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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cerebral Paladin" data-source="post: 3110404" data-attributes="member: 3448">Mahler decided it was time to gather information at the Merchants Exchange a little more directly.  The first step was the creation of a new identity, with a safe room in a nondescript room to change guises in.  “Mahler” carefully removed the clothes and make-up that made up her everyday disguise as Mahler-- the only appearance her friends at the palace had ever seen-- and carefully constructed her new identity.  Female, she decided, and middle-aged and portly, about twenty-five years older than her actual age.  She carefully worked the padding into place, and practiced the Enclaves accent and mannerisms she would use.  After carefully checking her appearance in a silver mirror, she headed out.The Merchants Exchange was a large, imposing building in the heart of the Merchants Quarter.  The marble construction showed the institution’s wealth, but all of the gaudier signs of its finances were inside.  Mahler swept in through the entrance, past the bored looking guards, who looked more prosperous than fit.A small man crouched over a large ledger sat at a plain desk, just within the building.  “May I help you, madame?” he said in a voice that managed to be both bored and unctuous.“I should hope so.  I am Lady Sepulva of Enclaves.”“Ah!” he straightened respectfully, and drew a quick conclusion from her age.  “We heard about your husband’s death and are greatly cheered that you are well.”“Well enough, I suppose.  I wish to take my husband’s seat in the Exchange.  The family’s interests must be represented, you understand.  I was really just here to visit family, but…”“Of course, of course.  Just couldn’t stay away from the trade.”  He nodded knowingly.  “That will be 100 silver, for a seat in the third ring as he had.”“I must pay for the seat?  But surely he had paid.”“Yes, m’lady, but while the seats in the middle and inner circles are hereditary in perpetuity, the outer circle must pay for their seats annually.  And they are held only by the individual.  Each of the circles is based on proven wealth.  While I’m sure your husband could have afforded to buy into the middle circle, he apparently did not view the expense as worthwhile based on the amount of business he transacted here.”Lady Sepulva sniffed noisily.  “Well then.  I suppose I must, and we will see whether our business here justifies a change in the future.”  She casually drew forth a platinum piece and slapped it down on the table.The doorman coughed.  “I’m sorry, m’lady, but you must pay in silver.  I need to count each coin as it enters the box,” he said with a gesture at a sturdy lockbox behind him with a small slot in the top.Lady Sepulva blustered, but eventually drew out her purse and carefully counted 100 silvers into the box.The doorman smiled.  “Thank you.  Now, if you could just sign the membership ledger.”  He slid the register across to her, and Lady Sepulva carefully forged a distinctive new signature, with no resemblance to the either Mahler Fife’s or her real signature.She walked into the great open chamber where the Exchange transacted the business of all of Canberry, and looked around carefully.  The independents, not truly part of the Exchange at all but tolerated because of the money to be made trading with them, stood around the wall at the outer edge of the chamber.  On the floor of the chamber, the outer circle members of the Exchange sat at their tables.  The food merchants, including Lady Sepulva’s late husband when he had attended, faced the east wall.  After a quick conversation with the doorman, she crossed to the table where her husband had sat and took his seat.  The entire room bustled with continuous trades.  The members of the outer circle bargained with the independents and each other, periodically meeting with a member of the middle circle in their raised area to conclude a major deal.  The middle circle members negotiated with each other, shifting around vast amounts of money and commodities, and periodically sent runners down to favored members of the outer circle.  The seats of the inner circle, in the highest level of the room some two stories above the trading floor, were shielded from view by heavy marble, with the only entrances through gilded gates in a wrought iron fence.  Lady Sepulva assumed that they traded just as actively as the rest of the Exchange, but the only sign was the periodic passage of someone, generally the agent of a middle circle member, through the gate.</blockquote>

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