A storm of jeers arose from the public at the all-too-transparent statement.
One could not win trust from others if there was a difference between their words and their deeds.
Hilde said as much, of course.
“How dare you speak so? Where, then, is the army under your command headed? Is it to the land beyond that continues to infinity? Have you confused consuming every single ear of wheat with profit? That you have brought an army with you is proof of your selfish avarice!”
One would think the treasurer of a great company would spend his days locked in a room staring at numbers.
However, Hilde’s posture was actually majestic, splendidly so.
Come to think of it, the Debau Company surely was not a large company when it started.
When he had joined hands with Debau and began doing business, he had no doubt been too busy to even sit in a chair.
Hilde was absolutely not an intellectual who had never set his feet on the ground.
He was an adventurer who had endured many hardships without forgetting his dreams.
For his part, Yanarkin spoke with calm. “Therein lies the misunderstanding.”
“Misunderstanding? Misunderstanding, he says?”
The spontaneous murmurs from the crowd all around were not spoken with nearly as much calm.
“What kind of misunderstanding would this be? Or are you saying you are such a coward that you require an army of this size to protect you?”
The crowd agreed with Hilde’s words. Pressing close to town in command of a large army was not some misunderstanding. It was a clear fact that the town stood in opposition to the Debau Company; that being the case, no excuse would suffice. In the first place, the very arrival of an envoy was recognition that they were in conflict.
But that moment, a very bad feeling came over Lawrence. Yanarkin was smiling. He was clearly smiling. The smile said, “You’ve fallen into my trap.”
Misunderstanding. Protect. Coward.
Lawrence forgot the pain of his leg as he moved his body forward.
This was bad. What Millike had said was true.
“That is correct!” Yanarkin proclaimed with a great voice.
Not only was the crowd shocked, but also Hilde as well.
They could not comprehend it. Did he think such an excuse would fly?
But it would fly. He would make it fly.
Lawrence set his eyes upon the baggage Yanarkin had brought with him.
There were a number of wooden boxes atop a horse’s back.
Why had he not noticed that before? Now, he understood.
It was because he had Hilde’s explanation from the day before in his head.
That the Debau Company had no surplus funds. That it did not have the funds to fight a war.
So spoke Hilde, the treasurer of the Debau Company, who had memorized all of its accounts.
But Lawrence remembered. He remembered the tumult at the great monastery in the Kingdom of Winfiel.
Treasurers were not all-seeing and all-knowing. The numbers matching up cannot tell one if they are true or false.
No doubt Hilde had considered improprieties. Even so, he must have been certain, There’s no way they could’ve hidden that much money from me. But what if that premise was in error? And this was the same Debau Company that had used those funds to make the Hugo Mercenary Company betray them.
Millike was correct. Hilde was wise. Too wise.
That was why a fool’s method would bring him to his knees.
“We are not the ones bringing harm to this land! To the contrary, it is we who require a great army to protect us! Behold!”
Yanarkin’s servant unfastened a wooden box and opened the lid.
“Ohhh.” The crowd’s voices rose.
The box was packed to the brim. Silver coins. It was packed with silver trenni.
There were eight boxes just like it. If they all contained silver trenni, it was quite a fortune right there.
“I am no intellectual agitating people through my mouth alone! I am a merchant! Merchants use goods and money to bring happiness to people! I am not like the man there who deceives people through words alone!”
As Yanarkin shouted, he grabbed a fistful of silver coins and threw them all about.
Silver coins danced like falling snow, pouring on top of people’s heads. “Ohh, silver coins… they’re real!” “Real silver coins!” Excitement arose from the mouths of various people. Of course it did. Depending on where one lived and if they spent wisely, a person could live off a single silver trenni for a month.
The crowd’s eyes were pinned to the direction the coins were dispensed.
Then, Yanarkin turned around and threw another fistful of coins.
“Go! Take it! The Debau Company dispenses silver coins to the people!”
As the silver coins danced in the air with a rattle, people dropped their weapons and chased after the coins.
“I am a merchant! Merchants do no harm! We dispense these silver coins here for our business! We know that to dispense silver coins brings prosperity, which brings us new silver coins in turn! If you think I deceive you, pick up a coin and look at it! They’re real! Real silver coins!”
Rattle, rattle. He dispensed handful after handful, finally hurling the box itself, along with all the coins left remaining.
His servant took another box as well, dispensing handfuls one after another.
Not a single person in the crowd held a weapon any longer. There were silver coins to be had. No one had any time for holding weapons.
“Wait, everyone. Wait!”
Though Hilde cried out, it was a meaningless gesture amid the tumult.
Even the spear-carrying soldiers seemed torn between their desire to bring the tumult under control and to pick up silver coins themselves. Realizing this, Yanarkin walked over and poured silver coins right into the palms of the soldiers’ hands.
Millike watched the scene with a neutral expression. It was not that he lacked desire for gold and silver. No, Millike knew the shallowness of men and the might of money. He also knew to his core how the overwise Hilde’s idealistic arguments held no sway over either.
Hilde and Moizi grabbed the shoulders of those picking up the coins and tried to convince them against it, but to no avail.
Lawrence wanted to cry. He could not accept that Yanarkin was a merchant. He could not accept this as a way of doing business.
Using this to subdue Hilde and Debau was no different than old power whatsoever.
The tyranny of money: tyranny that could only be practiced by those with a great fortune.
Words, just causes – before this, nothing held any meaning whatsoever.
By such a crude, ugly method, Hilde and Debau’s dream was being crushed. Merchants had dreamed of an ideal world, but other merchants were bringing that dream to naught.
This was a victory of overwhelming force, indiscriminately mowing down everything in its path.
Millike had said that the world would not change. Would not change. The world would not change. That was truth, for most people would not change. It was indeed the truth.
Hilde shouted until his throat was parched, but it was useless.
Lawrence pounded the window frame as hard as he could and rose up.
He turned around and reached toward the hemp sack lying on top of the table.
An eye for an eye. A sword for a sword. Gold coin for silver.
As Lawrence began untying the sack’s cord, Holo stopped him. “Come, you, do not do anything stupid!”
“It is stupid! Oh yes, it’s stupid! But I can’t just watch like this! I can’t just let them win like this!”
Having said that, he did not think dispensing gold coins would make a difference.
He knew it would not.
But Lawrence could not help but yell it anyway. This was not something that could be forgiven.
As he and Holo struggled over the sack, the gold coins poured onto th
e table. Hilde’s memos based on his memory as the Debau Company’s treasurer and Col’s carry bag fell as well.
Then, Lawrence looked at the stamp, which had also fallen.
The stamp upon which was engraved the symbol of the sun, made to lead this land, or even this world, to a brighter future.
“’Tis fate,” Holo said in a quivering voice.
Her voice was like a parched breeze, as if she had been crying for centuries.
“There are things that cannot be changed. Aye, there are many such things in this world…”
Millike had said as much. If the world could be changed, those with power would change it.
Holo had not changed. She had been unable to change the ways of the world that had taken everything from her.
Lawrence let go of the sack, wobbled, and fell on his rear. Holo continued to hold the sack of gold coins as she made a suffering look down at Lawrence. He could hear a tremendous clamor outside the window. He could not hear Hilde’s voice any longer, not even a little.
Surely no one’s ears could have.
“’Tis by enduring it I have come this far.”
So she was saying, you need to endure it, too?
He was no wisewolf. Lawrence looked at Holo in despair.
“And still…” Holo crouched beside Lawrence and wrapped both hands around his head. “Even I could not have endured it without you. I was able to walk forward because you pulled my hand. So, come.”
It was as if Lawrence had made Holo come this far.
“The world shall not change. But we have both gained something precious. Come, you… we should be satisfied with that.”
Lawrence searched for words.
However, none came forth. All he could manage was a sigh, close to sobbing, at how pathetic he was, unable to do anything save listen to the sounds of merchants’ dreams being violated.
Was this all right? Was this forgivable? Was there no God? Why must the righteous be forsaken?
The world was harsh, cold, and senseless.
Few dreams were granted. Few were even seen.
Lawrence wept. He wept without restraint.
And he looked at the fruits of Hilde’s labors scattered across the floor, and at the sack belonging to Col, even now in Kieschen, no doubt still clutching his dreams.
Right now both were of equal value.
With Hilde’s dream smashed, his precious treasurer’s memos were mere fragments of the past. What poked out of Col’s carry bag were bonds that were truly empty shells. He had spent all his money buying them from a swindler, only to discover they were all worthless. Hilde’s records of his time as treasurer would soon suffer the same fate.
Humanity was like a carry bag. No matter how much one patched it up, precious things fell out of it.
Col still held on to his dreams. Lawrence thought that was a very cruel thing.
If the likes of Hilde and Debau could not succeed, who in this world could?
Lawrence glared at the papers scattered across the floor. He glared at the useless, worthless paper bundles.
In the end, money was everything in this world. It was not a dream or a just cause, but money that one could see, touch, and that enabled one to eat.
The numbers written on those bundles of paper had been Hilde’s livelihood. For their sake, he had overlooked something very important and had finally arrived at this point as a result. Lawrence felt like they all shared the blame.
Lawrence flew into a rage at the papers scattered about. He wanted to drag them to an unseen place and kick them as if they were no-good children. But as if to spite Lawrence, the paper he had raised up kept slipping out of his palms. Every last thing mocked those who lacked strength.
“Shit!”
The moment Lawrence was about to start trying to tear the dancing paper to shreds…
“…?!”
Lawrence’s hands stopped. It was not that he had a reason. His hands truly stopped out of the blue.
He had felt misgivings the instant he had looked at the paper. Something was wrong. Something was odd. His sixth sense, developed from the adventures he had engaged in as a merchant, trying to get Holo to stay, was going off.
What danced down into the palms of Lawrence’s hands was one of the bills of exchange Col had been fooled into purchasing. Apprentices who found their service to their company difficult stole them and sold them to swindlers for carriage fare as they made their escape.
It was an ordinary, already-used bill of exchange, no longer bearing any value whatsoever.
But Lawrence’s head was struck by a powerful impact as if a nail was being pounded into it.
Bills. Bills of exchange.
There was a way. A way for the Debau Company to hide money.
A way still open to them.
But Hilde had not thought of this? Lawrence untangled himself from Holo’s arms and ran his eyes over the documents scattered over the floor.
Then, his eyes found and ran over the paper upon which Hilde had written various methods.
There was a list. Changing the way cargo was packed, fictional trades, inflating fees, and so forth.
But it was not written there. Bills of exchange were not written there.
It was a marvelous method invented so that travelers would no longer need to carry heavy sacks of coin with them. A person deposited their coin at the branch of a trading company in one town and received a bill of exchange, brought that with them to the next town, and exchanged the bill for coin at the company’s branch in that town. It was a commonly used method, not something prone to impropriety at all.
But the important thing was, the actual coin deposited stayed with that company the whole time. The only things that moved were the traveler and the bill; the money itself did not move at all.
That is why Hilde had overlooked it. Had it been a deal with merchandise it would have never escaped his sight.
But in the first place, there was no profit involved; he had paid no attention to bills because they were merely a convenience. In accounting terms, bills of exchange did not create any change whatsoever. But that did not mean they had no impact on reality.
All the more so for an organization with business as massive as the Debau Company’s; surely, its bills of exchange could be redeemed for an unbelievable amount of money. Lawrence had no doubt they had used that.
Come to think of it, when they had met Col on that ship, the sailors were gossiping about a thousand pieces of gold. They were perplexed by the strange bill of exchange being transported. The bill was to be brought to Kerube, to be shipped to Lesko without ever being converted into coin.
That was probably due to issuing a bill of exchange so large that Kerube could not pay the coin. At any rate, since physical money was not actually moving whatsoever, the branch paying out the money would eventually run dry. That was the precise method via which Lawrence had arranged for Le Roi to obtain the forbidden book back in Lenos.
And bonds could be used in reverse, too.
All the more so considering how abnormal the money prices in Lesko was compared to other towns. Gold was cheap; silver was expensive.
That being the case, there was no doubt that many people were using that difference in prices for profit. That was to say, taking gold obtained in Lesko and bringing it to the Debau Company for a bill of exchange, taking that back to Kerube for gold, and exchanging the gold for silver, was a surefire way to make money the easy way. No doubt a mountain of people jumped at the chance.
Therefore, there had to be an unbelievable amount of money resting with the Debau Company in Lesko.
As a surprised Holo watched beside him, Lawrence endured the pain of his leg as he rose once more.
Yanarkin was scattering silver coins all about as Hilde desperately grabbed shoulders, trying to persuade people.
But Lawrence did not speak.
He could not speak yet.
He knew that the Debau Company had used bills of exchange to secure the coina
ge to produce this wild scene. But it was not enough. He could not find a way to calm the crowd and silence Yanarkin. In the first place, bills of exchange were not bad things. They were not bad things at all.
Even so, the thumping in Lawrence’s chest told him there was something.
He felt like he had when he had seen through the Debau Company’s scheme in Lesko; he knew something was there, but it was tantalizingly out of reach.
There was a way he could use to take the offensive against Yanarkin. A way that involved bills of exchange.
But what? What was it?
Bills of exchange. Differences in prices. Misappropriation of deposited coinage. Such words ran about in Lawrence’s head. He had found the answer but the words would not come out.
Lawrence looked at Holo in search of aid.
However, Holo looked at Lawrence with a sad face.
His tongue had already run dry saying that to take responsibility for obtaining Holo, he would adventure no more. He could understand why sadness laid on the other side of anger.
But this was his nature. A nature he could not change.
Therefore, Lawrence clasped Holo’s shoulders. He gripped her shoulders firmly, as if asking her to help him out of his wordless suffering.
“Come, you…”
As Holo spoke, she lowered her head as if in surrender.
Holo’s desire was to live quietly in a little store, chasing after tiny pieces of happiness. It most certainly was not for him to thrust his head in a dangerous situation, risking his life for a dream with no end in sight.
Lawrence had meant to give all that up. He had truly meant to.
Even so, idiocy was incurable for life.
If I could toss it aside here, that’d be nice, too. He was amazed at himself for thinking it.
Then, Holo spoke.
“Do it already, then. I shall quiet the howling ones.”
“…!”
As Lawrence sucked in his breath, Holo made an awkward smile. “I am quite benevolent myself.” She put her hands on top of Lawrence’s. “Someday you shall repay this debt to me.”
Debt. That was it.
That moment, some obstruction in Lawrence’s chest melted away.
“Now, then, please.”
Holo made a satisfied smile and put both hands on the window sill, exhaling until she was bent over as if to cough something up, then inhaled with all her strength, her body arching back in the other direction.
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