The Glut #
The success of the Sixteen Houses has become a trap. They saved their neighbors by buying up all the regional wool, but now they are drowning in debt and mountains of unsellable yarn.
"We bought every fleece from Nuceria to Stabiae, Gaius. We saved them. But now the creditors are knocking," Aulus warns. The "Merchant Princes" face becoming beggars by the Ides.
Gaius turns to Marcus: "Your wheel was a miracle. But now the miracle is choking us. We need another... insight."
Livia is blunt: "Find that logic, Marcus. Because if the warehouses don't empty soon, we will have nothing to eat but the wool on our backs."