They’d stopped because Morrigan claimed she smelled tea. Emma insisted they must barter soon. Maybe even buy, while they still could. After the inn encounter, hoping they’d keep a low profile felt foolish. As did the money in her hands.
“Could you have at least worn a shirt?” Alistair complained. Morrigan wasn’t the only one half-dressed, just the least bothered by it. Emma was realizing there wasn’t much normal here to blend into.
Many crowded around the wagon of goods, some obviously hoping to regain their decency. All looking haggard, distressed, and dissatisfied by the selection and prices. A ring of canvas tents clung to the walls behind them.
Coins beneath her notice, Morrigan prowled ahead, inspecting turnips and bulbs, a rare salted meat, spartan baskets of dried herbs. The cart was sagging under the heap of poorly-organized inventory.
Emma lurked behind Alistair, letting him approach the vendor as if he were face-pulling a monster. Before they could browse, a Chantry sister began shouting. She was old and frantic with superiority and a large mole near her mouth.
“You profit from their misfortune! I should have the templars give away everything in your carts!”
Leliana waved gracefully to the elder sister, then crossed her arms and scowled at the merchant.
The merchant sneered. “Your men with skirts and swords are mostly gone already, sister. Any of you step too close to my goods, and I’ll—” He stopped, attention shifted to Alistair. “Ho! You there! You look able! Would you care to make a tiny profit helping a beleaguered businessman?”
“It’s so nice to see everyone working together in a crisis,” Alistair responded with his bright sarcasm. “Warms the heart.” Emma stepped around him to get closer.
“Are you making more enemies than coin?” Emma asked the merchant.
“You could say that, yes.” His eyes flicked to her staff, then away.
The sister pointed furiously. Her voice shook. “He is charging outlandish prices for things people desperately need! Their blood is filling his pockets!”
“’Tis only survival of the fittest,” Morrigan circled back to make a conversational observation. “All of these cretins would do the same in his shoes, given the chance.”
The merchant seized this opening. “I have limited supplies. The people decide what those supplies are worth to them.”
“You bought most of your wares from these very people last week!” The sister’s hands clenched. “Now they flee for their lives, and you want to talk business?”
“Look.” The merchant continued his appeal to Alistair. “I’ve a hundred silvers if you’ll drive this rabble off, starting with that priest. I’m an honest merchant, nothing more.”
Alistair shook his head, his voice climbing. “The nerve of these people.”
“Would it help these folks if they could buy no goods at all?”
The sister shouted at Alistair, now. “They spend their very last coin because they are desperate. And this man preys upon them as surely as the bandits outside the city!”
“Bah! I’m not arguing anymore!” The merchant jabbed a finger at Alistair, apparently undeterred by his prior judgement. “Drive off this woman and get yer hundred silvers. Otherwise I’m taking my wagon and leaving!”
Alistair stepped away from him. Refugees watched him from the edges. He chuckled nervously under their eyes as Emma scanned the inventory. Salt, dried herbs, tea, lyrium. Things they needed.
“Tis amusing, how you mutter numbers beneath your breath like curses,” Morrigan hissed at her.
Emma turned the copper pieces over in her palm. “…How many silvers in a sovereign?”
“Forty-eight,” Alistair said quietly. “Or fifty. Depending on whose sovereign it is.”
“That’s… not helpful.”
“’Tis useful enough.” Morrigan’s smile was sharp. “’Tis proof of the arbitrary nature of these tokens. What an irony to lock away power itself, only to tremble before stamped tin.”
The merchant smelled the coin in Emma’s hands. The sister and the refugees followed the merchant’s eyes. As he turned to her, Morrigan swiftly pocketed a few bulbs from the cart.
“I’ll make you a deal, then. You’re obviously not beggars.”
They were all watching Emma, now. Waiting.
“You can compromise with them,” Emma said carefully, “and still make a profit.”
The merchant’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps… if that woman agrees I’m allowed to charge something.”
“So long as the prices don’t beggar the needy.” The sister gave Emma a small curtsy. “Thank you, stranger. May the Maker watch over your path.”
The merchant humphed, already rearranging his wares. “Fine, fine. And since you don’t look too needy, normal prices for you.”
Alistair offered as if they’d planned it: “How about we give you gems for this sack of salt and the tea? Fluorspar. Fair trade.”
He glanced at Emma. She nodded and clumsily upended the purse into her palm. The merchant eyed the amber stones in the light.
“Done.” The merchant swept up the gems with practiced speed. “Pleasure doing business,” he said, already turning away. “Watch yourself. The bandits are bold.”
Alistair shouldered the sack. Behind them, refugees approached the cart with careful hope. The sound of business faded as they walked toward the Chantry.
“So we have come to solve every squabble in the village, personally?” Morrigan prodded Emma. “My, but the darkspawn will be impressed.”
Emma looked down at the purse in her hands. “I kept ledgers. I knew the price of frostweed in four provinces.”
“You were rich in theory, then,” Morrigan said.
Alistair scoffed. “Have you seen that place?”
Morrigan ignored him. “How do your ledgers avail us now?”
Emma tossed her a coin. Morrigan caught it without looking. The wind rippled through the tall grass, and the faint stench of decay drifted with it, sickly-sweet, like turned milk.
“What we owe,” Emma said quietly, “might add up beyond counting.”
Morrigan trailed behind, twirling the coin between her fingers. “The willows die faster this week,” she observed. “Even the crows fly elsewhere.”
“How cheery,” Alistair muttered.
“If we trade salt,” Emma said, “we can hold onto the lyrium. Tea’s lighter to carry.”
Alistair: “See? That’s a plan. Simple.”
“Simple, he says. ’Tis never a simple plan, to depend on the whims of merchants and men.”
Emma tucked the purse away. “I still don’t trust the sum.”
“Wisdom, at last,” Morrigan said. “This world rarely adds up.”
“It’s fine, really.” Alistair glanced back toward the carts. “He didn’t even try to shortchange us at the end.”
“He’ll remember this,” Emma said. She weighed the refugees who lied for her against the merchant who bent just enough.
“Good.” Alistair shrugged. “We got salt, he got shiny rocks, the refugees got breathing room. Nobody’s happy. That probably means it’s fair.”
They walked in silence again, their path dipping through low fields. Morrigan had gone ahead, now a silhouette against the sun, fat and gold on the horizon. She called back sharply—something about pitching camp before dark.
Emma rolled her shoulders, adjusting the pack’s weight.
“How long,” Emma asked, “to learn to live like this?”
Alistair glanced at her, then toward Morrigan against the dying brilliance of the day. “I’ll let you know when I do.”