Chapter 169: Merchants Of Blood

The air in Director Haust’s study was heavy with the mingled scents of pipe tobacco, beeswax polish, and old vellum. It was the kind of room that announced authority without raising its voice. Dark oak shelves climbed the walls, bowing slightly under the weight of leather-bound volumes—treatises on chemistry, navigation, political economy, and law. A tall window looked out toward the City of Hannover, where bare winter branches rattled faintly in the wind, their sound muffled by thick glass imported at great expense from Bohemia.

Francisco sat stiffly in the high-backed chair opposite the Director’s desk. The chair was too large for him, designed for German professors and visiting ministers rather than young men from overseas colonies, and its carved arms pressed uncomfortably against his coat. He did not shift. He had learned early that visible discomfort was a weakness best hidden.

The weight on his shoulders was not imagined. It was real, heavy as iron: the expectations of his family, and beyond them the ambitions of hundreds—perhaps thousands—of elite families across New Granada. Creole landowners, merchants, militia captains, university men, and provincial magistrates. All of them were waiting, watching, calculating. And here he was, sitting in a quiet study in Hanover, with their future resting on ink, paper, and the inclinations of men who had never seen the Andes.

On the desk lay a neatly stacked bundle of exchange letters, bound with a faded blue ribbon. The paper was thick, the handwriting precise—banking instruments drawn from Amsterdam, Hamburg, and London. It represented the money Francisco had earned through the two industries he had built in cooperation with the university: the rediscovery of Roman cement and the refinement of cheap, high-purity alcohol through his distillation tower.

Normally, these letters would have been regarded as a student’s astonishing savings, a testament to academic ingenuity and commercial promise. Today, they were something else entirely.

They were a down payment on weapons.

Or at least on the means for his family—and families like his—to control their own destiny.

Christian cleared his throat and leaned forward slightly. His voice, when he spoke, was calm and measured, the low hum of an academic accustomed to lecturing crowded halls.

“Director,” he said, “we are not here to ask for charity. My young colleague represents the liberal interests of New Granada. They wish to acquire enough weapons to support their family militias—and, potentially, future forces. As you may have heard, His Majesty’s Parliament, and even the King himself, have shown… interest.”

He paused, choosing his words carefully.

“To strengthen certain factions in New Granada,” Christian continued, “and thereby weaken Spain’s control over the colony.”

He did not say revolution

. Not directly. After France, after Paris, after the tumbrils and the blade, explicit language had become dangerous currency. Everyone understood what was meant without hearing the word.

Francisco watched Director Haust closely. The man’s eyes did not linger on him. Instead, they moved between the exchange letters and a maritime clock ticking softly on the mantelpiece. Each second sounded loud in the silence, a reminder that time, like money, always belonged to someone.

Francisco did not know—could not know—that at this very moment his father was fighting outside Medellín, attempting to hold a fractured line with too few men and too little powder. He did not know that his grandfather, thousands of miles away, was waiting for supplies that would never arrive, the ships lost to a storm somewhere between Cádiz and Cartagena, swallowed by a gray Atlantic that cared nothing for empires or revolutions.

Director Haust finally raised his gaze. When he spoke, his voice was neither warm nor hostile, but flat with professional clarity.

“You need weapons for a revolution,” he said bluntly. “We do not care about France. We are a company, not a court of philosophers. We care about interests.”

He waved a hand, dismissing Christian’s careful phrasing.

“Stop speaking in circles. Yes, we can sell you weapons and munitions for New Granada. And yes, as the academic here has said, His Majesty’s government is interested. Britain has not forgotten the humiliation of the Thirteen Colonies.”

A thin smile touched his lips.

“But you must understand something, boy. We, too, have interests. If New Granada becomes independent, are you willing to allow us to invest?”

The word invest hung in the air like a blade suspended by a thread.

Francisco felt a chill crawl up his spine. He understood at once what was being offered—and what was being asked. Letting a tiger into New Granada, into any new government, would be like inviting it into one’s home and hoping it remained satisfied with scraps.

He frowned slightly before answering.

“Honestly, sir,” Francisco said, his Spanish-accented English careful but firm, “that decision does not rest with me alone. There are hundreds—perhaps thousands—of families in New Granada, each with their own interests. Even if I swore my support, if they reject your presence, there is nothing I could do.”

Director Haust studied him, then licked his lips slowly.

“So,” he asked, “you do not intend to form a kingdom?”

Francisco chuckled, softly but genuinely.

“New Granada is tired of tyrants,” he replied. “Do you truly believe anyone could form a stable kingdom there? If I tried, I would likely end as the French king did.”

He shook his head.

“Besides, being a king seems a poor idea, given the direction the world is moving.”

He did not say that he knew this. That he had seen it, in histories not yet written, in patterns that repeated themselves with cruel consistency. That the age of divine monarchs—of men who claimed heaven’s mandate to monopolize power—had ended the moment the French showed the world how easily such kings could bleed.

Even if he seized a crown through influence rather than force, by the time his son or grandson inherited it, the world would either cut off their heads—or reduce them to ceremonial ornaments beneath a parliament’s boot.

Francisco would not allow that.

The strongest families, he knew, were not those who ruled openly, but those who controlled the core of a nation from behind the curtain.

Director Haust sighed, a sound of genuine disappointment.

He knew this type. Republics were difficult. Power fractured among assemblies, factions, committees—far harder to control than a single crown. Offer money to a king, threaten his heirs, and doors opened. That had always been the way.

France had seemed promising at first. Instability bred opportunity. The Company’s agents had bribed ministers, manipulated shortages, even nudged rivals toward ruin. For a time, it had worked beautifully. The Compagnie des Indes Orientales had collapsed under pressure, and profit seemed close at hand.

But Haust had men in Paris. Men close enough to Robespierre to smell the blood on his cuffs.

Once that madman discovered the bribes, once the guillotine began to fall without rest, there would be no negotiating. Haust thanked God he had never committed fully. Even so, the lesson remained bitter.

Republics were unpredictable.

He shook his head.

Then he looked at Francisco. The boy was young—perhaps younger than expected—but the reports had been impossible to ignore. According to them, Francisco had managed to recreate Roman cement, a material thought to be lost to history and nearly impossible to replicate. Even more troubling, he had devised a way to produce high-purity alcohol cheaply through some sort of vertical tower. That, at least, was how the blacksmiths described it. Guild craftsmen across Hanover were still trying to imitate the design, so far without success. They would succeed eventually—of that the Director had no doubt—but the damage was already done.

More than the inventions themselves, it was what they represented that unsettled him. Francisco had given Hanover a glimpse of a way to threaten Boulton & Watt monopoly over high class engine. When Watt himself heard of the boy’s solution, he had reportedly been struck speechless before ordering his engineers to begin work on cheaper alternatives to their own engines. The pressure had forced the company to accelerate its business plans, fearful that Hanover might lure away partners. There were even rumors that Parliament had accepted freer trade policies out of concern that once Hanover entered the market in force, Britain would lose its dominance.

“If this is purely a matter of money,” the Director said at last, “then I am willing to sell you weapons—and even ship them to New Granada free of charge. But in return, I want the patents for your Roman cement process and for the distillation tower.”

Christian almost leapt from his seat.

“Are you out of your mind?” he snapped. “Those industries are generating millions of pounds in Britain alone—without even counting Eastern Europe or the Ottoman markets! And you want to trade that for weapons bound for New Granada? We can go to the Netherlands. Their companies may be smaller than yours, but they can sell in bulk—and possibly for less.”

The Director frowned.

“If you reject this offer,” he said coldly, “you should forget about the British market. We can see to it that you are pushed out entirely. We are already studying the tower. One day we will replicate it. Even without your patent, we will make a profit. This deal merely spares us the cost of further investigation.”

The discussion spiraled into open argument. Christian and the Director shouted back and forth, voices rising, papers snatched up and thrown aside. At one point, something heavy struck the wall. Francisco could only stare in stunned silence. He had never imagined that business negotiations could turn so violent.

“It seems I should train more with my father,” he muttered to himself. “If discussions like this are normal, I should at least be able to defend myself.”

In the end, pressure won out—not only from Christian, but from Hanover’s electorate, who had no desire to lose industries as valuable as Roman cement and refined alcohol. The compromise granted authorization to two entities: the East India Company and the Göttingen & Gómez Chemical-Industrial Syndicate—a name so foreign that Francisco barely understood it. Syndicate, in particular, meant nothing to him; he doubted there was even a proper Spanish equivalent.

The contract was precise. Francisco could only authorize the patents to those two companies for the duration of their protection. Once the patents expired, neither side would owe the other anything.

Francisco signed without hesitation.

“Thank you, Director,” he said.

The Director smiled, but there was bitterness behind it. Exploiting people with influence and connections was difficult—even for a behemoth like the East India Company, at least in Europe. In India, orders were simple. Here, a university director could waste his time and force concessions. Still, he signed. Once the first shipment reached Francisco’s father, the Company would gain the right to use the patents and blueprints. It also promised not to block the Syndicate from selling in London—though, as Christian had warned, the contract said nothing about the British colonies.

When they finally left the mansion, Francisco felt sweat clinging to his back beneath his coat.

“Professor,” he said quietly to Christian, “I think I need to learn how to deal with merchants. The pressure was… frightening.”

Christian chuckled.

“That is not a bad idea,” he said. “With the profits you have brought the university, we can add new courses. Business would not be a poor choice. I will speak with the board.”

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