Spice & Wolf XV (DWT)

by Hasekura Isuna

Holo’s eyes were already asking him, “are we not going to the shop?” All he could do was stare back and try to figure that out for himself. Memories were popping up and mixing in with reality, until he could barely even understand the chatter of the people ahead of them.

  Barons were investing only for profits.. Diva truly wanting to occupy the north.. a strange situation in the currency market.. silver more expensive than gold.. those thoughts were swirling around like keys in his mind, glittering as they flew into the locks that had been uncovered in his recent conversations with Myuri and Holo.

  “What is the matter?”

  Holo pressed him, but he really didn’t know what he should do. He couldn’t believe the answer he’d found. This lively town, with it’s free people, wild market and loyal mercenaries.. he’d finally figured it all out. It was so simple, and so elegant, but what lay on the other side of the door that his mind was unlocking was something horrible indeed. In hindsight, it was so obvious.. he’d just been overthinking the whole time.

  “Hey, will you stop alread-”

  She was angry, but this time it was he who grabbed her shoulder and hugged her tightly. It wasn’t even to play with her, like she often did to make him feel uncomfortable in crowds like this. It was far out of character for him to do something like this outside of a narrow alley, and well beyond his own expectations of himself.

  He was so elated that if Holo’s ears weren’t right in front of his mouth, he would be shouting with joy. If he was right, Diva’s plan was so crazy it was going to be huge. Their strange currency market, their town bereft of walls, their willingness to pay all expenses to house barons and mercenaries.. and the rumors they were spreading.

  When he finally released Holo, she seemed to be in shock. He proudly waltzed into the shop, and saw the receptionist playing with a cat. Normally, the man would disinterestedly watch the merchants taking a look around, but seeing Lawrence walking up to him immediately seemed to catch him as off guard as it did Holo.

  The man was still trying to form a greeting as Lawrence silently took out his wallet and placed it on the counter in front of him. He was smiling the whole time. If Diva could gamble like this, so could he. And he would win this time. When the man before him finally put two and two together and realized that Lawrence was placing a deposit, he snapped into action.

  ”G-Give me a second..”

  He ran off, but Lawrence didn’t care to watch. He just glanced at a nearby chair, shivering with excitement. When he finally looked up at Holo, her eyes made her discomfort clear.

  “I just discovered something extraordinary.”

  “Oh?”

  Her voice was dull, but he didn’t have any inclination to laugh at her this time. He just smiled back, advertising his intent to attempt something equally extraordinary. He looked in the eyes and continued.

  “Diva company is trying to start a trade war.”

  “What-?”

  “And the entire region will be caught up in it.”

  He cut her off, and her lips kept flapping as though she couldn’t settle on what words to say before her mind moved on. She seemed to be calculating just how Lawrence might gain or lose from this discovery.

  The first thing a merchant learned was that a loss usually had some hidden gains that came with it for one to discover. If Diva was going to make off like bandits by waging a war of commerce, then he had to take advantage of it. Buying the shop would earn him dearly in such a war. Obviously, the barons felt the same way.

  Thinking back to the Winfield Kingdom, he’d directly dealt with the Ruvik Alliance, who held more sway than any king. Even Eve had heard of them. They evaluated the competition in markets like this, and waged in “trade wars.”

  These weren’t wars fought with swords, but by merchants who sat in front of desks and manipulated trades in far off lands, to exchange goods with the other side of the world. That was how they waged such a war, and it was as legitimate as any other. That is what Diva was up to.

  Not long after he’d arrived at that conclusion, men from Ponds’ company came running up to him. They were effectively a branch of Diva company, though they might not even realize it. In fact, they didn’t seem to.

  The man they were dealing with was daring to make a lofty bet, yet they didn’t realize it. If they did, they certainly wouldn’t be calmly telling Lawrence about the situation in town or the power structure here.

  Lawrence was daydreaming over the course of the entire discussion. He didn’t come to until they had already been escorted back to their room at the inn, and he was staring at an unhappy Holo, sitting on the edge of her bed.

  “I take it you’d like to know what I’m on about?”

  He spoke like a stage actor preparing for a monologue. She looked at him, but since she couldn’t fly into a rage, she simply sighed.

  “What you mean to say is plainly written on your face: ‘Please let me explain.”’

  Even her tail wagged like it was sighing.

  “Oh my, yes.”

  “..I have no idea how you continue to grow ever more patient, but very well. You may make your little explanation.”

  As long as she was willing to listen, he didn’t mind her acting so annoyed. He gladly dove into his explanation, and patiently watched her brow furrow more and more deeply as he continued. It seemed like she was only growing more incredulous, but that was to be expected when Diva was attempting something so incredible.

  It all came down to what they were good at, trade, and how it could be used as a weapon of war. They were competing with a series of northern states that had not been united for decades. No one should die, and there should be no sad tragedy this time. People would just be stunned at first, and then happily cheer when they realized how it worked in their favor. Wars weren’t all waged with bloody battles.

  In fact, Lawrence was explaining himself so excitedly that he didn’t even feel nervous when they heard anxious footsteps followed by furtive knocking on their door. If he was right, then he knew what they were talking about - they were right on schedule.

  “Mr. Lawrence! Big news!”

  Moid shouted loudly, and Lawrence flashed Holo a smile as he opened the door. The look on Moid’s face was the same he probably wore when enemies were cresting a hill to attack them.

  “Ah, Mr. Lawrence, huge news! My men just informed me that a new sign has just been posted in the square-”

  Lawrence nodded.

  “Yes, I’m sure they have.”

  Moid blinked in surprise.

  “Oh, you’ve seen it already?”

  Lawrence shook his head.

  “Then how do you know?”

  Moid was confused, but Lawrence didn’t even entertain the notion that he had guessed incorrectly. He just stood tall and made his proclamation.

  “I’m assuming that it was announcing that a new currency is being issued, yes?”

  Moid was so stunned he couldn’t respond for a moment.

  “Exactly..”

  From the look in his eyes, he was clearly wondering how Lawrence already knew given that he hadn’t during their conversation the previous night. Perhaps if his head hadn’t been so full of uncertainty about buying an inexpensive shop (which wasn’t inexpensive to him personally), he would have already figured out how the pieces fit last night. But it was meaningless to speculate about that; like his relationship with Holo, he had to stop thinking and take action eventually. He straightened his collar.

  “Diva is a group of merchants, and I am a merchant as well.”

  Holo could laugh at him all she wanted, but he truly was a merchant.

  * * *

  The streets were now very noisy. Of course, the merchants were the ones who had pushed up to the front of the crowds.

  Rulers had issued their own currencies in the past and would continue to do so in the future. It was both emblematic of their power, and something they could earn a great deal of profit from. Yet, Diva company wasn’t issuing a currency for suc
h simple and classic reasons. They had taken great pains to patiently bait the big fish, even going so far as to fatten up the smaller fish around them.

  This wasn’t just a simple matter of exchange rates. Trenni silver coins, a standard currency in the south, were flooding the northern markets. But soon enough, no matter how much the barons made from the effort, they would run out of coins. Then how would people buy and sell their goods and services?

  It made sense that Holo would guess that Diva would simply mint more coins. Supply and demand was a basic premise, and Diva was practically swimming in mined minerals. But Lawrence was also right; they couldn’t just mint more Trenni coins, since people would see right away that they were counterfeits from how new they were. The more famous a currency, the easier it was to tell when it was being faked.

  But not a brand new currency. Such problems simply didn’t exist in that case. Diva could apply their resources free of such worries, and as expected, the streets of Lesco were brimming with excitement over the prospect of a new currency. The first to celebrate were those like Lawrence, who had figured it out ahead of time. The town’s residents were the next to celebrate.

  “Diva company, under the authority of the following barons, is to issue the following new coins: .. silvers, .. coppers, ...”

  The coin purities being declared on that sign were possibly the purest ever declared in history. In fact, merchants would have a tough time accepting that such purities were viable. It would have to be a struggle to maintain them. Of course, most people would feel that would be a simple matter for a mining firm like Diva. They should have no problem given their stock of precious metals.

  Even more importantly, the sign announced their intended exchange rates as well. Within two years, Diva would exchange all of the Trenni silvers in the region with their new ones. As bold as the sign was, it would be even more effective when people realized why Diva had been collecting Trenni silvers to keep this town running.

  They had not only stimulated the economy at their own cost, but also flooded the northern markets with those silvers. Even more sly, the value of all the lesser coins had been essentially wiped out already, because everyone would naturally prefer the stabler ones. That was just the way coins worked, and no one would bat an eye over the concept of a better currency supplanting a poorer one.

  Diva had been building towards establishing their new currency in the entire north, which had dozens of coins already. Having all of them replaced with a simpler system of coins, easy enough for children to figure out, would feel to the people like the gods had finally answered their prayers.

  The icing on the cake was how smoothly Diva had made this work. They had simplified the exchange rates so people had a profitable reason to exchange to Trennis, and now they were in a position to replace those Trenni silvers with their own. They wouldn’t even have to post copies of this sign everywhere, and already had the barons on their side. They had executed their plan masterfully.

  Even an illiterate farmer coming to town to hock his harvest would have no trouble understanding all of this, so of course they had to keep people like Lawrence and the other merchants out of the loop somehow. Why else would they spread all of those rumors? In fact, they had pulled the wool over the eyes of even the mercenaries and barons who were spreading those rumors and collecting those coins for them.

  Even Myuri had been confused by their inaction, when they were rumored to be preparing for war. Seeing them appear to just be wasting time would of course stump someone like him, to the point where he would even turn to someone like Lawrence, a mere traveling merchant, for help. It made Lawrence feel a bit better about himself to know that he could still figure this sort of scheme out.

  First, the rumors.. all those gathered soldiers and coins would make anyone believe they were starting a war. A mining company would only do something like that to open new mines in the territory they conquered. And yet, nobody could figure out who was going to be attacked.

  The people in the north would probably be sweating over this every day, since there were so many hills and valleys and all were under the rule of a different baron. They really only had two choices; band together, or accept defeat. Of course those barons would do everything they could to bargain with Diva, who held all the cards.

  The more the rumors spread, and the more Diva worked with those barons, the more credible the whole idea became. If someone didn’t join Diva, they would regret it. That’s how any baron would be forced to think. Especially when more and more mercenaries were also gathering in Lesco. What baron could stand up to that?

  As a consequence, Lesco itself became a vibrant economic center. More buildings kept popping up, with more people to live in them. Anyone with a bit of smarts would have invested here, and indeed, Myuri’s words made it clear that the smarter barons had already done so.. and not a small number of them, either.

  All of them were like Lawrence, buying up buildings as an investment that should go up in value as long as the town remained viable. A new currency was the natural conclusion to keep it that way; it was a symbol of power. No matter how iffy it felt at first, no one would complain when they saw their own lands improving and more and more coins in their pockets.

  In fact, this entire trade war was really just the last move to expand the region that Diva’s new currency dominated. The more they issued, the more powerful it was. It was a consequence of inflation. If nobody used the currency, it was of course useless. In order to make more, Diva had to ensure there was demand. Again, their plans were practically flawless.

  Lawrence remembered the fourteen different currencies he had to buy in Lenos to head up north. It was obvious that everyone wanted a unified currency to deal with that mess, so Diva would be promoted as a savior of sorts. Lawrence was right to think of Diva as waging a war, but he had been mislead into thinking it was a war with the soldiers they were gathering.

  In the end, Diva had simply been defending their town without even needing a wall, and every merchant had been fooled by their ploy. When one read the names of those powerful northern barons on their proclamatory sign, it was clear that they had actually been busy trying to get the clout necessary to issue their currency in those lands.

  The barons hardly had a choice, but that was still Diva’s actual aim. When everyone was using a superior currency and living in an economically stable area, nobody would want to be left out - it would be a disaster. Outsiders wouldn’t be able to buy anything, let alone sell. They would be an island of misery, starving in a sea of their would-be enemies.

  By the time the dust settled, the barons involved would have effectively signed over their rulership to Diva. Without their own currency, they could hardly maintain rule, when their peasantry could simply flock to a freer land with more opportunity. If they tried to supplant such migrations, they would have to contend with Diva and all of the barons who sided with them. They would have no chance.

  This was actually like the historical practice of arranged political marriages, though coins were even more effective than humans were as the collateral. Political marriages simply couldn’t stop wars as effectively as money could. Diva’s plan was basically a perfect way to unite the divided north.

  A physical war would have to contend with the awful geographical layout of the north, and political marriages would falter, but money was a universal language. In a sense, it was the optimal way to solve the problem. Even the Ruvik Alliance could stand up to kings who tried to hinder their trading, but they still did so the old way with boats and physical conflict.

  By contrast, Diva was achieving their ends with a new currency, which benefited everyone. They weren’t just barbarians out to rob and pillage, nor were they just a band of barons driven purely by self-motivated greed. They were merchants. They were orchestrators. They did what everyone was hoping for.

  Barons had to conquer their neighbors to expand, but merchants could simply tweak some numbers - perhaps decrease a tax here to increase sales, for
instance. There was no need for them to use excessive force.

  Kings could listen to their royal merchant’s council, but they rarely did. Brainless kings could survive, but not brainless merchants. People could respect a merchant who had demonstrated his aptitude, and Diva was the first company poised to become as powerful as a king, without fighting a single physical battle.

  “A new era begins!”

  Myuri raised his glass and shouted after Lawrence explained the situation to everyone. His shout actually sounded a bit lonely somehow, like he shared Holo’s feeling that time was leaving him behind.

  “Money is powerful no matter the age, but it isn’t almighty. Diva just knows how to make it seem that way. We didn’t even have to bloody our swords before the barons surrendered.”

  “We truly never did.”

  Moid sighed like all energy had left him.

  “Weep for our lot, my brothers! We have lost our utility, and become mere actors! And yet, we have earned far more than I ever imagined.”

  He knocked the bag of money on the table like he wanted to destroy it.

  “Whose fault is this!?”

  The town was thrown into chaos the moment the sign was posted. Myuri had just made it back to the inn, and Diva had to ask him right back out again. By the time he returned that evening, his face was a mess. No one dared say a word to him, because he’d received their pay, but it wasn’t for fighting - it was indeed for acting.

  Mercenaries loved their band, to the point they gave their lives for it. Even that young minister and silversmith, Fran, didn’t realize just how much she had contributed to her own band until their time came to an end. They weren’t just like friends or distant relatives, they were practically like blood siblings.

  And now, they were earning more as actors than they ever had as warriors. It was too much to bear knowing that Diva company had hired them not to fight traditionally, but simply to stand around and show off their numbers to win the war. When money could solve a problem, it didn’t require much effort from people like them. Even a child knew that.

  Of course, just about everyone was happy that they had avoided fighting a war. It was just that change was almost as terrifying. Even Holo had lingered in the wheat fields of Pasloe long after she was no longer welcome. Her loneliness and pain might have driven her to tears, but she still fought on. Of course the mercenaries would feel disappointed.