Silver Shadows - Elaine Cunningham [123]
Many of these coins, though quite different in value and purchasing power, contained about the same amount of gold.
Thus it was that a bag of a hundred Zazesspurian gulders, while nearly twice the value of a bag holding an equal number of the zoth minted in Saradush, weighed almost the same. There were in Zazesspur two, perhaps three brokers who would buy up the lesser coins, then melt and recast them as more valuable currency. The services of these enterprising souls also came in handy when one had other reasons for changing the shape of one's wealth. Prime among these were the personal coins, either stolen or given in payment, that were extremely difficult to pass in common trade. At times, possession of such a coin could be deadly.
The Knights of the Shield often ordered gold coins to be placed on the eyelids of those slain by their agents. So difficult was it to spend these coins that beggars and pickpockets would often pass such a corpse and leave the treasure untouched, rather than risk the Knights' retribution. There were, however, some people who hoarded these coins and used them in a specialized system of barter. To an assassin or a hired sword, a cache of Knights' coins was a mark of prestige that brought in other lucrative assignments. Such a coin could also be redeemed for favors or information that far surpassed the value of the gold it contained. And from time to time, assassins incurred expenses-such as the need for a new identity or a swift departure to a distant port-that demanded that such coins be melted down and made into more widely accepted currency.
During his time in the assassins guildhouse, Hasheth had learned the name of a woman who provided such services. He went to her now, riding one of his lesser steeds so as not to attract undue attention in the trades quarter of the city.
The establishment he sought, unaccountably named the Smiling Smithy, was the sort of shabby place that replaced cast-off horseshoes and reattached the broken prongs of pitchforks. The sole proprietor and craftsperson I; did not exactly meet the expectations suggested by the sign outside her shop. Melissa Miningshaft was a short, squat woman singularly lacking in either physical beauty or social graces. She was half-dwarven, or perhaps a quarter-breed, yet she was nearly as stout and heavily muscled as any full-blooded dwarven smith. Her features brought to mind a dried apple, her graying brown hair was scraped back into a tight bun, and to; call the lumpy, ample form that strained the seams of her brown linsey gown "shapeless" would be erring on the side of compassion.
At the moment, the smithy's thick and sculpted arms were bared to the elbows and glowing red from the warmth of the forge and from the effort of pumping the bellows which fanned and coaxed the blazing fire.
Melissa glanced up when Hasheth entered, scanned him quickly from head to foot, and then harumphed.
"I would like to trade some coin," he said, placing a leather bag on a stout trestle table that held some of her tongs and hammers.
"Fer what?" she demanded gruffly. "Yer horse throw a shoe?"
Hasheth had expected this response. Melissa was extremely particular about those to whom she sold her finer skills. The dwarf woman was capable of making shrewd, clandestine deals and forging incredibly accurate counterfeit coin molds, but if this were to become widely known, she'd be forced to spend too much time and effort guarding the wealth hidden in the walls and cellars of her humble shop and home.
But Hasheth had credentials of a sort. He pulled his sand-hue sash from its hiding place in his sleeve and placed it beside the bag of coins.
"I wish to trade standard Amn danters for other coins," he said. "And nothing so common as gulders or moleans. I will pay twice the trade weight for any coin you possess that bears the mark of the Knights of the Shield."
Melissa let loose a burst of sardonic laughter in much the same way that an irascible dragon might blow forth a puff of smoke. "Yer actually