Salt Road Caravans become cautious suppliers. Stores improve but coin reserves drop.
Fenn Voss arrived on the Salt Road with three mules, six knives in plain sight, and enough salt to make every cook in Greyhold hate him on principle.
He stopped beyond arrow range of the West Gate and let the sacks gleam white in the morning sun. A mule stamped beside a crate marked for medicine herbs. Tomas Reed stood on the gate stair with a signal rag clutched in one fist, too thin to look official and too determined to look like bait.
"Smuggler," Lyra Stone said from the wall.
"Merchant when paid," Fenn called back. "Smuggler when robbed. Today depends on your duke."
Adrian came down to the road with two militia spears behind him and no coin purse hidden in his sleeve. Greyhold's stores had gained accuracy, not abundance. Salt mattered because meat spoiled, medicine needed mixing, and hungry people lost hope faster when every pot tasted of old smoke.
Fenn was narrow, sun-browned, and amused by danger. His coat had been patched with caravan canvas. "Lord Vale. I was told you died three different ways."
"Greyhold keeps disappointing people."
"A useful habit if you can feed it."
Fenn tapped the first sack. "Salt, clean. Beans, not many. Fever bark, expensive. I sell at road price plus hazard, plus Marrow toll, plus gate appeasement."
Adrian looked at the toll board hanging broken beside the gatehouse. "There is no gate appeasement."
"Then I congratulate your wall and raise the hazard."
Lyra made a low sound. Adrian ignored it. He had dealt with Fenn once before in the lost future, badly. He had called the man a thief. Fenn had laughed and sold to House Marrow instead.
"Show me your Marrow toll receipt," Adrian said.
Fenn's humor thinned. "You want to tax my tax?"
"I want to replace it."
That brought silence from the caravan men. One mule flicked an ear.
Adrian took a blank strip from Mara's packet and held it against the gate stone. "Greyhold will pay half in coin, half in city receipt redeemable against future legal toll exemption. One stamp. One book entry. No private bribe, no second collection at the ditch, no Marrow clerk touching your axle."
Fenn stared, then laughed. "A starving duke selling tomorrow."
"A lawful duke buying a road."
"Tomorrow is cheap from men with empty granaries."
"Then price the risk honestly."
Fenn stepped close enough that Lyra's sword cleared an inch from its scabbard. "Honestly? House Marrow pays me to ignore you. Their collectors offer silver for spoiled grain, twice the value of clean beans, if I carry it through Greyhold's hungry wards and let desperate mothers buy it before your clerk can test the flour."
Tomas swore before he remembered he was standing beside adults.
Adrian felt the Duchy System stir cold behind his eyes.
SALT ROAD SUPPLY OPTION.
COST: 42 COIN, 3 LEGAL TOLL EXEMPTIONS, PUBLIC RECEIPT.
STORES: +1.5 DAYS IF ACCEPTED.
COIN RESERVE: CRITICAL.
"Names," Adrian said.
Fenn shook his head. "Names cost more than salt."
"Then take protection as payment."
That made the smuggler's eyes sharpen.
Adrian pointed to the West Gate tower where fresh bracing held the cracked stone. "No Marrow collector taxes cargo under Greyhold wall. You unload in public. Sister Nahla inspects medicine. Mara records weight. Lyra posts two militia to the next bend for your return. In exchange, you name the route where spoiled grain is being bought."
"Two militia?" Fenn said. "That is protection?"
"It is what I can spare without lying."
The answer landed better than a boast. Fenn looked up at the thin militia line, the patched wall, Tomas's anxious face, and the crowd gathering because salt had a smell even through sacks.
"Three exemptions," he said. "Written for my wagons, not my pretty name."
"Two."
"Three, and the boy stops looking at my medicine crate like he wants to steal it for Ashwell."
Tomas flushed. "I wasn't."
"You were. I respect it."
Adrian held out his hand. "Three exemptions, tied to inspected cargo only. If you carry rot, the receipt dies."
Fenn clasped his wrist. "If your receipt dies, so do future bargains."
They unloaded under more eyes than Fenn liked. Mara weighed salt against clean stones because the official weights still could not be trusted. Sister Nahla opened the fever bark and bit a sliver. Lyra assigned Harl Vey and one young spearwoman to escort the caravan to the bend.
When the Vale seal pressed into the first Salt Road receipt, the system marked the road in pale blue.
STORES: 2.5 DAYS -> 4 DAYS.
COIN RESERVE: DANGEROUS LOW.
SALT ROAD CARAVANS: CAUTIOUS SUPPLY.
City morale did not surge. People had learned that every improvement carried a hook in its mouth. But when the first sack entered the Old Granary under record, an old cook crossed herself and whispered, "Clean salt."
Fenn heard. His expression shifted, briefly and privately, into something like shame.
"West of here," he told Adrian. "At the dry well before the Marrow boundary, collectors buy flour with grey bloom under the crust. They mark it as animal feed, then sell it back through small shops before fever starts."
"Who leads them?"
"A counting clerk with a split silver ring. I do not know his name."
Adrian nodded to Mara, who wrote the ring down.
Fenn mounted. "One more honest price, Lord Vale. Marrow is not trying only to starve Greyhold. They are trying to make you feed it badly enough that the city begs for them back."
At the bend, one of Fenn's mules stumbled. A small sack tore open and spilled flour into the road.
The powder was white on top.
Underneath, it bloomed green.