1????????Soul Bound

  1.3??????Making a Splash

  1.3.1????An Obligated Noble

  1.3.1.14 Pantalone needs persuading

  7:45 am, Saturday June 10th, 2045

  5 bells of the afternoon watch

  Zerday full, 14th day of the month of KrevinBelember, A2F1600

  On entering the room Claudio’s seneschal had set aside for the conference, they found Marco chatting with an official Lady Pia had brought along from The Azioni, the stock exchange whose head, Ugolino Trinci, was Lady Pia’s husband as well as being the Marquis di Torello, the highest ranked noble in the city, and the leader of the city’s ruling council.

  Pantalone had also arrived at the scheduled time, and was now impatiently strutting around the large circular table in the center of the hall like a proddy cockerel, bent forwards so much his chest and toes arrived level with each seat a second or so before his tail of his gown.

  The gown was the sleeveless sort she’d seen worn only by academics or clergy in arlife, and was made of a midnight black velvet that matched the close fitting skull cap he wore with aggressive precision, its point extending down at the dead center of his forehead. The cap did nothing to distract away from his more memorable facial features: the hairy eyebrows, the beaky nose, the measly mouth and the pointed chin-puff beard that extended out to fully a dozen centimeters in front of his chin, giving the whole face a side-profile like that of a quarter moon.

  The dramatic effect was only enhanced by the rich scarlet colour of his doublet and hose, and the way he clasped his spindly arms behind his back except when using them to gesticulate. There was no doubt he had charisma, of the sort put on by actors or worn naturally by business leaders accustomed to attention and to getting their own way. It was only when he stood opposite Claudio to be introduced as “Viscount Avaro Pantalone, President of the Bancario and Grand Warden of the Illustrious Company of the Hall of Goldsmiths” that she noticed his short stature and extreme old age.

  In the meeting that followed, she found herself envying Tomsk, who’d opted to go off with Tori to be introduced to the guards and learn more about mercenaries and their group tactics. Pantalone was obviously sharp, and was unfailingly polite to Claudio who, as Count of the Mercato district that held the guild halls, was not only socially higher than Pantalone, but also his direct superior. To almost everyone else in the room, however, he made it quite clear that he considered them to be unreliable idiots who should be assumed to be wasting his valuable time until proven otherwise. When Alderney or Bungo spoke, half the time he interrupted them as though deaf or sure he knew what they had been about to say. The other half he demanded evidence, and looked to Claudio or his own self-effacing private secretary before accepting it.

  The exception was Wellington, who put into practice the training he’d been receiving from Marco in how to deal with Torello’s merchants. He matched Pantalone with cool precision and utter certainty, snapping back with lists of dates, names or numbers almost before Pantalone could open his mouth to raise a question. Wellington didn’t talk about morality or emotions, but instead tied every concern he raised to money and long term profitability.

  Claudio had retained a poker face throughout, not reining Pantalone in, to the point where Kafana wondered whether the cunning count was using his subordinate as a stalking-horse, to avoid having to personally throw doubt upon his guests, but Bulgaria reassured her in private chat that, according to the social dynamics skills he’d gained, Claudio genuinely respected the acuity of Pantalone’s opinion, and would need to depend upon his wholehearted cooperation if big changes had to be made to Torello’s financial system.

  She endured, biting her tongue and speaking as little as possible, until finally Pantalone asked his private secretary (who’d been quietly been taking copious notes in beautiful flowing copperplate, open inkwell by his side) to summarise the agreed situation, before they took a break then discussed solutions. She had system round the numbers and put it into an orglife document which she shared with the other wombles, so she could study it at leisure during the break and read their private annotations:

  At that point, Alderney had tried to contradict Pantalone about Adventurer crafters being unreliable, and had enthused about the speed at which she was levelling and the things she’d soon be able to make. Unfortunately, instead of shutting Pantalone up, this had triggered another rant from him:

  At this point, Pantalone derailed the discussion yet again, demanding to know how much more advanced, and what this would mean in practice.

  This finally led onto a discussion of how quickly adventurers could spread information between regions, which Kafana had naively thought was the only problem they’d come to discuss. After the welcome they’d so far received as adventurers in Torello, except from a few grumpy sailors, she hadn’t expected such a wide ranging inquisition questioning whether to allow them at all.

  After that, Pantalone started listening without interrupting, concentrating ferociously, and progress became swift.