Their slightly envious gazes were probably because of his being connected to such a profitable-looking customer.
The only exception was Kieman.
Lawrence felt the man’s gaze on his back as he left with Holo.
Though things outside seemed unchanged, looking closer, Lawrence noticed merchants and messengers carrying letters hurriedly to and from the trade house branches, red faced and rushed.
“What happened?” Lawrence asked as they walked slowly through the lively marketplace.
“With the town suddenly in such an uproar, I can hardly leave you on your own.”
“What do you mean?” he was about to reply, but as someone thoroughly involved in things, he found he could not object.
And there was no denying that they were getting involved.
“So, did you find anything out?” Lawrence asked, feigning composure.
Just as he thought Holo was puffing herself up in pride, she exhaled a deep sigh and shook her head. “I received but the most perfunctory answers. I thought with the abundance of charming fools like you, I’d have no trouble drawing them out, but with this sudden commotion, they simply sent me off. What is happening?”
Ignoring her baiting words, Lawrence replied only to the substantive part of her statement. “They sent you off? Out of the church?”
“Aye. I wondered if some great demon had appeared in the town to threaten the church…”
Lawrence had to laugh at the seriousness with which this statement came. “That would’ve been a calamity, indeed… but I do wonder what it was that involves the Church.”
“Once I was cast out of the church, I thought I would try to track the disturbance, but there was such a crowd that there was naught for it – not to mention the many men with swords and spears.”
“Soldiers?”
“Aye. All I could tell was that they were carrying something precious from the river, and it seemed they went into the church. It was a terrific uproar. Indeed, and that lad who wanted to make me his bride – when was it again? – he was there.”
“Back in Kumersun.” Lawrence made a pained face, not wanting to be reminded of such things. Holo chuckled.
But if something similar to that happened now, Lawrence doubted it would be as much of a crisis.
For one thing, even if it did, he was closer to Holo now than he had been back then.
He could tell that Holo was bringing it up partially out of a sense of nostalgia.
“But what would happen to raise such a fuss?” wondered Lawrence.
“You may ask, but I have no answer. Even listening carefully to the crowds, I couldn’t make sense of it at all. I decided ’twould be better to return to you for the nonce.”
“Huh,” Lawrence murmured, trying to piece together what he had heard earlier at the trade house. “According to what they were saying when I arrived, it seems a ship from the north side was being towed by a ship from a company on the south side, but I assumed it was just talk of internal politics.”
Holo seemed not to understand and regarded Lawrence the way she did when she thought she was being teased.
“Explain it so I can understand,” her expression said.
“The north and south sides of this town are in conflict, right? But they can’t draw lines in the ocean. When the fish head north, they fish in the north, and when the fish are south, they go south. Whenever there’s fishing in rivers, lakes, or oceans, issues of territory are always a source of strife. That’s what I thought they were talking about. You’d hardly think that a trading company in the south would be so taken by a north-side fishing vessel out on the ocean that they’d buy it up on the spot, would you?”
Holo slowly nodded, as if vaguely understanding this talk of territory.
“But for them to tow a north-side ship in and bring ashore something that required armed escort, and for that to be the work of the Church instead of a trading company, it makes me wonder if they really caught a mermaid or something.”
“A mermaid?” Holo asked, her head tilted curiously. Surprisingly, she seemed not to know what one was.
“They’re a kind of legendary creature. The sea immediately next to us is known as the Winfiel Strait, but around its northern mouth is a reef where there were constant shipwrecks. And there’s an old legend about them, that women with voices of unearthly beauty sing enchanted songs from that reef, causing sailors to lose their way and wreck their ships upon the rocks. And those sailors who wonder what beautiful women are doing on the wave-pounded reefs soon have their questions answered – the mermaids are human from the waist up, but below that, they have the tails of fish.”
Holo listened to the story, seeming honestly impressed.
It was not as if she were unfamiliar with the sea, but somehow she seemed never to have heard of mermaids.
If Holo had not heard of them, perhaps they really were nothing but a superstition, thought Lawrence.
Holo nodded and spoke. “Human males surely are easy to fool.”
It was true that old stories and legends were full of men being tricked by all sorts of spirits.
But Lawrence had sparred with Holo many times before and had a few choice words to counterattack with.
“Isn’t it better to stay carefree rather than constantly being on guard for deceptions?”
Lawrence was well aware that Holo was disposed to prefer a mild sunbeam to a violent gambling den.
After flicking her ears for a few moments beneath her hood, Holo spoke in a mischievous tone. “Aye, well, we enjoy our wine as well. Still,” she continued, smiling, “have you sworn to the God of the Church not to fall into their trap and not to fall into this one?”
“Huh?”
“I’m asking if you have anything to hide.”
“Gah–” Lawrence could not help himself from muttering, as Holo had once again struck at his inability to hide anything from her.
He had wanted to organize his thoughts more thoroughly before talking to Holo, but he told her everything about his exchange with Kieman.
“You fool.”
Lawrence wanted to protest that Kieman barely seemed human, but he knew that was no excuse.
Holo’s tone as she continued seemed unconcerned. “If it was such an unreasonable demand, why didn’t you simply refuse?”
When she said it like that, it sounded almost possible, which was a terrifying illusion.
But Lawrence soon regained his composure and scratched his head.
Merchants preferred to have contracts on paper, but before committing a promise to writing, they would use a verbal contract.
And its meaning was weighty indeed.
“Dozens, hundreds of merchants are members of the Rowen Trade Guild, including some who earn thousands of lumione in a year. It is nothing less than an entity that could squash me without a second thought. No matter what favor they might ask of me, I cannot refuse it. Absurd, you might think – but that is part of why promises are always kept.”
Even in the Church city of Ruvinheigen, when Lawrence was facing utter ruin and the possibility of life on a slave ship – even then he did not consider betraying the guild.
Trading companies were thus powerful allies and fearsome enemies, knights who wielded the pen and the coin.
“Hmph. Well, I suppose ’tis true that a youngster can hardly disobey a veteran.”
“You see?”
“Aye. But still, those in such position often have too much to lose and cannot risk bold moves. You wish to use your acquaintance with that vixen to accomplish something, but with others involved, perhaps they fear the trouble it might cause and thus threaten you.”
If the problem was that one tended to be controlled by various influences and implications, then someone not in that position would have been able to make a more objective judgment.
“And for those trying to hold the group together, keeping a weather eye on your underlings so they don’t make foolish mistakes is common sense. I doubt you’ve
anything to worry about.”
Holo actually had held entire mountains and villages together, and so her words had a certain persuasiveness to them.
She was not some food-and wine-obsessed town lass who cried at any mention of her homeland.
“Anyway, whatever you decide, all I need do is act according to my own priorities,” said Holo, waving her hand dismissively and speeding up her walk.
Anger at her selfishness or callousness was the wrong answer.
And yet laughing it off as a joke was also the wrong answer.
Lawrence called out to her receding form. “Even if I were at the top of that list, I assume you wouldn’t admit it, would you?”
Holo stopped and looked back. “Aye. I cannot have you getting seduced.”
She flashed her fangs in a grin, and for a moment, a shock ran through him as he worried that she might be revealed.
But when he felt that chill down his spine, it was usually not because of his surroundings turning colder – rather it was his own temperature rising.
Lawrence gave a long-suffering sigh, drawing alongside Holo, who had slowed her walk.
He took her hand and spoke. “Are we finished here? Let’s meet back up with Col.”
Holo’s face as she looked at him was unsurprisingly angry.
“That’s my line, you dunce!”
Fortunately, the return crossing from the delta to the north side cost only a single fare.
When something happened in the town, the disturbance would spread rapidly.
And if that something was across the river, the urge to rubberneck inevitably spread like wildfire.
Nearly everyone wanted to get from the north side to the delta and from the delta to the south side, so ferries going the opposite direction were completely empty.
It would have been ridiculous not to haggle the ferryman’s fare down, and with the leftover coin, Lawrence bought Holo more roasted shellfish.
Lawrence barely had time to say, “You mustn’t tell Col,” before Holo had polished them off and was looking very satisfied indeed.
If they were going to pursue what was happening in the town, it might have seemed like the best course of action would be either to remain on the delta or cross to the south side, but listening to what Holo said made Lawrence think otherwise.
As a precaution, he had not told Kieman where they were staying.
One never knew.
If Col was taken hostage, there was no telling what sort of unreasonable demands they might make – to say nothing of Holo.
Upon returning to the inn, they were greeted by an exhausted Col, who was sprawled facedown on the table.
“Ah, welcome back…” His face twitched strangely.
For a moment, Lawrence wondered what had happened, but then he saw the cheap pickled herring and battered, blackened copper coins on the table and could more or less guess.
He must have been very popular when posing as a beggar boy to listen to town gossip.
“… I’m tired.”
“That much is obvious, but did you hear anything to match the effort?”
Holo drew close to the tired Col and with both hands rubbed the dirt from the corners of his eyes.
When Lawrence had been just starting out as a merchant, he too had slept with a face tired from too many forced smiles, the muscles twitching and moving of their own accord.
Of course, back then he had been forced to massage his own face.
“Er… yes. It was just as you said, Mr. Lawrence. The Jean Company should be profiting, but I heard they don’t eat proper food, and they hardly ever give to charity.”
“Which means that they might even be taking those chicken eggs to market and selling them.”
As she rubbed Col’s face, Holo got a faraway look in her eye. “Then mayhap that feast was meant to court us.”
“Quite likely. So Reynolds may well be serious about the wolf remains.”
Or it was his last wish.
According to Kieman, Eve would only secretly negotiate with someone who could make the greatest profit in that particular moment.
As long as that was her method, no one would want to approach her without a very clear plan.
Contacting her with the claim that you would do anything as long as it expanded your business was a dangerous bet because there was no way of knowing whom she was involved with and to what end.
Which meant it was possible that Reynolds did indeed want Eve’s cooperation with the wolf remains.
It fit that Reynolds knew where the remains were but had no way of negotiating with the owner and wanted to ask Eve to act as a middleman.
It was all too likely that some well-known nobleman or clergyman had the remains.
But they would never negotiate with some unknown merchant.
Who they would negotiate with was a merchant prince wealthy enough to have purchased a title – or true fellow nobility.
“Even from what I heard, reinforcement seemed possible.”
“Meaning?”
“The church in the town we were just in, I hear, has been very bold in spreading the teachings of their God and has been inspiring their flock all along the river. That verve has reached all the way to the northern mountains, the heartland of paganism, and there gives courage to the knights fighting with pagans on the front line.”
Col sat up with a start and looked straight at Holo.
In the worst case, her statement could mean that the Church’s hand had fallen upon his town.
“But the northern pagans’ resistance has been fierce, and since for the nonce the missionary efforts are making little progress, the Church men were warning me not to be swayed from the true path, despite the mistaken beliefs of my kith and kin.”
Col looked visibly relieved, and as he slumped, his shoulders sagged, seeming to lose half their posture.
It was clear Holo had heard quite a bit of the Church’s specialty – stories that were not precisely lies but left a mistaken impression upon the listener.
Holo was not so patient as to be able to happily listen to such foolishness.
As long as she was not in a foul mood, she would not tease someone about his or her town for fun.
“The Church can never appear weak in its dealings with pagans. For them to state something so close to the truth must mean their true situation is desperate. If so, considering the situation with the bishopric in Lenos, talk of drastic measures to reverse their position – such as getting the wolf remains into their hands – cannot be easily dismissed as absurd.”
“Too true. When I mentioned the bones, the fools would speak of the need to take them as quickly as possible, to show the pagans the error of their ways,” spat Holo, her tail swishing violently enough to cause her robe to flip up as she sat forcefully down on the bed.
Lawrence had no words for Holo and, letting a slight sigh escape, tried to put his thoughts in order.
“There’s no doubt that the Jean Company is looking for the remains. And they’re closing in on the location. Or perhaps it’s better to say that they’re getting closer to handing them over to the Church.”
“And should we just go then to this whatever-’tis-called company?”
Holo’s upturned glance was frightening as ever.
Lawrence shook his head at her bare-fanged statement. “Imagine what would happen if we tried to solve everything with brute force. Your true nature would absolutely come out, and the Church’s rage would be roused. A pagan god in the flesh – ‘all ye faithful servants of God, rise and take swords in hand,’ they would say.”
Holo was not such a child as to say she would merely tear all who opposed them to shreds.
She understood the difference of magnitude, and more importantly, she could not fail to know that such an act would give the deadlocked Church renewed will and resolve.
“If possible, our solution should be money. In the worst case, a secret theft would also work.”
“Such childish gambits–�
�� began Holo, but stopped herself at Lawrence’s quiet gaze.
“Enough money can easily kill a person. With money, your homeland could be stripped bare. It is not ‘childish.’”
Lawrence was a merchant, and merchants risked their lives to make money.
He knew well how difficult that was and also the power it held.
Holo grunted something that might or might not have been agreement, then looked away.
“Still, now that we’ve recognized the situation, the question becomes what we can do about it, and the answer may well be ‘not very much.’”
“… Why should that be? If this company is seeking the aid of that vixen, then we have two choices.”
“Two?”
Anticipating a display of the celebrated cleverness of a wise-wolf, Lawrence turned to look at Holo, who patted Col on the head.
“We can use this fellow’s wits to threaten them.”
She was referring to the mystery of the copper coin that the Jean Company handled.
“I see,” murmured Lawrence. “And the other?”
At those words, a mysterious smile appeared on Holo’s face, and she moved smoothly toward Lawrence.
He suddenly had a bad feeling about this, not for any particular reason, but simply because of his experiences with Holo thus far.
“We do what that company wants and play matchmaker twixt them and the vixen. We can hear the location of the wolf remains once she’s been asked where they are.”
There was a head of height difference between Lawrence and Holo.
When she stood directly in front of him, Holo had to look distinctly up, but it was Lawrence who felt overpowered.
“There may be some possibility of that with the Jean Company, but there’s still a clear flaw there.”
“Oh, aye?”
Did she have some secret plan? Lawrence wondered, but his common sense refuted it.
“Yes. What profit is there for Eve in doing that? If we ask her where the remains are, make no mistake that she’ll instantly be on guard against having them stolen away. Why would she…?” asked Lawrence when Holo’s provocative smile made him realize.
Her tail was wagging her irritation for just that reason.
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