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Sweat rolled down Hugo Hanrahan’s back as servants passed plate after plate of local delicacies to the assembled guildmasters and their guests.

Sitting on a seat beside him, a leather-bound ledger contained all of his notes for the meeting with the Fellowship of Wayfinders but his notes about negotiations with the other guild masters were far from complete enough to present any detailed facts and figures.

Even worse, no one had told him that they would be meeting with Master Isabell and her guild of engineers.

When it came to negotiating for her services, he had absolutely nothing prepared!

"Sir Hugo, there’s no need to look so nervous," Isabell said in a kind, almost motherly tone when she noticed him looking in his direction. "It hasn’t been a year yet since the tragic death of your predecessor. I imagine that Sir Kaefin left big shoes for you to fill. My condolences, Lord Owain," she said, turning in the young lord’s direction. "From what I’ve heard, your former steward’s death was quite sudden and unexpected. "

"Master Isabell is surprisingly well informed for matters happening so far from Blackwell County," Owain said, once again taken off guard by these merchants.

"I loved Kaefin like an older brother that I never had," he said, taking a heavy drink of the crisp white wine in his goblet.

"But outside of Lothian March, I’m surprised that anyone knew much about him. "

"Lord Owain might be surprised," Master Ruadhan said as he nibbled on a succulent lobster claw. "Ever since news of your engagement to Lady Ashlynn was announced two years ago, there has been increasing interest in Blackwell County about events happening in Lothian March."

"The Frontier is a long way away from our humble coast," the scarecrow thin carter continued. "But even I’ve made a trip out there to visit since the announcement. It’s a shame that I couldn’t be present for your wedding, it must have been very grand.

The temple in Lothian City is unrivaled outside of the Holy City. "

"Since I’ve been to the Frontier, I know that you may prefer to be a bit more direct than most of my companions are accustomed to," Master Ruadhan said. "If you let old sailors like my good friend Sebastian start spinning a yarn, we wouldn’t get to business until the sun was setting. How about this, since we’re blessed with the company of a Journeyman jewler, why don’t we let him have a look at the treasures you’ve brought while we eat and then we can get down to where the wheel meets the roadway without taking up too much of your lordship’s time? "

"My lord," Hugo said hesitantly, his hands twitching toward his ledger. "I already have a preliminary appraisal for the treasures we brought. I can share it if it would make things faster."

"No, don’t bother," Owain said, gesturing for Sir Rian to open the chest. "Since we have the services of a journeyman jewler, we might as well make use of the man. Cal was it? Take a look. This is only a portion of what we retrieved from Airgead Mountain in a single summer campaign. I imagine you won’t have seen gems of this quality anywhere else," he said with a smile.

In truth, Owain had a reason for wanting Cal’s appraisal. He was hoping that he could use the journeyman to claw back some of the ground he’d lost to these conniving merchants by getting a higher appraisal from one of their local guilds than he’d been able to obtain in Lothian March.

It wasn’t that he thought the young man would make a mistake or could be pressured, rather, the market for luxuries in Lothian City was much smaller than what it was in a place like Blackwell County where they frequently traded with the wealthy countries across the sea.

Here, he thought that the jewels from Airgead Mountain would command a higher price.

"Let me see," Cal said, taking the chest from Sir Rian. The portly knight didn’t retreat after handing it over, instead he loomed directly over Cal’s shoulder as the journeyman brought out his tools.

The sound of creaking leather and the faint clink of metal as the knight adjusted his sword in its sheath made Cal’s hands tremble slightly as he opened his jeweler’s loop.

Several of the assembled guild masters exchanged subtle looks at Sir Rian’s aggressive manner, but none said anything to protest. A common guard treating a journeyman of the Gilded Jeweler’s Hall with such suspicion would have been sharply rebuked, but Sir Rian wasn’t only a knight, he was the son of Baron Aleese.

Meanwhile, as important as they might be, none of the guild masters who were present possessed so much as a trace of noble blood.

So as much as it rankled to see one of their peers treated with such blatant distrust, the insult would have to be endured.

When the chest was finally opened, everyone gathered in the opulent dining room stopped eating as they unconsciously leaned forward to catch a glimpse of the treasures in the chest. Even Sebastian, who had seen countless treasures in his days as a ship captain felt his breath catch as he beheld the glittering jewels and lumps of ore displaying veins of copper and gold.

"These sapphires are exceptional," Cal said forcing himself to project confidence despite the loomping presence of the portly knight behind him. He held up a jeweler’s loop and carefully examining one of the larger stones that was nearly the size of the last joint of his thumb.

"There are inclusions, he muttered as he turned the stone gently in his fingers.

"But they can be cut around and still leave a substantial amount of facet grade stone. .."

"If you had to put a number on it, then what would you say?" Owain asked expectantly, leaning back in his chair and grinning at the journeyman jewler.

"As it is, ten gold sovereigns and not a crown less," Cal said confidently, though he had to stop himself from flinching when Sir Rian shifted his weight behind him. The portly knight’s breath caught at the low valuation, and Cal could practically feel the man’s displeasure radiating off him like heat from a furnace.

"And from a quick glance at the other sapphires here, I’d wager than none of them are worth less than five sovereigns," he added, hoping the good news would be enough for Lord Owain to call off his overzealous knight.

"Ten?" Hugo said, his brows furrowing in confusion. "I spoke with a jeweler in Lothian City who assured me that stone could be cut into two high grade stones worth at least fifteen sovereigns each once they were cut. Isn’t a third of the final value just a bit too low?"

"I wouldn’t say a third of the final value," Cal responded with a slight frown. "More like a quarter. I think this could be cut into two pieces of at least twenty sovereigns final value as long as you create an appropriate matched set out of them."

"The problem is that the labor required to extract that value isn’t inexpensive," the journeyman explained. "You’ll need a master stone-cutter to truly maximize the value of these stones, and even once they’re cut, you’ll need a jeweler to fit them into settings of appropriate value, and someone else will have to either carry the inventory or find a buyer who can afford such a prized piece.

Outside of the ducal families or perhaps the royal family there aren’t many in the kingdom of Gaal who would spend so much on sapphires. "

"Sad to say, but the lad’s not wrong," Sebastian said as he scratched his chin in thought. "You’d do better locally with rubies from what I’ve seen.

Sapphires trade well in the old countries because the crown jewels of two different kingdoms are sapphires, and emeralds are almost the same.

Shame you didn’t fine any sunstones, the church buys those at exorbinant prices. "

"So what you’re telling me," Owain said with a dark expression. "Is that we have something that can be a treasure, but turning it from potential treasure to real treasure will require paying so many people along the way that we’ll only receive a fraction of the stone’s value unless we do the work ourselves. "

"That’s the way it usually is," Sebastian said before he reached out and picked up one of the stones showing a thick vein of copper and tossing the stone to Master Tiernan. "What do you think?"

"It’s dense," the burly iron monger said as he bounced the stone in one hand. "I wouldn’t want to transport ore this dense very far but if lumber is plentiful and we can do the smelting near the site of the mine then the yield could be very good. With gold veins in the area too, it could be worth while over the long haul, but you’d need somewhere to process all this before transporting it or Ruadhan will spend so much on extra teams and soldiers to defend them that you’ll lose the profits to the transportation and refining process. "

"It comes down to the best ways to use this box of treasures as seed capital," Master Isabell said with a smile. "Journeyman Cal, if you had to put a value on the complete contents of the chest, what would you say?"

"Um, I’m not comfortable estimating the complete chest, but, could you give me an hour?

" Cal said, looking sheepishly from the glowering Owain to the smiling masters.

Clearly Owain thought his chest was worth more than it really was so the only way to give him the highest possible number would be to inspect every single gem and bit of precious metal.

"That’s probably for the best," Isabell said, adjusting her spectacles as she took the lead once again. "While we eat, we’ve taken the liberty of preparing a few proposals for how we might best cooperate. Would Lord Owain be interested in hearing them?"

"Since you’ve gone through the trouble," Owain said with a strained smile on his lips. "I’m all ears."