The Vampire & Her Witch

”Our people are too poor to buy many of the goods that the merchants from High Fen City brought with them,” Heila said with a heavy sigh as she looked at the two pouches stuffed full of coins that Ashlynn had handed her.

She hadn’t realized how poor the Vale of Mists had truly become until she reached High Fen City and learned about the vast differences between the living standards of the people in the Vale of Mists and the people of the High Fen. While it was true that the most common folk, the farmers, woodsmen, and laborers all lived very similar lives no matter where they were, many people in High Fen City enjoyed things that simply weren’t a part of life in the Vale of Mists.

Heila’s own wealth had grown exponentially after fighting in the arena in High Fen City, and the chest in her room contained just as many tails of silver as the pouches in her hands with several tails of gold as well, but the gift Ashlynn was giving her felt far heavier in her small hands than just the value of the coins.

They were a reminder of a life and lifestyle that she had only briefly experienced on the far side of the mountains... and a style of life she wished she could share with her family and the other people of the Vale.

”You want us to spend this money so the merchants see hope in the Vale,” Heila said, looking into Ashlynn’s soft, emerald green eyes and smiling as understanding dawned on her. ”You’re hoping that if they see success early on, they’ll work harder over the winter to find ways to make their business work here.”

”That’s part of it,” Ashlynn agreed. ”But I don’t just want you to spend money on foreign merchants,” she added. ”Many of the merchants in the festival came from across the mountains, but the people running games and selling food, most of them are local to the Vale. The more you spend at their stalls, the more they have to spend elsewhere on the things they couldn’t otherwise afford.”

”But then, but then doesn’t all of the money go to the foreign merchants anyway?” Talauia asked as her wings fluttered in agitation. ”Then what’s the point of spreading it around if they get all the money in the end?”

”Pride,” Ollie said as he looked at Ashlynn in understanding. ”Our people’s pride has been ground down since Lady Nyrielle’s army arrived. The merchants from across the mountains are wealthier, many of the warriors are mightier, and everyone knows that Lady Nyrielle had to go across the mountains for help because the Vale can’t hope to win the next war fighting by itself.”

”Don’t misunderstand,” he added quickly. ”Everyone is grateful for the rescue, but their pride is also suffering, the same way the refugees felt beaten down when they had to leave their villages behind and rely on handouts just to have a meal every day. But when the village harvested its first crops and finished its first homes... It did a lot for everyone’s pride,” he said, remembering the transformation that had come over the villagers with each new success.

”Ollie has it right exactly,” Ashlynn said as she stood up from the table. ”Mistress Nyrielle has already asked the merchants from across the mountains to cut their prices in half for the festival,” she said, surprising everyone in the room. ”She’s agreed to make up their losses personally from her own treasury so that her people have a chance to experience some of the goods from across the mountains that they’d never have had the chance to own before. But even Mistress Nyrielle can’t subsidize her people forever,” she added.

”But if our own people have more money in their pockets, money they earned with their own labor during the festival,” Ashlynn said. ”Even if they have no time to shop during the festival, they’ll be able to visit those merchants afterward when they open their own shops in town. My sister called it the Wheel of Wealth’,” she said, wishing once again that her sister was here to help her return the Vale of Mists to the prosperity it once enjoyed.

”According to Jocey,” Ashlynn explained. ”The more often money changes hands, the faster the ’Wheel of Wealth’ spins. The faster the wheel spins, the more prosperous people’s lives are. Prosperity doesn’t come from people acquiring vast amounts of silver and gold,” she said. ”It comes from having enough that you can part with it easily and receive things in return that enrich your life.”

Of course, Ashlynn had simplified Jocelynn’s explanation greatly. When her sister mentioned learning about it she described complex mathematical formulae used to measure how fast the ’Wheel of Wealth’ was spinning, and ways that the merchant guilds would determine if the wheel was speeding up or slowing down. Bankers in Blackwell City might even adjust the rates at which they lent money based on the ’speed of the wheel,’ but all of it quickly became more complicated than Ashlynn could follow.

While her father insisted that Ashlynn develop a lord’s understanding of wealth and how a County or March managed it, the lessons she received focused far more on levying taxes and the management of a treasury than the lessons her sister received to understand the matters of merchants and how their use of wealth supported the rest of the County.

At times like this, Ashlynn was grateful for every scrap of conversation with her sister that she could recall, but she also missed her presence badly and wished she had a reliable family member by her side when she met with the Eldritch merchants who would become spinners of the Vale’s Wheel of Wealth.

”So today, we’re going to spend freely,” Ollie said, now fully committed to Ashlynn’s ’challenge.’ ”To make the wheel spin faster and bring prosperity to the Vale.”

”It won’t happen overnight,” Ashlynn acknowledged as she saw everyone’s enthusiasm rising more than it had at the simple idea of having a pouch full of silver to spend on having fun. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been a surprise, after all, she’d chosen people for her coven who wanted to nurture growth in others, but she was still grateful to see their excitement growing at the idea of joining the afternoon’s festivities. ”So tonight, I think we can give the wheel a helpful spin!”