The two documents were dated about two months apart. The company was the same.
The copper coins that had been bought up with the sheet in his left hand had been exported on the memo in his right.
“Oh ho. An interesting coincidence, indeed,” said Holo, her interest piqued as she peered at the papers Lawrence held; opposite her, Col timidly tried to see for himself.
Since the supposed accomplice-less swindler operated out of this area, then he would have gotten materials from a trading firm somewhere along the Roam River.
By coincidence, he had put together orders and sales from upstream and downstream.
But what gave Lawrence that queer feeling was not the coincidence.
No one was more obsessed with numbers than a merchant.
Only a fortune-teller was equally so.
“But the numbers don’t add up,” said Lawrence.
“Hmm?” replied Holo. Col leaned in closer – evidently his eyesight really wasn’t very good.
“Here it says they bought up fifty-seven chests, but the export was sixty. That’s three more.”
“… Is there something wrong with that?”
Lawrence laid the two sheets of paper down on the deck and pointed at the relevant spots, but Holo and Col alike only looked mystified.
“Well, I mean… with money, for whoever makes it, the more they make, the more they profit. But because there’s so much profit in it, the number of sheets they can issue is strictly limited. If ‘money is the root of all evil’ as they say, then that goes double for creating money. The temptation is very strong. So normally, they are very careful to make only just as much as is ordered.”
“But they may or may not send everything they have on hand, may they not? If the destination is across the sea and the ship is unsteady, they might have to send less than the usual amount. So they added the remainder there.”
It wasn’t a bad notion, but to have only three chests left over – it was hard to imagine.
In any case, Lawrence knew that there was more likely to be some kind of mitigating circumstance that explained the discrepancy.
It was natural for a merchant to be suspicious when confronted by a strange phenomenon.
“Well, that may be so, but what it comes down to is a question of belief. I simply believe there is something strange here.”
Holo pursed her lips and shrugged. “And what are these chests, then? What do chests have to do with coin counts?”
Lawrence was about to ask Holo if she was joking when he saw Col nod, evidently also confused.
Held between their questioning looks, Lawrence was mildly taken aback – until he realized he had forgotten that a merchant’s common sense was not like the rest of the world’s.
“Basically, you don’t carry a large amount of coins all jangling around in a bag. It takes too long to count.”
“Your jokes are clever ones,” said Holo lightly, eliciting a smile from Col; their eyes met.
A merchant’s wisdom was born of experience.
And much of that wisdom was counterintuitive.
“Suppose you need to transport ten thousand coins. How much time do you think counting those coins will take? If you’ve moved them all jumbled together in a sack, you have to take them out, pick them up one at a time, then line them up and count them. For one person, it’s surely half a day’s work.”
“So use ten people.”
“True. But when it comes to worrying about thieves, it’s worse with two people than one, and worse still with three. If just one person is doing the counting, and the count comes out wrong, you need only doubt that one person. But with ten, you’d have to suspect all of them, and you’d need a lookout to watch them for theft. That’s no business at all.”
“Mm,” said Holo with a nod; Col cocked his head curiously.
They seemed not to understand the advantage of a chest. “Furthermore, you might not notice if a sack was to be stolen while in transit.”
“But is that not the same for a chest?”
“… Oh! I-I see!” Col’s eyes shone as he raised his hand excitedly.
Then he seemed to realize he’d just raised his hand without thinking and hastily lowered it – as though trying to hide a mistake.
Holo tilted her head curiously, but as for Lawrence, seeing the boy’s actions came as a surprise.
He acted every bit like a student.
“Are you a student?” he asked.
It would certainly have explained the boy’s curiosity, his strangely polite speech, and his surprisingly deep knowledge of things.
Yet Col shrank away at the question. When just a moment ago he had appeared to be finally opening up, that expression disappeared, and he backed away from Lawrence, fear writ large on his face.
Lawrence was dumbfounded – but of course, he knew the reason for this reaction.
He calmed himself and smiled. “I’m but a simple traveling merchant. It’s all right, lad.”
Col trembled, and Lawrence smiled.
Holo looked back and forth between the two, confused, but seemed to more or less guess at the situation.
“Hmph,” she muttered, then approached Col, who couldn’t back up any farther lest he find himself in the river. She held her hand out to him.
“My companion is a greedy merchant, but he’s also so soft-hearted I don’t know what to do with him. You needn’t be afraid.”
The same smile had a rather different value when worn by a woman rather than a man.
On top of that, Holo’s features were certainly pleasant.
Still frightened, Col tried to squirm away when Holo took hold of his arm, but as she pulled him close, he stopped resisting – in his way, he was just like Holo.
“Heh. Come now, don’t cry. All is well.”
There was something novel and fresh about seeing Holo so skillfully comfort Col, perhaps because Lawrence always saw her at her most abrasive.
The slender lines of her body seemed if anything to incite the protective instincts of men, but within her body was a wisewolf that had protected a village for centuries – surely a being worthy of being called a god.
Even the great heroes of the area could surely not match her generosity.
“It’s just as she says. So, what did you understand?” asked Lawrence. For the nonce, it would be better to demonstrate that he had no interest in the fact that Col was a student and instead talk about something entirely unrelated.
Holo seemed to feel the same way, and she slowly released her grip on his arm as she said something softly.
Though a tinge of his earlier fear remained in his eyes, Col seemed to regain some degree of calm.
It was perhaps out of a sense of male pride that he tried to hide his tears by wiping them away, then looked up. “Y-you’re really not…?”
“No. I swear to the gods.”
These were the magic words.
Col took a deep breath and sniffed loudly.
For Holo’s part, she had a complicated look on her face as she smiled ruefully.
“S-so… you want to know why… the coins are in chests?”
“Yes.”
“Is it not because, er… with a chest, the coins can be packed snugly within?”
Holo wrinkled her brow.
“An excellent answer. It’s just so. Chests of a set size are chosen and coins packed precisely into them. So long as the chest size or coin thickness doesn’t change, the coins will always fit exactly into the chest, and if even a single one is stolen, it will be immediately obvious. Also, you will always know exactly how many coins a given chest holds. There’s no need for extra guards nor extra manpower to count coins. It’s a better system in every way,” said Lawrence, smiling at Col. “Years ago, I would never have conceived of this. Seems you really are an educated lad.”
Col straightened in surprise, then smiled sheepishly.
In contrast, Holo looked entirely uninterested. It was difficult to know whether or not she really
hadn’t also figured the question out – her kind heart might have led her to keep quiet.
“But if this three-chest discrepancy really does point to something out of the ordinary, that would be interesting,” said Lawrence pointedly to Holo, who shrugged as if to say, “I’ve had it with getting into trouble.”
If she was being like this now and if Lawrence was to decide he wanted to chase down Eve, she might well come up with a reason not to.
“Er, uhm–” Col interrupted their wordless exchange.
“Mm?”
“What could be ‘out of the ordinary’? Just for example, I mean.” Col’s bashful smile vanished, replaced with a serious expression.
Lawrence was slightly surprised, and Holo glanced at Col, then met Lawrence’s gaze.
“Just for example, eh? Hmm. As proof of illicit coin minting, say.”
Col’s breath caught in his throat. Illicit minting was a serious crime, indeed.
Lawrence smiled nervously. “That’s an example, though – just an example!”
Disappointed, Col slumped.
It was a bit strange – or rather, he didn’t seem like someone who had been swindled and just wanted his money back.
Perhaps he needed money.
Perhaps he had borrowed the money he’d used to buy these papers.
The thought occurred to Lawrence as he looked at Holo, who only smiled and shrugged.
Holo might have been able to read people’s intentions, but their memories were a mystery even to her.
“It’s just that thinking of all the possibilities is a good way to kill time aboard ship, that’s all,” added Lawrence.
Col nodded regretfully.
The boy had a daring imagination – he’d made a desperate bid in calling Lawrence master just when his counterfeit taxation privilege letter was getting him in trouble on the pier. Yet he had turned out to be a well-behaved boy, save for his strange fixation on money.
And he was a student.
On the way to the Church city of Ruvinheigen, Lawrence had met a shepherdess whose situation piqued his interest; this boy was roughly as interesting.
How had he come to be wandering this area, and what had made him buy this stack of counterfeit documents and ledgers?
Lawrence wanted to get every bit of information out of the boy, but if he pressed too hard, Col’s mouth would snap shut like a startled clam. It was an old story – a student descending from drinking and gambling into swindling and finally theft. None were so persecuted by the world as a student who drifted among such pursuits.
Col’s fear was surely shaped by his knowing all too well just how cold the world’s notice could be.
So Lawrence put on his best merchant’s smile and asked, “There are all sorts of students, so what sort are you?”
Half the itinerant “scholars” in the world were only self-proclaimed and hadn’t done so much as a speck of real study in their lives. But Col could read, so he seemed not to be one of those.
As Lawrence tap-tapped the papers to put their edges in order, Col’s answer was hesitant. “Er… Ch-church… law.”
“Oh?” Now this was a surprise.
Studying Church law – did he intend to become a high-ranking priest?
Those who became students or scholars did so either because their family was wealthy and they could afford to or because they wanted a way to become a member of society without inheriting the family business – or because they simply didn’t want to work and instead called themselves scholars.
In any case, students who studied out of a genuine desire to learn were rare.
And among them, those who studied Church law were a special sort indeed.
They didn’t want to become monks, but they wished to rise high in the Church ranks.
The field attracted a crafty lot, indeed.
“Were you expelled from school?”
Waiting for Col to answer might well have taken until sundown, so in response to Lawrence’s question, Col gave a small nod.
It was the way of such things for students to pool their money and hire a tutor, renting out an inn room or a mansion’s guesthouse for taking lectures in – so of course, those who couldn’t continue to pay were expelled.
There were stories of saints who would send birds to eavesdrop upon such lessons, then return to recite them – but even miracles had limits.
And Lawrence had heard that most tutors wouldn’t so much as answer a question without a gift.
It was a difficult path unless one came from a wealthy family or was a genius at making money.
“So, for a school in this area… Erisol, perhaps?”
“N-no… it was Aquent.”
“Aquent?” Lawrence asked, looking up in surprise. Col cowered as though he had been scolded.
Holo’s accusing eyes were almost painful.
But the town of Aquent was so far away that Lawrence couldn’t help but raise his voice in surprise.
As he watched Holo pat Col’s back encouragingly, Lawrence stroked his beard. “Sorry. It just seemed a bit far, that’s all. It’d take quite some time to make the trip on foot.”
“… Yes.”
“If I remember correctly, Aquent is a place where sages and scholars meet – a place where streams of pure water flow toward the town center, where the apples of wisdom grow year-round; the conversation exchanged there in a single day compares with all the words from four nations, and if you wrote the day’s conversations down, they would reach to the bottom of the ocean. Its name is Aquent, a paradise of reason and wisdom.”
“It sounds an amazing place! ’Twould be nice to have apples year-round. A paradise indeed!” said Holo, practically licking her chops. Col looked a bit surprised, but soon a faint smile appeared on his face.
Even he could tell when Holo was exaggerating.
“Um, that’s actually… not true,” he said.
“Hmm? R-really…?” replied Holo, sounding very disappointed, indeed, as she turned to Col.
Perhaps feeling obligated due to the kindness he’d been shown, Col hastily tried to smooth things over. “Er, um, well, but – there are lots of different fruits lined up year-round at the shops. Even lots of rare ones.”
“Oh?”
“Like a hairy fruit about this big, that doesn’t break even when struck with a hammer – but inside it is a sweet milk.”
He was speaking of the coconut.
When the season was right, when the great trading vessels stopped in warm southern ports, sometimes you saw such things – but Holo had certainly never seen one.
And the imagination could run all the wilder if it had no reality with which to anchor itself.
Holo looked at Lawrence.
Her eyes shone with a light that was entirely sincere.
“If we happen to see any, I’ll buy you some.”
It wasn’t honeyed peach preserves, but they would hardly come across coconuts, so Lawrence wasn’t worried about keeping this promise.
Of course, if they did find some, then he would be in trouble.
“But really, Aquent isn’t a paradise. There’s lots of fighting there,” interjected Col.
“No doubt the inns are full of thieves. If you sleep alone, your clothes will be gone come morning, and if you go to a pub, it will be filled with brawling. When tempers rise, so too do flames, I’ll bet,” said Lawrence.
With a mountain of layabout students ranging from Col’s age to Lawrence’s, it would be like throwing pirates and brigands together in the same room.
Lawrence was being a bit overdramatic, but Col’s regretful smile did not deny any of what he said.
A place full of schools would be lively indeed, for good or ill.
“Um, but I did meet some wonderful teachers there, and learned a lot.”
“Indeed, to be able to read so well at your age is impressive.”
Col’s bashful smile was incredibly charming.
Holo grinned as well.
“So, how d
id you wind up all the way out here?” Lawrence asked, and Col – still smiling – looked down.
“I tried my hand at the book business…”
“The book business?”
“Yes. My teacher’s assistant told me that my teacher was going to write new annotations to a certain book and so I should buy copies of that book before the price rose…”
“And did you?”
“Yes.”
Lawrence skillfully kept his face neutral.
When a famous scholar wrote notes on a given book, packages of the book plus the annotations would sell very well indeed.
It was quite common for a scholar and a bookstore to cooperate – the bookstore would buy up copies of an unpopular book, and then the scholar would write annotations for that book.
Scarcity led to escalating prices, which in turn brought greater attention.
Thus it was quite plausible that in towns with schools or universities nearby, talk of such and such a scholar planning to write annotations for such and such a book would be common.
A merchant might easily buy sheepskins or wheat flour a year in advance of selling it, but the publishing business was less reliable than tomorrow’s weather, and Lawrence never involved himself in it.
But Col, who had apparently never cast an eye to the avarice and clamor all around him, instead devoting himself to study, hadn’t the slightest inkling of the pitfalls of that business.
What Col had invested in wasn’t a business at all.
It was a magnificent fraud.
“I knew I didn’t have enough money to see my studies through to the end, so I thought I’d try to turn a profit. And the book’s price was going up nearly every day, so I knew if I wanted to make any money, I’d have to buy soon. But I didn’t have enough, so I borrowed the money from a merchant friend of the assistant.”
It was a textbook trap.
The rising price was either a ruse on the part of the bookseller or rumors had gotten out that had led to increased demand.
And as the price began to rise, more and more people would come to believe that the rumors of new annotations were true, which would drive the price up still higher.
After that, it was a great gamble to see who would pull the unlucky number.
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