“How do you get a buyer’s attention, you ask?

Well, I would start by saying that just asking it yourself means that the merchant profession isn’t the right one for you. So, at this point, if you’ve asked it yourself, I invite you to put away the Code and dedicate yourself to cultivation, breeding or seafaring. If, on the other hand, in your heart you already knew the answer, or you thought you knew it: please, go ahead and read.

Let a man of experience speak to you, show you the path to wealth.

Here in a list form, there are the five accurate steps you need to follow to sneak into the buyer’s mind.

I - Refer often to the history of your product. Add to this epithets, adjectives, qualities that only it can offer and can succeed because it’s your product, because it comes from your place of origin or place of business, from your hands, from the hands of your craftsmen. Doesn’t it have a story, a tradition, a legend attached? Invent it! And be it convincing or just failure awaits you! …”

Captain of the merchant Tiburon, Deniz of Al-Fedar, Code of the Merchants’ Guild, Section XVII: Practical Teachings, Year 1299 from the Convention of Five

“The mane of the sun pouring down

Erases the footprints on thin ice

Do not fear deception

The world already lies atop deception.”

Tite Kubo, Bleach, Volume 16: Night of Wijnruit, Viz Media, 2015

THE LAST JOURNEY

Perfect like this, Deniz thought on the fourth attempt. Due to the large amount of alcohol taken, he had tried over and over to ink on parchment some thoughts to greet Ethan, but he had to deal with trembling hands like his heart.

At this age goodbyes really hurt. I’m sorry, boy. I’m really sorry it had to go like this. But you’re smart. Yeah, you are, Ethan. You always have been. The smartest who ever set foot on our ship. I had to treat you that way to keep up appearances. I wonder if at least reading the letter you will understand my soul. Yes, I’m sure you will succeed.

He had finally decided that those farewell words on a piece of crumpled parchment needed no further corrections or additions, despite the cutting of a few sentences and words.

Perfect like this, he thought again and finally. He signed and sealed it with his ring that bore the stamp of the shark.

He remembered the day he had found Ethan as a shrunken stray in one of Morven’s back streets. At the time Deniz had already heard of that city, considered by most to be the cultural jewel of the Continent thanks to the work of poets and musicians, painters, and writers. It’s no coincidence that it was the seat of the famous Guild of Bards, Poets and Visual Art. Ambitious name for a single academy which, however, allowed it to become the most coveted and elitist destination for anyone in the Six Kingdoms who felt a strong artistic vocation in their hearts.

Not only.

The beauty of the Southern Trust’s Capital was also expressed in something else. The buildings, of as many colours as the eyes could distinguish, the pink sand, the crystalline green sea and the sky that was tinged with violet and fuchsia in the evening, showing the stars even in the presence of a faded sunlight far beyond the horizon. This was Morven.

Nobility and aristocracy, cashmere doublets, linen shirts and silk dresses, organza and chiffon, wild parties, and colourful festivals. This was Morven.

Rivers of fine wines and brandies from the best distillers, almond milk and honey, beef fillets, partridges, grapes, and pomegranates. This was Morven.

The beautiful Capital of the Southern Trust was all of this. All this and none of this.

No one had deigned to give Ethan, a little child thrown into the ground and decayed, even a single piece of bread, a cup of water. Gentlemen and ladies of the upper class and highly artistic had decided that the still child Ethan should die. They had decided it by not deciding, by simply ignoring him. Invisible was the shrunken, nearly starved-dead little boy in splendid Morven.

It was nothing more than the crumbs of stale bread and the drops of water or rum in the bottoms of the bottles that he managed to snatch from the garbage collections in the filthiest alleys, contending them to the domain of the rats. This was Morven.

The fog of well-being and panache eclipsed the true aspect of the Morvians whom three things hated to the fullest of their wills: the Northern Trust, the different and the poor. A skeletal baby in a stinking alley was worth less than a worker ant. This was Morven.

The city that filled the back of a child without a family with scars, rather than providing him with a home and educating him by making him an equal, thus showing the qualities they were so much said to possess as enlightened artists and nobles. The city that pretended to be the most beautiful on the continent, but with a soul so black as to be worthy of the Plagues. This was the real Morven.

Deniz could not understand how despite everything, the boy opted to take that name. Although the city had determined to abandon him to death, he began to call himself Ethan of Morven, deciding both to make proud the memory of Ethan the Brave, an adoptive great grandfather never known, and to take revenge on the place that had left him to feed the stray dogs and to rats.

Take revenge on them, but not with hate. ‘I’ll take Morven in my name, not Blackfort, not my real father’s name. Morven. This is my will. When I’ll die and my... our stories will be spread across the Continent in ballads and biographies, poems and collections, the world will remember the merciful Ethan of Morven, the greatest of traders and swordsmen, born from the darkest of alleys, born from the dust, from the dirt of the street, from lashes and stabs, born in hatred and abandoned to it. I’ll be Ethan of Morven, the poor beggar who forgave evil and rose higher than artists, nobles and aristocrats who only have birth titles to elevate themselves’, was what the young man had replied to Deniz when he proposed to bear his name, although he had later agreed that very little would have changed if instead of Ethan of Morven, the boy had been Ethan of Al-Fedar.

After all, not even Deniz could boast of bearing his father’s name.

The old man knew of the boy’s ambitions, but only as far as commerce was concerned, a passion which Deniz himself had passed on to him. Although Ethan loved to read of Sir Sigmund Dughall, the desire to become the best of swordmen came out only after meeting Shinji of Nionrei and starting to practice that strange art of swordplay that the captain of the Tiburon did not even understand the name. He knew that ability had changed Ethan, giving birth in him as a second personality, terrifyingly eager for battle.

Deniz, having undressed, let himself fall on the bed, accompanied by the rising of a blanket of shining dust in the light of the moon, with these thoughts swirling in his mind. He was tired, sad, and tipsy. He could strongly smell the stench of his own stale sweat, usually masked by the saltiness.

He stared at nothing in the darkness.

Before falling asleep, he wished he could go back to that day when he took Ethan in his arms, when he offered him a home and a life on Tiburon. The thought of what his boy had been through, of how he had overcome it, of how he had become a real man, filled old Deniz’s eyes with tears, tears of joy but also regret.

Yeah. Old age is what makes goodbyes hard. It makes you think about things that have been and cannot be changed. How sorry I am, boy. If only I had known… If only they had warned me… I wouldn’t have let you spend a single day in the alleys of that rotten city. How sorry I am, boy. I hope I have managed to give you a little glimpse of normalcy after that hell and hell you lived before that.

He fell asleep with tears in his eyes, aware that he was about to lose him. He fell asleep with a smile, aware that he had taught him how to be in the world.

-

The sun had not yet completely risen and was colouring the sky pink and green. Deniz thought that the arrival of autumn could be felt, after all that was the day of the Equinox.

The chill of the morning breeze struck his old bones, but it was a pleasant sensation compared to the cold they usually suffer at sea in winter, especially when the mistral swept over them in gusts of sixty knots. In those days, the splashes of the waves, up to twenty feet high, hit the faces of men like incandescent knives that rip flesh like butter.

He juggled to white cobblestones of the colourful alleys of the still sleeping city.

The few movements that could be glimpsed were those of fishermen returning from night trips, or ready for the morning ones, and coachmen who would fill the wagons with eggs, vegetables, fruit, and game in the countryside and in the hills, and then return to sell in city.

Deniz felt a certain sense of peace coming from Garatier, but he did not really consider it a good feeling at all. Indeed, he felt the pressing need to return to the sea. After a lifetime of riding the waves and hearing them rhythmically crash against the hull, that firmness and that unnatural silence pervaded his body with the strange sensation of floating lightly because on those pebbles it was not necessary to strongly fix the soles of the feet on the ground.

He wandered around for a good hour, until it was dawn, and the market began to fill not only with traders, but also with mothers and fathers who spent time with their respective children before starting work and, in general, the city in the its totality seemed to awaken from sleep.

-

Deniz was unable to sell much at Garatier’s junk and fabric market. Without Ethan, he didn’t even know where to start as, for the past eight years, the boy had been taking care of everything when it came to trading. In fact, Ethan never reported where he found buyers. It was a technique that had been taught to him by Deniz who, before Ethan, had played the role of merchant-captain. It was a useful move to prevent any of the men from escaping with merchandise, knowing exactly where it was possible to get rid of it.

In forty years of sea, something like this had never happened to the old man, never had his trust been betrayed. It was loyalty to the captain, sure, but it was also profoundly influenced by the fact that similar attitudes were in contrast with the code of the Merchants’ Guild and punished with capital punishment. Whether honesty came from respect for him or from respect for the Tuccarlar’s Guild or, again, from the fear of being hanged, Deniz knew very well that could not be trusted sailors in love only with the pleasures of meat, even after years or decades of service.

Despite his famous abilities, the captain had decided to pass the baton to a mind that, as it grew older, was becoming more and more brilliant. The mind of a vigorous young man with an innate talent in obtaining the most advantageous conditions from any negotiation, or better, from any situation. The old man knew that only once Ethan did not take advantage of the other part during a negotiation but forgave him because, according to the young man, the latter had fallen in love specifically with that other part. ‘Trust me, Deniz. That woman knows her stuff’ Ethan said then and Deniz, who had had the opportunity to look into her eyes full of darkness, trusted the boy’s words.

The old man had a couple of hours before departure and decided to return to the Tiburon to change his strategy: instead of junk and clothes, which seemed unsaleable in that market, he would try to bring the blacksmith of the Merchants’ District some rare sword. They were bastard swords of thick, black steel and with the fuller pierced in order to be resistant but light at the same time.

Very precious goods, not manufactured on the Tiburon, but by one of the most famous blacksmiths of the Six Kingdoms, and a close friend of Deniz: Hironlik Stel, master blacksmith of Renport. Earlier, Hironlik had forged those excellent hammer works for Tiburon’s crew as thanks to those who had saved his life from the Glem-Tohav’s theriomorphs. They had saved him but at great cost, losing quartermaster Nerva.

Although in case of need they had weapons worthy of royal guards at their disposal, all men except Ethan took the captain as an example, preferring the sabre to the sword.

What do we do with those bastard swords? Nowadays the pirates don’t even move from the Conch of Mite and the fish-men, after Fiskereik. have certainly been warned and wouldn’t dare to approach once they have read TIBURON on the side of the ship, the old man thought. Those swords were his last resort and he felt discouraged as after Dyvislande, he began to feel the bitterness of financial scarcity in Garatier as well.

He managed to get into the hold and slip out silently. He was grateful to the Divines that the men who remained on board to stand guard were so heavily sleepy that they did not hear the noise he had caused by moving the goods.

He still didn’t have the heart to re-join the group.

-

“And what are these?” Fayron, owner of the Garatier Merchants’ District forge, asked with lapping eyes, as he took off his hardened leather gloves, suitable for the hard work that was iron beating. He was man over the middle of a century, tall and stout, his arms frighteningly wide. He had his grey hair shaved at the sides of the head and at the nape while at the top they were gathered in a pigtail. “I’ve never seen or touched anything like it. What lightness! What refinement! What craftsmanship! The blade is razor sharp and the dye now seems an integral part of the steel itself, as if no cracking is possible even by scraping it. And what is the function of the totally absence of a fuller? Maybe to trap the enemy blade and take it out of his hands with a counter move? Maybe to let the blood drip on the ground while keeping the steel dry? Or maybe simply to make it lighter and more manageable despite the length and width of the blade? What wonderful works you have brought before my eyes! What did you say your name was, merchant?” Fayron asked after observing for a long time, and in great detail, one of the five bastard sword Deniz had loaded onto his back from the Tiburon up to there.

“Deniz. Deniz of Al-Fedar. As you can see, dear master, they are unrepeatable masterpieces. Each corner is finished to perfection and what about the project drawing? Finding another with this style is impossible. When they forged them for me, they described them as worthy of King Theophane swordsmanship. What am I saying? Forgive me, master Fayron, I’d like to point out that I don’t want to take anything away from your White Stag, but these could also be worthy of Sir Sigmund Dughall the White Guard, of Bern Xern, of the entire Climb of Diudin!” answered the old man. Among his innovative sales strategies, transcribed in part as practical teachings of good and convenient trade in a special section of the Code of the Merchants’ Guild, he written about the ability to create a story and an aura of prestige around each of his products. He was already looking forward to the offer of the astonished Fayron.

“Forty-five” said the blacksmith.

“What?” asked Deniz who had heard very well but knew just as well how a bargaining should be carried out. To reach the desired price, in fact, it was not enough just to start spitting out figures or stories, it was necessary to create a certain atmosphere, a small comedy, a show, a tragedy, values ​​and emotions to increase the value of his products more and more.

“Forty-five florins and leave all five of them here” repeated Fayron with a smile of conviction, as if he thought he had already concluded the deal.

Deniz smiled. Often it was difficult for strangers to understand his expression of laughter, given the immense white beard that covered him like a bandit’s mask and made his lips almost invisible. He raised his anthracite grey eyes from the black steel of the bastard swords to those of the man in front of him. He stroked the beard over and over again, without stopping smiling. He was studying the blacksmith’s gaze.

He grabbed the blades, gently grabbing the one the iron was holding, and turned. “Farewell, Fayron of Garatier, master blacksmith of the Merchants’ District. I can’t hear some nonsense like this at my age. I hope you’ll forget these blades because otherwise every time you’ll forge your own, you’ll realize how inferior they are to any of these. Such are worthy of the heroes of the most famous ballads, worthy of Sir Sigmund Dughall and Bern Xern, worthy of the White Stag of Gwenaelleville. Farewell, blacksmith. I wish you to achieve such skill” concluded the captain of the Tiburon as he started to leave. Fayron couldn’t see him, but the old man was trying to restrain himself to the best of his ability from bursting into laughter.

“Fifty each” he said, suddenly stopping the man who was already at the door. “You’ll leaving here with a sequin, Mr. Deniz.”

“Would you like to insult me, blacksmith? Do you realize what you are saying? What the heck do you think you’re babbling about? Do you think a blade forged by Hironlik Stel can be commonly sold off for fifty florins? Didn’t you see the initials HS marked just above the guard?” Inside, he was jolting with joy. He was slowly dragging poor Fayron into the oblivion of bargaining, where he boasted known records in all Six Kingdoms.

The blacksmith had no idea who he was up against, while many others would quit before they even started trading once they heard the name of the Al-Fedar merchant.

“That Hironlik Stel?” the blacksmith asked, shaking conspicuously. He took the lower part of the dirty apron and further dried the cascades of sweat that covered his soot-blackened forehead creating real tracks towards the jaws.

Deniz was old and that was undeniable, but his ability hadn’t faded at all. I would like to laugh. I would like to take you for a fool, an idiot, for an ignorant. I would like to shout it at you and then at the whole square, Fayron the Idiot. I would like to tell you that adding epithets and appellations to the names of blacksmiths has the mere function of deceiving people like you who fall like dried figs in front of the magic that a story or an epithet and an appellation can create around a simple piece of dyed steel. Good pieces, sure. Handled by skilled hands, sure. But still nothing but dyed steel. Ah, poor Fayron. Poor fool. He wanted to tell him all this and more, but he didn’t. He held back because he knew that his old Kaltheimrian friend’s reputation was also at stake.

“That Hironlik Stel. Renport master blacksmith Hironlik. Hironlik the Musk Ox, with a quarter of the blood of the dark beast of the Jarllander. Yes. Yes, blacksmith. That Hironlik. Hironlik Hammer Punch, who uses nothing but harnessed hands for beating the iron. Hironlik the Wandering Blacksmith, who crossed Bakkin’s Rift, round trip, learning the typing methods used by other unknown peoples of the world. I’m talking about that Hironlik and if you know who he is, don’t denigrate me further with ridiculous offers, as long as you’re interested in buying similar masterpieces. Actually, now that I look at you better you don’t seem very worthy…”

“Five sequins! I can’t go any further. Please, Deniz of Al-Fedar, that’s all I have!” The massive man begged, getting more and more agitated. The enormity of the story emphasized by the merchant seemed to have transformed Fayron in a minute child.

“And let it be for five sequins. For a bastard sword Stel five sequins, or even two hundred and fifty florins if you prefer for ease of use. I can’t accept deniers since I don’t know where to keep them. It seems quite fair to me, dear Fayron. Happy?” smiled the merchant with his lips hidden by thick hair.

“But I meant…” Fayron tried in vain to assert himself. He was interrupted without too many compliments by the captain of the Tiburon.

“If the deal is done, I would also ask you to pay me because I don’t want to waste any more time in this city.”

Deniz, in the end, came out of the Fayron forge in the Merchants’ District with three sequins, a hundred deniers, and four bastard swords. He smiled at the thought that he had sold the blade for five times its real value. No need to ask who you learned from, Ethan. Could you do better than that in a few minutes of negotiation? the captain asks himself as he sets off for the ship.