Islands in the Sky

4.14

Cassa came to understand the bird-fishing business reasonably well. Better, actually, than she had expected to.

Time passed, and she did her best, and began to feel she was doing quite well.

She had money, for once. She controlled a purse which had money flowing into it. She had money, and could make decisions, and was learning more every day.

As best she could, she tried to run her business sensibly. She tried to manage it for the longer-term. Most importantly, she didn’t interfere in how the fishing boats were operated. She had more sense than that, when she knew so very little. She left the fishing fleet to do as it wished, and didn’t try and tell them where to go, or how to fish, or what kinds of birds to catch. She let them do the fishing their way, as they always had, and simply watched, and tried to learn.

She thought the fisherpeople were relieved by that, once they realized her intentions. She thought they were relieved, and she knew why, too. Not all of her cousins would have been so cautious, and a livelihood ruined by an incompetent manager was still a livelihood ruined.

Cassa was cautious, and slow to make changes, and very careful when she did. She was cautious, but after a time, she did begin to slowly make improvements. She left the boats alone, because she knew nothing about boats, and did what she was good at instead, understanding people and trade and greed.

She had realized fairly quickly that the simplest way to make more money in the bird-fishing business was to reduce the cost of freight. Freight was a considerable expense. The fresh-caught birds had to be moved to the drying island and hung to be wind-dried or smoked. Then, once the meat was preserved, it needed to be transported back to the warehouse and stored, and then, when it was sold, it needed transporting again, to the merchant who had purchased it. Freight was a considerable expense, and so Cassa reduced it. She negotiated better prices for haulage with the portage guilds and companies. She asked for discounts politely, but asked with the weight of her name behind her. It wasn’t exactly like holding a knife in her hand, but it was a little pressure, an innocent pressure, drawing the portage guilds’ attention to the fact a member of the Middletower family had finally noticed this part of its holdings, and knew what reasonable costs and delivery times were, too, and that so, perhaps, the portage guilds’ ability to overcharge with impunity was over, and they ought to begin providing the level of service they did all other clients, rather than taking the oblivious Middletower family for granted.

Cassa had asked politely, and had her freight charges reduced. She had been tempted to be more assertive about asking. She had been tempted to start rumours, to have people spread stories about her in the docks, that she was dangerous and ruthless, that she spoke casually of murdering her own grandmother. She was tempted to, just to scare those who needed scaring, but she refrained because it would simply cause resentment and disruptions. She was new here, new in the docks, and the business already ran smoothly without her. It would be foolish to be greedy, to start acting the way she was probably expected to act, merely to make a handful more coins.

She watched and listened instead, and made incremental improvements where she could. She reduced the transport costs, and she also began staggering the days on which boats set out to fish, so there was a steadier and more regular supply of raw meat coming onto the drying racks. That let her finish drying more regularly, as well, which allowed longer-term supply agreements with her cousin Yuio’s people who supplied merchants in the markets, and that meant they didn’t all need to keep discussing new prices day after day as each new batch of meat was sold. Cassa was fairly sure Yuio never actually knew about the changes, but it was a better way for all to do business. It made things simpler for Cassa’s people, and Yuio’s, and the merchants as well, and everyone made a little more money.