiterate sailors in exchange for gin."
I stand up. "Get your coat, Kenric. We are going to the tavern."
The Rusty Anchor lives up to its name. It smells of stale beer, unwashed bodies, and despair. We stop outside for a moment, taking stock of the place.
The drunk sailor stumbles toward me, reaching out a grimy hand. "Hello, lovey..."
Before I can even step aside, Kenric moves. It is a blur of motion. One moment, he is standing beside me; the next, he has the sailor pinned against the brick wall of the tavern. His forearm is pressed against the man's windpipe. Kenric isn't shouting. He is whispering.
"That hand," Kenric says, his voice devoid of any warmth, "is about to be broken in three places. And then I am going to explain to your captain why his departure is delayed."
He releases the man, who slides to the ground, gasping. Kenric straightens his cuffs and looks at me.
"Shall we go inside?" he asks pleasantly. "Let us find this man you may want to hire."
I smile. It is nice, occasionally, to be the damsel protected by the dragon.
In the corner, near a smoky fireplace, sits a man. He is lean, with a face like a hatchet and hair the color of steel wool pulled back in a severe queue. He wears a coat that has seen better decades, but his posture is rigid.
A massive, weeping sailor is sitting across from him.
"Tell her I love her," the sailor sobs. "Tell her my heart is an anchor."
Sander dips his quill. He does not look up.
"I will write that you miss her," he says in a voice like gravel. "I will not write the anchor bit. It is a terrible metaphor. An anchor drags you down and drowns you. Do you want to drown her, Lars?"
"No," Lars sniffles.
"Then we will say your heart is a compass," Sander decides, scratching furiously. "Compass. North. Guidance. Seven coppers."
Lars pays him. Sander blows on the ink, sands it, and hands it to him.
"Next!" he barks.
A man in fine silk steps up. He looks like a merchant. He starts speaking in a rapid, chattering dialect, Southern Islander. He is angry. He is waving a manifest.
Sander listens for five seconds. Then he replies in the same dialect, but faster. His words sound like a whip crack. The merchant flinches. Sander points a quill at his chest and delivers a final, blistering sentence that makes the entire tavern go quiet.
The merchant pales, bows hurriedly, and retreats.
"What did he say?" Kenric whispers to me.
"He told him that his mother was a hamster," I translate, delighted. "And that if he tried to short-change the widows on the fish-gutting line again, he would personally report him to the Tax Assessor for smuggling spices."
I walk over to his table.
Sander looks up. He has eyes like flint. He sees my dress, Fey silk, worth more than the building we are standing in. He sees Kenric’s sword.
He does not stand.
"I don't write love letters for nobility," he says flatly. "You people have poets for that. Go away."
"I don't need a love letter," I say, pulling out a chair and sitting down uninvited. "I need a translator who knows that 'anchor' is a bad metaphor."
Sander eyes me. "Seven coppers a page. No poetry. No lies."
"I pay in gold," I say, placing a coin on the sticky table. "And I require exclusively lies. Or rather, diplomatic correspondence. Which is the same thing."
Sander looks at the gold. He looks at me.
"You're her," he says. "The Fey one. The one buying the harbor."
"I am."
"They say you hired Olin the Vulture."
"I did."
"And Torvald the Bear."
"Him too."
Sander snorts. A rare, dry sound. "You're building a circus."
"I am building an empire," I correct. "And I need a Ringmaster. Someone to sit at the front desk of the new Embassy. Someone who can read a manifest in Southern Islander, correct the grammar in a royal decree, and terrify a drunken captain into taking his hat off before he enters the room."
I lean forward.
"I heard about the ink jar incident. The dignitary?"
"He pinched the barmaid," Sander says, his expression stony. "I dyed him blue. It took three weeks to wash off."
"Excellent," I smile. "I prefer my staff to be hands-on."
I slide a contract across the table.
"Triple your current rate. Full benefits. A clothing allowance. And you get your own office with a door that locks."
Sander reads the contract. His eyes scan the text with predatory speed.
"Clause 4," he says, tapping the paper. "'Unrestricted access to the stationer's supply'. Does that mean I can buy the good paper? The vellum?"
"You can buy the paper made of gold dust if you want," I promise. "As long as the filing system is impeccable."
Sander picks up his quill. He signs his name with a flourish that is sharp, aggressive, and perfectly legible.
Sander Vane.
Wait. Vane?
"Related to Mistress Vane?" I ask. "The one who sniffs?"
"My sister," Sander grimaces. "She thinks she is too good for labor. I think she is too stupid for work."
"You are hired," I say, standing up. "Report to Duke Jellema's study in an hour. And bring your ink pot. We have some letters to write to the Iron Guild."
Sander caps his ink. He stands up. He is tall, painfully thin, but wiry.
"Lars!" he shouts at the weeping sailor. "I'm closing shop! Try not to fall into the ocean!"
He looks at me.
"I'll need a new quill," he says. "This one is splitting."
"Sander," I say, taking his arm. "Where you are going, you will have quills made of peacock feathers."
"Goose is fine," he says practically. "Peacock is too flashy. It smudges."
I look at Kenric. He is grinning.
"The Vulture, the Bear, and the Blue-Inker," Kenric murmurs. "Víl?, you have the strangest collection of pets."
"They are not pets, Kenric," I say as we walk out into the salt air. "They are sharks. And I just built an aquarium."
We return to Jellema's study. I ask Olin about bankers.
"No. No. Absolutely not." Master Olin is indigantly tossing resumes into the fireplace of Duke Jellema’s study. He does it with the rhythmic efficiency of a man shucking corn.
"That was the Treasurer of the Spice Guild," Kenric notes, watching the paper curl and blacken.
"He cooks the books," Olin says, not looking up. "He capitalizes expenses that should be amortized. He would last five minutes before I broke his fingers."
I watch the flames. "That leaves us with... who?"
"No one from the Banking Guild," Olin insists, adjusting his spectacles. "They are an incestuous club of second sons who think 'interest' is just free money. You need a lender, Princess. Not a keeper."
"What is the difference?" I ask.
"A keeper sits on gold like a dragon," Olin explains. "A lender knows the value of the hand that holds the coin. You need someone who knows the difference between a bad season and a bad captain."
He hesitates, then closes his ledger.
"There is Silas," he mutters.
"Silas?"
"Silas Visser. He runs a... establishment... in the Rope Walk district."
"A brothel?" Kenric asks.
"A pawnshop," Olin corrects. "But he calls it a 'Collateral Exchange.' The Banking Guild hates him because he lends to the people they ignore, fishermen, net-weavers, small traders. And he has never, to my knowledge, lost a copper."
"Why isn't he rich?" I ask.
"Because he is honest," Olin says, as if diagnosing a terminal illness. "And because he refuses to charge usury rates. He says it kills the goose that lays the golden egg."
Oh. My. GODS. This chapter is the recruitment arc of my dreams. The Princess didn’t just hire staff. She's curated a predatory ecosystem.
Allow me to give you the rundown:
Torvald the Boulder, Olin the Vulture meet Sander the Blue-Inker who once dyed a diplomat blue for harassing a barmaid.
- negotiates access to premium stationery,
- signs with vicious flourish,
- and casually reveals Mistress Vane is his sister.
masterclass in Fey recruitment philosophy:
- Hire the competent.
- Hire the terrifying.
- Hire the morally allergic-to-corruption.
- Hire the man who dyes diplomats blue.
- Pit them all against each other so none dare slack.
How long will take it before Oskar breaks? Anyone want to make any predictions? Let me know in the comments...
the Discord via this invite link.