A satchel full of gold and silver jewellery, imbedded with shimmering gemstones from the furthest reaches of Jorat, Cansferr, Brankhel, and even further afield, wrapped in protective silken cloth. A fine yellow-coloured tabard over a pristine white shirt. Horseriding trousers over his legs, though he had no intention to ride today, as was the fashion. Freshly-shined leather shoes. His greying beard trimmed and styled to perfection. A leather cap over his head to hide his bald spot. All of this, and Sellis Porem was ready for the Merchants’ Guild meeting.

  All of this, and Sellis Porem still looked hideous.

  His tabard, despite being a larger size, did nothing to hide his round stomach. In fact, it almost seemed to accentuate it. The cap clearly suggested that he was ashamed of his balding head, and the sheer magnificence of his beard did nothing to take eyes away from his short stature.

  Still, the meeting was imminent, and he was in no position to make himself late. It is one thing to arrive looking a fool, he thought, but another to make oneself a fool by one’s arrival.

  He stepped out of the small study that had become his bedchambers, past his wife’s grand room, trying not to remember the times when he was permitted to enter. Sellis didn’t realise he was scowling until he had left his home, and watched as a passing child looked at him, and ran away out of fear.

  Shaking himself, he put on his best salesman’s smile as he made his way to the guildhall, through the waking streets of Dusolt. Why these meetings always had to be held so early was beyond him, especially when men in his field spent much of their year travelling, and many of them would not be able to make it to the city in time.

  Fewer men to disappoint, he thought with a grin and an approachable spring in his step. All learnt behaviours, the bare minimum for a merchant of his calibre.

  He moved past the market, where lesser merchants unaffiliated with the Guild flogged their wares and chanted to gain people’s attention. In a just society, Sellis thought to himself, these people would be grovelling at his feet, begging for advice from one of the most successful merchants in the kingdom. Alas, this was evidently not a just society.

  The guildhall was a large, well-adorned building, made of pristine brick and dark wood, golden statues sitting at the corners of its roof. Not far from it, looming over it and casting a slight shadow in the morning sun, stood the palace. One day, Sellis thought before entering the guildhall grounds, I will make a sale to the royal family, and become the wealthiest merchant in history.

  A man almost twice the size of Sellis, and about a head taller than the average man, stood guarding the door. The official Merchants’ Guild rulebook stated that a password must be said before entry to the hall, but the guard recognised Sellis and let him in with nothing more than an affirming grunt and a nod.

  The floors had been freshly buffed and shined, the lanterns glowed with a welcoming haze, and tapestries of stories from the Boar’s Tome hung from each wall. Sellis greeted the other merchants present with a jovial wave and friendly greeting, which each of them reciprocated. They all hated him, he thought, just as he hated them.

  After a few minutes, the long table in the meeting hall was approaching full, filled with merchants, most of which Sellis knew, but many of which he did not. Jewellers like himself, textile merchants, butchers, millers, fletchers, coopers, cobblers, and more, all supposedly the greatest and most successful the kingdom had to offer. Or, the ones with the greatest and most successful parents, he thought to himself as he saw a particularly young cartographer sit a few seats away from him.

  ‘Sellis Porem,’ a voice called from behind him. Sellis shuffled in his seat, and turned to see the handsome face and well-kept hair and fine jacket of Jelsor Approm grinning down at him. ‘How have you been, old friend?’ he asked as he took his seat beside him.

  ‘I have been well,’ Sellis replied, ‘yourself?’

  ‘Oh, just this last week has been tremendous. You are aware of the young prince’s naming ceremony in the coming days, aren’t you?’

  ‘Of course. I suppose you have gotten an invitation? As have I.’ All members of the Merchants’ Guild were invited, a fact Sellis was happy to keep hidden from Jelsor for as long as possible.

  ‘Not just that, my dear man, but the wine that will be served will come from the vineyards of none other than yours truly.’ Jelsor’s face contorted into a condescending grin, just as Sellis felt his own becoming a scowl.

  ‘Congratulations,’ he said after some time, ‘I was under the impression that our chairman provided the royal family’s wine.’

  ‘Yes, I thought the same, but it seems they weren’t interested in him this year. Perhaps there was a scandal we aren’t aware of.’

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’ If there was a scandal, Sellis thought to himself, I would certainly know of it.

  Opposite them, a woman entered the room. About the age of Sellis, though much thinner, almost gaunt, it took him a few seconds to register that this was Discrey Shutallic, wife of Carnom Shutallic, a fairly-successful dressmaker. While female merchants were less common than men, there were already several at the meeting, be they wives of better-known husbands or skilled sellers in their own right. What surprised Sellis was, in addition to the absence of her husband, what the woman was wearing. She wore a beautiful blue dress, quite similar to the one Sellis had ordered from the couple as a gift to his own wife, covered in soot stains and tears, as well as nothing above or beneath it, from what he could see.

  ‘Discrey,’ Jelsor began, just as Sellis was about to say the same thing, ‘it is a pleasure to see you could make it. If I recall correctly, you came all the way from Petil for this?’

  ‘Indeed,’ Discrey replied. Strange, Sellis thought, she was a woman of fairly low birth, not the type to say “indeed”, and he had a memory of Carnom telling him they were headed for Coopel, not Petil.

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  ‘Where is your husband?’ Sellis asked, trying to establish himself as part of the conversation,

  ‘He came down with an awful sickness just last night as we entered the city, rambling about some encounter with an Endlander in the forest. I do hope he recovers soon.’

  ‘I am certain he will,’ Jelsor told her, ‘and there are certainly people here who can offer whatever healing remedies you require.’

  At that moment, the doors opened once more, and in walked Brid Triless, chairman of the Merchants’ Guild. Despite his age, Triless looked younger than Sellis, with a healthy build, impressive stature, and face almost as handsome as Jelsor’s.

  He took his seat at the head of the table, and once all voices were silenced and all faces turned to look at him, he cleared his throat and began to speak.

  ‘Greetings,’ he called, his voice still youthful and assured as the last time Sellis saw him, ‘I welcome each of you to the meeting, and I am glad to see you all could make it. We have some new faces with us, as well as some I have come to know very well over all of these years.’ He looked at Sellis as he said that part, and Sellis smiled amicably. ‘You are a good man, Jelsor Approm.’

  Sellis’s heart sank and smile disappeared as Jelsor thanked the chairman.

  ‘We have some smaller news to address first before I get to the reason I gathered you all here,’ Triless continued, before rattling off a few uninteresting facts. Recent impressive sales, marriages within the Guild, the leak in the roof being fixed, their collective invitation to the prince’s naming ceremony. Not once was Sellis’s name mentioned, or even implied. ‘Now,’ Triless finally said, ‘as for why I have called you all to this meeting. I, Brid Triless, after twenty-four years, am stepping down as chairman of the Merchants’ Guild.’

  A gasp ran through the room, everyone looking around with shock, muttering countless questions about it. Sellis cleared his throat quietly, trying to maintain his composure.

  ‘The first question on each of your minds, I am sure,’ Triless said, ‘is the question of why. It is a complicated, multifaceted answer, and I may not bore you with the finer details, but the truth is that I am retiring as a merchant, and a winemaker, for good. I have made more than enough money to feed myself, and three generations of my children, and I see no need to hunger for more. I have sold my vineyards to a buyer I may not disclose, and have purchased a home further south. I had become a greedy man, a man always looking to grow his wealth, and I soon realised that growth was not something that could be sustained. I would either plateau, lose all of my income, or keep growing indefinitely, never being satisfied. None of those options appealed to me any more. I have achieved my goal and, as the old saying goes, it is better to quit while one is ahead.’

  Sellis scratched at his beard, trying to resist the urge to roll his eyes at Triless’s moralising. Far too soft for a chairman, Sellis decided he had always thought, his stepping down would be for the good of the guild.

  ‘We will miss you,’ Jelsor said.

  ‘I am certain you will, and I wish you all the best in your futures. Now, as for who will succeed me, as is the guild’s tradition, we will hold an election. All members of the guild present may put forth their bid to take my place, and each preceding day a meeting will be held where you can each vote for your new chairman. The candidate or candidates with the fewest votes will be eliminated from contention. This will be repeated until we have a winner. Do I have any questions?’

  A shaking of heads.

  ‘Very well, then. Bidding starts now.’

  A tense silence fell over the room like a blanket. A merchant should never be too keen; being the first to submit your bid would suggest an overconfidence, as though compensating for a lack of ability. A skilled merchant must be quietly confident in his ability, and everyone in the room knew that.

  After what felt like hours of silence, one man - a fletcher Sellis could not recall the name of - raised his hand. ‘I would like to put myself forward,’ he said.

  Triless silently nodded, and wrote down the man’s name onto a ledger in front of him.

  ‘As will I,’ another man said, and over the next thirty seconds, about ten men had put themselves forward.

  Sellis moved to raise his own hand, only to see Jelsor raise his faster and more aggressively. ‘I would like to run for chairman,’ he said.

  ‘As would I,’ Sellis said, watching Triless to make sure he actually wrote his name down.

  ‘I too would like to have my name put down,’ a woman’s voice called, and the room fell into silence when they saw that it was Discrey who had raised her hand.

  ‘Don’t be foolish,’ an older merchant said from across the table, ‘we are looking for a chairman, not a chairlady.’ A splattering of laughter from around him followed.

  ‘Now, now, Mister Worrimol,’ Triless said, ‘there is nothing in the rulebook stating a woman may not be chairman. She is allowed to run.’

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ Worrimol spat.

  After a few more minutes of bidding, the room went quiet again, and Triless spoke. ‘Now, unless anyone wishes to put their name down at the last minute, the bidding window has closed. This meeting is adjourned. I will see you all for the meeting tomorrow, where the first round of voting shall take place.’

  The chairman picked up his papers listing each of the names, packed it safely away into a satchel, and was out of the building before anyone else. The other merchants either followed suit, or lingered around, making deals and talking business.

  Discrey stood in the corner of the room, eyes darting about, watching everyone like a hawk watching its prey. There was something strange about that woman, and he did not just mean her bizarre outfit.

  ‘Sellis,’ Jelsor’s voice said again, taking the small man by surprise, ‘I just wanted to say: may the best man win.’

  He put out his hand, and Sellis took it. ‘Same to you.’

  ‘Or,’ he glanced over towards Discrey, ‘may the best woman win.’

  Discrey looked over at them, smiled, and approached. ‘Why thank you. I wish you two the best as well.’

  ‘I actually wanted to ask you something, Miss Shutallic,’ Sellis began, ‘I had ordered a blue dress from you and your husband, one that looks remarkably similar to the one you’re wearing, to give my wife as a gift. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about its status, would you?’

  Her eyes widened, and she shifted back. ‘I would have to ask Carnom about that, but I can assure you we have not forgotten about it.’

  ‘I see.’

  She was lying, that much was clear. A merchant who takes her own wares, hardly a good choice to lead the Merchants’ Guild. It was fine, Sellis told himself, he could use it against her in the election.

  It was fine, Sellis told himself, the dress wouldn’t have won his wife back anyway.

  It wouldn’t have won her back anyway.