Chapter 61: Margins

The medicine room smelled stronger in winter.

Edwin said it was because the windows stayed closed. Joe suspected it was because nobody inside could escape.

Steam rolled from two wide iron pots along the back wall, carrying the bitterness of bark, dried roots, and something sharp enough to sting the nose. Bundles of herbs hung from the beams overhead. Others occupied wooden racks along the walls, each tied with a small tag identifying origin, purchase date, and grade. On a long central table, three workers cut pale roots into slices while another crushed dried leaves with a stone roller.

Outside, the last of Deepwinter was losing its grip on Blackwood. Water dripped steadily from the eaves. The blackstone paved street beyond the front windows was wet rather than frozen, though dirty snow remained packed in the shadows between buildings.

Joe stood beside a cooling tray and watched a worker separate the latest batch.

“Seventy-three.”

The worker moved one packet into the good pile.

“Seventy-four.”

Another.

“Seventy-five.”

He picked up the next packet, squeezed it between two fingers, then tore open the wrapping and inspected the dark powder inside.

He frowned.

“Low.”

That went into a second pile.

Joe looked at the table.

The first pile held seventy-five packets.

The second had nine.

Everything else had already been scraped into a waste basin.

“How much did the ingredients cost?” Joe asked.

The worker glanced toward Edwin before answering. Edwin sat at the smaller table near the window, going through several sheets of figures with an abacus at his elbow.

“Twenty-three silverlings,” Edwin said without looking up.

Joe looked at the waste basin.

“And everything else?”

“Everything else?”

“Fuel. Wrapping. Labor. Storage.”

That made Edwin lookup.

“You've become interested in accounting?”

“I became interested in why you're throwing away my cultivation money.”

One of the workers coughed into his sleeve.

Mira, who was standing beside her father's desk with a stack of purchase slips, looked down quickly enough that Joe suspected she was hiding a smile.

Edwin did not.

“My cultivation money?”

“If you make more, I can ask for a larger share later.”

“Ah.”

Edwin leaned back.

“There he is.”

Joe ignored that.

Edwin tapped the figures on his desk.

“Twenty-three for ingredients. A little over three for fuel on a batch this size. Wrapping and storage, another two. Labor depends on whether you insist on pretending the workers are free.”

“They aren't?”

The closest worker looked at Joe.

Joe nodded seriously.

“Good to know.”

This time Mira did laugh. Edwin shook his head. “Call it thirty-two silverlings total after everything.”

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Joe looked back at the piles.

“What does a full packet sell for?”

“You know what it sells for.”

“I know what I pay when I buy one. I don't know your average.”

Edwin studied him for a moment, then apparently decided there was no harm in answering.

“Around three silverlings for five packets by the time everything balances. Sometimes a little more. Sometimes less when sold in quantity.”

Roughly six-tenths of a silverling each.

Joe did the calculation automatically.

Seventy-five good packets produced around forty-five silverlings before adjusting for the weaker packets.

The weaker nine still had value, though not much. Edwin sold them cheaply to laborers, poorer hunters, and people who needed something better than food but could not afford proper medicinal packets.

Joe pointed at the waste basin.

“And that?”

“Worth almost nothing.”

“Almost?”

“Animal feed in some cases. Compost in others. Occasionally we recover something useful.”

“How much profit from this batch?”

Edwin looked back down at his figures.

“Thirteen silverlings, perhaps a little more by the time the low-grade packets sell.”

Joe stared at the basin.

A third of the potential product had disappeared into it.

Not because the workers were incompetent. They clearly weren't. The room operated smoothly. Every person had a specific task, and nobody seemed uncertain about what came next.

That made the waste more interesting.

“How often is this normal?”

Edwin's brow rose.

“This is a good batch.”

Joe looked at him.

“Seventy-five percent.”

“Closer to eighty if you count the lower grade.”

“I don't.”

“The customers buying them probably do.”

Joe picked up one of the rejected packets and loosened the wrapping.

The powder smelled correct at first.

Then he caught the faint burnt edge underneath it.

“Too much heat?”

“Probably.”

“Probably?”

Edwin put his brush down.

“Joe. Do you think medicine shops throw away a quarter of every batch because nobody thought to stop?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“I think you throw it away because you don't know exactly why one batch gives seventy-five good packets and another gives seventy-nine.”

Edwin stared at him.

The medicine room became a little quieter.

One of the workers continued cutting root slices, but the knife struck the board more carefully than before.

Mira looked between Joe and her father.

Edwin finally said, “You have an idea?”

“Not yet.”

“Then you've diagnosed the same problem medicine halls have had for longer than you've been alive.”

Joe considered mentioning that sixteen years were not a particularly impressive standard. He decided against it. Instead, he picked up another rejected packet.

“Can I make the next batch?”

Edwin's expression changed slightly.

“You already make medicine.”

“Not like this.”

Joe looked around the production room.

His own work was small batch. One pot. One sequence. His hands are doing almost everything. If something changed, he noticed.

This was different.

One person prepared the ingredients. Another handled heating. A third filtered. A fourth portioned and wrapped. A small mistake at the beginning could be amplified by three people who had no idea it existed.

He had spent months using One Effort Equals a Hundred on his own medicinal practice. But the production line was also a practice.

He wanted to know what his talent would consider one effort.

Edwin folded his arms.

“You'll replace the ingredients if you ruin it.”

“Fine.”

“And the workers still get paid.”

“I wasn't planning to fire them.”

One of the women at the cutting table muttered, “Good.”

Joe looked at the active pots.

“Tomorrow morning. I want to watch this one finish first.”

Edwin gave him a long look. Then he picked up his brush again.

“Don't make the room unusable.”

Joe nodded. That was apparently permission.

-----

The batch took another two hours.

Joe watched all of it.

Not casually.

He followed each ingredient from storage rack to finished packet.

The pale root was cut first. Almost every worker tried to make the slices approximately the same thickness.

Approximately.

Joe took five pieces from the cutting board and placed them side by side.

One was nearly twice as thick as another.

When the slices entered hot water together, the thinner pieces surrendered their useful compounds sooner. The thicker ones required more time.

The worker compensated by extending extraction.

That solved one problem and created another.

The leaves added later were exposed to heat for longer than ideal.

Joe watched the color change.

Slightly.

Almost nothing.

He would not have noticed it a year ago.

Now he did.

Every Hard Work Pays Off had made his practice reliable. One Effort Equals a Hundred had made tiny inconsistencies loud. When the mixture was filtered, Joe examined the discarded material.

It was still strongly scented.

He squeezed a handful. Liquid ran between his fingers. Useful liquid. Thrown away because the cloth was folded for speed rather than extraction.

The workers then transferred the concentrate to a second pot.

Joe touched the side. The temperature dropped during transfer.

The next worker corrected by increasing the flame. Too quickly.

The bottom layer overheated before the entire mixture returned to the desired temperature. Not enough to ruin the medicine. Enough to reduce consistency. By the time the last packet was wrapped, Joe had filled three sheets with notes.

Mira picked one up.

“You write smaller than my father's accountants.”

“I don't want to buy more paper.”

She read down the page.

“Slice thickness?”

“Yes.”

“Pot position?”

“Yes.”

“This one says the left burner is hotter.”

“It is.”

She looked toward the row of stoves.

“They're the same.”

“They look the same.”

Mira walked over, held one palm above the left stove, then the right.

“That proves nothing.”

“I know.”

“You sounded disappointed.”

“I was hoping to prove you wrong quickly.”

Joe took the paper back. She smiled.

Simon appeared in the doorway shortly before sunset, carrying his guard cloak over one shoulder. He looked into the room.

“What happened?”

“Medicine,” Mira said.

“I can see medicine.”

“You asked what happened.”

Simon looked at Joe's notes.

“Did somebody die?”

“No.”

“Then why is he writing like that?”

Joe ignored him.

Simon came farther inside and reached toward the cooling tray.

A worker slapped his hand away.

“These are counted.”

“I was only looking.”

“You look with your mouth.”

Simon appeared offended.

Joe had heard that accusation before.