Chapter 4: Even an Expensive Shop Has Its Reasons

Nadia’s shop smelled of soap before it smelled of firewood. Brooms with handles of different lengths lined the wall, and beside the bottles of oil lay cloth for patching clothes. When Sara paused in the doorway, a woman with her sleeves rolled to her elbows returned the bottle she had been polishing to a shelf.

“Firewood’s on the shelves outside. Twelve coppers a bundle. Choose the shorter pieces if your hearth’s small.”

“Are you Nadia? Ines told me about your shop. My name’s Sara. I’m looking into the terms on which people in town buy their firewood.”

The woman folded the cloth she had been using to dust her stock and set it on the edge of the counter. Sara explained that twenty-four households wanted to discuss their purchases, though neither quantities nor dates had been decided. At that, Nadia raised an eyebrow.

“So that’s not an order. It’s people saying they’d like it cheaper. I can’t bring in extra stock when I don’t even know when they mean to buy.”

“Of course, we haven’t taken orders yet. But if we can bring everyone’s requirements together, I wondered whether there might be room to lower the price by accepting a little less profit...”

“And what makes you think you know how much of it is ‘profit’?”

Her voice dropped, and Sara stopped. Nadia didn’t shout, but she picked up the folded cloth again and rubbed hard at a small cloudy mark left on the bottle.

“Do you think the difference between what I buy it for and what I sell it for goes straight into my pocket? Someone has to pay to mend the roof when it rains, and for somewhere to keep stock that hasn’t sold. I keep this place open even on days no customers come.”

Sara almost crumpled the paper at her side, then hurriedly relaxed her grip. It wasn’t that she hadn’t known those costs existed. Yet as she pictured the people from the twenty-four households who had asked to discuss the matter, she had begun wanting a promise of lower prices before anything else.

“I’m sorry. I made it sound as though there must be profit you could cut before I’d even asked what your price covers. I should have asked whether a combined order would reduce any of the work, and discussed that instead.”

“Putting the quantities together doesn’t put the work together if I still have to deliver a little to each of twenty-four houses. I charge separately for delivery, but sometimes there’s no one to receive it and I have to go back.”

Sara was about to ask about the delivery terms when the bell above the entrance rang. A man with wood shavings on his coat approached the counter, crumpling his cap between his hands.

“Sorry, but could you wait until my next pay? I could do with just one bundle of firewood.”

Nadia asked Sara to wait a moment and took a ledger from beneath the counter. After exchanging a few words with the man, she turned the open page toward herself.

“You still owe me for last time. Just one bundle today. Bring the whole amount on payday, will you? I have to pay for my next lot of stock, too.”

When the man left, thanking her several times, Nadia closed the ledger and glanced toward the firewood shelves. Sara followed her gaze, thinking of the bundle that had left the shop without yet bringing in any money.

“You let people buy on credit, too.”

“Depends who it is. I can’t do it for everyone, and even people I know don’t always pay me back. But when someone says they can’t light a fire tonight, I’m not hard-hearted enough to turn them down every time.”

By the end, she sounded angry with herself. She put away the ledger and moved the bottle to the bright window. The patch she had polished again was no longer cloudy.

Sara laid her paper on the counter and asked again about the terms for collecting from the shop and for home delivery. If payment was made in advance and the whole order collected at once, Nadia could provide a quote once she knew the quantity. She insisted, however, that she couldn’t promise a lower price here and now.

“Some people have no choice but to keep buying a little at a time from a shop. Even if we start buying in bulk, we can’t leave those people with nothing to buy.”

“Then remember those customers exist. You’re free to look for somewhere cheaper, but I won’t have people putting price tags side by side and deciding we’re taking more than we should.”

Sara nodded. If they collected the money in advance and handed over the goods at an agreed place, they would be dividing up the work differently from the shop. She couldn’t compare prices alone before they had decided how much of that work they could take on.

As she gathered her papers to leave, Nadia tipped her chin toward the entrance.

“And if you find cheap firewood, check how dry it is. Fewer coppers won’t make it something you can recommend to other people if they struggle to burn it.”

“Thank you. I’ll find out how to check that, as well as the prices.”

By the time Sara returned to the estate, the margins of her paper were full of terms she had learned. After hearing her report, Rowan asked whether she had been scolded at the shop. She stopped looking for an excuse and nodded.

“I asked the wrong way. If I’d mentioned your name first, Your Grace, she might never have told me what I needed to learn.”

“Then it’s just as well you didn’t. When I go, people sometimes swallow what they would like to say.”

He gave a slightly rueful smile and moved the documents he was holding to one side. Sara hadn’t expected him to make room like this for an account of her being scolded. She smoothed the edge of her paper and began with Nadia’s parting warning about checking how dry the firewood was.