Richard had been looking forward to Saturday with impatience. But Wednesday arrived first.
On that day, the head of the Magical Maintenance Department of the Ministry of Magic had already paid a visit to Gerald Grosvenor—though at that exact time, Richard himself was busy with tutors, following the curriculum of the third year of secondary school.
A contract was concluded with the representative of the magical governing body: the Ministry of Magic would lease a parcel of land for a period of ninety years, with the right of sublease. After that term expired, the tenants would pay rent directly to the owner—that is, the Grosvenor family. Until then, under the terms of the agreement, the Ministry of Magic was obligated to pay Richard Grosvenor, or his heir, ten galleons per year per hectare, amounting to a total of three thousand four hundred galleons annually.
Gerald explained all of this to Richard after dinner.
"Dad, what's a galleon?" the boy asked.
"A galleon is the biggest 'chip' the British wizards use. It's kind of to be gold. Wizards have two other types of coins as well. A sickle—kind of silver—seventeen of those make up one galleon. And a knut, a small copper coin; there are twenty-nine knuts in a sickle. Basically, classic small-community nonsense—everything's designed to be different from ordinary people. Even with their money, the wizards went out of their way to be weird."
"Dad, why do you keep saying 'kind of'?"
"Because, Richie, one galleon is worth around five pounds. In reality, there's only enough gold in a galleon—and silver in a sickle—for it to be worth roughly that much. Not much at all. Otherwise, wizards would be hauling their currency to pawnshops by the cartload."
"Five pounds, huh?" Richard quickly did the math in his head. "Seventeen thousand pounds a year?!" He screwed up his face as if he'd bitten into a lemon. "I spent that much on a week's stay in Tokyo."
"I had to make concessions," Gerald replied. "Think of it as a bribe to ensure a friendly attitude from the wizarding government."
"The Ministry of Magic will definitely jack up the sublease price by two or three times," Richard muttered discontentedly.
"I have no doubt about that, son. They'll also almost certainly build the farms themselves at minimal cost and then sell them to farmers on mortgages or long-term installment plans at prices several times higher than their actual value. As I understand it, the Ministry of Magic doesn't have many ways to refill its coffers: taxes from wizard shopkeepers, excise duties, tariffs on magical goods, fines. And wizards need somewhere to go after school. Some become farmers, some work at the magical hospital—but what about the rest? To avoid breeding crime, most wizards get placed into the Ministry of Magic, and they all need salaries. In other words, the entire essence of magical Britain is work for the sake of work."
"Just like the army," Richard said. "As long as the soldier is busy, he won't have time for stupid ideas."
"Exactly, Richie. And by the way, wizard salaries are pretty low, and despite all that effort, unemployment is still fairly high. The head of the Magical Maintenance Department earns only two hundred and fifty galleons a month."
"That's really modest for a department head," Richard noted. "Against that background, my three thousand and change per year looks pretty solid. It's even a bit more than what a big-shot at the Ministry makes. Still, it's not much. Dad, did you ask the wizard how much money can be converted into 'chips'?"
"Of course. Currency exchange and storage are handled by the only magical bank in Britain, which is owned by…" Gerald gave a meaningful snort. "Goblins! They've set a limit of one thousand pounds per month for each wizard."
"Not much to work with. You can't do much with that kind of money… So, goblins, huh?"
"Goblins."
"Goblins?!"
"Goblins!"
"Dad, that's insanely weird! Where did goblins even come from?"
"Good question, Richie." A crooked grin crept onto Gerald's face. "I asked the same thing. Luckily, the wizard I spoke to was quite chatty. He said that about six hundred years ago, short folk from another world appeared in ours—a world that had suffered a global catastrophe. There were two races: goblins—aggressive savages who were quite skilled at smithing; and house-elves—powerful magicians, but very trusting. The wizards enslaved the latter through trickery, and fought the goblins for a long time, until they came up with a niche for them: creating a bank, which the goblins still own and run to this day."
"Yeah…" the boy drawled skeptically. "Aliens living among us, and we don't even know about them. But how sensible is it to hand control of finances over to aggressive outsiders?"
"A pretty smart move, if you ask me," Grosvenor senior said.
Richard's face twisted into a grimace that broadcast an entire ton of skepticism.
"I can tell you don't buy it, son. But I'll prove it makes sense."
"Go on, Dad."
"Look, Richie. You've got a small group of aliens, and you need to deal with them. The most obvious solution is genocide. But apparently, the wizards didn't have the strength to pull that off. The goblins tried not to mess with ordinary people—because regular humans definitely would've had enough muscle to wipe out the strange little freaks. Especially back then, when the Church was powerful and could easily have launched another crusade."
"Fair enough."
Mr. Grosvenor continued:
"For obvious reasons, the wizards didn't want to draw the attention of a force like the Church. So they decided to handle it themselves. And then some brilliant mind came up with the idea of giving the goblins a niche—one they wouldn't want to leave. From that perspective, creating a goblin-run bank looks perfectly logical."
(End of Chapter)
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