Holo had called Col a weight that anchored her belief in herself as a wisewolf, and she surely was not exaggerating. While it might be amusing for her to use the boy to tease Lawrence, she also did this out of self-defense – to make sure she never crossed the line. To hide the awful reality she understood but could do nothing about. As an excuse.
“Aye, we’re all greedy, always running about in service of our own gain.”
“On that count, I’m forced to agree. Of course…” said Lawrence with a trace of irony. “… Of course, if I weren’t so greedy, I’d be able to buy you tastier food.”
Holo laughed, tickled at the joke, then stood from the chair.
Her face was red, so she was probably too warm. As he had guessed, she opened the window slightly and narrowed her eyes in pleasure at the cool breeze.
“Mm. But is seeing my pleasure not in your interests as well?” Holo closed her eyes as the cool air caressed her cheek, looking like a purring cat. She then opened a single eye and regarded Lawrence with it.
Her movements were so perfectly performed it was as if she was watching herself in a mirror.
“If you were truly so easily bribed by food, then that might be so.”
Holo closed her eye again at the counterattack.
Her ability to repeat a gesture she had made just seconds earlier, this time seeming to sulk, was amazing.
A few moments later, Holo was every bit the arrogant noblewoman. “And what other methods could you use?”
Lawrence remembered when a village with which he had once traded asked him to sell the wine barrels they produced to a nearby abbey that possessed a large vineyard.
The abbot there was a proud and stingy man, making all sorts of demands of Lawrence, who had to work very hard indeed to complete the sale.
Being a member of a wealthy abbey, the abbot surely felt himself closer to God than Lawrence and thus privileged to look down upon him.
Yet the wisewolf before Lawrence’s very eyes hated being treated as the god she was – so why would she affect such haughtiness?
The abbot cared little for the losses of those who sold to him and was concerned only with his own profits.
So given that the starting conditions here were the opposite of that, then the conclusion was likewise the opposite.
Lawrence said what she wanted him to say.
“If food is out, then with words or manners.”
“Neither of which is so very reliable in your case.”
He had become so used to her malicious, fanged grin that it had even more charm than a normal smile. And if neither his words nor his manner could be trusted, there was only one option that remained.
In order to fully display its truth, Lawrence had to stand up from his chair.
Or perhaps remaining seated in order to avoid fleeing from Holo was the better option.
Both had their charms, Lawrence knew. He took a drink of his wine and replied.
“Or you could imagine you’ve been deceived and decide to trust both. They might well turn out to be genuine.”
“…”
The words of Eve, wolf of the Roam River, worked to marvelous effect.
Holo glared at Lawrence out of the corner of her eye, her tail twitching in irritation. She had no means to counterattack.
It felt good to have, for once, the upper hand in their banter – better even than when he had teased the shop boy at the tailor’s shop. Defeat turned the mightiest eagle into a pathetic chicken, and likewise, victory made the most timid mouse into a bold wolf.
Yet trueborn wolves were ever cunning.
“That is not what I meant to say,” she said angrily, her expression lonely.
Where playful banter was meant to be a battle of logic and intimation, Holo’s weapons were unfair.
If their exchange thus far was akin to a business negotiation, then what Holo had just employed had the power to transcend that.
So what was it that surpassed proper negotiation?
There in front of that window, Lawrence had said something unnecessary. “We have to be ready to run.”
Holo’s gaze was directed out the window, but her ears were pointed at him.
She did not bother giving voice to her frustration.
It was absurd to even think of winning against her.
“How about treating the loser kindly once in a while?” Lawrence stood and walked over to her. Having delivered his statement beside her, he then sat on the windowsill.
Holo chuckled soundlessly, then sat on his lap.
“The victor can say nothing to the loser.”
“Saying as much while always having your way, you must really fear nothing.”
Her ears brushed his cheeks, making him ticklish, as she leaned into him. This wisewolf certainly was full of excuses.
“Still, I suppose I can trust you at least a bit.”
“Oh? Merchants may well seem sincere as they bow down, but inside they’re sticking their tongues out.”
Lawrence had to admit the words felt rather artificial, but in any case Holo gave him no quarter.
“’Tis true, men and beasts alike stick their tongues out when defeated.”
“Guh…” Frustrating though it was, he had nothing with which to reply, so he slumped back against the windowsill.
Holo chuckled and spoke slowly. “But ’tis also true that neither you nor I are alone when defeated.”
Given the events of the day, her words were heavy with meaning. Lawrence drew Holo into an embrace and replied, “I’ll remember that.”
Holo’s tail swished, and she nodded slightly.
In that quiet moment, the loudest sound was that of Col’s intoxicated snoring.
Remembering that Holo was every bit a wisewolf was effective when it came to avoiding short-sightedness, but whether or not that was a good or bad thing, Lawrence did not know.
At the very least, it certainly acted as an effective counterweight, protecting the delicate balance of the scales.
Holo smiled, her eyes closed; perhaps she was thinking the same thing.
Lawrence put his arms around her to more closely embrace her small body, and in that moment–
“Mmph,” she muttered, sounding irritated as she looked up suddenly.
“Wh… what’s wrong?”
Lawrence tried to keep his calm, but sweat broke out on his brow nonetheless.
Holo certainly noticed as much and grinned, her tail wagging. She then slowly rose, her ears busily rotating this way and that.
The reason for her suddenly darkened expression was soon clear.
“My. I suppose one’s premonitions are not so easily discounted.”
Lawrence quickly understood to what her words referred.
Holo directed her gaze out the window, and Lawrence did likewise.
“See, there’s the master of that poor shop. What was his name again…?”
“Reynolds, eh?”
Lawrence spotted the hurrying form of a portly man in a too-small coat, trying to keep his distance from the drunkards as he made his way down the street. The way he hewed to the edge of the street while looking closely at everyone around him was obviously unnatural.
“’Tis a good opportunity for you to prove the courage of your convictions.”
Spending no time wondering why Reynolds had come to the inn, Lawrence spoke into Holo’s ear before she stood. “Make sure you pretend you’re asleep.”
Holo was acting like a child, but her nasty smile made it clear she was deeply pleased. “While sticking my tongue out, eh?”
Putting many meanings into a single word was her specialty.
Lawrence knew that no matter how he answered, he would be trapped, so he brushed her tail roughly aside as his only reply.
While the fewer people who knew about it made a secret more secure, it was another story entirely when one of the privy parties showed up himself for a secret late-night meeting.
It was the antithesis of Eve and Kieman’s
approach of sending others to contact Lawrence.
“Apologies for the late hour.” Despite the cold, Reynolds’s paunch made his breath run ragged and forehead sweaty, although some of that could be ascribed to nervousness.
His voice was low, but not out of consideration for Holo and Col, who were curled up together on the bed, sleeping.
“Shall we speak outside?” Lawrence asked, but Reynolds glanced over his shoulder at this, then looked back and shook this head. It was very like a town merchant not to want to speak of secrets out in the open.
By contrast, a traveling merchant preferred to have sensitive conversations out in a wide field or on a lonely road where a simple look was all it took to confirm that no one was listening. Indoors, there was no way to know who had his ear pressed to the wall in the next room over.
“Some wine?” Lawrence asked, gesturing to a chair.
Reynolds shook his head briefly but then reconsidered. “Perhaps just a bit. When I see that you’re not drunk, Mr. Lawrence, it makes me think that coming here wasn’t a waste of my time.”
A traveler’s room at an inn was not lavish enough to properly entertain a guest. Lawrence poured some wine into the cup Col had used and offered it to Reynolds, who smiled ingratiatingly.
“You’re here about the narwhal… correct?”
For Reynolds to come all the way out to the inn at this hour, he must have concluded that Lawrence knew about it.
Lawrence had come to Reynolds’s shop bearing Eve’s introduction letter and asking about wolf bones – and anyone formidable enough to get such a letter from Eve would have had to know about the source of the commotion in Kerube.
At the same time, there was little point in asking how Reynolds had discovered where they were staying. Even Kieman, all the way across the river, had been able to uncover that much.
To a town merchant, the streets of their homes were like the strands of a spider web.
Lawrence mulled the situation over as he sat, and Reynolds nodded.
But now Reynolds was in the weaker position. “I haven’t the faintest notion of what’s happening. I was hoping that you, Mr. Lawrence, might know something.”
Lawrence had once heard a drunken merchant long ago say that a woman could look so different in candlelight than in the midday sun, one could hardly believe it was the same person – and it was true for merchants, too.
Reynolds was acting every bit the panicked owner of a sad little shop, but no matter how panicked he might have been, there was still no reason for him to come to the inn room of Lawrence, a mere traveling merchant. And certainly not at this hour.
Much was being omitted from Reynolds’s words.
“Unfortunately, I don’t know any details myself…”
“You’ve been to the Lydon Inn, haven’t you?”
If he was getting to the point so quickly, he must have been running out of time – or perhaps this was just how Reynolds did business.
Lawrence slowly turned his gaze elsewhere, then just as slowly, moved it back to Reynolds. “The Lydon Inn?”
He was better at deception now, probably a result of having spent so much time with Holo, who was first-rate at it.
Reynolds’s expression froze, probably out of surprise that Lawrence was proving harder to take off guard than he had anticipated. “Lies benefit neither of us. I already know you’ve been there.”
Reynolds set his cup down and opened his palms to Lawrence. It was a gesture inviting mutual openness but held no special meaning between merchants.
Lawrence thought.
The fact that he had been summoned to the Lydon Inn by Eve was exposed, but it was still in his best interests to keep the nature and contents of that visit a secret.
“I suppose if I were to say I went there for some friendly chatter, you wouldn’t believe me, would you, Mr. Reynolds?” queried Lawrence with a small, tired sigh.
Even Holo, who could see through any lie, would have trouble determining the truth of those words. There were any number of ways to phrase things that made them mysterious, both truth and falsehood at once.
Lawrence continued. “I learned of the situation in the town from Eve. What I told her then was that she had quite a lot of nerve to summon me in such an easily misunderstood manner to such an easily misunderstood place amid such unrest.”
The sound of rustling cloth came from the direction of the bed. It was Holo turning over – probably to hide the grin on her face.
Lawrence continued.
“Eve seems to be in a unique position in this town, and despite the placid expression on her face, her mind must be swirling with notions. But she did not see fit to tell me about them.”
“Truly?” replied Reynolds immediately, his eyes widening with surprise.
“Truly.” The more obvious the statement, the more persuasive it would be.
Reynolds peered at Lawrence, almost glaring at him, before finally relaxing and heaving a sigh. “… My apologies.”
“Not at all. For you to be so worried, I assume you have some direct connection to all this?”
Changing the tone of the conversation was a common trick; Lawrence could not drop his guard just because Reynolds seemed to have relaxed.
“Quite the opposite. I’m worried precisely because I’ve been left entirely out.” He sighed and shifted heavily in his chair.
Lawrence recalled that the Jean Company was having its profits sucked away by the landlords of the town.
In business, when things are going well, sometimes still more lucrative opportunities arise – but the opposite also holds true.
In such times, it is all too common to have friends abandon you. Such moments are frequent in the travels of merchants, whose lives often hang in the balance.
And Reynolds had conducted a successful business on the otherwise poorer north side of town, which had surely made him few friends – and now he lacked even the funds to gain support.
It was clear that when things came to a head, he would be left on his own.
“Still, I’m sure you’ve heard, haven’t you? I’ve a good connection with the powerful men of this town,” said Reynolds.
It would have been better for him if he had intended that remark simply to make himself sound more important. But the statement was heavy with implication. Reynolds had concluded that Lawrence had learned quite a bit about the town’s situation from Eve.
Given that, if he had gone so far as to sneak all the way out here in the middle of the night to talk about the narwhal, then Lawrence could make a guess as to what he was thinking – essentially, either Eve would be an important figure in the tumult surrounding the narwhal or was at least in a position to gather information about it.
And many of the things Eve had revealed in her one-sided grumbling to Lawrence earlier in the day now gained the tint of truth.
“Given that you’re in the copper trade, as far as that goes.”
“Heh.” Reynolds could not help but chuckle at Lawrence’s roundabout statement, scratching his nose.
Lawrence had nothing to add and so sipped his wine. At length, Reynolds looked up and continued.
“Just as when you all came by to ask after the wolf bones, I thought maybe I could turn the tables,” he said, rubbing his face.
Nothing is less reliable than a merchant’s friendly smile, but Reynolds’s smile seemed to lay his heart bare.
The Jean Company was still in dire straits, and Reynolds certainly wanted to free himself of the north side’s yoke.
“I came with the slightest hope of connecting with the wolf of the Roam, but… heh, seems I’ve only caused a fuss,” said Reynolds with a pathetic smile, his cheeks slackening.
Lawrence had nothing to say and could only smile in sympathy.
Silence then fell, which was broken at length by Holo’s quiet sleep mumbling.
“Ah… I suppose it’s late. Again, I’m sorry,” Reynolds apologized and then stood.
Lawrence didn’t want to admit
it, but for Reynolds to have come all the way to the inn at this hour, he must have exhausted all other options and come to the end of his rope.
The furtiveness of his visit was not because he needed to keep their meeting a secret, but rather that he did not want anyone to see him reduced to asking an outsider for help.
When this occurred to Lawrence, Reynolds’s sagging cheeks seemed somehow very sad indeed.
“Not at all. I’m sorry I couldn’t be of any help.”
“And I’m sorry, too, that I couldn’t give you any good answers to your questions.”
They each smiled as though trying to be considerate of the other as they exchanged words across the table.
Their smiles turned sheepish at the sudden silence that descended. They shook hands.
“Should you meet the wolf again, tell her that Reynolds has a bone to pick with her.”
“Yes… quite. I’ll do that,” Lawrence answered, forcing the smile from his face.
“Again, I’m truly sorry for the late hour,” Reynolds said, making one last apology as he headed for the room’s door, his footsteps much heavier than they had been when he arrived. “Good night to you.”
In the dark hallway, Lawrence watched him put his coat back on. “Good night,” he replied.
Reynolds descended the stairs and disappeared into the darkness.
Despite his shop in the town and his monopoly over the copper trade, which would provide a lifetime of security, there was something about watching Reynolds recede that made the man seem like a defeated man, an abandoned dog. It was just too sad.
Lawrence returned to the room, sighing softly and sitting back down in his chair. His elbow on the table, he sipped some wine and reviewed the conversation in his mind. The weight of the situation bore down on him yet again.
Even Reynolds, a merchant with a fair amount of power, was that desperate in his pursuit of the narwhal.
Or no – perhaps there was a better way to put it.
He was this desperate for it.
“Well… time for bed, I suppose,” Lawrence murmured to himself, blowing out the candle and making for his bed.
He passed first by the bed in which Col and Holo slept and then put his hand on his own bed. He wrapped himself in a blanket and curled up, sighing helplessly.
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