She seemed to have some pride in her ability to cajole her drunken male customers.
And even Lawrence might well have been drawn in easily had he not met Holo – or had he been a bit drunker.
But if he was to say so, it would be like rubbing salt in the poor girl’s wounded pride.
“If you’ve the chance, do bring her by the tavern,” she said.
“Aye,” said Lawrence, and he mostly meant it.
A conversation between this girl and Holo would be a thing to see, though as a bystander, he might get sucked into something terrible.
“Wait just a moment, then. I’ll go get your food.”
“My thanks.”
The girl headed back into the kitchen, her skirt fluttering again behind her.
Lawrence watched her go as he brought the cup of pear wine to his lips.
Even other people could tell, he realized, that Holo was very important to him.
Holding the hot, cloth-wrapped package of tail meat, Lawrence headed down the broad avenue that ran along the docks to take another look at the boats moored there.
With the new information from the barmaid, the scows did indeed seem a bit different.
Looking closely, Lawrence could see how straw or hempen cloth had been used to cover the goods piled high on the boats’ decks, and many of the boats themselves were tied fast to the wharves, as though they did not expect to leave anytime soon. Some of them, of course, were merely passing the winter in town, but the number seemed a bit high for that to be the only explanation. At a wild guess, those were the boats that were carrying either furs or the materials needed to process furs.
The volume of fur transactions in Lenos was large enough that it was called the city of lumber and fur.
Being a mere traveling merchant, Lawrence could not easily estimate the total amount of fur traded in the town, but if a fur merchant were to buy up a single chest-high barrel of squirrel pelts, that could easily come to 3,500, even 4,000 furs. The fact that such barrels were constantly rolling through the city made him feel practically faint.
What kind of profound impact would freezing the fur trade have on the town?
But he could understand Lenos’ efforts to try to collect as much tax as they could, and the fact was that foreign merchants who bought only raw furs instead of clothing left many town craftsmen by the wayside. It was common knowledge that in any business, crafted, processed items made from raw materials had much better profit margins.
Nevertheless, with the northern campaigns canceled, the lack of travelers from the south meant there was absolutely no guarantee that there would be any way to turn such goods into coin.
Setting aside the quality of the furs and the quality of the tanning, there was any number of towns whose clothing craftsmanship was superior to Lenos’. To take the clothing that would normally have flown off the shelves as souvenirs and instead pay the shipping costs involved in exporting it to some other town would involve significant difficulty.
Lawrence felt that from the town’s perspective, it would be better for them to decide to go ahead and sell fur to the waiting merchants, even if they had to overcome the craftsmen’s resistance to do so.
At least that way they’d be able to get some coin for the furs. The reason so many merchants gathered in Lenos was because of the high quality furs that came through the town. Such furs would command a fair price.
But the barmaid had said that the Council of Fifty was going to prohibit fur purchasing.
Which left only a few possibilities.
To begin with, it was odd that the merchants were camped outside of the town.
Merchants would happily drive someone else to ruin if they had decided that it would bring a profit, so it was unimaginable that a large group of them would simply assemble and wait patiently.
There was clearly some other authority at work here.
But whether it was the giant tailor’s guild headquartered in a town famous for its sartorial products far across the western sea or some dizzyingly massive company trying to monopolize the fur trade, Lawrence did not know.
Whatever the thing was, it wielded tremendous power.
And the minds that ran Lenos knew it, Lawrence determined, as he passed through the entrance of the docks and into the hustle and bustle.
The merchants outside the town were no doubt making their case.
“You’ll be in a tough spot if you don’t sell your furs,” they would say. “Shall we buy them up for you? Though that alone will not avail you forever. Shall we come next year and the year after that?”
If Lenos swallowed this, it would become nothing more than a place where furs were gathered, then passed along. And once that happened, the consolidation of fur itself would eventually be taken over by some outsider and removed from the town.
However, the reason the townspeople didn’t simply turn the merchants away wasn’t just because of the craftsmen’s opposition.
This problem didn’t stop with the town; it would engulf the landed nobility to which the town was connected as well. When an economic problem turned political, the amount of money it took to solve it would jump by three, sometimes four digits.
This was a battle between titans, where the expectations of individual merchants were utterly meaningless.
Lawrence scratched his beard.
“The coin involved must be incredible,” he said to himself. He hadn’t talked to himself in quite some time, and it felt good, like taking off shoes that had been worn for a week straight.
The bigger the amount of money in play, the bigger the leftovers might be.
And a merchant’s alchemy allowed him to turn the complicated relationships between goods and people into a spring from which money would gush forth.
He pictured a sheet of yellowed parchment in his mind.
On it he drew sketch after sketch of the fur situation, and gradually the page became a treasure map.
So where was the treasure?
When he put the question to himself, licking his lips, his left hand reached the door of the inn room and opened it.
“…”
He had almost no memory of when he’d come all the way back to the inn, but that was not why he fell silent.
Holo, perhaps refreshed after a nap, had been grooming her tail, but she now hid it behind her back as she regarded him.
“… What’s the matter?” asked Lawrence suddenly, after weathering a purposefully cautious look from an evidently now-sober Holo.
“I shan’t abide it,” she said.
“Huh?”
“I shan’t abide my tail being sold,” said Holo, letting a bit of her tail show from behind her, like a shy maiden peeking out from behind a tree, before she concealed it again.
Lawrence naturally understood.
His face had been consumed by his merchant self.
“I’m no hunter,” he with a smile and a shrug as he entered the room, closing the door behind him and walking over to the desk.
“Oh no? You looked as though you were ready to sell anything you possibly could.” Holo’s glance fell but once upon the package Lawrence held, then came back to his face.
“Yes, well, I’m a merchant. I buy from one person to sell to another. It’s a basic principle.”
All merchants desired money, but when they forgot exactly what kind of merchant they were, that desire for money would run wild. When that happened, things like “trust” and “ethics” were nowhere to be found.
In their place was only avarice.
“So no, I will not be taking your tail from you. Though when summer comes, should you decide to shear some of your fur off, I’ll happily collect and sell that,” said Lawrence as he leaned against the desk.
Still sitting on the bed, Holo childishly stuck her tongue out at him before taking her tail in her hands again.
For Lawrence’s part, he had no interest in seeing Holo’s tail sans fur.
“Hmph. So what is that?” asked Holo, l
ooking at the package Lawrence held in one hand as she nibbled at her tail.
“This? This is… indeed. If you can guess from scent alone what part of what animal this is from, I’ll buy you as much of your favorite foods for dinner as you want.”
“Oh ho.” Holo’s eyes flashed.
“I think there’s some garlic in there… but you should be fine.”
Lawrence came away from the desk and gave Holo the package, whereupon her expression turned immediately serious, and she sniffed the wrapped food carefully, looking for all the world like a wolf. This was nothing so rare in and of itself, but her manner was so charming that Lawrence couldn’t help but stare.
Holo seemed to notice his gaze. She suddenly looked up at him, scowling.
She was comfortable being nude in front of him, but apparently this was a stare she could not abide.
Lawrence supposed that everyone had his or her idiosyncrasies. He obediently began to turn around but then stopped short.
“I’m sure no proud wisewolf would be thinking of sneaking a look inside the package while my back is turned,” he said.
Holo’s expression did not change, but the tip of her tail gave a sudden twitch.
Evidently he’d hit the bull’s-eye.
He had to be careful; she had senses beyond those of ordinary humans.
Holo gave a theatrical sigh, then turned away, her mouth in a pout that Lawrence was sure had a tinge of guilt to it.
“So have you figured it out?”
“Patience,” she said irritably, then sniffed the package again. Lawrence discreetly averted his eyes.
Presently the sound of a girl sniffing back tears echoed uncomfortably through the room.
Lawrence deliberately turned his attention to the clamor that filtered in through the room’s window. It was a fine day, so sunlight also found its way through the window.
It was indeed cold, but having a room with a window was still a fine thing.
A warm, windowless room would have made Lawrence feel like he was hibernating in a cellar somewhere. Holo’s judgment had been excellent.
“Well, now.”
At the sound of her voice, Lawrence turned both his attention and his gaze back to Holo. “Have you figured it out?”
“Quite.”
There were, of course, any number of animals whose meat was cooked and served. It was easy enough to tell them apart from their taste and texture, but what about by scent alone? Especially if it was something so rare and odd as the tail meat from a flat-tailed rodent. Even if Holo knew of the existence of such a creature, the odds of her having eaten it were low.
Perhaps it was a bit mean-spirited, but Lawrence had offered her the freedom to eat whatever she liked for dinner in exchange.
“So what’s the answer?” he asked, whereupon Holo regarded him with an angrier face than her positive answer had led him to expect.
“I must say it seems a bit unfair, given the conditions you proposed.”
Lawrence shrugged. It seemed she didn’t really know the answer after all.
“You should have said so in the first place,” he said.
“I suppose so…” Holo gazed vaguely at the floor as though thinking something over.
It had been a simple bet, so even the clever Holo had no room to maneuver with her typical quibbles. The simplest contracts were always the strongest.
“So the answer?” Lawrence asked again. Holo’s face suddenly showed total defeat. Though it was mean-spirited of him to think so, he couldn’t help feeling but that he wanted to see this face a bit more often.
But it was only for a moment; just as that thought crossed Lawrence’s mind, Holo’s expression shifted to one of triumph.
“I don’t know the name of the creature, but it’s a large rodent tail, is it not?”
Lawrence had no words.
He was stunned.
“I told you it seemed a bit unfair,” said Holo with a malicious giggle as she began to open the package.
“Y-you knew?”
“If you’d accused me of opening the package and sneaking a look, I was thinking of ordering so much food for dinner you’d break down in tears, but I suppose I shall show mercy.”
The food within the cloth wrapping had been carefully rolled in strips of bark and tied with fine tendrils; it would be nearly impossible to peek inside without disturbing the contents.
And in any case, looking at the finished meal did not make the original form any easier to guess. Holo must have somehow been familiar with it.
“I’m a wisewolf, don’t you forget it. There’s nothing in this world I don’t know,” she said, flashing her fangs.
It was an obvious exaggeration, but her conviction was so strong that it was hard to dismiss.
As she undid the tendrils and removed the tree bark, steam rose up from the food. Holo narrowed her eyes in pleasure, wagging her tail.
“It’s not quite accurate to say I knew,” said Holo, mimicking Lawrence’s tone. The meat had been cut into small slices, and as they were, there really was no way to discern their origin. Holo picked up one of the pieces, tilted her head back, and slowly lowered the bite into her open mouth. She closed her mouth and her eyes and chewed languorously.
It must have been delicious.
Yet there was something different about her manner.
“Mmph… yes, indeed,” said Holo. Instead of her usual, hurried devouring of her food, which gave one the impression that she was worried it might be taken from her at any moment, Holo ate slowly, savoring the flavor as though it made her remember something. “The master of this inn said something like this, did he not?” she continued, licking the oil from her fingers and looking at Lawrence. “The months and years weather even stone buildings.”
“To say nothing of memories,” finished Lawrence.
Holo nodded, satisfied. She then gave a small sigh and looked at the window, squinting a bit at the brightness. “Do you know what lingers longest in memory?”
Another strange question.
Was it a person’s name? Numbers, figures? Images of one’s home?
These notions appeared one after another in Lawrence’s mind, but Holo’s answer was completely different.
“’Tis scent, you know, that stays longer than all else.”
Lawrence cocked his head in confusion.
“We forget things we’ve seen and heard so easily, but scents alone remain clear and distinct.” Holo looked at the food and smiled.
Her smile was what seemed so upsettingly out of place to Lawrence; it was soft, almost nostalgic.
“I had no memory of this town,” she continued. “To be quite honest, it was a bit worrisome.”
“You weren’t sure whether you really had ever come here?”
Holo nodded, and she seemed entirely truthful.
Now that he thought about it, Lawrence felt like he finally understood why Holo had been so constantly playful.
“But this food – I remember it vividly. It’s such a strange creature after all, so even in the past, it was considered special. They’d put each one caught on a spit and roast them magnificently.”
Holding the food in her hands like it was a favorite kitten sleeping on her lap, she looked up.
“I wondered if that’s what you brought back, but when I smelled it, I nearly cried from the memories – and that was the turning point.”
“So you did this on purpose?”
Now that he thought about it, the idea of Holo actually doing something so shallow as to sneak a look inside the package while his back was turned seemed a bit strange.
And when he looked away again, perhaps she had been crying a bit.
“Are you saying I’m the sort who would take advantage of another’s goodwill?”
“You take advantage of me all the time,” shot back Lawrence, and he saw Holo flashing her usual fanged grin.
“So then,” said Holo, beckoning to Lawrence.
Harboring a bit of suspicion, he
approached her guardedly until she grabbed his sleeve and pulled him in close.
“I shan’t forget this scent, either.”
He’d expected words along those lines.
But Lawrence found he could not manage his usual comeback as Holo had buried her face in his chest, unmoving.
She was no mere traveling companion.
He could look at her ears and tail and work his own form of mind reading on her.
“Nor will I,” he replied, and with a soft sigh, he stroked her head with his hand.
Holo rubbed the corners of her eyes on his clothing and smiled awkwardly. “You sound a dunce when you say it so. I’ll not forget that, either.”
Lawrence gave a forced smile. “Sorry.”
Holo smiled, rubbed her nose, then smiled again – and was back to her old self. “So it seems I have indeed visited this town.”
“Then there must be legends of you left here.”
He didn’t add “in books somewhere,” but Holo would certainly notice and appreciate his consideration.
On the other hand, if he didn’t take such care, it would be impossible to avoid accidentally stepping on her tail.
“So then, what news did you manage to hear tell of?” asked Holo, like a mother asking her child to boast about some new knowledge he had acquired.
She never stayed frail for long.
“This time around is going to be a lot of fun,” began Lawrence. Holo listened closely as she ate the tail meat.
In the end, they had two reasons to meet Rigolo, the town chronicler and secretary for the Council of Fifty.
The first was to ask if any legends of Holo remained and to have him show them the records where such legends might be found. The second was to discover the particulars of how the town came to be in the situation it presently faced.
The latter reason was purely a result of Lawrence’s occupational sickness, and given the precedent set on their travels thus far, Holo listened to his explanation but was none too pleased.
In point of fact, if Lawrence had been asked whether it was really necessary to risk the danger involved in performing the financial alchemy it would take to suck money through the cracks in the current conflict, the answer was no – it was not. Given the profit he had managed to make in the pagan town of Kumersun, so long as he continued to quietly ply his trade for a while longer, the day when he would be able to open his own shop was not so very far off. In which case, he would do better to use his time frugally, carrying his goods and turning his profits, rather than to risk sticking his neck out in dangerous speculation. In the long term, spending his time in town quietly and carefully making business connections would be much better for Lawrence’s future profits.
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