Town of Strife I

by Isuna Hasekura

  Still, Lawrence doubted the appearance of neglect was itself a lie.

  The man’s eyes shone with childlike inquisitiveness. “Why would you care about this folly now?”

  “Eve asked me the same question. These two were born in the north, you see.”

  “Mm…,” intoned Reynolds, his eyes opening slightly wider. He had the face of a man who had been terribly mistaken. “I see, so…ah…I was a bit rash. Please don’t think poorly of me. I didn’t mean my bitterness over this foolish tale as an insult to your deity,” said Reynolds, rubbing his nose and spreading his palms as though confessing his sins to God in a church.

  The fact that he had understood so much upon realizing that the two were born in the north proved how close the region was to the Roef Mountains.

  And Lawrence could tell Reynolds respected the people from the north.

  “In that case, I’m quite willing to cooperate with you. The truth is, this tale is an absurd one indeed.” Reynolds was able to change the conversation’s mood in a flash.

  The moment he spoke, the neglected surroundings of the dingy trade house faded away, and it felt as though they were in the grand hall of the town council.

  “Up in the mountains of Roef, there remain many legends the Church cannot overlook. Some of them are nearly impossible to believe, but others are difficult to doubt. I don’t know what region you’re from, but it was said that the remains of a wolf-god lay in a certain village, and I lived in a place that seemed likely.”

  “Was it the village of Rupi?” Col interrupted.

  His face was so serious that it was hard to imagine he had been on the verge of tears a moment ago because of chickens pecking at his sandals.

  “Yes. If you know that name and you’re chasing this tale, you’re either very lucky to still be alive, or you’ve seen the unfairness of the world with your own eyes.”

  Col had told them how Rupi had been taken by missionaries with swords and many people had been killed.

  At Reynold’s words, Col nodded, his fists clenched.

  “And you there next to him, miss…Merchants can’t take riches to the grave, but they can take their memories, so I don’t want to ask why you say you hail from the north but are dressed as a nun of the Church,” said Reynolds, letting a cynical smile twitch across one half of his face.

  Holo, too, smiled slightly—she understood that the wish to experience only pure, beautiful things until heading to the grave was itself a folly to be laughed at.

  “So, then, about the god of Rupi. I suppose it was the year before last, around the end of summer. Back then the missionaries and mercenaries were gallivanting all over the northern mountains and plains. Stories of this or that befalling this or that village were not uncommon. Among them, though, was a tale seized on by a trading company I was close with. Or perhaps I should say, they couldn’t help but seize on it.”

  “The Debau Company, yes?”

  If Lawrence let the man think they had come to him knowing nothing, he might well lie either to make a better tale or just to deceive them.

  So to prevent that, Lawrence showed that they were not entirely ignorant.

  Reynolds noticed the move and smiled. “Heh. This merchant bearing a letter from the wolf woman of the house of Bolan tells no lies. I respect her, and if she has put her trust in you, then I respect you, Kraft Lawrence, as well.” His smile was a serious one, and he seemed to be angry.

  But Lawrence did not feel he had misspoken.

  This was practically a ritual, a way to determine the rules of play between two merchants.

  “I apologize for interrupting your tale.”

  “Not at all. If I am the only one talking, I’ll never notice how long-winded I’m being. Since you’re not entirely ignorant of the situation, I should give you the important details.”

  Reynolds coughed and straightened himself in his chair.

  His gaze drifted to the wall as he looked back into his memory.

  “There was a certain faction of the Church that for various reasons the Debau Company could not easily defy, and this faction brought them an offer. ‘Among the pagan stories we’ve gone into the mountains to investigate,’ they said, ‘there are some that are unlike the more absurd tales. They have shape and truth. And if that’s so, then you merchants who deal in everything on this earth, you should be able to go and find the shape and truth of this.’”

  That he’d ventured to say it that way might well have been meant to imply that he was no friend of the Church himself.

  “Just as we find alchemy mysterious and thus assume that alchemists can work miracles, it seems the men of the Church find our trading mysterious and wanting in virtue—and thus mistakenly think we can accomplish anything. But often in business there are requests we can’t refuse. And those always flow from high to low.”

  “You’re right about that,” said Lawrence, at which Reynolds nodded, satisfied.

  From the emperor to the palace merchant, from the palace merchant to the trade company he controlled, from the company to the branch, and from the branch manager to the commoner merchants at the bottom.

  It was not rare for even goods respectfully presented to the emperor to have their origins with merchants who scraped and fought for every last copper coin.

  Orders came from the top down, and goods flowed from the bottom up, and never the opposite.

  “And our company is situated here at the bottom of the Roam River, which is ruled over by the great river spirit Roam. We must meet whatever comes down the river, whatever happens. Truly—”

  Reynolds’s sagging cheeks jiggled as though they’d sagged all along just waiting for this day, this moment.

  “—We must, no matter the cost.”

  Lawrence nodded, looking down at the box that was so packed with bones on the desk.

  Normally, even when a trading company somewhere was searching for goods, they would not be sent so very many.

  But be they the bones of dog, cat, sheep, cow, or swine, the fact that this company had collected so many was because everybody in this town knew that the Jean Company was not conducting sensible business.

  For it to be sensible business, someone would have had to be paying a fair price for sensible goods.

  But if it was not sensible business, it was possible that money would be paid for even nonsensical goods.

  And there existed the strong possibility that the Jean Company, and the Debau Company above them, might pay money for worthless bones if they thought the clergy who had given the original order would be satisfied.

  And there were bones all over the place.

  Making a small bet on that possibility was not a bad bet at all.

  The most inconvenienced party was the Jean Company, who wound up playing bookmaker to those bets.

  “And so it turned into quite a commotion, because some were saying that if the real bones were found, they would be paid a thousand, two thousand lumione for them.”

  “So—” It was Col who spoke up as Reynolds paused and smiled self-deprecatingly. “—So, did you find the bones?”

  Reynolds’s eyes, like pure glass beads beneath his drooping lids, showed no emotion but shifted for just a moment.

  The question was a naive one and a breach of merchant conversation etiquette.

  But those glassy eyes soon shifted back to ones befitting an easygoing shopkeeper, content to sit behind his desk and wait for customers as he watched his chickens peck at the floor.

  A merchant had no call to turn angry at a naive question. Rather than show anger, he would treat the question appropriately.

  Which meant that the merchant talk was now over.

  “Heh. If I had, I’d be sitting at a golden desk right about now. Of course, at the time, rumors that I’d already found the bones and made a huge profit were flying around left and right, and I was attacked who knows how many times. But a little thought made it obvious. Just who had ever paid that much gold coin for something without attracti
ng the attention of others?”

  His teasing tone came from the fact that it was an absurd notion.

  If this company had been paid a thousand gold coins, anybody doing business would notice the movement of money immediately.

  It was the same as moving a mountain—even if you did it in the dead of night, people were going to notice come morning.

  It was not something you could hide.

  Col seemed to have realized that.

  He nodded, crestfallen, but thanking Reynolds for answering his question.

  That moment, Reynolds’s eyes widened in surprise—Lawrence was laughing.

  Even if the question itself had been a terrible breach of merchant etiquette, Col’s polite thanks for the answer showed the kind of manners that most apprentices failed to remember even after a sound whipping.

  He might have been sitting reluctantly behind the desk of his trading company, but Reynolds had a good merchant’s eye; there was no doubt about that.

  So he turned that merchant’s eye to Lawrence.

  “You’ve got yourself a fine apprentice there, Mr. Lawrence.”

  The eye of a hawk who’s spotted its prey.

  Surely that was no exaggeration.

  “He’s not my apprentice.”

  “Surely—!” said Reynolds, shocked, as though he simply could not believe it. When his gaze fell to Col, Lawrence immediately spoke.

  “He’s a future scholar of Church law. If I said he was my apprentice, I’d never be able to pass through the gates of Heaven.”

  Reynolds seemed not to know what sort of expression to make.

  If Lawrence could ever surprise Holo enough for her to make that face, he was sure he would be able to grab her reins on the spot.

  So surprised was Reynolds that he slapped his own forehead, totally at a loss. “Hrrrm! Born in the northlands, a future Church law scholar, and chasing tales of the god of his hometown…Well, I certainly see why that wolf woman would put her trust in a merchant like you. You seem like you’re on a very complicated—and truly enviable—journey.”

  For merchants, who were keenly aware of human connections and influence, a future Church law scholar was like a golden egg—one whose eventual value could be roughly guessed based on his current manners and personality.

  You’d always want to invest in someone whose future was bright.

  The notion radiated off of Reynolds, but his gaze suddenly shifted to Holo and then to Lawrence. “So then, is this one from a famous convent somewhere?”

  Holo, too, would have noticed the man’s predatory, hawklike gaze on Col.

  But Reynolds hadn’t used that gaze on Holo.

  He was asking Lawrence the question either because he felt bad about ignoring Holo or he simply wanted to make small talk.

  But there was no chance that Holo was going to be satisfied with such slight treatment.

  So then, how best to raise her worth?

  That was one calculation she could perform as fast as any merchant.

  No sooner had Holo heard Reynolds’s words than she hid herself behind Lawrence, clutching his clothes.

  As though she were a shy maiden, fearful of strangers. As though she were claiming Lawrence as her guardian.

  If merchants coveted even the possessions of the gods, then surely it was their nature to covet the things of other humans all the more.

  The effect was perfect.

  “Bwa-ha-ha-ha!” Reynolds burst out laughing, and Lawrence realized that Holo was peering out from behind him with a malicious smile on her face.

  The ineffable battle of wits had two or three layers now.

  Reynolds’s hearty laughter came from his realization that he had been completely fooled. “What fine guests you all are! What say you to this? It’ll be midday soon. Shall we all take a meal in celebration of our meeting?”

  Lawrence, for his part, was quite happy with the proposal. Conversation with Reynolds was entirely stimulating. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d love to.”

  “What wonderful fortune. I’ll summon one of my men to prepare some food. However”—here Reynolds’s gaze moved behind Lawrence to the Jean Company loading dock—“to do that I’ll need a single healthy chicken, but today it seems there isn’t a chicken to be found.”

  “Ah!” exclaimed Col, at which Holo looked askance.

  When they’d pecked at Col’s sandals, Holo had chased them around with a fierce enough gaze to give even another wolf pause, and now there was not a single chicken to be seen anywhere on the loading dock.

  “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like you to call over my neighbors for dinner,” said Reynolds with an impish, childlike smile, which Col flailed at and Holo reluctantly went to capture a chicken.

  Chicken and grape wine.

  Bread and salt were necessary to live, but chicken and wine were probably two of the things necessary to truly enjoy life.

  And all the more so when they were an unexpected treat.

  Holo dug in before even hearing Reynolds’s “Please, eat,” while Col ate with the proper Church manners expected of a future scholar of law.

  Col was surely the only one impressed with how grand Reynolds was to treat them to such a feast after they had so casually asked him about the wolf remains.

  There at the meal table, amid the easy small talk, he told them about the great commotion two years earlier, when tales of the bones were at high tide, and what happened after that.

  But merchants were always looking for payment.

  Lawrence was worried about that payment, but it became clear only when they were about to part ways.

  Reynolds sought Lawrence’s handshake. “My regards to Eve Bolan.” He held Lawrence’s hand firmly.

  His eye was every bit that of a shrewd merchant.

  Perhaps he wanted them to convey to her that he had told her customers all about the wolf remains and treated them to a good meal besides.

  Perhaps he did it to strengthen his ties to Eve, thereby increasing his own business.

  But while Reynolds’s Jean Company might have looked shabby, it should have already been well connected to the Debau Company and its mining profits.

  It was possible that Reynolds’s experience with Eve had been so auspicious that he did not have very much to gain.

  Or perhaps Eve was just that influential.

  There were many things to worry about, but Lawrence had to be thankful for the kindness they were shown.

  Lawrence returned Reynolds’s grasp heartily, then put the Jean Company behind him.

  While Reynolds had been reluctant to get out of his chair when they had arrived, now that they were leaving, he saw them off from beneath the trading house’s eaves.

  “Now, then,” Lawrence murmured to himself.

  He had easily achieved his goal.

  But he could not deny that in all of his conversation with Reynolds, something in the twists and turns failed to add up.

  The state of the Jean Company, the moment when Lawrence had given Reynolds the letter he had gotten from Eve, and even Reynolds’s actions just a moment ago, when they were parting ways.

  None of that led directly to the tale of the wolf remains, but the actions of merchants were often connected in surprising ways.

  Deep in contemplation, Lawrence stroked his beard lightly.

  “So, what shall we do?” His thoughts were interrupted by Holo.

  And the moment he looked at Holo’s face, he thought of the poultry they had been treated to not long ago.

  The meal in question had seen the chicken thighs boiled, then covered in a sauce made from vinegar, a touch of sweet herbs, and crushed mustard seed—a true delicacy.

  As to how magnificent it had actually been—well, there was still a fragment of the sweet herbs stuck to the corner of Holo’s mouth.

  Lawrence flicked it off with a finger, and Holo closed one eye in irritation.

  But Lawrence soon realized that she was not trying to hide embarrassment at being treated l
ike a child.

  Holo had looked away and given Col a quick wink.

  Col, while surprised, also looked impressed and nodded. Lawrence watched all this and sighed.

  Evidently Holo had put Col to a bet as to whether Lawrence would brush the herb crumb off her mouth.

  “Yes…what, indeed,” Lawrence murmured. There was no profit in her game. Lawrence pretended not to notice the wink.

  “He told us everything a lot more easily than I was expecting. It’s kind of disappointing, isn’t it?”

  “Oh?”

  “I was sure he’d try to hide more from us,” said Col.

  At Col’s words, it was now Lawrence’s turn to shoot Holo a quick glance.

  Their gazes met for a moment, and they both looked away quickly.

  That had to mean that Holo had realized something during the earlier conversation.

  Lawrence chose his words and spoke. “…Yes, well. We’ve confirmed that the Church believed the story from Rupi to be true, which means that there was something for them to believe in. Which is a big step forward.”

  Col nodded several times, his face serious.

  However, if Holo was feeling something ominous from Reynolds’s words and actions, then things might not be so simple.

  As the ensuing question would be hard to answer, Lawrence refrained from mentioning this to Col.

  Col was simply too kind.

  Even for someone as cynical as Holo, talking about her homeland was a dangerous proposition.

  It would be best to wait for the right moment and explain things carefully.

  “But there is one unfortunate thing.”

  “…?” Col looked up at Lawrence, his head cocked in a question.

  “Since we learned what we needed to know so easily, it looks like we won’t need to use our trump card.”

  “Ah…you mean about the copper coins?”

  Fifty-seven boxes packed with copper coins coming down the river had—after crossing the sea from the Jean Company—become sixty boxes, which was quite mysterious.

  Lawrence suspected that this might be a vulnerable spot for the Jean Company.

  If the Jean Company had tried to hide the story of the wolf remains, he could have used it to shake them down, and he had explained as much to Col.