Was there any man whose chest did not swell at a tale of a young knight confronting a giant?
A feeling of envy rose up inside Lawrence, but while he might admit as much to Eve, he certainly would not to Kieman.
Kieman’s ability made him entirely untrustworthy.
“So there’s a sting, is there? From what I heard, the landowners of the north side are so many fish, flopping about on land.”
“Yes, they were caught decades ago and are long since dried out. But this year, the lack of the northern campaign has slowed the flow of gold. It seems necessity knows no law.”
If the money going to the landowners who lived on the north side was a royalty for the use of the delta marketplace, then it was probably collected as a tax.
In which case, if the traffic of goods and people slowed, it would translate directly to a loss in tax revenue.
But the reason the moneylenders would continue to profit while the debtors would be ruined whether or not they profited or took a loss was because the lenders would always be able to collect the same amount in interest.
“Perhaps only a passerby like me would imagine that making another loan to show compassion would turn out better in the future.”
Kieman accepted the five silver trenni without any particular emotion and wrote out a receipt.
For someone who kept ledgers on the comings and goings of who knew how many great sea vessels, that was all five trenni was worth.
Lawrence found himself nostalgic for the exaggerated pleasure of Jakob, the Ruvinheigen guild house master, at having received a donation of trenni.
“Not at all. Normally it would be exactly so, but unfortunately, they’re sons of men who continued to pay interest until they died, and they themselves have been paying interest since they were born. Then ten or so years ago, there was a war in the Strait of Winfiel, and over the years as they fell behind on their interest, we on the south side offered to forgive some of their debt. They’d paid enough, we said.”
“So they were stubborn.”
“Exactly so. They stubbornly paid their interest, insisting they would eventually pay back in full. For our part, if we could only expand the marketplace, it would be trivial to reclaim the interest on the debt. But they know that, and so it only makes them more stubborn. ‘We won’t let you profit from us any further,’ they say.”
Kieman shrugged as though at a loss for further words, and Lawrence quite agreed.
He felt sorry for Eve on whom this was being taken out.
Despite being fallen nobility from the kingdom of Winfiel and apparently wielding a fair amount of influence in the Roam River region, this was probably the reason behind her throwing all that away and heading south.
She had done whatever she had to do in order to climb back up and in so doing had sunk deeper and deeper into debt.
“If only they would be more rational. As it is, marriage between the north side and south side is still difficult, to say nothing of moving one’s household.”
Kieman seemed happy to speak, but it was clear it was not out of any particular favor toward Lawrence.
No doubt he imagined Lawrence to have brought the subject up out of the idle curiosity of a traveling merchant.
But he was also probably thinking that as a representative of the Rowen Trade Guild, he could not have Lawrence going around saying things that contradicted the guild’s position.
He had been so informative as a way of explaining to Lawrence that this was the guild line and to warn him that deviating from it would bring consequences.
Not understanding this would be dangerous, but having taken notice of the fact, Lawrence now imagined he could go to any trade guild and enjoy its protection as long as he fell into line.
“I see. So that means the rumor I heard might not necessarily be mistaken.”
“Rumor?”
Information gathering was of paramount importance for a trade guild man like Kieman, and Lawrence had to smile at the way this piqued his interest far more than the five trenni that were on the counter a moment ago.
Among traveling merchants, betraying this level of interest always lowered one’s status, even for a tasty rumor.
“Yes, it seems the Jean Company on the north side of town is being exploited by the powers that be there.”
Of course, this was mere speculation, but the moment Lawrence spoke it, it became truth.
Kieman’s expression hardly changed.
In fact, it changed too little.
“Might I ask… where you heard that?”
He could have purposefully played dumb, but Kieman seemed to realize that Lawrence had seen through him.
His eyes turned tense.
Lawrence now had to choose his words carefully.
He tried tossing a big rock into the pond.
“Actually, there was a strange former gentry in Lenos that I…”
“… Made a business deal with,” he meant to say, but Lawrence didn’t finish the sentence.
While Kieman’s face made it seem like he had just heard a funny story, his elbow lightly trapped Lawrence’s clothing against the counter.
His facial expression and body language were complete opposites.
“Mr. Lawrence, you seem tired from your journey. Would you care to rest yourself inside?”
The guild house had a dining room as well as beds and fireplaces for overnight stays.
Although that was not, of course, what Kieman meant.
Lawrence’s bait seemed to have caught him a bigger fish than he had expected.
“Yes, with pleasure,” he said with an accommodating smile.
Lawrence was led into what was surely Kieman’s office, where soup that was redolent with fish was brought out.
This was not the sort of talk that called for wine, nor was a sweet childish drink appropriate.
And here in a town where travelers were constantly passing through, a savory, hearty fish soup was often well received.
“So, what is your relationship to the head of the Bolan family?”
It seemed less like a question and more like an interrogation.
Kieman had not touched his own soup.
Lawrence noticed as much, and for a moment, he wondered if something suspicious had been added to the dish.
“I am a traveling merchant, so I’m obviously not her dance partner.”
“There was a disturbance. Something about furs, was it?”
The information had either just arrived today, or a contact in Lenos had taken a fast horse and delivered the news the previous day.
Lawrence had nothing to hide and so nodded, clearing his throat once.
“We tried to complete a large business deal together, but she betrayed me at the last minute. I’ve been so frustrated about the whole affair that I came down the river to vent my spleen at her.”
“Surely you’re joking.” Either he was used to toying with others or unused to being toyed with himself.
A bit of anger crept into Kieman’s features, and it somehow made Lawrence think of a younger Holo.
“The part about the business deal is true, and I did come down the river in search of Eve. However, my goal was to ask for her aid.”
“In business?”
Lawrence shook his head. “I came across something quite strange in my travels. That happenstance led me to follow a certain silly tale.”
“A silly… tale?”
“Yes.”
Kieman rolled his eyes up as though he were gazing at the stars in the sky; then he continued. “You refer to the story of the wolf remains.”
“Yes. For you to hit upon it so soon, it must be quite a famous tale around here.”
“Famous it is, yes, but… Mr. Lawrence, is that truly what you’re pursuing?” He seemed less taken aback than he was simply disbelieving.
Perhaps the story was such that he could not imagine why anyone would chase it.
“I can see you’re shocked.”
“No
, not as such, but…” It was a pitiful excuse, as Kieman himself was well aware. “My apologies. There’s no point in hiding it. I am indeed shocked.”
“My traveling companion was born in the north. It concerns her homeland, and she desperately wishes to find the truth.”
Here in a town where north and south collided, cultural and religious clashes were daily occurrences.
The reason Lawrence gave would be, if anything, more convincing in such a place.
“I see… What shocks me, though, is not the fact that you’re chasing the story in and of itself.”
It was the same reaction as Reynolds at the Jean Company.
But the words he continued with were different.
“Rather, what I find shocking is that while having an acquaintance with Eve Bolan, you would use it to pursue this wild-goose chase of all things.”
Lawrence thought for a moment.
He tried to logically pinpoint Kieman’s thought process.
“In other words, if I know Eve, I could use her to pursue any number of legitimate opportunities,” Lawrence prompted, at which Kieman made a fine face and nodded.
“The reason I brought you back here, Mr. Lawrence, is that her name is extremely important in this town at the moment, and we’re in a very delicate position.”
“Meaning?”
If Eve’s name was important and the town’s position delicate, then the reason for that would likewise be so.
Lawrence guessed there was only about a fifty-fifty chance that his question would be answered, but it seemed he had won that bet.
“She’s using her status as former nobility to secretly cooperate with the town headmen for profit. She’s probably the only one who has a complete picture of all the interested parties. No one knows what the impact might be of a single mistake in their dealings with her. I called you back here and told you of this, Mr. Lawrence, for the same reason I spoke with you earlier.”
He was referring to the countertop conversation about the relationship between the north and south.
That had indeed not been out of the kindness of his heart, but instead an explanation of the trade guild’s thinking.
“So to hear that you’ve come here not to do business with Eve, but instead to ask her for clues to your folly of a quest – it not only surprises me, but also comes as an enormous relief.”
Kieman spoke with an amiable demeanor, but behind his words was an order: “Do not do business with Eve in this town.”
“But I think you are correct to seek her advice regarding the wolf remains. I doubt there’s anyone with as much knowledge of the Roam River region as she.”
This meant that he did not mind if Lawrence wanted to go on this wild-goose chase.
It also implied that Kieman believed the tale of the wolf bones to be utter folly.
“Still, I must wonder at what history led you to do business with her. Here in this town, there are many who wish to deal with her, but she’s utterly unapproachable. I’m sure anyone who can get a favorable response from her will do well…”
Of course, he would wonder at it.
If Eve was so important, the trade guild would have to be scheming to get involved with her.
“I did nothing. She approached me, and only now am I starting to understand why.”
“Oh?”
“She ingratiated herself with the headmen, used them, profited, and then was unable to pay them back. Or perhaps she simply didn’t want to. It was none other than Eve who was clashing with the south side’s coin purse mercenaries.”
Kieman was once again surprised, and perhaps unconsciously trying to hide it, he stroked his face and nodded.
“I was truly deceived in my dealings in Lenos. I’d wagered not only the money I’d raised by selling my precious companion into hock, but also my own life. And in the end – well, the knives and hatchets came out, but the reason I think she pulled me into the deal was that by that time, the only person she could deceive and use was a traveling merchant like me.”
When he thought about it that way, that was probably also why the slave-trading house so easily lent him the money to buy the furs.
That was just how highly Eve’s name was valued.
“I see… That does seem likely. I must admit I’m rather… envious that you could ask for her help even after knives and hatchets had come out.”
Impressed at how well chosen those words were, Lawrence nodded and answered. “True colors come out when you squabble like children over a purse full of coin. I don’t know that Eve and I are friends exactly, but we do share some embarrassing memories, let’s say.”
That was not the complete truth, but it was not far from it.
Whether or not Kieman understood, he closed his eyes and nodded, putting his index finger to his temple as if thinking on something.
As someone responsible for a trade guild branch, he would not find himself involved in such brutal dealings.
Lawrence was feeling something of a mix of envy and a vague sense of superiority when Kieman suddenly looked up.
“Understood. Now, then–”
“Yes?” answered Lawrence innocently, and then–
“Eve Bolan or the trade guild – which is your priority?”
This was the very definition of being thrown from one’s stride.
For a moment, Lawrence no longer understood who was in front of him.
But that was not because of his own surprise. There was a different reason for his sudden confusion.
Kieman’s affect had changed entirely.
Lawrence felt a cold sweat instantly break out on his back.
Up until that moment, he had simply thought that they were making small talk about Eve, but he was suddenly wondering if he had been seriously mistaken.
He thought he would be able to gather some information and call it a day.
That was not the case.
“Well… the guild, of course,” Lawrence managed to answer, and Kieman looked away without as much as nodding.
His brusque manner was just as it had been when Lawrence approached the counter and put the five trenni down.
Lawrence had been played.
And so unbelievably easily, too.
“In that case, I’m expecting you to behave in a manner befitting a member of this guild. Human connections are assets – they are capital. And large business requires large capital,” said Kieman with a brilliant smile.
His tone was pleasant, but it had a forceful finality to it.
Lawrence should not have let his guard down.
He had completely misjudged Eve’s importance, as well.
As a result, he had been cornered by Kieman into promising to put the trade guild first.
It made Lawrence feel incredibly uncomfortable, as if he had just been forced to sign a contract without reading it – and this feeling was no illusion.
“Eve was only just in a difficult place without anywhere to turn, you see,” said Kieman casually, as though he were making small talk.
Lawrence was quite sure that he was not merely being asked to put a good word in with Eve.
He had to expect something humiliating or at least partially so; otherwise there was no telling what they would use him for, thought Lawrence. He was about to open his mouth to speak, when–
“Mr. Kieman! Mr. Kieman!” came a voice from outside the room, accompanied by hurried footsteps.
Next there was an urgent knock at the door, and Kieman’s name was again called out.
Something had happened.
But Kieman only sipped his now-cool soup, entirely unruffled.
“But I’ve taken too much of your time. It seems I have other business to attend to, so if you’ll excuse me.”
He stood and walked toward the door.
A dazed Lawrence watched him leave, having completely lost the opportunity to speak further, when Kieman suddenly stopped and looked back. “Ah, yes–”
His manner was that of an actor required to
perform constantly for a very discerning audience.
“–If you speak of this to anyone else…”
Kieman opened the door and listened to the whisper of the frantic-looking guild employee, giving a short nod without changing his expression.
Though they might lack wolf ears or tails, there are people in the world every bit the terrifying equal of the gods and spirits.
Lawrence felt it.
“… You’ll surely regret it,” Kieman finished, regarding Lawrence with a pleasant merchant’s smile.
The guild house was in an uproar, like unto a kicked hornet’s nest.
Merchants were coming through the front door, approaching the first-floor counter, leaving letters, and heading back out.
At that moment, if one wanted to know what was happening in Kerube, there was probably no better place to be than inside a trade house.
But as Lawrence watched Kieman work, he wasn’t thinking about the current crisis at all.
He was still preoccupied with the conversation he had just had.
While Lawrence’s calm face made it seem like he was attempting to discern what was happening in the town just as all the other merchants were, inside he was full of dread.
Kieman was trying to accomplish something using Lawrence’s connection to Eve. Lawrence had thought to use Eve as bait to draw information out of Kieman, but he had wound up getting snared himself.
Meanwhile, he felt as though the mood in the clamorous first floor of the trade house had changed.
Lawrence looked up and saw a familiar face peering in at him through the open front door.
It was Holo, whom he had told to meet with him back at the inn when her work was done.
“May I help you?” asked a hairy merchant who was standing next to the door, probably thinking she was a nun on pilgrimage who had lost track of her companion.
Holo seemed to consider how to answer for a moment but soon noticed Lawrence standing up from his chair.
“Excuse me, she’s an acquaintance of mine.”
There were many merchants who served the food and supply lines of knight companies and mercenaries, and if a group on pilgrimage were sufficiently well funded, it was not unheard of for them to have merchants that served in similar capacities.
Lawrence spoke up without any particular urgency, so the other merchants in the room simply assumed that was what he was.
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