The Dragonbone Black Market

Maekar orders his two men to wait outside the shop's door, and he ducks inside, looking for the owner.

Maekar frowns, looking the man over. "Indeed, goodman, I hope you can," he replied. He drew a small piece of dragonbone about four inches long and two inches in diameter from a pouch at his belt; it had come from the tip of one of Azuria's wings, as it was known that the wing-bones were the easiest to work into hilts, already being roughly the proper shape.

"I wish to know if you've the skill to work with dragonbone; I've a few works I wish to comission," he added.

Maekar had judged the piece about the right size for a dagger hilt, although he was no expert so he could not be sure. "Four things; of that I wish a dagger hilt to be made," he said, lifting the weapon out of his belt and handing it to the smith. It was a beautiful dagger with the blueish tint that indicated it was castle-forged of extremely high quality, and it curved backward at the last inch, though both eges were sharpened. "Nothing complicated or ornamental, just the hilt. I've a larger piece back in my pavilion, of which I wish a new hilt to be made for Vigiliance," he added, indicating the sword at his hip. "The third item is a longbow, perhaps five and a half feet. For a woman, about this size," he said, indicating a person who was about 5'4" with his hand. "I do not know if that is within your craft, but if you are unable to make one then perhaps you might direct me to a bowyer who can?"

"The fourth thing I will require is your discretion, and your silence, though you will be paid well for each.

"You have experience working with dragonbone then? It can't be commonly found, after all, and I imagine that only a portion of Quicksilver's bones would have been salvagable, since he was shot out of the sky and hit the ground from several hundred feet in the air," he replied. "I imagine it must be imported from the east, if you're to have any practice working with it?"

"Even smugglers have their purpose in this world," Maekar admitted quietly, "though perhaps it wiser to speak of such things less openly. I will see you well rewarded, however, if you direct me to one of your further ranging... friends. It must be a merchant whose business is at sea, with ships of his own."

Maekar nodded. He handed over the piece of Dragonbone he'd brought. "I will send a boy this afternoon, to bring you the other two pieces, and if you send me a message when the hilt is ready, I will return when you fit it to Vigiliance," he replied. "As for the bow, I wish it to be of the highest quality that your bowyer friend can make, something fit for a Queen."

After he agreed on payment, and paid the smith a portion up front, he left the smithy and headed toward the harbor. Along the way, he stopped in a few pot-shops and taverns, unobtrusively asking around about the ship to try and confirm the Blacksmith's information, that it was a merchant vessel that often made trips to the east carrying exports. If he finds that the information was reliable, he will head down to the docks and seek out the ship's owner personally.

"I understand you are a merchant of wide repute, goodman," Maekar said politely, with a smile. "I perhaps wished to discuss a matter of trade with you, if you are amenable."

"I imagine you deal in rarer and more valuable goods? For example, dragonbone; I imagine there is little enough market for it here, but perhaps in the east it is more widely sought," he said. He did not need to add that the more sought-after an item was, the more the person who owned it could charge for access.

"I think you'll find I can imagine quite a lot. I have come into possession of a fair amount of the material in the wake of the battle," he replied knowingly, "and I am seeking a buyer."

He told the man his estimates in weight for the amount of bone he had packed away in his pavilions. The dragons' skulls had already been shipped back to King's Landing, but the rest of the skeletons he had kept and weighed. Azuria's bones themselves weighed over three hundred pounds easily, and Nenyan's bones still weighed more than a man despite being so much smaller than the other deceased dragon.

"Well once you are out of port, I cannot imagine you should have anything to worry about," Maekar replied smoothly. "I understood that discretion was one of your selling points, and I think it is perhaps safer to go unnamed as yet, though if you like you may call me Markus. The margins of profit you can expect are surely high enough to outweigh the risk involved."

"For such a weight, you must think me a child," he replied, in an affronted tone. He was clearly not actually insulted, but all haggling requires a certain level of drama and showiness, and Maekar intended to get the best price possible for such a sale. "Increase that by half again, and we have a deal."