“You probably do. I didn’t think you came to tell me this out of kindness.”
He flinched when she smiled wickedly at him, but when he thought about Sharon and the other tax collectors’ suffering, he knew he could not afford to be overwhelmed here.
“Might I ask for you to arrange a boat?”
Eve still faced the harbor, only her eyes moving to look at him.
They were cold, like a slave trader appraising merchandise.
“You’re not going to ask me to save the tax collectors?”
“I have traveled with Mr. Lawrence and spent a long time working for him.”
A slight smile crossed Eve’s face.
“Heh. Indeed. There’s no point in acting humble in negotiation unless you’re already on top. I’d give you a pass for broaching the subject like that.”
“Our acquaintance’s boat is not enough.”
Eve held her tongue and hummed.
“Miss Eve, please.”
Col took a step forward and continued.
“How much would it cost to get you to do it?”
She should be able to prepare a boat for them without question.
The main question was if Eve could see a benefit to doing so.
“What if that meant selling your body?”
The one who reacted to Eve’s question was Myuri.
“And what if the price ends up being your life?”
Myuri placed something on the scales not even Col thought she would, and Eve’s eyes widened before she grinned.
“Heh. I wonder if that gloomy old wolf was like this a long time ago, too.”
Out of all the people in the world, Eve was likely the only one allowed to call Holo an “old wolf.”
“Your business proposal is sound but lacks a conclusion. If you wanted to show you were serious, you should’ve come alone. If you did, I probably would’ve thought it over seriously.”
It would be hard for the guards to stop Myuri if she was a wolf, even if they all banded together. However, in order to get Eve to listen to Col, it depended on the situation as to whether or not she would allow that sort of violence, and they had not met the standards for that.
As a result of her quiet calculations, Eve smiled gracefully.
“If you were just acting in accordance with your own selfish, dirty gains, then I’d be fine using dirty methods to match, but you’re acting on justice. There’s only so much I can do,” Eve said, her tone somewhat compassionate. And she then quickly added, “There’s nothing in it for me helping the tax collectors.”
Renting out a boat was not free, and that was even doubly so when there was danger involved.
The tax collectors did not seem to have any assets.
And so all he could say was this:
“If I work for you, would the costs not come back to you straightaway?”
The name of the Twilight Cardinal had to have lasting power.
And he would not mind dirty work, if that meant he could save Sharon and the tax collectors’ lives and futures.
“You must be steeling yourself somehow, but I can see in your face that you’ve estimated I won’t make you do work that’s too dirty.” Eve smiled gleefully, an indescribable beauty and terror about her.
“Is that bad?”
“Not at all. Jumping straight in without seeing through the one you’re speaking to is something a coward does. And, well, your judgment is mostly correct.”
“We’ll see about that,” Myuri said viciously, and Eve shrugged.
“If you want to use him most effectively as a tool, then you should be feeding him the food of justice. Isn’t that right?”
Myuri nodded firmly and glanced briefly at Col. Her expression read that Eve was correct, even if she did not want to admit it.
“Regular people have moderate parts good and evil in them. That’s why anything they come up with is so inadequate. The priests in the cathedral are a good example, aren’t they?” Eve said, then stood from her chair and stretched lightly.
She looked just like an elegant noble, who was truly appreciating how beautiful the harbor was at night.
“But you have a faith that I find almost unbelievable. Actually, it might not even be faith. That’s your personality. You are unforgiving of anything crooked, and you think this world needs to be set straight. I guess you could even call it prejudice.”
“Are you complimenting me?”
“Of course,” Eve responded, then took a thin slice of sausage from the table and tossed it in her mouth. “Whether it be faith or justice, whenever your furnace is fed with what you believe in, you can melt even steel. That is how you’ve come to set all these crooked things straight, from Atiph to here.”
“So then, your arranging for a ship would be a cheap deal, would it not?”
When he informed her of that, Eve turned around to face him and shook her head. It was not a hard-boiled look, nor a wicked one, nor one of exasperation at a young man bringing up foolish transactions.
It was with a terribly sad expression that she shook her head.
“No, it wouldn’t.”
“Why?!”
Col could even say that whether or not the tax collectors would be saved rested on Eve.
Sharon no longer hoped for anything from the days to come, and she was trying to sacrifice herself to at least give the others hope. And she was trusting in him.
Col stepped forward, and the umbrella girl opened her mouth, about to call for help.
Eve signaled with her hand to stop her and spoke.
“If I used someone like you in a deal, it wouldn’t be hard to make a little pocket change. But I don’t think that would be enough to pay to put the tax collectors on a boat and get them away from the king chasing them.”
“But—”
“You’ve sent Lord Hyland to the king anyway, haven’t you? In that case, it would be totally obvious I let them get away. Right now, I’m nothing more than a suspicious miser trying to use the cathedral’s plans for her own selfish motives. But if I let go of the prey the king is after, I would be a clear traitor. I could never conduct trade in this country again for another decade…No, not until the next king forgets about this.”
Eve smiled at the umbrella girl to calm her and then turned back to look at Col.
“And I’m a merchant. I make a living by looking at how the scales tip and extracting profit from that. That’s why I can’t trust you.”
“I can’t trust you.” Col’s breath hitched when he heard her say that. It was because no matter what sort of insults might be right about him, he had a feeling that was not correct.
“Heh. I want to title that A Shocked Face and hang it up on my wall.”
His cheeks burned when Eve smiled spitefully.
It was Myuri who stopped it there.
“This is my fault, Brother.”
Col whirled around in confusion.
“What?”
“It’s my fault she can’t trust you. Right?”
Myuri directed her last question to Eve, and Eve stood there silently.
Eve looked as though she was gazing at something dazzling in the distance, something she could never obtain.
“You’re right. I’ll never be first for you. That’s why I can’t trust you.”
Eve was twice—no, three times his age. Of course, perhaps it was because of her brilliant wit that she did not seem weak at all, despite how she was supposedly getting on in years. It almost seemed like she was filled with even more life than when they’d met when Col was little.
But despite that, Eve gave a mournful smile like an old woman.
The reason why he did not think it was an act was because he was sure she was not aware she was making such a face.
“That’s why I’d trust you if you were sending that girl back into the thick steam of the baths,” Eve said without a hint of malice. She said it as though it was obvious, as though she was making a pointless promise that the sun would rise tomorro
w in the east.
“If you take the girl back to the mountains; serve me by my side; dress, eat, and live with me; and pledge your loyalty to me, then I’ll consider it.”
What she added was perhaps not a way to hastily cover up her true feelings.
“But you can’t, can you? Your bond with this girl isn’t something that’ll weaken with distance. When your life is in danger, you won’t think back on your contract with me; you’ll think about her. And you’ll probably use anything you can in order to come back alive. Even if it means turning your back on God.”
He could not say anything in return because he could clearly the truth of her words.
“I can’t have someone like that by my side. The more useful you are, the truer it is. Someone useful will serve me well for a while, adding on premium after premium. And then, when you come to a truly important turning point one day, you won’t take me but her.”
Eve quietly shrugged.
“I would lose things more important than my life at the same time—my money and you.”
Eve smiled in self-deprecation, and the umbrella girl stepped softly up to her side.
Eve looked at her and smiled gently.
That was the thought process characteristic of someone who was constantly surrounded by betrayal and deals that might send yesterday’s profits into tomorrow.
But there was also a certainty that someone only backed by experiences could produce.
“And so no. I won’t help you.”
Eve struck down with her hatchet of logic, closing the curtains.
“I won’t save the tax collectors. There are certainly people out there with destinies like that. I’m well aware that me managing to claw my way up was nothing short of a miracle. It’s not unusual.”
Col’s face twisted even further, knowing this was her showing kindness and not her striking on an already unfortunate situation.
“You can worry, groan, and pray to God. You have a devoted girl at your side when you do. There’s your hagiography, no? Your quality as the Twilight Cardinal will only go up, won’t it, Tote Col?”
When she called his name, he looked up.
Standing there was the woman he’d met when he was a child, who had looked out for him so many times.
“You left that dreamlike bathhouse. For what? Surely not to lose yourself in sweet dreams.”
They were words of encouragement, different from what Lawrence, Holo, or even Myuri would say. Eve did not hate him, nor was she trying to drag him into depravity; she simply treated him fairly.
“This conversation is over now. You should deal with struggles your own size.”
He had nothing to say in response. Even though the one who had the means of saving Sharon’s hopes and the tax collectors was right in front of him, he could not reach her.
He remembered how high the edge of the boat was when he had fallen into the dark sea. He remembered how he’d felt then, that the impossible was impossible.
His only salvation was believing that Myuri was there, that she would be willing to drown with him.
“Now, since you gave me that tip, that means I have work to do. If you’ll excuse me.”
That was so the plotting Eve herself could escape. Of course, he could not blame her. There was no connection between the tax collectors and her; rather, she was much closer to them in position than he was. She signaled to the umbrella girl, and they both began to walk off; there was nothing he could do to stop them.
He could not even find fault with them for quickly escaping the city.
Wait.
His inner voice spoke to him.
Eve did not say she was escaping. She said she had work to do.
What he then thought of was the second contract she had undertaken—that of trapping Arugo and company, entrusted to her by the main branches of the companies that wanted to get rid of them.
However, when he thought about how she would be going to the cathedral now in this situation, he could not help speaking.
“Miss Eve, it will be dangerous going to the cathedral. Miss Sharon and the others will be headed there, armed, and the royal communications officers are putting the city council into action by mobilizing the city’s sol—”
He said that much but could not continue.
He was overwhelmed by the look on Eve’s face when she turned to him.
“Miss…Eve?”
“…”
Eve gulped and was shocked back into reality.
She then looked away. Her profile read that she had made a terrible mistake.
What did that mean? Why did she look at him like that?
She was not childish enough to get irritated by his foolish meddling.
There had to be meaning to it.
Why? What sort of work was she planning to do this late in the game?
And, without a doubt, it was something that he was not to know.
“Don’t look at me like that, Col.”
Eve offered a troubled smile.
But Col was not so much of a foolish lamb to be tricked by that smile.
The work she had that he should know nothing about could not be a report on Arugo and company. They already knew about that, and now that the Kingdom had decided to avoid war, he doubted that reporting on Arugo would be meaningful to them in a bad way.
Then, what else was she planning?
Col stared straight into Eve’s eyes. What crossed his mind was the image of the three bulls headbutting one another. Now that she could no longer profit off the tax collectors, there was only one thing left worth using.
The cathedral.
“Col.”
Eve, now irritated, called his name again, and Col reflexively turned around to look over the balcony at the dark sea, faintly lit by the lights from the port.
Eve betrayed the skewed parental love the priests managed to squeeze out and even betrayed her fellow merchants Arugo and company, whom she had called for betrayal itself. It seemed as though there was no end to this darkness.
Then, was it not appropriate there was another level to it? Was it not appropriate for her to have a plan for a time like this? And that concerned the cathedral.
However, it did not seem like Eve would wander up to the cathedral in this situation. He would not be surprised if the whole area around it was already in chaos. More importantly, since Hyland was bringing word of the plot brewing in the city to the king, Eve, who was at the very center of this whole plot, milling around the cathedral would only bring her unwanted suspicion.
Or perhaps, thinking conversely, was she going to ask for protection from the priests?
He felt like it was close, but it was off, somewhat. Would Eve do something so commendable?
No. There was no question that Eve would try to create obligation from the priests. And when Col thought about how she would also fabricate a plan that would benefit her as well, it struck him.
“You’re going to use the archbishop and the priests as shields, aren’t you?”
Eve’s expression stayed frozen. Not even her eyebrow moved an inch.
But that was an expressionless face that only merchants practiced, and the reflexive act meant to keep her emotions hidden instead laid out the contents of her heart clear as day.
Col was right.
Eve was trying to escape from the city, but the conditions she had to overcome were essentially the same as what the tax collectors faced.
The one plan that would guarantee their escape involved the priests in the cathedral, who were the very opponents the king had to pay careful mind to. And most likely, it was not Eve who would be asking for help from the priests, but they would put themselves in a position to show that they saved the priests from the tax collectors’ riot and then demand gratitude from the Church.
That is why, perhaps, she ended up calling it “work.”
And yet, there was still one question remaining.
How was Eve going to get the priests out of the cathedral?
> How he came to that conclusion must have made itself evident on his face. Eve’s expression relaxed.
“I’ll send you a letter later.”
That was the composure of a victor.
They were always thoroughly prepared, because they never knew what and when something might happen.
When he thought back to the manor Hyland was renting, he figured it would not be difficult to get the priests out of the cathedral. The cathedral was in the center of the city, after all, which meant it likely had a much older history than the manor, and so—
“Gasp!”
The two things came together like lightning.
Eve acted quickly.
Col only just barely managed to twist himself and block Eve’s hand because he had once heard from Lawrence how fierce she was.
But when his posture crumbled and he fell on his rear, she straddled him, grabbed his collar, and put her weight on him there, ramming his head onto the floor. In his shock, he was almost impressed by how fluid her movements were. He somehow managed to keep his eyes open, and he saw her reach for the dagger on her belt in his field of vision.
Col was not going to hesitate, either.
“Myuri!”
A wolf howled.
Before Eve could fully draw her dagger, a mass of silver passed over Col’s body, and then the beast was pressing her down, faceup on the balcony just a moment later.
“Gah…cough—”
Col readjusted his breathing and calmed his dizziness from having his head hit on the floor. The umbrella girl was wary, but she mostly appeared ready to cry at seeing Eve’s state and did not seem like she was going to draw any weapons.
“Ever since we came to this building…Ahem, something stayed on my mind.”
He stood and looked to the guards, who were entering from the hallway after hearing the commotion.
They of course feared the silver wolf on the balcony who was about to bite their master.
“It’s a quiet, still night. But why is the inside of the building so breezy?”
“Grrrrr…”
As Myuri let the guards know she was watching them, she glanced to Col.
Perhaps she had not noticed it.
“This building is one with a long and honorable history in this district. And large ships could once dock right beside it. That means…”
Wolf & Parchment: New Theory Spice & Wolf, Vol. 4 Page 24