02/05/275The Narrow Sea, off Braavos
Everything has its limits. Including my patience. So our guide, Caso Now Two Legs, has gone to feed the fish at the bottom of the Narrow Sea, with ballast tied to his feet. An attempted rape of one of the women on the ship and a tongue that is too long for him to go unpunished.
11.03 .275Myerin
One of the three great slave cities, along with Astapor and Yunkai, greeted my ships with the cries of slaves and the stench of its harbor. A descendant of the ancient Ghiscari Empire, the only state in history that could stand up to the Valyrian Freehold on equal terms.
They say that it was because of its connection with this ancient state that the symbol of Meereen was the Ghiscari harpy, which adorned the highest pyramids in the city.
When I first learned about Slaver's Bay, its cities and what the locals lived off, I couldn't understand for a long time how this was possible.
Astapor is understandable - the Unsullied have always been highly valued in the Free Cities and the Yi Ti Empire, selling for 300 gold dragons apiece, with relatively little expense on their training and equipment. But Yunkai and Meereen...
The former is famous for its slaves for sex, no matter their gender or age. There, boys and girls are taught from childhood "the way of seven sighs and sixteen poses of pleasure."
A brothel city. But in the Free Cities there is Lys - a city famous for its pillow houses no worse than Yunkai, and the courtesans there are often ... not such a worn-out "commodity" as the Yunkish slaves who are raped from childhood.
Meereen is a separate song altogether. The main income of this city was the tax from the Fighting Pits - ancient Ghiscari arenas intended for gladiator fights and animal baiting. They were a round arena dug into the ground, with rows of seats carved right into the ground.
And the question immediately arose - no matter how spectacular the fights in these pits were, the main part of the spectators were the Meereenese themselves. If money came to the city, it was very slow.
The answer was found quickly - all you had to do was stop and question one of the free citizens in the main market, located in the center of the city. It turned out that in addition to training gladiators, who were highly valued in all the other cities of Ghiscar, part of the Free Cities, Qarth, Leng and the Basilisk Isles, Meereen was the main supplier of food to all the other cities of the bay.
All thanks to the river Skahazadhan flowing in the north of the city. It originates in the southern lands of the Dothraki Sea, flows southwest and flows into Slaver's Bay, passing through the Red Waste and Lhazar along the way. Like the Egyptian Nile, this river was the only source of water in the surrounding desert, giving the city the opportunity to normally engage in agriculture. Vegetables, fruits and grains cannot be grown here, but local flax fields, olive groves and vineyards were famous for their rich harvests and quality products.
From this same talkative man, who introduced himself as Grazdan zo Galar, and who turned out to be a member of the Galar clan, one of the families of the Great Lords of Meereen, I learned about another reason that they do not advertise publicly to anyone - the Dothraki.
This is an aggressive nation, not accustomed to cultivating the land on their own and preferring to rob their neighbors, mainly the long-suffering Lhazar, during endless horse raids,has Meereen as its main partner in selling the loot. After all, the Dothraki value horses and their wild nomadic freedom above all else. Why do they need silks stolen from caravans traveling along the Silk Road?
Why do they need plows and scythes obtained in Lhazar? Why do they need whale or manatee skins obtained in Ibben? They don't need them. And they give all of this away for next to nothing (according to the locals), to Meereen, which has learned to profit very well from exotics. But as for Yunkai… It turned out that this city is completely dependent on purchases from the Yi Ti Empire.
With their population exceeding two hundred million (compared to Westeros, where, according to the latest census by Jaehaerys the Peacemaker, only 30 live), the thousands of professional prostitutes and prostitutes supplied to the Golden Empire Yi Ti every year look like a drop in the ocean. These are the kind of pies with kittens. But I was lucky with my new acquaintance. Perhaps through him I will be able to reach the families of the Great Lords who control the Fighting Pits.
16.03 .275Myerin
The new acquaintance turned out to be a very interesting person. Gazdan zo Galar not only turned out to be a member and head of the Golar clan, but was also a successful entrepreneur (in the local manner). He bought young girls from Lhazar and Sarnor, taught them the art of weaving in his house and gave them work embroidering fabrics and carpets, which were sold to other cities of the bay with a very good markup.
By local standards, he was still very generous, taking "only" 90% of the profit from the weavers, and leaving them a tenth. For comparison, the rest of the slaves in the city, except for the gladiators, had no money of their own at all. So when I offered to buy him unique and, one might say, legendary furs, Gazdan almost kissed me on the spot.
Then followed a long and heated debate about the size of the mountain of gold that the Ghiscari had to fork over for the skins of the direwolf, the twilight cat, the polar bear and the mammoth.
Each of us wanted to screw the other; Ghazdan with my ignorance of how much he wanted to sell these skins for after dressing and processing, and I with the price for which I got all this. In the end, after arguing for a whole day and coming to nothing, we simply decided to say how much profit each of us would receive and, based on this, set a price.
So the venerable Ghiscari fell into the astral plane when he found out that I got these valuables for a couple of crappy swords and chain mail (worth only 500 silver and a deer), and I picked my jaw up off the floor for a long time, realizing that these skins cost a minimum of !!!eight thousand gold marks.
Or in other words, 12 thousand gold dragons. Having come to our senses, having laughed our heads off and looked at each other in a new way, we agreed to split the profits equally and, in honor of such a good deal, even become money brothers - a form of fraternization among merchants, when two traders informally agree on mutual assistance and friendly relations.
This is how I made my first friend in Essos, with whom I had very strong ties - mutually beneficial cooperation and Gazdan's cousin, who visited him on the third day of my team's stay at the Golars, and very quickly became my lover. The first and not the last. Galazza Galar, who gave him the place of the head of the family several years ago and decided to become Grace in the local Temple of Grace, often visited her cousin and naturally met me.
The twenty-five-year-old girl, with her exotic Ghiscari beauty and wearing red robes symbolizing her obedience in the pleasure gardens, immediately appealed to me with her erudition and skills in bed. Although what else could you expect from a temple prostitute.
Now the only thing I could do was wait. Gazdan promised to talk to the Loraks, Kandaks and Ukhlezs, who ran most of the Fighting Pits, and discuss the Day of Trial - a trial release, when the imported exotic animals are released to a specially trained team of drivers and later, based on the faces and applause of the spectators, the purchase price is negotiated.
23.03.275 Slaver's Bay, Isle of Cedars.
Meereen left a strange impression. The performance on the Day of the Trial went much better than expected. Specially fed human flesh (although at first I thought it was special food for animals, but when I found out what they add to the meat I beat up the idiot who sold it to me) and not having eaten for several days, the direwolves and the polar bear tore the bestiarii (gladiators who specialized in animals) to pieces, staining the red sands of the arena with blood even more.
But the best performance was shown by the shadow cat. He simply played with the three hunters, first scratching out their eyes and damaging their tendons, and then began to finish them off gradually. He strangled the last survivor with his tail, as if for the amusement of the audience! The crowd was delighted.
As were the Great Lords. As a result, three chests appeared on my ship, filled to the brim with gold, pearls and precious stones. But the most valuable acquisition was the permit. A permit to trade in the Golden Empire of Yi Ti, which only the Loraks had and who exchanged it for a mammoth, which became one of the symbols of the wealth and power of their house.
Everyone was happy - the Loraks could always get a bunch of these pieces of paper, because one of their daughters was the third wife of one of the princes in the Yi Ti, and I, who received a mammoth for only a few dozen gold and knew perfectly well what could happen to me if my ships appeared in the Golden Empire Yi Ti without this piece of paper. So, loaded with narwhal horns, amber, olive oil, carpets and linen fabrics bought at a discount from Gazdan, my ships set off towards the Jade Gate Strait. The Golden Empire was waiting for me.
08 .04 .275 Golden Empire Yi Ti, Yin
The capital of the Golden Empire, the largest port in the world, located on the shores of the Jade Sea, greeted us with the cries and smells of a giant harbor. Yin was considered the richest and most majestic city in all of Essos. This place is the oldest and most densely populated area in the entire empire. At least that's what the slave translator, rented for fifty gold in Qarth, said.
According to the slave, born in Lhazar, judging by the color of his skin, the empire has been ruled for generations by the dynasties of the Gray, Indigo and Pearl-white emperors, and currently the throne of the Phoenix is occupied by the Azure emperors.
Unfortunately, it was not possible to achieve much in the Golden Empire. Yes, many local rich people, when they heard about the legendary "phoenix tears" and "horns of the ludun", began to organize almost auctions, buying amber and narwhal horns almost worth their weight in pure gold. So, after a week of trading, even taking into account the deductions of local customs, the profits were fabulous. But that was where the success ended.
The local aristocracy perceived strangers as unwashed (in a sense, it is true - washing in Westeros, and especially in the North, is not very popular) monkeys, who, by some misunderstanding, found such treasures and sold them for mere pennies (again, according to the locals). After all, the horns of the narwhal-ludun, according to the legends of the I-tian Empire, are the main ingredient of the elixir bao-jie-shan or, in Andal, a potion of vital force, prolonging the life span of a person.
And "phoenix tears" or amber was one of the attributes of the ruling dynasty and was considered one of the best gifts at the imperial court. So, having sold the olive oil and linen fabrics, I filled all the holds with expensive silk, velvet, incense, small mirrors, ivory items and spices unique to the Golden Empire. Almost half of the gold I received was spent on all this, but imagining the price at which all this would be sold in the West, my hands began to shake with delight.
Two weeks later, my ships, rounding, with the help of Volkan and Sigrid, who learned about their cargo and the pirate squadrons hunting them, left the waters of the Jade Sea and headed towards Qarth. Braavos was waiting for us, with its rich markets and huge shipyards, where my ship would soon be ready. P.S. Oberyn distinguished himself again. He persuaded Piper, Robin, Joen, Rick and Dick to "reconnoiter" this city. In the end, I had to bribe the local guards to get them out of the dungeons, where they ended up shitting all the money they took.
Plus, I had to hire a local doctor separately - these idiots at some point got into a brothel that did not have a warranty license. As a result, they all came down with some local disease, which I simply did not know how to treat. Now they will not be able to look at women for another month - the effect of these drugs is such that even with a strong desire, nothing will get up in the patient. I even bought a few doses from the doctor, just in case, for one Dornishman.
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