"Not unless a couple copper sceats would make the difference between eating and starvation. How did he do it? Don't tell me making ballroom slippers for fat duchesses. Nobody gets rich... working." I almost said "honestly."

"Trading in metals." Tate gave me a don't-be-stupid look. "Playing the changes in the shifting exchange rate between gold and silver. Buying silver when it was cheap against gold, selling it when gold was cheap against silver. He started with his prize money from the army. He switched back and forth at the best points in the cycle. That's what I meant when I said keep the elvish blood in mind. We people of elvish ancestry have a feel for silver."

"You're stereotyping yourself, Pop."

"You understand what I've said? How he came by it? I don't want you to think it's dishonest wealth."

"I understand." That did not make me think it was necessarily honest.

Anyone with a knack for reading the shifts could get rich the same way. Silver goes up and down violently according to the army's fortunes in the Cantard. As long as we are plagued by sorcerers, there will be an incredible demand for the metal.

Ninety percent of the world's silver is mined in the Cantard. Under all the excuses and historical claims, the mines are what the war is all about. Maybe if we could rid the world of magicians and their hunger for the mystic metal, peace and prosperity would break out all over.

"Well?" Tate asked.

"Well what?"

"Will you do the job for us?"

Good question, I thought.

3

I looked at Tate and saw a momentary idiot, a fool trying to twist me into doing something he feared I'd turn my back on if I knew the whole story. "Pop, would you make shoes if you didn't know the size? If you hadn't even seen the person who was going to wear them? Without knowing anything about getting paid? I've been real patient on account of you being Denny's old man. But I'm not going to play games."