Excerpt:

Ten Years Ago.

Thom walked his horse and empty cart up to the front of his shop, tied his horse down, and walked inside. His door opened without a key as he rarely locked it unless there was something valuable inside to be stolen, which was rarely the case. As it turns out, even if he did have something inside worth stealing, locking his shop might not be best thing for him to do. One afternoon Thom had left town for a few days and had locked his shop to keep nosy children from wandering in and poking around. When he came back, someone had let themselves in with a log through the shutters and had turned his shop upside down. As near as he could figure, someone found the locked door, assumed there was something worth stealing inside and desperately wanted to find out what it was. When he reported the crime to the militia, he found out two things. First, everyone thought he was hiding something valuable and important. Everyone knew he didn’t lock his door unless he had something worth stealing and he hadn’t said anything so what he had inside must be valuable and exciting. Second, children had been coming and going through his shop ever since he opened it. The only reason he hadn’t noticed this before is that they quickly discovered what he already knew; his shop, despite belonging to a weapons and armor merchant, was completely uninteresting in and of itself. There weren’t any bellows and forges or vats of boiling oil or stacks of arrows - just a table with chairs, a cabinet with cups, mugs, and assorted flasks, bottles, and jugs, a counter to validate the title of ‘shop’ and a room in back where he slept. In response to this, he put bars on his windows, checked his wine and beer before he had guests to make sure they weren’t empty or replaced with water (he was surprised how rarely kids would drink his wine) and let the captain of the militia know what he had so they’d know when to keep an eye out and, if necessary, let other people know that whatever it was, it wasn’t that exciting.
The most common question Thom got from the rest of the people in the town was, “You make a point of not having anything to steal most of the time. Why even have a shop?” The answer he gave was that he called his establishment ‘a shop’ because it sounded better to invite customers to his shop to discuss business than to invite them over to his room. The truth of the matter was that he desperately wanted a shop worthy of the title. As it was, he got inventory so rarely that he had usually sold it before it actually arrived. Besides, he was gone at least ten days of thirty, who would watch the shop then? His efforts to keep the town’s militia better equipped than the bandits still scurrying around kept a roof over his head, let him eat regularly, but he couldn’t actually pay anyone and until he had an inventory worth talking about, it didn’t even make sense to try to take on an apprentice.
Thom sat down in his chair, pulled out a large sack of money, and emptied it on the table. There was a good chance that his dreams were going to get going in earnest very soon… before the evening was over in fact. The source of Thom’s sack of coins was a group of bandits that had been terrorizing the routes around the town he lived in. They didn’t have a name for themselves but everyone referred to them as the Vermin. What the Vermin had going for them was that people with small amounts of money didn’t have the means to protect themselves and in many cases would give up their possessions in the face of nothing more than a plausible threat. Recently, the Vermin were growing restless and greedy. They wanted the piles of money that were usually accompanied by armed guards who couldn’t be intimidated easily and in fact could probably kill the would be thieves. This is where Thom came in. One night, a Vermin leader came to his house and practically begged him for a shipment of weapons. As it happened, Captain Gonzago had just ordered and paid for fifty assorted swords, claymores, daggers and “other sharp and pointy objects” (as Gonzago phrased it). Quoted them a price that was almost four times what Gonzago had paid. When they protested he said, “It would have been three times normal price ‘cause I know you guys go through me or no one. But since you fuckers have robbed me twice, it’s four times. And if you guys want armor we can start talking about down payments now and if I suspect you‘re going to screw me, you lose your money and you don‘t get so much as a toothpick and napkin from me ever again.“
He smiled as he counted out the money and sorted it into three mostly equal piles. The opportunity had just presented itself; he would have capital, more stability for business, and revenge all in one stoke. All he had to do was let tell the militia his plan.
As that thought was formulating itself in Thom’s head, the door to his shop flew open and the head of the militia, Captain Gonzago, stormed in and shouted, “Merchant!” Gonzago was wearing his ‘plain’ clothes - no armor, shields or protection so he wasn’t on duty. He was, however, carrying a spear so he was pissed off.
Thom knew how the conversation was going to end so he wasn’t scared as such. Still, the captain was a head taller than Thom and had got to the position he was in by appearing to be the meanest son of a bitch for twenty miles in any direction when he could and actually being the meanest s.o.b. when necessary. Furthermore, he stayed in his position by out thinking more people than most people gave him credit for. Having a man like this shout at you while holding a spear is unnerving regardless of the situation.
After his initial entrance, Gonzago stared at Thom ,waiting to see how he reacted, much like a cat stares at a mouse to see which way it‘s going to run. Thom stood up and walked over to a cabinet, opened it and grabbed two cups from it, turned, and said, “Greetings, Gonzago. Let’s celebrate. Want a glass of wine?”
Gonzago didn’t move much, although he did adjust his hand so that he could use his spear without hitting the door. “Merchant,” he growled, “I know you received our weapons today. I know you left town with those weapons and that you returned without them. Now you have a bunch of money and I want answers.” The Captain was referring to fifty assorted large knives, blades, and swords that he had ordered from Thom. “Where are my weapons?”
Thom tucked a jug under an arm and walked back to the table. He set down the cups and started to pour some wine. As he was doing this he said in as calm a voice as he could, “I’ve just solved our problems. The small pile on the table is what you gave me for your order. You can have it back.”
Gonzago shouted, “I don’t want the money I wa-”
“Ssh-ssh-ssh,” Thom interrupted. Much to his surprise, Gonzago became quiet. “You’ll get both. What I’m going to say is going to sound like I’m trying to sneak something past you. I’m not.”
“Continue,” Gonzago said cautiously. His legs were still ready to pounce, spear hand was ready, and his eyes hadn’t left Thom’s. Thom was still prey and he sure knew it.
Thom plainly said, “I’ve sold the weapon’s to the Vermin.”
Gonzago shouted, “Bastard!” at no one in particular and slammed his spear against the floor. He added more meant directly for Thom. “You pig fucking, goat sucking heap of sheep shit! I needed those weapons to obliterate the Vermin and now you tell me not only that I don’t get them but the people I want to hunt down and kill do? I thought that I had your support on this! I thought that since they robbed you with pointed sticks that you were behind me on this, not that you were going to give them better weapons! Yes I think you’re trying to sneak something past me!”
Thom didn’t even try to stop Gonzago’s tirade. When he paused for breath Thom said, “You’re not thinking this through. Why don’t you ask me what else I gave them?”
Gonzago walked over to the table and sat down, “Very well. ‘Mister Merchant of Death.’” Thom poured and offered him a cup of wine. He waved it away. “What kind of bows, crossbows, javelins, darts, slings or trebuchets did you sell to the Vermin so they could kill you form far away.”
Thom poured took the cup offered to Gonzago and started drank from it. He shook his head back and forth as he swallowed then muttered, “None! Good god, there bad enough with the sharp sticks.” Thom started pouring another cup of wine.
Gonzago didn’t glance at the cup once but kept his eyes on Thom. “Very well. How many shields and helmets did you sell them?”
Thom shook his head again. “People with armor tend to be unreasonably brave and reckless. If I had any I would have sold it to them but no, I didn’t sell them any of that.”
Gonzago’s face and shoulders relaxed. He took his eyes off of Thom and stared at the wall for a minute. He was smiling when he asked, “Young Thom. What did you sell them.” He picked up the other cup of wine.
“Rum. Two casks of it. To be fair, that was a trick question. I charged them so much for the weapons and demanded so much as a down payment for the armor that they didn’t have any money at all left. I gave them the rum.” Gonzago raised his eyebrows at this answer. “It’s a distillate.” Gonzago quickly shook his head right and left. “They make it in the south. The Vermin don’t know what it is either. It gets you drunk like- Let me put it this way… Drinking a mug of rum is like drinking a mug of beer… and then being hit in the head with a brick.”
Gonzago got the gist of Thom‘s scheme. “Ha!” Gonzago shouted, again at no one. He finally took a drink from the cup and said, “You’re saying that the Vermin can’t defend themselves, can’t fight at a distance, and are probably incapable of standing at all right now?”
“You’ve got it. All that’s left for you to do is go over to there camp, wipe out the Vermin and take your swords from them instead of buying them from me. If you miss any one of note, this pile here,” at this, Thom pushed over the second small pile of money, “should make a substantial enough reward that they’ll be hunted down. Go ahead and make it ‘Dead’ instead of ‘Dead or Alive.’”
“I would have said, ‘That’s where your plan falls apart,’ but you know where there camp is now, don’t you?” Gonzago said as he slapped Thom on the back. He could barely contain his glee at this point.
“Of course! They couldn’t very well come into town to pick up the goods. Fortunately, accommodating businessman that I am, I make deliveries.”
“Well, I’ve got some work to do.” Gonzago emptied his cup and stood up. “Do you have any messages you’d like to send to your customers.”
Thom looked thoughtful for a second then said, “I think Beccie the philosopher phrased it best when he said, ‘Paybacks a bitch.’”