Not being a merchant, Holo didn’t use terms like future profits, but her gist was the same: You’re not short on money, so relax.
Simply standing there in the room was cold, so as they talked, Holo crawled into her bed and eventually started dozing off. Lawrence sat down on her bed as they spoke, and Holo had – with no particular intent – slowly grasped his hand in hers.
Having sat there on the bed and passed the time quietly talking, Lawrence had to admit that Holo was absolutely right. The fact was, though, that no traveling merchant was so easygoing as to idle away his time in a town, particularly not while they were mid-journey.
He wanted her to understand that, but it was probably impossible.
It was perhaps fortunate, however, that Lawrence couldn’t do anything immediately.
Given the situation in Lenos, none of the members of the Council of Fifty, including Rigolo, would casually meet with a foreign merchant.
Since the affair centered around the fur trade that was the town’s lifeblood, meeting with a merchant of unknown background would be deeply suspicious and tantamount to societal suicide. No, Lawrence would not be able to see a council member.
Which meant that if he wanted to engage one, he would need a mediator.
Yet when Lawrence rethought the question of whether that would really be necessary, it was hard to convince himself of it. And if he were to force the issue and make a bad impression, they would never see the records of Holo.
Though outwardly Holo pressed Lawrence to hold back and not get involved, deep in her heart there was no question that given an opportunity to see those records, she would want to. He couldn’t risk anything that would endanger their ability to do that. As he thought it through again and again, he eventually became aware of the sound of Holo’s breathing as she slept.
When she was hungry, she ate, and when she was tired, she slept.
Indeed, she was as free as any beast, and those who spent their days constantly toiling to keep their bellies full had dreamed of such a life at least once.
Lawrence couldn’t help but feel a bit jealous of the life Holo took for granted. He extracted his hand from hers and lightly brushed her polished porcelain cheek with the back of his index ringer. Once she had fallen asleep, even a tap wouldn’t wake her. At Lawrence’s touch, her expression clenched in irritation, but her eyes stayed closed as she buried her face in the blanket.
It was a quiet, happy moment. Nothing happened save for the passage of time itself, but this was one of the things Lawrence wished for when he drove his cart alone. The merchant knew this for a near certainty, and yet in the bottom of his heart, he felt a distinct impatience, a feeling that he was wasting this time.
He couldn’t help feeling that if he wasn’t making money or collecting information for his business, he was sustaining a loss he would never be able to recover.
The merchant’s spirit is a flame that never goes out, his master had said, but that flame might very well have been hellfire, charring his flesh.
When one was alone, the flame provided warmth, but with two… with two, he felt it was too hot.
Holo’s smile especially was very warm.
The world did not go as one wanted it to.
Lawrence stood up from the bed and paced around the room.
If he wasn’t going to get involved in the happenings of Lenos, then he at least wanted to understand the details for his own enlightenment.
The best way to do that would be to meet directly with a member of the Council of Fifty, and in order to get unbiased information, a witness who didn’t represent any particular interested party would be still more desirable.
It was the chronicler and secretary Rigolo who best fit that description.
But no council member would have any interest in meeting with an outsider.
The problem began to seem intractable.
Lawrence would have to take a different approach, but at the moment his sole source of information was the barmaid. Widening this to include more information from the town merchants would involve significant effort.
There was certainly any number of people using this machination or that to collect information, and Lawrence sincerely doubted that his own intellect and tactics would be enough to give him any advantage over the rest. Who knew how high the price for that information might rise given the scope of the demand?
Had it been a town where Lawrence had some old acquaintance, he might have been able to get nearer the essence of things and to make something happen. If it was goods you wanted, money could buy anything, but for information, you had to have trust.
In the face of this fascinating situation, Lawrence would just have to watch and wait.
Feeling like a frustrated dog pacing back and forth in a room while eyeing a piece of meat he could see through a tiny crack in the wall, Lawrence finally heaved a sigh.
He felt as if he was moving further and further away from the merchant he wished to be.
Even worse, the logic and prudence he should have long ago developed seemed to be gone. It was as though he had regressed to that period when he had just come of age; his head full of ridiculous get-rich-quick schemes.
His feet were restless.
He repeated the problem to himself, glancing at Holo.
Was it because this cheeky wolf girl was constantly pulling the rug out from under him?
It seemed possible.
He enjoyed talking with Holo too much.
That’s why he had begun neglecting other things.
“…”
Lawrence stroked his beard, murmuring to himself that shifting the blame might not be a bad idea.
It was a wasted opportunity, but the fur problem would have to wait.
Which meant that the next action would be to seek out information that would set them on the road to Nyohhira, still farther north from Lenos.
If they were fortunate, the road would not yet have been rendered impassable with snow, and they would move forward.
Information on furs… can be collected after that, Lawrence told himself as he left the room.
Lawrence came down to the first floor where there was a rustling sound coming from the corner of the clutter-filled room.
There was neither lock nor lookout, but a good number of merchants still used this storehouse, it seemed.
The rate was not too high, and some used it as a relay for their peddling while others stored goods when their price fluctuated with the season. Lawrence would not have been surprised to learn that the odd smuggler or thief kept items there, too.
Though he heard the sound of someone tampering with goods in the storehouse, the person was in shadow, and Lawrence could not tell who it was. But Arold the innkeeper did not appear to think for one moment that one of his guests was opening someone else’s luggage. He only poured a bit of water on the fire, which had grown slightly too strong.
“A road to the north?”
While Arold had reacted to Lawrence’s question about chroniclers this morning as though a child had asked him a difficult theological question, he seemed to be much more used to this sort of inquiry.
He nodded slightly, as if to say, “Well, in that case,” then paying the flame no heed, he cleared his throat and spoke.
“Not much snow this year. I don’t know where you’re headed, but I don’t reckon it’ll be too hard.”
“I’m making for Nyohhira, as it happens.”
Arold’s left eyebrow went up, and the sharp blue eyes buried in the deep folds of his eyelids glittered.
Behind his merchant’s smile, Lawrence flinched a bit, and Arold continued, brushing a bit of ash that had flown up when he poured water on the coals a moment earlier.
“Heading all the way into pagan country, eh?… Well, I suppose that’s merchants for you, carrying money bags over their shoulder and heading off anywhere.”
“Aye, and we throw them away on our deathbeds,” Lawrence said, trying to lighten things up with the devout
Arold, but the innkeeper only gave a derisive snort.
“So why bother earning it in the first place? Gaining it only to throw it away…”
It was something that many merchants pondered themselves.
But Lawrence had heard an interesting answer to this question “You don’t ask the same question when you clean a room, do you?”
If money was trash, then profit was the collection of trash.
A famous merchant in a southern country had repented on his deathbed, saying that collecting and throwing away the money that polluted the world God had given man was the ultimate virtue.
The clergy heard these words and were moved, but the merchants hid their uncertain smiles behind their wine cups – because the more successful one became, the less one’s assets were concrete things, and the more they were numbers on certificates and entries in ledgers.
Thus if these written ledger entries and figures polluted the world, then the written teachings of God were no better, and so the irony was that those scriptures, too, should be thrown away for the betterment of the world – such was the view of most merchants.
Lawrence felt much the same way. He felt bad for Holo, but he would take the business of a successful merchant over prayers to gods that never answered any day.
“Heh,” Arold chuckled. “Fair enough,” he said in an uncommonly amused tone. His mood had improved.
He seemed more cheered by the irony behind Lawrence’s words than by the words themselves.
“Are you leaving soon? I seem to recall you giving me a good amount of coin for your stay…”
“No, I expect to wait until the Council of Fifty has finished their meeting.”
“… I see. You wanted to see Rigolo. You asked about a chronicler this morning, as I recall. That’s a word I’ve not heard in some time. Hardly anyone looks to the past these days…” said Arold, narrowing his eyes as he stared off into space.
Perhaps the old man was looking back on his life thus far.
But his gaze soon snapped back to Lawrence. “Well, if you’re heading north, ’twould be better to leave sooner. Your horse should be able to get you part of the way, but beyond that… you’d want a longhair and a sleigh. If you’re in a hurry, that is.”
“There was a longhair in the stable, wasn’t there?”
“Aye, its master is a man from the north. I reckon he knows the route quite well.”
“His name?” Lawrence asked.
Arold looked surprised for the first time. It was strangely charming. “Huh. He’s been coming here for some time, but I’ve never asked his name. He’s fatter every year, too. It’s quite clear in my mind. Strange… I suppose these things happen…”
What sort of inn lacked even a guest register?
“He’s a fur merchant from the north,” Arold continued. “He’s all over town at the moment… but if I see him, I’ll pass your questions on.”
“I’d be very grateful.”
“Aye. But if you keep waiting for the Council of Fifty to finish, you’re liable to be here ’til spring,” said Arold, putting the cup of mulled wine to his lips for the first time.
This was the first time Lawrence had seen Arold so loquacious. He must have been in excellent spirits, Lawrence guessed.
“Will the meeting take so long?” Lawrence asked, pressing for more information.
Arold’s face turned unreadable, and he fell silent. No doubt the best response if he hoped to live out his remaining years in peace, Lawrence thought.
Lawrence was about to offer his thanks as a way of ending the conversation, but Arold then spoke, cutting him off.
“People’s lives tend up and down, and so do the towns that they live in. After all, those towns are just groups of people.” The words of a man who had retired from an active life.
But Lawrence was still young. “It’s in people’s nature to resist fate, I think. Just like how we seek forgiveness after making a mistake.”
Arold regarded Lawrence wordlessly with his blue eyes.
There was anger in his gaze and scorn.
But Lawrence liked the old man when he was like this, so he stood his ground.
Arold chuckled. “It’s hard to argue with that… It’s been pleasant talking with you. This is your third time at the inn, yes? What’s your name?”
Though he had never asked the name of the fur merchant who had long made use of his inn, Arold now asked Lawrence his name.
He wasn’t asking as the innkeeper, but rather as a craftsman.
When a craftsman asked the name of a customer, it was a mark of trust that they would complete the customer’s order, no matter how difficult the request.
Evidently this old tannery boss liked Lawrence for some reason.
“Kraft Lawrence,” said Lawrence, extending his hand.
“Kraft Lawrence, eh? I’m Arold Ecklund. In the old days, I’d make you some fine leather strap work, but these days all I can offer is a quiet night.”
“That’s more than enough,” said Lawrence, which Arold smiled at for the first time, showing a broken tooth.
Lawrence was about to leave when Arold’s gaze fell on something behind his lodger. Lawrence turned to look and did not expect the person he saw there.
It was the merchant Holo had earlier claimed was a woman, still wearing the same robes and carrying a burlap sack in her left hand. She must have been the one Lawrence heard rustling around in the storeroom earlier.
“You didn’t ask me until my fifth visit. You ask him his name so soon, Mr. Arold?” came the hoarse voice. If Holo hadn’t told him otherwise, Lawrence still would have assumed she was male, an apprentice merchant just starting out.
“That’s because I didn’t talk with you until the fifth visit,” said Arold, glancing at Lawrence before continuing. “And it’s so rare that you open that mouth of yours. Are you as sociable as I am, then?”
“Perhaps,” said the woman, and a smile quirked beneath her cowl. Lawrence noticed that she didn’t just happen to have an especially thin beard for a man – no, definitely a woman.
“You there,” she said, looking pointedly at Lawrence.
“Yes?”
“We should talk. You have business with Rigolo?”
If Lawrence had been Holo, his ears would have twitched. “Yes,” he answered, confident enough that not a single hair of his beard had so much as moved.
At the mention of Rigolo’s name, Arold turned away and reached for his wine cup. That was the effect that a merchant had these days when mentioning the name of one of the Council of Fifty.
“Shall we go upstairs?”
The woman pointed up. Lawrence had no objections and nodded.
“I’ll take this,” she said, grabbing a pitcher from behind Arold’s chair, then heading immediately up the stairs. Though they were not related, she seemed to know Arold quite well – so what was their connection?
Lawrence’s mind was full of questions, but Arold’s face had returned to its normal, unsociable mien.
He took his leave and followed the woman up the stairs.
There was nobody on the second floor, and the woman immediately bent her knees and sat down cross-legged in front of the fireplace. Her manner was that of someone used to sitting and standing in cramped places. If Lawrence had been a money changer, he would have figured her for a comrade-in-business.
She certainly wasn’t someone who had started out in business just yesterday.
“Ha, I knew it. This wine is too good to waste by drinking it warm,” she said after sampling the contents of the pitcher she had brought up.
Lawrence sat down as well, wondering why the woman was suddenly so sociable, whether her behavior was genuine, and if it wasn’t genuine, what her goal could possibly be.
After taking a couple of drinks from the wine pitcher, the merchant woman thrust it toward Lawrence. “You seem like you’ve got your guard well up. Can I ask why?”
While her cowl covered her face, obscuring her expressions fr
om Lawrence, evidently she could see his face perfectly well.
“I’m a traveling merchant who does a lot of business with people I’ll never see again. I suppose it’s a habit,” he said, taking a sip of the proffered wine. It was indeed good.
The merchant woman looked at him evenly past her cowl.
Lawrence gave a pained grin and confessed, “Female merchants are rare. If one calls me over, I can’t help but be on my guard a bit.”
He could tell that she was momentarily disturbed at his statement.
“… It’s been years since anyone figured that out.”
“We passed this morning in front of the inn. My companion has the keen senses of a beast, you see.”
She was part beast, in truth, and if Holo had not been there, Lawrence would never have noticed the merchant was a woman.
“One shouldn’t underestimate a woman’s intuition. Though I suppose I’m not one to talk.”
“I learn that lesson every day.”
Lawrence wasn’t sure if she smiled or not, but in any case, the woman put her hand to her neck and loosened the string that held her cowl in place; then with a practiced hand, she drew it back and off her head.
He watched her with a bit more anticipation than was polite. What intrepid visage might emerge? When he saw her face, Lawrence was not at all confident that he had been able to perfectly conceal his surprise.
“Name’s Fleur Bolan. But Fleur’s not much for intimidation, so I go by Eve.”
The woman, Fleur – or Eve – was young.
But she was not so young that youth was her only virtue. She was old enough to be polished and refined, making her all the more beautiful. At a guess, Lawrence would have put her at about his own age.
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