While Jon and Frost were working hard to try and counter the Long Night, on the East side of Westeros his business was facing some difficulties in Braavos.
"Alright, Boys, get on with it," Sam shouted towards workers after the ships had properly docked. "We don't have much time so pick up the pace!" They had bought a total of five ships loaded with Starkhorses from White Harbour to sell in Bravoos, so it would take a long time to unload them.
Merchant Sam had come a long way from only doing leather business in the North. Now Jon had placed him in charge of his whole operation on the eastern side. But even though he had tried his hardest, there wasn't much wiggle room available here for a new Merchant group to establish itself.
Unlike the western shore where there had been no trade between the North and South via sea for centuries, it wasn't the same on this side. Here the Manderly already had their hands in pretty much all kinds of Northern products so Jon had ordered him to only focus on selling Starkhorses for the moment, which meant that the profit was a bit less here compared to the other side.
"Be careful with that, You Idiot! Listen up! If I find a single scratch on any of the Starkhorses because of your carelessness then you can forget about stepping even a single foot off the ship—"
"Boss!" His aide suddenly interrupted him and when turned towards he saw him sporting a dumbfounded look on his face while pointing at something behind him.
"What!" Sam barked as he was feeling uncomfortable at having his tirade getting stopped mid-way, it was as if there was a bone stuck in his throat.
"I-It's here again!"
"What's here again—" he began while tuning around but his words got stuck in his throat as he saw a familiar pristine white paper stuck on the wall behind him, it was a wall on the port near the place where they always docked. "Oh! No! No! No! NO! Please don't let it be us..." he prayed to the old gods while slowly walking towards the notice.
Only one institute in the whole of Braavos was wealthy enough to waste an expensive piece of paper to give out a simple notice, the one place every single debtor was scared of, The Iron Bank.
Sam didn't know what they had done to incur their wrath but starting a few months ago, they had started getting notices from the Ironbank that their import tax for Starkhorses had been increased. And it wasn't just a single time instead after every couple of trips they would be greeted with the same notice that was slowly strangling their business.
And his dread turned out to be true when he got close enough to read the paper...
"Did they increase it again, Boss," the aide asked anxiously when he saw Sam standing there with a deathly pale face.
"Y-Yes... by 10% once again,"
"But that is... that is just absurd," the aide replied frustratedly, "How are we supposed to do business then, our orders have already been decreasing lately due to the harsh import taxes and the resultant sudden increase in prices and if we increase them once again I am afraid the orders would stop altogether," the main selling point Starkhorses had always been that it was cheaper than a horse in the long term, so if that wasn't on the table then they would lose their target customer base.
"I-I'll do something about it, Don't worry, " Sam said resolutely after taking a deep breath, "I'll go straight to the Iron Bank and try and reason with those greedy bastards.... to see if they can stop this absurdness."
"They didn't listen to you the last time... How would it be different this time,"
"I have to try though," Sam said with a helpless smile, "And if nothing else, I'll at least try to find the reason for this unreasonable tax that is only applied to Starkhorses,"
"I hope you succeed boss... For all our sakes,"
...
The evening Sun was just about to set and the otherworldly orange colour reflecting on the water flowing through the city created a picturesque scenario that all the artists around the world would die to see. But the aide who had been standing outside the massive building, also known as the temple of Money, was in no mood to enjoy that scenery.
The aide had been waiting there outside the bank in the shade of a tree since early morning, waiting for his boss who had gone inside early in the morning but he still hadn't left the premises. The whole day his stomach had been in turmoil over the thought of whether he would still have a job or not... or maybe he was just hungry.
Ever since joined this ship his life had completely changed, his parents were proud of him, he had gotten married to a comely Northern girl and he even had a child on the way so it would be very devastating for him if he lost his job as the future would be very bleak.
'There he is,' The aide sighed in relief when he finally caught a glimpse of Merchant Sam coming down the stairs, but his relief was killed shortly when he saw the slumped shoulders of his boss, along with an absentminded expression on his face, it just spelt bad news.
With dread pooling in his stomach, he approached Sam who also caught sight of him and met him halfway. He immediately asked when they were close enough, "H-How was it, Boss? Did you convince them?"
Sam opened his mouth to answer but it seemed that the words were stuck in his throat as he was able to get anything out of his mouth, so he just shook his head with a self-deprecating expression on his face.
The colour completely drained out of the already deathly pale face of the aide when he got the answer he was dreading the most, "T-That can't be it, boss... there has to be something that we can do. What if... What if we ask the Lord Manderly for help, I am sure they wouldn't mind helping us out just this once—"
"We can't," Sam shook his head after clearing his throat, "That greedy bastard already warned me about that..."
Sam could still remember the smirk on that bastard face as he sat behind his desk and declared that there was nothing he could do about it.
...
"I know that you earn enough from that contraption of yours, so what's the problem with sharing a part of it with us too..." he had said with those unfeeling eyes.
"But, my lord, the tax was already too high, and with this new tax increase, no one would want to buy from us anymore..... we would simply not be able to sustain it—" Sam had tried to plead with the man to no avail.
"That is your problem, isn't it? Not mine," he had said nonchalantly as if he wasn't just putting dozens of people out of jobs.
"B-But My Lord—"
"That'll be all, you can leave now," and with that cold dismissal Sam had stood up from his chair with a helpless expression on his face and went to the door, but not before hearing his last shot, "And just so you know, I wouldn't contact the Manderlys if I were you, the last you called them to intervene I had to honour them because of our long history of trade but this time... I wouldn't be so lenient so if you don't want to harm our relations then don't call them,"
...
"But I don't understand... Why? What exactly did we do to deserve such animosity from them..."
"That I was able to find out about," Sam said with a fierce look on his face, "And while it cost me a big chunk to bribe the guards, the information was worth it..."
"What is it?"
"It turns out that there is some kind of election upcoming for some high positions in the bank and as you'd expect from those greedy bastards, the candidates are selected from those who bring in the highest revenue no matter their methods... so that bastard decided that we were a soft target and decided to squeeze us dry..."
"Just because of a silly..." The aide was left speechless at this new knowledge before he shook his head with a rueful expression, "So this is the end, huh..."
"No it isn't..." Sam said with a resolute expression on his face while looking towards the North, "Now that I've tried all avenues and failed... It's finally time to call 'him'... the only one who brings us out of this predicament..."
"Who?"
"The Boss of you Boss..."