“Yes. We know that Brondel Abbey is backed into a corner. There will be no more delaying. But if they’ve truly purchased the wolf bones, there is action we may take.”
The four men all smiled tired smiles.
“The war has been hard on old men like us. When you get to this age, you fight with dirty tricks.”
“Quite so! Our opponent has no shortcomings, but this information will be a fatal poison to the abbey.”
The men at the table suddenly began talking like men their age would.
Piasky looked down, and Lawrence found himself doing likewise. Holo cocked her head to one side, and while Col did not appear to understand very well, he seemed relieved.
It filled Lawrence with a bitter feeling to have to say these words to someone other than Holo. The men at the table possessed cunning to warrant it, though, and pockets deep enough.
“Well, then,” Lawrence and his companions had no choice but to say. “Please leave it to us.”
The old men were acting out of self-interest and practicality. They could use Lawrence and his companions to act in their stead. And Lawrence in turn was on the path to success. The relationship was not so simple as attacker and victim.
Lawrence was attracted to Holo for just that perverse reason—she was not so easily dealt with.
And Lawrence had come to seize those reins.
“Incidentally, I also have this.” He produced another letter from his breast pocket.
This one bore the seal of the king of Winfiel and was a declaration of taxation.
“This is…but…how did you…?”
It was Lawrence’s turn to smile and meet that question with silence. Clearing his throat, he continued, “I believe this taxation decree could lead to one of the following outcomes.”
As Lawrence took the center stage and began to speak, the four men could not help giving him the whole of their attention.
The traditional way of avoiding taxes was to simply claim not to have the money.
Tax could not be collected when there was nothing to collect, and a nation where homes and goods were constantly seized was a nation none would visit.
But given that, people would use every possible method to hide their money, thus beginning the battle of wits between tax collector and citizen.
Money was hidden in vases and buried under floorboards. Golden statues were encased in lead. There were all sorts of methods, and the essential advantage remained with the hider. Moving huge amounts of money would be obvious, but move small amounts at a time up into the mountains for burial and who would know? And there were always far more taxpayers than there were tax collectors.
But did the king, council of elders, or Church then give up on taxation? God always opened another door. No matter how few the tax collectors or how many coins were buried, they were always creating new ways to force taxation.
Of course, using brute force was a double-edged sword.
If you hit someone with a staff, your hand would hurt where you held that same staff. There were always limitations, and on that count the kingdom of Winfiel could count itself fortunate.
King Sufon had only taxed by force when absolutely necessary—that is, when he had to collect old coins and mint new ones. Under such conditions, it was forbidden to circulate old coins, which meant that coins hidden in bottles or buried under floorboards became completely useless.
While digging such coins up and melting them down for their base metals would yield a certain amount of value, melting coins was not free, and town furnaces were closely observed.
Thus, everyone would bring their old coins to the mint. The king would then exchange old coins for new at whatever rate he liked, which allowed him to levy a tax.
“Traditionally the abbey will have money. The king knows this, which is why he’s chosen this method. Even a merchant will have a nest egg in either cash or real goods. I very much doubt they’ll be holding certificates.”
“The king is probably thinking to seize this opportunity to destroy the abbey, which holds such influence in this area, while simultaneously driving us from his nation. He’ll both seize the abbey’s land in lieu of taxes, then conveniently rid himself of us by eliminating our goal.”
“He’s probably also thinking to monopolize the wool trade.”
“That’s quite possible. Nowhere else moves nearly as much wool. He could set prices however he liked.”
Lawrence, Holo, and Col stood around the round table with Piasky opposite Lawrence. In the center of the table lay a branching diagram that Lawrence and Col had labored all night to construct. Even if one was not clever enough to improvise such deductions on the spot, given time and careful thought, a reasonable plan could be formulated.
“If the abbey hasn’t purchased the wolf bones, they would be able to scrape together the coins to comply with the tax. But if they don’t have the money at all…”
“…They’ll simply pretend to pay,” said Piasky, finishing Lawrence’s thought. “They could just fill crates with stones, then toss them into a valley somewhere and claim there’d been an accident during the journey. The shepherds doubtless know of places where such an incident could be staged, and if there isn’t a valley handy, then a frozen marsh would do fine.”
Everyone nodded, and then one of the men at the table spoke up. “So how much money will they be told to move?”
No matter how brilliant they were, a simple number would not be sufficient for a group of old merchants who had been out of the field for so long to really grasp the amount.
“It probably won’t be entirely gold coins, so…hmm. Probably ten or fifteen crates, each roughly this size.”
“Even if they put them on a sleigh, given the snow, there’ll be a limit. They’ll have to make it a caravan.”
When the two traveling merchants were sharing views, no one else dared to contradict their guesses on travel arrangements.
Lawrence continued. “It won’t be a group small enough to hide.”
“I see. So if we reveal our knowledge of the tax decree, there will be very little they can do. And if we offer to cooperate with them in their tax evasion, we might get a seat at the negotiating table.”
It was as though they were discussing in which direction a cornered rat would flee.
Lawrence remembered being treated as a mere speck himself back in the port town of Kerube. Compared with this, his old life of buying and selling seemed peaceful and bucolic.
It was not as though he preferred one over the other. But this was an entirely different kind of risk than he had experienced before, which somehow made it easier for him to think through clearly.
“If we’re going to act, we should act soon. If we induce them to panic, they might do something rash and lose everything. After all, no matter how desperate they become, they’re still servants of God. The could decide to die as martyrs rather than live in shame.”
“And some of them are worthy of a measure of respect. We’re not thieves. We must act carefully.”
There was a proverb: “The castle on the hill is seen by all.” It meant that a person of status had to act in ways that befit their position. It did not seem the men around the table needed to be told that.
“Well, then, let’s reveal the truth to the monks here in the annex. Is the unpleasant pair from before still wandering about somewhere?”
“I’ll go check. If they can’t be found, shall we tell the others?”
“No, don’t tell them. Those two are the louts of the sanctuary. Tell Prior Lloyd. He should be doing his daily duties at the moment, and most of all, he can actually still ride a horse.”
This elicited a ripple of laughter since many of the monks in the area were too fat to ride.
“Very well,” Piasky replied politely as he bowed his head.
“Let’s have men posted in all the taverns and lodges, just to be safe. Though I doubt the sluggish sanctuary council will be able to reach a quick enough decision to start moving crates.�
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“There are some blood relatives of some of the high-ranking monks in the royal court. Given those connections, the monastery may be anticipating things to a certain extent, so we can’t be too careful.”
“Quite so. However, I do think everything will work out in our favor.”
“The blessings of God be upon us.”
And with those words, the meeting was concluded.
It was as though the annex had caught fire. In fact, the commotion was so great that the figure of speech felt more like a description of the actual truth.
The prior, a monk named Lloyd, was so disturbed that he accidentally dropped the book of scripture he was piously clutching as he listened to the news of the king’s decree; then when he went to pick it up, he knocked over a candlestand instead.
The snow and wind had stopped, so he immediately arranged for horses, along with five horsemen to drive them, and took the notorious pair of monks from earlier with him on a torch-lit ride on the snowy road to the main abbey.
Given that they spent their days dealing with the wool trade, the monks at the abbey’s mercantile annex had the calculating minds one would expect, and they hurried to the alliance officers’ inn rooms to ingratiate themselves, just in case.
Piasky hurriedly put a list of demands for the abbey in order, working with his comrades to settle the scale of the village he hoped to create and the things they would need to do so.
It seemed to Lawrence that everyone was working toward a common goal.
Speaking of Lawrence, he was thoroughly questioned on everything he knew about the wolf bones and was kept very busy handling the evaluation of that information—the connection of the Jean Company and the Debau Company, the flow of coins, the treatment of goods, the reception of the story of the wolf bones in Kerube—everything. Even Holo and Col added what they had learned over the course of their journey.
With utter preparation, the abbey would be defeated. A strange sense of excitement filled the air.
In the middle of all of this, Holo left to update Huskins on the situation and then returned.
It was late, and Lawrence was thoroughly tired when Holo came back with Huskins’s message, but when he learned what Huskins had said—“I’m sorry I can’t be of more help”—he couldn’t very well sleep.
“’Tis true, we no longer possess any real power.”
Dawn was breaking by the time Holo spoke those self-recriminating words, by which time everyone had performed their respective roles, crystallizing knowledge and wisdom and delivering the results to those in the best positions to utilize them.
It was sad but also somehow bracing.
Not even her claws and fangs could stop the might this many humans could muster. And surely no animal could match the strength shown by humans when they worked together in such numbers.
Various alliance members slept here and there around the room, exhausted. Holo smiled as she looked them over. She might even have been feeling a bit jealous.
“Huh. When I grow weary, look how maudlin I become.”
Col was curled up against the wall, completely spent.
Lawrence put his arm around Holo’s shoulders and pulled her close as though supporting her head.
The sky was visible through the window, so clear and blue it felt as though one were being pulled up into it.
If ever there could be a day when all would go according to plan, surely it would be a day like this one.
Holo soon dozed off, and Lawrence realized he, too, must have fallen asleep.
There was shout from someone running through the gates. At first, Lawrence thought it was part of a dream he was having.
“They’re here! The men from the main abbey are here!”
The abbey proper had been built on a grassy plain perfect for construction. It meant that anyone approaching from that direction could be naturally identified as a messenger from the central building.
Immediately after Lawrence raised his head and realized he wasn’t dreaming, he jumped to his feet and dashed to the entrance. Merchants lined the road, their gazes all directed to the gates that opened to the vast plains beyond.
“Aren’t they here yet?”
“Hush!”
Many such exchanges could be heard here and there before all fell completely silent.
Then—the silence was broken by the heavy footsteps of a horse, at which the alliance leaders filed out of the inn, as though having been waiting.
Lawrence and the rest stepped aside to let them pass, but they were still mostly surrounded by curious merchants.
The sound of horses’ hooves drew nearer and then stopped.
They were in front of the inn.
There was a single large horse led by two footmen.
“I am a messenger from the abbot,” said the large man who sat atop the horse. He was wearing a long fur-lined robe that hid even his feet, and his hood was pulled so low it was difficult to see his face.
But the problem was not his clothing.
What everyone assembled found odd was that he had come with only two horsemen and spoke with such a threatening manner from high up on his horse.
Everyone, Lawrence included, had expected all the abbey leaders, including the abbot himself, to arrive ashen-faced.
“Thank you for coming. Perhaps we should move inside, first.”
In contrast to the merchants milling about the area, one finely dressed man addressed the messenger with a politeness that spoke of years of practice.
In point of fact, the inn was already making ready to meet their guests. The scent of food wafted out, tormenting the stomachs of all who’d endured a night with no meals.
“There is no need,” the man replied.
Then in front of the stunned onlookers, the mounted man produced a sealed letter from his breast pocket, affixed it to the end of his riding crop, and then handed it to the member of the alliance as though he were the bearer of a royal command.
“This is the abbot’s reply: ‘As the servants of God, we will never submit to faithless foreigners. Never! We shall pay the king his taxes and continue to offer our prayers to God.’”
The instant the confused alliance representative took the letter, the mounted man struck his horse’s hindquarters with the crop. His mount wheeled, his driver frantically holding the reins.
The man did not bother saying farewell.
The only sound that reached Lawrence and the rest of the assembled crowd’s ears was the thump, thump of the horse’s feet.
All they saw was its rear.
Stunned, all were silent.
“What is the meaning of this?” someone murmured; it didn’t matter who—it was what everyone was thinking.
The letter was passed to the four men who had sat at the round table, and they opened it on the spot. Once each man read it, he passed it to the next. The letter left behind palely confused faces in its wake.
“It’s impossible…do they claim they’ll have funds left over, even after they pay their tax?”
That statement was all that was necessary to guess at the contents of the letter.
A commotion began to stir as each person started chattering with his neighbor. But there was no conclusion to be drawn from these conversations. That the abbey had been in dire straits was nearly incontrovertible fact.
“This can’t be…What are they thinking? Do they believe they can gain the king’s protection by paying his tax? They should know better than anyone such a thing will not happen…”
The king had been constantly extorting the abbey, although not specifically in anticipation of this tax. It was hard to imagine the abbey suddenly trusting him now.
Confusion was spreading like a drop of oil in water.
It seemed there was now a real possibility the abbey had not purchased the wolf bones and, in fact, did have sufficient funds set aside in order to pay the tax.
But even so, there was no reason for them to behave so bullishly toward the alliance. It
was always better to have more partners to provide emergency funds, just in case.
So had they come up with some clever stratagem? Had they somehow extracted some sort of guarantee from the king?
Amid all the discussion, a merchant watching the tumult from a distance suddenly raised his voice high. “If they said they’ll be paying the tax, won’t that mean they’ll have to transport the money? Then we have but to confirm that! If it comes out that they’re actually unable to pay—”
The majority opinion seemed to be that the abbey was truly unable to pay, but even if it did, it was obvious that it would immediately face more difficulty.
So it made sense to conclude that the abbey would be filling crates with pebbles, and if there was a bet to be made, that was the wisest one.
“Or maybe they plan to feign an accident while we’re still thrown into confusion!” said another merchant.
“That could be. Perhaps that’s why they arrived at their decision so quickly. They don’t want to give us any time to think.”
Voices rose in support of this notion. “Yes, that’s it!”
Lawrence looked at the leaders standing at the edge of the crowd; they did not seem to agree. Neither did Lawrence.
“Did the letter say when they were going to pay the tax?”
If the abbey was truly planning to force confusion upon the alliance while making its countermove, it might well have been confident enough to write the exact date on the letter. And that did in fact seem to be the case.
Lawrence knew why the leader holding the letter had such a bitter look on his face. The abbey wanted them to read the date aloud. And now the situation was out of control; there was no way the alliance leaders could hide it.
“Today at midday, following the path Saint Hiuronius took across the snowy plains.”
“I knew it! They’re practically challenging us to come!”
“If they’re leaving at midday, there’s no time to waste. The area around Sulieri Hill is mostly bogs—the perfect place for faking an accident.”
“Let’s go! Profit takes courage!”
Most of the men were giddy from their long night spent working, and the battle cry they shouted had a strange energy.
Spice and Wolf, Vol. 10 Page 20
