Chapter 28: The Purveyor’s Better Wares

A purveyor. I like that much better than most of the names you’ve tried on me. Though you ought to know that purveyors expect to be paid, and my terms are considerably less charitable than those of whatever merchant taught you the word.

"I’m good for it."

Vito leaned back against the tent pole, folded his arms, and grinned at the ceiling as if the voice might be standing up there. "Knowledge and Blueprints, that’s the section, isn’t it? There ought to be something in there for construction, sort through it for me."

A reasonable request, for once. Let us see what the shop thinks of it.

The tent glowed with a soft light, and five displays appeared, hanging there like a price board for a merchant who had sensibly not bothered to show his face.

🪙 [FATE SHOP — KNOWLEDGE & BLUEPRINTS]

Threadwheel Crane

Blueprints for a tall wooden crane with a great wheel at its base, ropes and pulleys carrying the weight. The workers walk inside the wheel to raise stone, timber, and other heavy loads.

Cost : 25 Fate

Water-Driven Sawmill

Blueprints for a wooden mill driven by a waterwheel, with gears turning a long saw blade through logs to cut them into planks.

Cost : 30 Fate

Mechanized Pile Driver

Blueprints for a timber frame holding a heavy iron weight, raised by a windlass and dropped onto wooden piles to drive them into the ground.

Cost : 20 Fate

Water-Powered Stamp Mill

Blueprints for a waterwheel turning a camshaft that lifts heavy iron-tipped stamps and drops them onto stone, breaking rubble into smaller pieces.

Cost : 10 Fate

Timber Cableway

Blueprints for a strong cable stretched between two wooden towers, with a small carriage hanging beneath it to carry timber from one point to another.

Cost : 5 Fate

Five items, and none required him to understand the mathematics, which was fortunate, because understanding would have spoiled the bargain considerably.

Vito picked up a stray offcut from the table and turned it over in his hand while he waited for more.

"That’s the whole shop? I expected more, if I’m being perfectly honest."

There is more, you simply aren’t wealthy enough to be given entry into the rich section.

But since you asked so politely, a steam engine costs three hundred and fifty. A modern foundry, which you would need in order to cast the parts the steam engine requires, costs four hundred.

Apparently even imaginary machines have the bad manners to demand infrastructure before they agree to exist.

"Madonna."

Vito gave a low whistle and put the offcut down with considerably more respect than he’d shown it when he picked it up. "Cazzo, for that much, I expect the damn thing to build itself."

Self-construction is not included. Neither is the warranty, although that would only become relevant if you had the means to purchase one.

"Then it can sit there and admire itself. I’ll take what I can actually use."

He tapped the chart once. "I know what a steam engine is, more or less. Give me an hour and I could sketch one well enough. But even with the blueprints, I’d need decades of research to make it work here, and probably a few dozen corpses to learn what not to do."

An honest assessment. I was beginning to fear you might talk yourself into buying the foundry simply because you were too stubborn to admit it was useless.

"I’m not made entirely of stubbornness."

He looked up at the board still hanging where he’d left it, all five items waiting patiently in the tent’s light.

"Give me the useful goods, all five."

Vito planted his palm on the table. "Ninety, then, and do try not to look so surprised. I do occasionally make sensible purchases."

Purchased. There was, apparently, no need for ceremony. I mention this only because you seemed to expect some.

🪙 [FATE SHOP — KNOWLEDGE & BLUEPRINTS]

Threadwheel Crane — 25 Fate

Water-Driven Sawmill — 30 Fate

Mechanized Pile Driver — 20 Fate

Water-Powered Stamp Mill — 10 Fate

Timber Cableway — 5 Fate

Total : 90 Fate

Fate Balance : 10

Ten remains. I would call that prudent restraint, except I’ve watched you spend an afternoon, and prudence has never once been the word for it.

The blueprints appeared across the table, forming out of pale light one sheet at a time. Lines, measurements, and strange little symbols covered the pages, glowing faintly as they appeared into place.

Vito bent over them, studying the drawings with a frown. He understood enough to recognize the machines, but the engineering might as well have been written in another language.

"Well, whatever. I’m not the one who needs to understand how they work."

A fondaco and the quarter around it would take the better part of a year and a half at the rate his men were building now. Every beam fitted by hand, every beam measured and argued over before the next could go in. Generous estimate or not, it was a long time to wait.

With the new machines, perhaps a season. Two, if things went badly.

Vito read the blueprints a bit more before he figured Nane could have the pleasure of understanding them. He would hand him the whole lot and let the man make sense of the drawings and numbers.

Maybe by the end of the week they would have a crane named Giulietta. The sawmill, perhaps, Beatrice. Vito rather liked the idea, if he were to be honest with himself.

Before the intrusive thoughts could amuse him further, the tent flap flew open hard enough to knock the chart loose from beneath Vito’s knife. A young soldier came through at a run, mail jingling. He hit the edge of the table with one hip, then grabbed the pole before he could go down altogether.

"Ser Barozzi!"

The boy, Toffolo, had to fight his own breath to get the words out, both hands planted on his knees.

"Ser Barozzi, we found him. We actually found him."

"Found who?"

Toffolo straightened, still heaving for breath, grinning like he had just won a bet he had been certain to lose.

"Him, the noble you asked us for. We found him."