He had prepared himself for worse circumstances, so on that count he was genuinely relieved.
Eve was in fine shape. But whips and clubs weren’t the only ways of making someone talk.
“The first thing a merchant does in a new town is gather information.”
“Indeed. I’m surprised he let you in…Ah, the boy’s with you. I see.” Eve had gained enough practical wisdom to guess how Lawrence had gotten in. “Flowers won’t be enough of a gift to give that girl now that you’ve made her wait alone for your return.”
“…I got a fist in the face the last time.”
“Ha-ha. She’s a stout one, it’s true.”
Such conversation would have made for a lovely idle day had it been taking place under sun-dappled eaves. Unfortunately, there was a guard watching them with a sword at his belt. Outside the door was the messenger, and it was even possible that Kieman himself was listening in.
“Well, I’m just relieved you haven’t been reduced to tearing your bread into small pieces to eat it.”
“Hmph. Kieman doesn’t have the nerve to hurt me. Reynolds is dirt-poor, so he must’ve found some rich northern backer. And around here, there are only a few rich men. And they’ve no idea how I’m connected to this. About all they can do is yell at me.”
There was no doubt her ire was directed at the sword-armed guard.
But given Eve’s style, if he were truly beneath her contempt, she wouldn’t even bother insulting him, so she was probably being considerate of him for having brought her food and water.
“I’ve told all this to Kieman, but Reynolds’s letter might as well have pulled the ladder out from under me. If he’s trying to use my agreement with Kieman to control me…it’s because I’m useful.”
Her tone of voice hadn’t changed, but the mood had. Lawrence could swear he heard Col gulp.
“So it’s true that he has a wealthy, powerful backer?”
“Kieman suspects as much, but look at Reynolds’s situation—he’s the most successful trader on the north side, and that’s all he can manage. It’s hard to think of a familiar figure who has such money. Of course, it’s possible that Reynolds is using someone’s knowledge to make a purchase order without actually having the money.”
“What’s his goal?”
Eve grinned a toothy grin. “To take money from people like us, who are caught up in a secret narwhal deal.”
Lawrence found himself smiling; Eve was the one who’d taught him that there were people in the world who could think of anything.
“By saying, ‘If you don’t want us interfering in your carefully arranged, once-in-a-lifetime gamble, pay up.’”
“The northerners are fighting a losing battle. It’s hardly surprising some of them are starting to suggest they grab what profit can be had. There are probably others who are mad enough to try to convince the people around them of that, and if they push it, it’ll work. They’ll panic and pay. Of course, we’re probably the only ones bold enough to just sell off the narwhal itself.”
Since Kieman had access to the church and was at the point where he would even imprison Eve, Lawrence had a sense of just how carefully this too-bold plan had been constructed. The amount of money spent had to be considerable.
If it was all going to go up in smoke, Kieman might as well pay off Reynolds and try to back out of the purchase, rather than lose everything.
“Of course, given that Kieman’s holding me here, that means the odds that Reynolds placed a buy order despite not having any money are low. Kieman fears me being taken in by the northerners more than anything else, so him keeping me here means he’s decided Reynolds does have a powerful backer. And as for me…that’s why I came to see you, since there were too many clues along those lines.”
Eve was former nobility from the kingdom of Winfiel, a half-day’s journey across the channel. To make a chart of all the powerful figures she had once been connected to, it would turn the parchment black with ink.
Such figures couldn’t act without good cause, but once they had such cause, they could accomplish nearly anything. A secret deal for the narwhal would be an easy target.
Moreover, if they made Eve out as the villain, they could boost their profits and kill two birds with one stone. It would no longer be a question of whether she would survive the tumult—she might not even be recognizable as a human by then.
Taking the narwhal and escaping to the south was probably Eve’s greatest wish.
“I didn’t think it would come to this,” said Eve helplessly, resting her elbow on a rolled-up blanket and leaning back. “If you’ve figured out this much, you should be able to learn the rest by watching the town for a few days. But whether Reynolds has the money or not or has managed to somehow raise it, this will probably be the last time we meet.”
Her sudden talkativeness must have been a reaction to the broken tension. But now she was either tired or simply satisfied with her words, as she covered her eyes and yawned.
She still gave off a somehow unflappable, regal aura. The only reason it didn’t seem genuinely divine to Lawrence was because of the short statement she uttered next.
“They’re all quite skilled here. I’ll be happy if I can die without much pain.”
Col cried out a bit, and Eve looked up at him with a little smile.
“D-do you mean they’ll destroy the evidence?”
“I’ve got a mouth, after all.”
How many people in the world could shrug so casually as they said such things?
Lawrence began to say something, but Eve smiled like a young maiden and continued. “And in the end, you went along with my childish selfishness. Such fun…”
She turned aside, her eyes fixed on some far-off point. Her profile was truly lovely.
“No matter how terrible the feast, if the last dish is tasty, then it wasn’t for naught,” she said.
Lawrence felt a pang in his heart, but not out of pity for Eve.
That reasoning was precisely why he had decided to continue traveling with Holo. As long as he could keep laughing with her, that was all that mattered.
But if he could ignore everything else, then he wouldn’t be standing in this very situation.
“What can I do to save you?” Lawrence asked. The guard standing next to him was shocked, but not as much as Eve herself.
“Is he serious?” said Eve, looking not at Lawrence but at the guard.
“…I’ve no idea. Unfortunately, I’m no merchant.”
If things went poorly, she would lose her head and he would be the one chopping it off, but there they were, talking like old friends.
“But I can say one thing…”
“You don’t have to. He already knows,” said Eve, interrupting the guard.
The man looked at Eve for a few moments, then did as he was told and kept silent.
Lawrence did indeed know what he was going to say.
Complete despair brought with it a certain calm. But if a single ray of hope pierced that calm, it could bring with it unbearable suffering.
“If there’s a chance for my salvation, it can be only this,” said Eve, her expression calm, but not because she had a heart of iron. “That Reynolds has raised the money on his own,” she said, closing her eyes. “I’m tired of talking. I haven’t slept in two days.”
It was said that good news waited while one slept, but when Eve awoke from her deep sleep, she might well be facing the longest sleep of all.
And yet she lay down, as though she truly intended to sleep. She didn’t seem to want to talk anymore, and Lawrence had heard enough.
Whether the guard was one of Kieman’s men or had been newly hired, he seemed to have a strong sense of professionalism, and with a quick nod, he patted Lawrence down.
As Lawrence was receiving his dagger from the man, Col stared hard at Lawrence, either unable or unwilling to understand the exchange they had just had.
Lawrence put his hand on the boy’s head and said nothing.
/>
Then, as they left the room, he turned and left Eve with one final statement.
“Sleep well.”
Eve raised her hand casually in response, but the gesture was strangely memorable.
When they emerged from underground, Lawrence and Col met with the messenger’s glare. He had probably heard their entire conversation and would report everything to Kieman, but Lawrence doubted any of it would be of any use to him.
Both Eve and Lawrence were merchants, and nothing was less trustworthy than the words of merchants.
Merchants did not need words to convey their true intentions.
“Did you have a worthwhile conversation?” Kieman asked upon their return to his room, where he did not look up from the parchment over which he leaned. His cheek had traces of ink on it.
“Oh, indeed. Miss Eve is quite a conversationalist.”
Kieman signed the paper with swiftness that was audible, then passed it off to his underling and turned to the next one. The missives surely ranged from information collection to negotiations, to threats and pleas.
The larger the scale of something, the vaster its power. But that was nothing to the havoc that could be wreaked when it changed direction.
“Will the trade I mediated be canceled?”
Kieman was at the utter limits of his ability as he read letters and prepared their replies, but his activity ceased at Lawrence’s question. The question seemed to require him to use his head a bit.
“Suppose you lock a baker away in your own shop, but then you go to his to buy bread. Would you consider that a problem of theology?”
“So long as there are money and goods, you don’t need another person there to conduct business.”
“That’s true, but we must discover whether there is actually bread waiting to bought. We can always let the baker return to his bakery, but by that point there’s no way to be sure he doesn’t hold a grudge. We heard he’d bought poison from another shop, you see, so in a panic we locked him away, and…”
“And you’ll know whether the poison was bought to kill mice or mixed in with the bread only when you actually eat it.”
Kieman’s hand scratched over the parchment again, and he finally looked up at Lawrence. “Or when the mice die.”
He had locked up a dangerous individual in order to keep a difficult situation from getting worse. That was the sort of idea that only Kieman, who controlled so many people, could come up with.
He couldn’t try to torture the truth out of Eve, because depending on the circumstances, injuring her could mean danger for him. But in complicated situations, even Holo would agree that eliminating the source of the problem was the right choice.
“In any case, the wolf seems to like you, so do please mind your own safety. You seem to have taken certain precautions at least.” He seemed to be wryly making reference to the threats Lawrence had made in order to see Eve.
He wondered what sort of face Kieman would make if he learned that Holo did not actually have possession of any inconvenient documents. The notion made him smile. “Thank you for your consideration,” he answered.
“Now then, if you’ll show our guests out,” said Kieman to his messenger, ending the conversation and setting his pen into motion once more.
The man bowed politely and took Lawrence and Col back to the front entrance. All entering guests had to visibly leave. If the numbers didn’t match up, it meant without question that something strange was happening.
“Remember this, merchant,” spat the messenger through the open space in the door once Lawrence had passed through it. Before Lawrence could reply, the door closed with a loud slam.
The two guards each looked furtively at Lawrence out of the corners of their eyes.
Lawrence made a show of straightening his collar. “Thank you for your fine work.”
After putting the church behind them, Lawrence and Col did not return to the inn, instead making for a corner on a street in the smithing district, where blacksmiths made daggers and horseshoes. The shop there produced forty or fifty daggers per week, and even in towns some distance away, it was common to see blades with its name upon them.
Lawrence and Col entered the shop without a word. Lawrence was deep in thought, and Col seemed not to want to speak.
For travelers without money, death was unfortunately a common occurrence—from sickness, hunger, age, or even accidental injury. Whatever the reason, it was not rare for them to embark on the final, eternal journey.
And yet Col’s hardened face told of his inability to accept that such a journey awaited Eve.
“Does it anger you?” Lawrence asked, which made Col hesitate, then shake his head—but after a few moments, he nodded.
“It’s only because of Holo’s and my selfishness that you’re in this situation. No one will blame you if you leave.” Lawrence explained the danger they were inviting.
But this time Col shook his head decisively. “If closing my eyes would make unfair things disappear, I would do that.”
He represented a third point of view, different from either Lawrence’s or Holo’s.
Lawrence nodded and faced forward, and Col did likewise. And yet the boy still seemed to have trouble confronting reality.
“Miss Eve, she…she can still be saved, can’t she?”
Many merchants loved to count their chickens before they hatched, but found it still difficult to make hasty promises. “At the very least, that’s what I’m hoping and working for.”
Lawrence wouldn’t be surprised if his words sounded like a dodge, but they contained many shades of meaning.
Eve had said there was only one way for her to survive, and that was for Reynolds to gather sufficient funds to buy the narwhal outright, either for himself or for the northerners.
In that situation alone the deal would collapse into a simple exchange of goods, and like a burglar frightened into sudden silence by a sound, Kieman would gradually begin the work of cleaning up afterward.
But that path was not lit by as much as a single lamp, and the way through was cloaked in darkness.
The state of Reynolds’s shop was the proof of that, and one didn’t have to be from Kerube to guess at the condition of his coin purse.
The odds were one in a thousand. Maybe one in ten thousand.
“So his scheme with the copper coin boxes…it won’t be enough?
Col had been the one to discover Reynolds’s manipulation of the crates carrying the copper coins shipped down the Roam River. The number he received was different from the number he shipped—he sent out more than he received.
“About all we can imagine there is that he’s avoiding paying taxes on the number of boxes he imports. It won’t be enough to buy the narwhal.”
“…”
Col looked down, as though stewing in a sea of thought.
Lawrence knew that fixating on one thing to the exclusion of all others was a bad habit of his, so when he saw such a perfect example of that very same trait right in front of him, it made it harder to correct.
“It’s important to think hard about these things, but…”
“Huh?”
“First we have to protect ourselves. That’s the predicament we’re in now.”
Lawrence nudged Col forward, urging him on, and once Col understood, he started running.
The boy was too honest. If Lawrence had explained everything to him, his trepidation at coming to this place would have been all too obvious.
For a craft district, the streets in the blacksmiths’ quarter were quite wide, and being frequently used to transport heavy materials, their paving was of good quality. In the twisting, crowded streets elsewhere, locals could navigate much more quickly. But on fine pavement and easily traveled streets, it was travelers themselves who were swifter.
Pulling up the hem of his robe, Col ran with admirable quickness.
“Wait! You bastards!”
It was common enough to see a merchant chasing after a thief—but q
uite rare to see a thug chasing after a merchant.
The smiths making knives, spoons, files and nails, spoons, and bowls looked up from their polishing and hammering in curiosity.
A kidnapping could hardly take place while others watched.
By the time Lawrence and Col dashed out of the smithing district, exhaling white puffs of breath, their pursuers were suddenly nowhere to be seen.
But that didn’t mean they had given up. They were surely using their knowledge of the town to circle around and head Lawrence off.
Col looked up at Lawrence like a loyal sheepdog waiting for a command, but of course, he also anticipated what was coming.
“Soon, I’d think.”
And just as Lawrence spoke, a short, thin beggar appeared from an alley ahead of them.
“Ah—”
No sooner did Col utter the sound than he and Lawrence ran after the beggar. Saying nothing, the beggar disappeared back into the alley.
Unlike the streets they had just been on, these were complicated and twisty and fairly difficult to navigate for those unfamiliar with them. The beggar made good, easy speed, and Lawrence and Col were pressed just keeping up.
They seemed to follow forever, and just as Lawrence began to break a sweat, the beggar stopped and looked back at them.
“’Tis far enough, aye?” Holo’s breath was short, but under the ragged coat she’d borrowed from Col, her face was happy. No doubt such chases got her wolf’s blood rushing. “So I take it you were able to see the vixen?”
“She seemed better than I’d guessed.”
“My, my. Still—” said Holo, peering at Col, who had taken back his coat and promptly covered his head with it. “When you say she was well, was she like this one here?”
A tangled knot that was impossible to untie could cause problems, and there was no telling what its threads might be connected to. It made sense to simply dispose of it.
Holo pinched Col’s right cheek, and he smiled.
“She was tenacious yet somehow upstanding, I’ll bet.”
“…You don’t seem to hate Eve as much as you claim to.”
At these words, Holo grinned meaningfully, and she gestured to the north with her chin. “’Twas a riot at the port, as though a bonfire had been kindled.”
Town of Strife II Page 14