Directly across the street at what seemed to be a tailor’s workshop, three men worked to cut down a large skin.
Aristocrats hated labor of all kinds.
This was not a place a refined person would live.
And upon entering the craft district, Lawrence became aware of their strange gazes upon him.
Even if it wasn’t surprising they’d be curious at his arrival, given that they would know the faces of anyone who came here, there was something more than just curiosity in their gazes.
If he had to put his finger on it, they seemed to be on the lookout.
“I’ve brought a guest.”
The driver of Lawrence’s carriage knocked at the door with a cane as soon as they pulled up to the building.
The informality of it was surprising, but something about the way he knocked was odd, and it was probably some kind of signal.
Before long the door opened, and from within emerged a face Lawrence was not unfamiliar with.
It was one of the mean-eyed young men who’d been with Eve on the delta.
“Inside,” he said, jerking his head back after giving Lawrence an appraising look.
Lawrence couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d gotten himself involved in something big, but having realized it, it was not as though he could do anything about it.
After all, being frightened wasn’t in his best interests, so Lawrence armed himself with his merchant’s curiosity.
He gave the silent driver a nod and got out of the carriage, then unhesitatingly reached for the door.
The weathered door suited the house, which was one step away from being completely dilapidated, but the wood it used was solid, and most importantly, it did not creak.
When he opened the door and entered, he saw the man who’d greeted him leaning against the wall, regarding him.
No matter where a merchant found himself delivered, he couldn’t help smiling.
Lawrence gave the man a pleasant smile, and the man, who wore an obvious sword at his belt, indicated a hallway with his eyes.
The walls were half-stone and half-wood, and the floor was packed earth.
The place had probably been a craftsman’s workshop at one point.
As he walked farther in, his feet scuff-scuffing audibly on the floor, he found himself calmed by the scent he smelled – it was burning wood, which suited the season.
He opened the door at the end of the hallway, revealing what seemed to be a workshop-turned-living room. At the moment, though, it was no more than a storage space, with crates and barrels piled high and no particular sense that anyone was living there.
On the left side of the room there was a fireplace, and the area seemed to be set up to let someone pass at least a bit of time there.
“Surprised, are you?” Sitting in a chair and warming herself in front of the fire, Eve looked up from a bundle of parchment.
She looked not unlike a noblewoman reading over petitions from her land’s residents, but when she looked back and revealed her face, Lawrence was a bit surprised.
The left corner of her mouth was red and swollen.
“It’s cold out there. Close the door, if you would. No lock, though.”
It took Lawrence a moment to realize she was joking.
It seemed unlikely that she’d fallen and hurt herself, so someone must have hit her.
“Sorry to call you out so suddenly.”
“… Not at all. I’m honored to be summoned for a secret rendezvous with a beautiful woman.”
Spoken with a smile, it was a bad joke.
Spoken seriously, it was the opposite.
“A secret rendezvous, eh? Well, anyway, sit. Sadly, I’ve no servants,” said Eve, indicating an empty chair. Her gaze fell back down to the parchment in her hand before she watched Lawrence sit.
“It’s a bit chilly as homes go.”
Resting her left elbow on the table, Eve remained facing the fireplace as she regarded the parchment before her.
She offered Lawrence no reply.
“Still, I imagine it’s nice and cool in the summertime.”
“It’s winter now,” she replied harshly, which Lawrence smiled at.
“So much the better. It’ll be warm if you get out.”
At this Eve finally looked up.
Her mouth looked like it hurt, but her eyes were smiling. “Heh. Right you are. I’d love to get out; the sooner the better.”
“So why here?” He left out “Why are you locked up here?” given the man who was undoubtedly listening in on their conversation outside the room.
Eve sighed, and setting down the parchment, she spoke. “You would hide your weapons of last resort, too, would you not?”
“… I would, it’s true.”
As a former aristocrat and someone even top members of guild houses like Kieman recognized on sight, Eve was probably the Kerube landowners’ trump card.
Lawrence glanced at the aging parchment on the table, and from the rows of writing and formulas, he could tell it was a property transaction of some kind.
Essentially, Eve was being forced to plan the battle here, all on her own.
“Of course, the reason I’m locked up in here at sword point isn’t because of this contract. Nor did I call you out here to suggest you cross some dangerous bridge with me.”
Only Eve, who’d dragged him into a deeply dangerous deal back in Lenos, the town of lumber and fur, could make this joke.
“Still, I’m glad you let yourself be caught. If things go badly, I’ll need my bread torn into rather small pieces tonight.”
Lawrence realized they were moving from pleasant chitchat into a business discussion.
What Eve meant was simple.
Whoever hit her left cheek would also hit her right.
“The reason I called you is indeed the commotion in the town – you noticed it, yes?”
“Yes… something about the fishermen’s boats from this side of town docking in the south, was it?”
“Indeed. It’s as though God timed it. The news reached us as we were leaving the delta and returning to this side. It’s like a different town across the river. We’d be recognized, so once the rioting started we couldn’t cross. Even though our spies made it to the south side, there wasn’t time for them to return.”
This sort of talk was not especially familiar to Lawrence, who traveled from town to town, but it wasn’t as though he couldn’t understand the basic idea of a territorial dispute.
As Eve spoke, Lawrence realized why he’d been summoned.
He didn’t yet know how important it was, but his merchant’s instincts were making him sit up and pay attention – that much he was sure of.
“As I’m sure you’ve guessed, there’s information I need. I reckon you were at that delta guild house right up until the last moment. What did you hear there, I wonder?”
Eve was speaking as though she knew that Lawrence had been at the guild house.
Practically speaking, she knew that he was a member of the Rowen Trade Guild, so it wouldn’t have been hard to guess he’d been there.
But given that she was bringing this up here and now, there could be no doubt that the people who’d locked Eve up were observing him.
Of course, this could also be a trap she’d laid just to make him think so.
“I know a bit.”
“Even a bit is fine.”
Lawrence dropped his gaze to the parchment on the table, considering how much he should hide.
But after a moment, when he looked up, he spoke openly and frankly.
“A ship affiliated with this side was brought in by a south-side vessel. I don’t know the cargo, but it was worth protecting with armed guards, and it was worth bringing directly to the church.”
He’d told his opponent everything he knew without asking for any compensation, and yet this was not an uncalculated move.
“… Is that hearsay?”
“My companion got quite close to the church
evidently,” said Lawrence, and Eve exhaled a deep breath, looked up, and closed her eyes.
She then composed herself and opened her eyes.
“So that’s it, is it?”
Lawrence had been right not to lie to Eve.
She didn’t have time to bargain with him just to get a bit of information.
“I’m glad you’re not some stingy-talking small fry.”
“Ah, but if I were a big fish, I wouldn’t have to come when called.”
“True enough. But when you’re a big fish, the world is filled with passages too narrow for you to pass.”
The odds could not have been good that Lawrence would have information about the disturbance in the town.
Even if he had been at the trading house, there was no guarantee he would have gotten the information.
Yet she’d found a way to hide her good nature and call Lawrence here, which meant there had to be another reason she’d done so.
And then the reason he’d vaguely anticipated was made clear by her words.
“So are you telling me to go down a small passage?”
“You’re in a unique position in this town. You don’t have any proper connections here, but you’re able to have a pleasant conversation with someone that many in this town are very eager to connect with.”
Eve’s eyes narrowed in a smile.
As he listened to her words, the image of Kieman claiming to be acquainted with Eve flashed through his mind.
“Of course, I won’t say it’s free. The story was told to me by the lot that locked me up in here, and their bellies are too large for them to fit through its paths.”
She waved a single page of parchment.
It was a contract, signed and stamped.
It was written in the old-style writing and involved the delta marketplace.
“I’ve only meager coin and goods, sadly, but I’ve more than enough connections and influence. It’ll be a good footing for business.”
“And not a yoke?” asked Lawrence, and the fake smile disappeared from Eve’s face as she turned expressionless.
“… Yes, a yoke.” She reached up and touched her cheek, then looked at her fingers, probably checking for blood. “Aren’t you going to ask me how I got this wound?”
“How’d you get it?” Lawrence immediately asked, at which Eve’s shoulders shook with mirth, and she covered her mouth like a town lass.
The fact that she seemed genuinely amused was painful to see.
“Well played. It’s not that I’m asking you only because you’re in the best position.”
“But I’m also not badly placed to cross that dangerous bridge.”
This was not merely banter.
The moment he let his guard down was the moment he’d be crossing that bridge free of charge.
“My exploiting a gap and your protecting what you have are not the same thing.”
“Indeed. My conversations with my companion cut me to the bone.”
Constantly on the defensive, Lawrence knew he would eventually lose to Eve.
She nodded and changed her expression. “There’s no longer much doubt. The north-side fisherman caught a narwhal.”
“A nar–” Lawrence began, but then hastily checked the door over his shoulder.
“Don’t worry, he’s not such cheap help that he’d eavesdrop on me. The people who locked me up here are terrified I’ll get angry, even though they did this to me.”
Lawrence didn’t know how far he could trust that, but there was nothing to be gained by doubting them.
He nodded and faced forward, then asked the question again. “A narwhal? As in the immortal sort?”
“Yes. A horned sea monster. Eating its flesh brings longevity, and its powdered horn cures all diseases.”
Lawrence believed such things to be superstitions, and from Eve’s tone, it seemed she was not serious.
“I’d heard that without freezing water they die, so how would one make it this far south?”
“According to the sailors, depending on the severity of the weather, fish and other creatures can be driven south – though I’d never heard of that happening to a narwhal. When they’re trafficked, it’s almost always deer bones or horns.”
There were any number of tales about immortality methods and cure-all medicines.
Moreover, orthodox believers seemed every bit as inclined to believe them as pagans did.
People’s desire to believe in a land free of sickness and suffering where one went after death was proof the world was filled with suffering, and likewise the very fact of the Church’s teachings meant that eternal life could never actually be gained.
Travelers and merchants who wandered many lands, seeing all sorts of goods and talking with all sorts of people, as well as soldiers for whom death or old age were constant companions – they all knew such stories were mere superstitions.
But there were many who did not know.
And aristocrats who’d never left their lands were a perfect example.
For a living narwhal, there were some who’d come running, bringing all their gold with them.
“But… surely that doesn’t mean–”
“Yes. If they have the narwhal, the north-side faction believes they can turn everything around.”
For a moment, Lawrence thought the leg of his chair had broken, so stricken was he at the enormity of the prospect.
This town had enough conflict even in the best of times, and now an article had been found that could flip the balance entirely.
There would be war.
Lawrence realized it instantly.
“The south-side faction wants to control this side at any cost. They can’t have equality. It would be bad enough if the north gets the narwhal and sells it to raise the money to pay their debts, and the possibility that they might just involve a landed lord and go straight to war can’t be ruled out, either. So the south can’t let them have it, no matter the cost. They’ll steal it, sell it – two birds, one stone. It will raise an enormous amount.”
And if they stormed the church grounds, that would constitute an act of war against the Church.
“So what say you? If you can slip through this passage, don’t you think something incredible awaits you on the other side?”
She was right.
Eve was surely trying to use Lawrence’s membership in the Rowen Trade Guild to its maximum advantage.
Relations between north and south in this town were at their worst.
Yet in the midst of that, Lawrence had managed to connect with Eve while going unnoticed in the town, which gave him a rare ability.
For a spy, there could be no better position.
But there was something Lawrence had not mentioned.
And that was that he’d already told Kieman about his acquaintance with Eve.
“Will you do it? No…” Eve shook her head deliberately, then looked straight at Lawrence. “What will it take to convince you to do it?”
This would unquestionably involve betraying the guild.
Eve was well aware of that, and the people in the south certainly knew what a trade guild was.
And so Lawrence spoke.
No matter what the reward, Lawrence was confident that as long as it was something he could hold in his hands, it would be granted him.
There was simply that much profit at stake here.
“If I say I’ll consider it?”
Eve silently shook her head.
If he refused the offer to become an agent for her, it would not be strange of her to immediately consider him an enemy.
Or at the very least, treat him as such.
Which meant there could be hesitation.
That would be nothing less than hesitation over which side he would ally with, and no one was less trustworthy than a spy.
And yet Lawrence hesitated.
There was no telling what Kieman might be planning, but this could be used.
What would Kieman say if La
wrence told him about this?
With absurd profit piled on both sides of the scale, it didn’t easily move either way.
Merchants were always weighing profit and loss.
No, indeed, what else could there be to consider?
“About the wolf remains, was it?” asked Eve flatly, either seeing through Lawrence or having planned to incorporate that into her negotiation all along. “You’ve good instincts, so I’m sure you noticed that Reynolds is quite serious about them. And that he wants my help.”
Eve smiled thinly.
Evidently Lawrence had done just as she expected he would with Reynolds and the story of the wolf remains.
She probably even had some idea of whom Reynolds wanted to get in contact with.
“… You knew, and you still wrote me that letter.”
“Are you angry?”
“Not at all. I’m glad my guess was right.”
Eve smiled cynically, standing up from her chair and tossing two more logs onto the fire.
“There aren’t many in the north who can afford wood for their fireplaces. Most burn peat.”
“And yet I hear there’s more charity on this side.”
“Heh. That lad will be popular no matter where he goes.”
It was enough to make Lawrence want to know just how sweaty Eve’s palms were.
Her expression changed readily, but he could tell well enough that she was hiding her true thoughts.
“So how about it? It’s quite an opportunity, I reckon.”
“Oh, I’m sure it is.”
But demons were always offering great power – in exchange for life.
If Lawrence accepted this, there was no question he would damage the trade guild’s profits.
Not only that, but if they were to find out, he would either be cast out or punished.
He claimed not to be worried about Holo, but then he remembered Kieman’s sudden change, his cold countenance.
And as a merchant, it was no exaggeration to say that his life would be over.
“Did you see Kieman?” Eve asked.
It wasn’t out of any particularly iron-clad self-control that Lawrence didn’t show surprise on his face.
Eve’s words were just so accurate that his shock stunned him into blankness.
“I reckon my name would be sure to come up if you went to the guild house looking for information. I can see his face now,” said Eve with what seemed to be simple amusement, as though she were talking about an old friend.
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