On September 22, Nurcan receives the visit of a traveling salesman on a flying carpet at night. The peddler shows her what the family can get from him: potion ingredients, cauldrons, quills and other magical items.

  “I’d like a blank book, please…” Nurcan starts thinking of writing another book about socioeconomics, much like her very own Rise of Miss Irad-I Cedid, written in 1789.

  “That would be five tryrinats!” the merchant announces to her while she hands over the coins for that value.

  And yet, she feels… relieved that the merchant didn’t recognize her immediately. Relieved that she could keep making others believe that they are a poor recluse family.

  “Need anything?” the merchant asks Vincent. “I won’t be back for weeks!”

  “An okka of Yemeni arabica, a vial of laudanum, and a vial of cloves, please…” Vincent places his order.

  “That would be fifteen tryrinats…”

  Vincent then receives a bag containing 1.28kg of Yemeni arabica, a vial containing 30ml of laudanum and another one with 10 dirhems of 3.2g apiece (or 32g) of cloves. That is, all the ingredients he needs to brew his analgesic potions.

  Here’s the plan: I might be able to sell this book as an applied arithmancy book where my earlier Rise of Miss Irad-I Cedid failed, which was banned in some places. But a blank book costs more than the finished product sold in bookshops… Nurcan starts thinking of what to write in it upon receipt. Already that my current predicament looks way too much like Christine’s during the Reign of Terror.

  Such as comparisons between the defense of privileges during the French Revolution and Selim III’s reign, the arithmantic mechanics and impact of the Irad-I Cedid, and, of course, detailing how Ahmed going overboard in recovering mahlul timars broke the social contract with the landed gentry.

  “Before you leave the cabin, let’s go over the various market days of the region…” Nurcan tells the rest of the family.

  “When is market day in Surmene?” Jannat asks her parents.

  “Tuesday. That’s tomorrow!” She turns to Vincent. “Time to use Multicorfors!”

  “Just let me brew these analgesic potions, will you?” Vincent pleads with her.

  “And under no circumstances should you barter anywhere near an official scale; here you should speak more plainly than when you sold these same potions to Besiktas or Topkapi!”

  “That’s a bit much…”

  “By now you should know that, so far away from Istanbul, Muggles prefer to barter!”

  Vincent gets to work brewing a few doses of the analgesic potion, along with the house-imp. Enough, based on what he heard about prices Muggles were willing to pay for analgesics back in Istanbul, or their equivalent in goods, to last them for a while. But not so much that Muggle authorities’ attention could turn to them.

  Let’s see: boil 50ml of water, infuse 2 dirhems of Yemeni arabica and one ground clove, boil once again and then put in 10 drops of laudanum. All these quantities are per cup… Vincent reads the analgesic potion recipe before he starts brewing it.

  At the same time, Nurcan returns to writing the early stages of what she calls Risale-I Nizam-I Cedid, approaching it under the angle of arithmancy rather than the sociological one of the previous books.

  This time, however, the title itself seems to trigger some flashbacks from her past, from what she attached to this arzuhal back in March 1789. And, for some reason, her second exchange at the 1792 Triwizard Tournament.

  “But why do I suddenly remember all these things? Why now?” Nurcan starts crying.

  “What do you mean?” Vincent asks her.

  “This proto-Risale-I Irad-I Cedid, written in March 1789, what would eventually become the source of these past twelve years of fighting iltizam and muafiyet abuses, made me so dangerous for the ulamas and the yeniceris at Istanbul that I was sent away by the Sultan to the Triwizard Tournament before I could even fight these abuses of iltizam and muafiyets!”

  “You think far too much. Being as smart as you can be fantastic, but if memories start resurfacing at random, something is seriously wrong with you…” Vincent pours the potion into a bigger bottle that he will then administer in a spoon containing two dirhems tomorrow.

  I tried so hard to try fitting in with the other 12, but both Alejandra and I were the misfits among this Beauxbatons delegation, because we were both too preoccupied by societal collapse to be taken by the Goblet of Fire! Nurcan ruminates on the impact of her role in the Irad-I Cedid’s genesis had at Topkapi. The Goblet of Fire sought champions in a more “martial” mold than Alejandra or I could ever have represented. The Goblet is, to me, just an obsolete remnant of a world that refuses to grow up.

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  She then resumes writing the Risale’s section on key definitions: Iltizam, or tax farming, allows collectors, or multezims (sometimes called malikanecis) to pay the Treasury in advance for the privilege of collecting taxes.

  The following morning, Vincent, while still under the cover of darkness, takes out his robe worn to deliver analgesic potions to the palace to transform them into a version more fit for a low-class merchant.

  “Multicorfors!” Vincent starts transforming his clothes, and then takes out the flying carpet from the horse pocket.

  Nurcan wakes up with the spell being cast on Vincent’s clothes. “Time for you to hit the market, I guess…” she speaks in a low voice, while she tries to fall back asleep.

  Just as Vincent takes the horse pocket with him, and the carpet out, under the foggy night, Nurcan, on the other hand, struggles to resume her sleep. I really hope that he’ll bring back the food that this supply of potion ingredients he bought last night.

  At the same time, Vincent feels a little lost trying to maneuver the carpet around at night, even when he rises above the fog of the area and goes away from the mountains. That is, northward.

  To the purposes of getting to Surmene to the north, in this dense fog, he feels the need to use Revelio every now and then to find his way to the town while in flight. And, of course, ensuring that he doesn’t land inside the town proper, but rather outside the town and away from the main roads leading to it.

  With each use of Revelio, he finds his bearings but only for a few moments, and, by the time he gets close enough to Surmene, he lands the carpet among the trees.

  At this point, Vincent stows the magic carpet back inside the horse pocket and then returns to the main road to Bayburt, in the dead of night as dawn is about to break on the coastal town.

  Upon arriving in Surmene proper, at dawn, he sees a lot of the residents are in pain. He realizes then that a lot of people could use his analgesic potion. He could then have various merchants of the town name their prices, ranging from hazelnut farmers to blacksmiths.

  As he keeps track of the various prices the various buyers are willing to “pay”, in okkas of hazelnuts, rather than in paras or kurus, he tries to pit them against each other.

  It seems like the highest bidder is a blacksmith willing to part with a Surmene knife and 16 okkas of hazelnuts, Vincent then returns to the forge of the embattled blacksmith. That’s a lot for a single dose of analgesic potion! But I must not linger too long here. Yet, Muggles prefer to barter here!

  “On second thought, I take you up on your offer. I’ll give you one dose of this potion, as promised, for a knife and sixteen okkas of hazelnuts!” Vincent then whips out his vial of analgesic potion as well as a spoon he uses to administer it.

  The blacksmith, wearing the distinctive bork hat of the yeniceri as well as carrying a knife on his belt, removes said knife pretty slowly from the belt due to the pain.

  Vincent extends his arm to the mouth of the blacksmith, only realizing then that the customer is a yeniceri. “There, swallow it, and your pain will be gone!”

  When the yeniceri swallows the remedy, one of his apprentices goes out to fetch a sizeable bag full of hazelnuts, containing the 16 okkas of hazelnuts.

  Is that it? Is that what yeniceri do when not at war? Yeniceri are just a militia levy who take to trades such as blacksmithing. Why is it that Nurcan fears the yeniceri so much? They wouldn’t recognize her at all! Unless she starts talking about these abuses of esame, iltizam and muafiyets in front of them, but she can use Multicorfors to pass as a low-class woman, Vincent takes the bag of hazelnuts to move elsewhere in town.

  Such as the baker and the cheesemaker, where he hopes he can get enough corn flour and cokelek (cheese) to last his family a while, while they will eat more hazelnuts. All of which could be stored in a magical horse pocket.

  Upon returning to where he landed his carpet, he ensures that the fog is dense enough to take off without being seen. But now that he has a better idea of where Surmene is, he can fly back home on his carpet without fearing his detection by Muggles on the roads.

  When he returns home, he takes the bags of corn flour, cokelek and hazelnuts out of the horse pocket, in front of a Nurcan who’s left wondering how many doses of analgesics he even sold back in Surmene:

  “That’s enough flour, cokelek and hazelnuts to last us for weeks! How many doses of the potion did you sell?” Nurcan asks him.

  “One, but that was a yeniceri blacksmith…”

  “While I accept that some yeniceri could have turned to trades, especially since their mevacib (salary) could be months late, I didn’t think that a yeniceri would be willing to give away several weeks’ worth of food for a dose of this analgesic potion! I’m afraid the dose you gave this yeniceri is the bait who could lead them to our door!”

  “Why?” Yusuf asks her.

  Nurcan answers her son while Jannat is busy with the house-imp. “Yusuf, it’s not so much the threat they pose, because I don’t think they’d recognize me by face here, but potions with laudanum often make people who drink them want for more if they consume these regularly, and the last thing I want is a potion addict traipsing around this place just to get this analgesic!”

  “Honey, when I supplied these analgesics to the palace, I dealt with these people all the time! They might be a little annoying, but…” Vincent gets interrupted.

  “And, obviously, other things will betray me, even if I kept quiet, and used Multicorfors to transform any of my clothing sets into what my mom used to wear, what will give me away will be the infamous hand test. They will think that I’m too white, or frail, and then know I’m not a local woman. What’s next is a breach of the Statute waiting to happen!”

  “Very well, if you feel the threat is too great for you outside…” Vincent pulls out the utility knife obtained alongside the hazelnuts, which were then traded for flour and cokelek.

  “So you gouged that yeniceri blacksmith today… but the less often you get down to sell analgesics, the better! Fewer visits, fewer risks of Statute breaches!”