“I suppose so...The months and years weather even stone buildings, to say nothing of the writings of men. ’Tis a dreadful thing...” Arold shook his head, closing his eyes and falling silent.
The old man had been a recluse when Lawrence had first met him, and it seemed that tendency had only deepened with time.
Lawrence couldn’t help but wonder whether it was the ever-clearer sound of death’s approach that drove this.
Deciding that further conversation would only bring trouble, Lawrence finished his remaining wine in a single draught, and inviting Holo to go ahead of him, he went outside.
In a sudden turnabout from the previous day, the street was busy, and the sun that shone down from Lawrence’s left was bright enough to make him briefly dizzy.
He stood there on the still slick cobblestone street and looked at Holo.
She seemed dejected.
“Shall we find something to eat?” Even Lawrence thought that was roughly the worst thing he could have said, but things were so difficult at the moment that everything was turned inside out.
Beneath her hood, Holo gave a long-suffering sigh, then smiled. "You ought to build your vocabulary,” she said, pulling on Lawrence’s hand.
Apparently it was premature to worry that she was going to start something here in the crowds.
Just as Lawrence was pulled away, the door to the inn opened once again.
"..."
It was the stranger from before that emerged.
The man was the very image of a busy traveler, but when he looked at Lawrence and Holo, he froze, visibly surprised.
"...Pardon” was all he said in a high, hoarse voice after a moment and then immediately melted into the crowd.
Lawrence looked at Holo just to be sure that her ears and tail weren't visible. She cocked her head slightly.
"Seemed a bit surprised to see me,” said Holo.
"Surely he doesn’t suspect you’re not human.”
"I did not get that sense from her. Perhaps she was merely taken aback by my comeliness.”
"Surely not,” replied a smiling Lawrence to Holo, whose chest was thrust out with exaggerated pride. “Wait,” he added. "She?”
"Hmm?”
"That was a woman?”
The well-traveled look and hoarse voice of the stranger had made him assume otherwise, but Holo could hardly be wrong about such things.
Lawrence looked in the direction in which she had disappeared and wondered what a female traveling merchant could possibly be trading in when he felt another tug at his hand.
“What exactly makes you think it is acceptable to be standing beside me and staring thus at another female?”
“Must you be so direct? A more roundabout complaint would be far more charming.”
“You’re such a dunce you’d never catch on unless I spoke plainly,” Holo shot back without flinching, scorn in her voice.
Given their earlier conversation, it was sad indeed that Lawrence was unable to refute her.
“So, what shall we do next?” Lawrence asked, putting an end to the foolish exchange. They needed to plan their day.
“Will it be difficult to meet that man—whatever was his name?”
“Rigolo or some such. If he’s the secretary of the council, it may well be difficult, though that may depend on exactly what the council is doing...,” said Lawrence, scratching his just-tidied beard.
Holo took a step forward. “’Tis clear enough from your face that you’re desperate to know what that meeting is about.”
“Is it?” asked Lawrence, stroking his beard. Holo’s expression as she looked over her shoulder at him was mean-spirited indeed.
“So we’ll instead loaf about town until the meeting is adjourned, I expect?”
Lawrence smiled. “The wisewolf’s powers of observation are keen indeed. I’m dying to know what’s going on with this town. Not just that, I—”
“You want to turn it into profit.”
Lawrence slumped. Holo cocked her head at him and smiled. “Whatever it is, it’s serious enough that they’re passing out these wooden plaques. Something interesting must be happening," said Lawrence, taking the foreign merchant registration plaque out of his back pocket.
“Still, though, a warning—,” said Holo.
“Hmm?”
“Try to restrain yourself.”
Holo’s words were hard to laugh off ruefully since so far they had been through kidnappings, chased through sewers, faced bankruptcy, and most recently, caught up in a giant feud.
"I will,” he answered, whereupon the wisewolf that had been so lovely up until a few moments ago turned suddenly angry.
"I wonder about that,” she said.
In the face of her sudden suspicion, Lawrence had but one recourse.
He took her hand and used every ounce of his bargaining charm. “Shall we see the sights of the town, then?”
The effect of his kissing her hand on the stairs a moment earlier seemed to be wearing thin. Either that or it had just reversed itself.
Still, Holo seemed to give him a passing mark. Sniffing, she stood next to Lawrence. “I suppose so.”
"Understood, milady.”
Lawrence reflected that if his self from half a year earlier could see him now, he would be terrified.
"So what sights are there to see? It’s changed so much that in truth I hardly remember ever coming here.”
"Let’s go to the docks. I hear it’s only recently that ships have become so important. It won’t be as large as seaside docks, but I daresay, it’s still a highlight.”
He held Holo’s hand tighter and began to walk.
Who was it that said walking with another was slow and bothersome? As he walked in step with Holo next to him, Lawrence thought about this and smiled.
Chapter 2
"Well. I suppose this is how it goes,” Lawrence murmured.
"Hmm?” Holo looked over at him, her face half hidden by the cup from which she drank.
"Nothing. Don’t spill that.”
"Mmm.”
Holo drained her cup of Lenos’s famously strong ale, then picked up a slightly charred shellfish.
The clams that were taken from the river that flowed past Lenos, the Roam, were about the size of Holo’s hand. A delicacy famous in the town was made by taking the soft clam meat, mixing it with bread crubs, and then serving it on the shell. Served with mustard seed, it was hard to imagine a finer accompaniment to a good ale.
Holo had uttered a cry of delight at seeing the many river scows anchored along the curve of the port, but her heart was soon stolen by the delicious scents that wafted from the food vendors, who had their stalls set up to feed the hungry passengers either beginning or ending their voyages.
They sat at a table constructed from old wooden crates; in front of Holo were three servings of clams; plus the two ales she had already drained.
Lawrence endured a nasty look from Holo when he ordered mulled wine, not unlike what Arold had been drinking earlier.
With this tartness, all he needed now was time to properly enjoy the wine.
“Still, at a glance it doesn’t look like there’s any particular problem with the town,” said Lawrence.
Crates as big as a man were being unloaded from the scows and pried open by groups of merchants, who immediately began bickering over their contents, whatever they might have been.
A port of this size handled a staggering amount of goods. And even without the port, it was clear at a glance that a town like this would demand a massive concentration of materials.
It wasn’t just the food required daily. For example, the lumber industry needed not only timber, but also tools—saws, chisels, nails, hammers—so traveling metalworkers would come to the town to repair and maintain those tools. Packaging and overland transport of the lumber took rope and leatherwork and horses or donkeys along with the tack those animals required—the list went on and on.
Also, the simple fact that the tow
n was a port meant that ship-builders and their tools were a brisk trade as were ships themselves. Only an omniscient deity could hope to grasp the amounts and varieties of goods involved.
Looking at the overwhelming liveliness and energy of this motley port town, any subtle, small problems would be immediately lost in the jumble.
Using a knife she had borrowed from Lawrence, Holo deftly scooped the minced clam out of its shell and popped it into her mouth, scanning their surroundings upon hearing Lawrence's words. She then took a drink of ale. “From far away, the forest can seem calm, even when two wolf packs are in a fierce battle for territory within it.”
"Even with your eyes and ears, you cannot tell that from afar?”
Holo did not immediately answer, instead looking down with exaggerated gravity and twitching her ears beneath her hood.
Normally Lawrence would have grown impatient with Holo, who would have then teased him, but today he had his tart mulled wine. He sipped it and waited for her response.
"Can you see over there?” she asked after a time, pointing with the knife she held to a man surrounded by some kind of steam. The' man leaned against a large, waist-high bucket, which had been filled to heaping with finely crushed rock. He was thickly muscled, and it was not hard to imagine him as a pirate.
He scowled, and the object of that scowl was a slim merchant holding a bundle of what might have been sheepskins.
Lawrence nodded in response to Holo’s question.
"The man’s angry,” she said seriously.
"Oh?”
“It seems the tax on the ship’s cargo was too high, and he does not want to hand over the goods at the original price. Something about a head price?”
"A hostage tax. Because ships heading up the river are essentially hostages of the landlord that owns that section of the river.”
"Mm. In any case, the skinny fellows reply is this: ‘The towns in crisis because the military did not hold its northern campaign this year'. He’s saying they should be grateful to get any money at all.” Every winter, the Church funded a great military campaign into the northlands as a way of displaying its power, but a shadow had fallen over the relationship between the Church and the nation of Ploania, through which its campaign passed, so this year’s incursion had been canceled. As a consequence, Lawrence had once been driven to the brink of bankruptcy.
Lawrence looked at Holo a bit surprised. She continued to listen carefully, head bowed and eyes shut.
Then Lawrence looked back at the two men. Even from this distance, he could see the merchant give what seemed to be his final word on the subject to the sailor.
‘“In that case, you and those furs can just wait on the outcome of the meeting,’ ” said Holo, opening her eyes.
Was it too far-fetched to consider if he was merely standing on Holo’s shoulders? Lawrence wondered.
“There are many conversations like this one. I’d say...four. Taxes are too high. Northern campaign. Town imports—and so on.” Holo scraped the meat out of a clam as she spoke. The more meat accumulated on the blade of the knife, the more her attention turned to it.
By the time she finally brought the pile of meat to her mouth, the blade might as well have been the whole of creation as far as she was concerned.
“Now that you mention it...I reckon there’s no way a town founded on distribution wouldn’t feel the effects of a canceled northern campaign. That’s how I got into trouble back in Ruvinheigen. But what’s the relationship between that and the encampment of merchants outside the town?” mused Lawrence.
If conditions in the town were abnormal, then abnormal business opportunities would follow.
Lawrence was lost in deep thought until Holo gave a vulgar burp and pounded on the table.
“You want seconds?”
Lawrence’s attention was utterly captured by the situation in Lenos. A quick cost-benefit calculation made it clear that if he could get Holo to be quiet or to perhaps even help him in his conjectures, buying her a drink or two was a bargain.
He hailed the shopkeeper and ordered again, at which Holo gave a satisfied smile, cocking her head.
"I daresay the wine you just ordered was more for your sake than my own.”
"Mm?”
"I become drunk on liquor, but your liquor is something different entirely’’ Her pleased face had a slight flush to it.
Evidently she had noticed that though Lawrence would generally have hesitated and furrowed his brow, this time he’d ordered her another round without any trouble at all.
"Aye, but it takes coin to buy liquor, while becoming drunk on the business possibilities right in front of your eyes is free.”
"And you’re surely thinking that if I’ll stop my howling or even deign to assist you, a drink or two would be a small price to pay, are you not?”
She was a girl-sized giant.
Lawrence expressed his capitulation to Holo, who had a fleck of ale foam at the corner of her mouth.
"Ah, though ’tis amusing to watch you puzzle things over, I’ll sit her drinking and watch from the side,” said Holo.
When the order of wine and crackling, hot-from-the-fire clams came back, Lawrence handed a few worn-out copper ryut coins to the shopkeeper, looking steadily at Holo. “I imagine I should glance at you every so often to make sure you haven’t disappeared?”
He passed the full cup of ale to Holo who smiled. “...Not bad.”
Holo was a tough grader, so Lawrence took this as a compliment. "Why, thank you,” he said sagely.
A bit before midday, Lawrence wound up walking around Lenos by himself.
Holo found herself surprised by the degree to which the travel fatigue that still lingered exaggerated the effects of the alcohol. She could get to her feet easily enough, but she was so sleepy, there was nothing for it.
Lawrence saw her back to the inn, simultaneously at a loss and slightly amused.
Part of Holo hated the idea of Lawrence sticking his nose into whatever was going on in this town. Looking back at their experiences so far, Lawrence couldn’t really disagree with her, but if he looked even further back, to experiences before his time with Holo, it became even more difficult to sit still.
Thus, it was rather convenient to now be able to wander around the town as he pleased.
Not that he had any particularly close acquaintances here.
After a moment of agonizing over it, Lawrence ultimately decided to head for a tavern with which he’d once done business.
It was an establishment with the strange name of The Beast and Fish Tail. A large bronze sign cast in the shape of a rodent hung from the eaves. The curious, clever creature it depicted built dams across rivers and had a mammal’s body—except for its wide, flat tail and webbed, paddle-like rear feet, which had caused the Church to declare it a fish.
Thus, despite the delicious, savory smell of cooking meat that wafted out of the tavern, it attracted a not-insignificant number of clergy. No matter how much “fish” they ate, no one could criticize them.
While the tavern’s ability to serve this rare meat made it popular in the evenings, at this hour, not yet midday, even the Beast and Fish Tail was mostly empty. There were no customers, only a shopgirl sitting at a table in the corner, mending her apron.
“Are you open?” Lawrence asked from the entrance.
A piece of thread held in the corner of her mouth, the red-haired girl lifted her apron to examine her work, smiling playfully. “I just patched a hole. Have a look?” said the fetching lass in reply.
“I’ll pass. You know what they say, eyes like daggers’ and all If I look too closely, I’m liable to open holes anew.”
The girl put her needle away in a sewing box, then stood and tied on the newly mended apron, shaking her head playfully. “So the reason my apron wears thin is from customers staring at it rather than me?”
No doubt the girl dealt with many a drunken patron.
But as a merchant, Lawrence couldn’t very well lo
se this little duel of wits.
"I'm sure they’re merely being thoughtful—they don’t wish to ruin your beauty by staring a new nostril into your nose, after all.”
"Oh? That’s a shame. That might let me sniff out suspicious customers a bit more easily,” said the girl ruefully as she finished cinching up her apron.
Lawrence slumped, defeated. He had to give the girl credit.
She giggled. “I guess it’s true that out-of-town customers really are different. So what’ll it be? Wine? A meal?”
"Two orders of fish tail. Wrapped, please.”
A momentary look of worry passed over the girl’s face, probably because of the sounds of clattering pots that issued from the kitchen.
They were most likely preparing the lunches to serve the rush of workers that would soon be coming from the docks.
"I'm not in a hurry,” said Lawrence.
"Perhaps some wine, then?”
In other words, was he willing to wait?
Lawrence smiled at the girl’s business acumen, then nodded. "We’ve barley and grape wine, as well as pear.”
"Pear wine at this time of year?”
Fruit wine spoiled quickly.
'For some reason, it never went bad in storage. Oops—,” said the girl, covering her mouth in an exaggerated fashion.
The tavern had always been jam-packed when Lawrence had visited before, so he’d never had a proper conversation with this girl, but now it was easy to see that the tavern owed the comely lass much of its success.
“Pear, then.”
“Coming right up! Just a moment if you please.” She disappeared into the back of the tavern, her skirt—which was a dark, ashen red that made it impossible to know its original color—fluttering behind her.
A clever, cheerful barmaid like her in a port town such as this might wind up the wife of the second son of a successful merchant with many ships to his name.
Or she might turn a cold shoulder to any rich man or pretty lad that came courting, instead falling for a completely normal merchant that happened into the tavern.
Spice & Wolf V Page 4