“The railway,” Markus said, flatly.
Emily nodded. “He wouldn’t let me see the books. But I can’t see how he can repay his investors. The notes are due in a couple of days, unless he manages to roll them over somehow. But there’s too much money involved for that to be easy. He needs a fresh set of investors, and I don’t think he’s going to get them.”
“That was my thought too.” Markus looked grim. “Do you know how many of my customers have invested money in the railway?”
“No,” Emily said.
“A lot,” Markus said. “I think some of my board have invested money, despite my objections. They’re not going to give it up without a fight.”
Emily nodded in agreement. Frieda and she had wandered the streets for the last couple of days, eating in small cafes and chatting with strangers. She hadn’t truly realized how many people had bought notes until they’d talked to a string of investors in a row, each extolling the blessings the railway would bring to the city. They’d all sounded like cultists, from the young girls who’d invested their pocket money to the cooks who thanked Vesperian for their new customers. A couple had even tried to convince her to invest.
Others, they’d discovered, hadn’t been so happy. Vesperian seemed to be buying up resources, from every scrap of iron he could find to bronze, copper, timber and dozens of chemicals. It was a boom time for suppliers, but everyone else was being frozen out of the market. Fishermen couldn’t get items they desperately needed for their boats; bridge repairmen couldn’t keep up with wear and tear on the giant structures…she was sure that, sooner or later, something would go badly wrong. There were even people muttering about damned foreigners entering their city in search of work.
“You need a contingency plan for when the notes come due,” Emily said. “Do you have any ideas at all?”
Markus sighed. “I don’t think the bank itself is going to be directly affected,” he said. “We didn’t invest in the railway ourselves. But if there is a sudden demand for ready cash, we’re going to be in some trouble.”
Emily made a face. In some ways, the concept of the bank being crammed with gold and silver coins was a polite fiction. Much of the money placed into the bank existed only as notes in a ledger, a promise to repay based on the theory that the bank would never have to repay all the loans at once. Markus might be able to meet some demand, even though it would mean cutting into his seed money. He wouldn’t be able to repay all of his customers at the same time.
She gritted her teeth. The Bank of Silence wasn’t the flashiest innovation she’d introduced, but it might well do more good than anything else in the long term. Merely giving people a safe place to store their money made life better, while microloans ensured that innovators had the backing they needed to turn their ideas into reality. The thought of it crashing down in ruins, through someone else’s financial mismanagement, was appalling. And yet, if hundreds of customers demanded their money back, how could anyone say no?
“This could break the bank,” she breathed.
“It’s a possibility.” Markus looked down at the wooden floor. “I’m very glad that Melissa is safely in Whitehall.”
Emily swallowed. “She might be safe.” She was on better terms with Melissa these days, but she still didn’t like her very much. “But what about you?”
“I don’t know,” Markus said. “Emily, this could destroy your fortune as well.”
“I know,” Emily said. “And I have no way to move the money out before it’s too late.”
She cursed under her breath. In hindsight, she might just have outsmarted herself. She’d put half of her fortune into the Bank of Silence, both to give Markus some seed money and to keep it safe from King Randor’s grasping hands. But now…she couldn’t even move it back to Cockatrice! The mere hint that someone was moving their money out of the bank might start everything rolling downhill to disaster…
…And she had no way to guess at just how big the disaster was likely to be!
“You could buy up the notes,” Markus said. “That might limit the scale of the crash.”
Emily shook her head. There were just too many notes. Even if she bought them at their original value, she’d still run out of money fairly quickly. And the bank would have the same problem. Perhaps, if all Vesperian needed was ten thousand crowns, something could be done. But if he needed more…
He wouldn’t have asked for so much if he wasn’t desperate, she thought, grimly. And perhaps he has good reason to be desperate.
“The investors would want full price,” she said. “They wouldn’t take less than that until it was too late.”
“And the notes become worthless paper,” Markus said.
He rubbed his eyes. “I’m going to call an emergency meeting of the Bankers Guild. If we discuss the matter in a body, we can approach Vesperian and demand he shows us the books. I’ve got accountants who can go through every last scrap of paper and pull together a complete picture of his affairs.”
Frieda leaned forward. “And what if he refuses to cooperate?”
“We can advise people not to buy any further notes,” Markus said. “Beyond that…there isn’t much we can do.”
There’s no financial authority to regulate transactions, Emily thought, numbly. And no international police force to track Vesperian down if he grabs everything he can carry and runs.
“You could always put in a demand for repayment,” Emily pointed out. “Couldn’t you threaten to seize the railway?”
“The Guild Council would have to approve it,” Markus said. “And Vesperian has a lot of allies amongst the guildsmen.”
“They bought his notes,” Frieda said.
“And he’s been creating jobs,” Markus added. “The Ironworkers Guild loves him. So do most of the Woodworkers. The guildmasters would hesitate to take firm steps against him until the disaster was obvious.”