Town of Strife I

by Isuna Hasekura

  It was all too likely that some well-known nobleman or clergyman had the remains.

  But they would never negotiate with some unknown merchant.

  Who they would negotiate with was a merchant prince wealthy enough to have purchased a title—or true fellow nobility.

  “Even from what I heard, reinforcement seemed possible.”

  “Meaning?”

  “The church in the town we were just in, I hear, has been very bold in spreading the teachings of their God and has been inspiring their flock all along the river. That verve has reached all the way to the northern mountains, the heartland of paganism, and there gives courage to the knights fighting with pagans on the front line.”

  Col sat up with a start and looked straight at Holo.

  In the worst case, her statement could mean that the Church’s hand had fallen upon his town.

  “But the northern pagans’ resistance has been fierce, and since for the nonce the missionary efforts are making little progress, the Church men were warning me not to be swayed from the true path, despite the mistaken beliefs of my kith and kin.”

  Col looked visibly relieved, and as he slumped, his shoulders sagged, seeming to lose half their posture.

  It was clear Holo had heard quite a bit of the Church’s specialty—stories that were not precisely lies but left a mistaken impression upon the listener.

  Holo was not so patient as to be able to happily listen to such foolishness.

  As long as she was not in a foul mood, she would not tease someone about his or her town for fun.

  “The Church can never appear weak in its dealings with pagans. For them to state something so close to the truth must mean their true situation is desperate. If so, considering the situation with the bishopric in Lenos, talk of drastic measures to reverse their position—such as getting the wolf remains into their hands—cannot be easily dismissed as absurd.”

  “Too true. When I mentioned the bones, the fools would speak of the need to take them as quickly as possible, to show the pagans the error of their ways,” spat Holo, her tail swishing violently enough to cause her robe to flip up as she sat forcefully down on the bed.

  Lawrence had no words for Holo and, letting a slight sigh escape, tried to put his thoughts in order.

  “There’s no doubt that the Jean Company is looking for the remains. And they’re closing in on the location. Or perhaps it’s better to say that they’re getting closer to handing them over to the Church.”

  “And should we just go then to this whatever-’tis-called company?”

  Holo’s upturned glance was frightening as ever.

  Lawrence shook his head at her bare-fanged statement. “Imagine what would happen if we tried to solve everything with brute force. Your true nature would absolutely come out, and the Church’s rage would be roused. A pagan god in the flesh—‘all ye faithful servants of God, rise and take swords in hand,’ they would say.”

  Holo was not such a child as to say she would merely tear all who opposed them to shreds.

  She understood the difference of magnitude, and more importantly, she could not fail to know that such an act would give the deadlocked Church renewed will and resolve.

  “If possible, our solution should be money. In the worst case, a secret theft would also work.”

  “Such childish gambits—” began Holo, but stopped herself at Lawrence’s quiet gaze.

  “Enough money can easily kill a person. With money, your homeland could be stripped bare. It is not ‘childish.’”

  Lawrence was a merchant, and merchants risked their lives to make money.

  He knew well how difficult that was and also the power it held.

  Holo grunted something that might or might not have been agreement, then looked away.

  “Still, now that we’ve recognized the situation, the question becomes what we can do about it, and the answer may well be ‘not very much.’”

  “…Why should that be? If this company is seeking the aid of that vixen, then we have two choices.”

  “Two?”

  Anticipating a display of the celebrated cleverness of a wisewolf, Lawrence turned to look at Holo, who patted Col on the head.

  “We can use this fellow’s wits to threaten them.”

  She was referring to the mystery of the copper coin that the Jean Company handled.

  “I see,” murmured Lawrence. “And the other?”

  At those words, a mysterious smile appeared on Holo’s face, and she moved smoothly toward Lawrence.

  He suddenly had a bad feeling about this, not for any particular reason, but simply because of his experiences with Holo thus far.

  “We do what that company wants and play matchmaker twixt them and the vixen. We can hear the location of the wolf remains once she’s been asked where they are.”

  There was a head of height difference between Lawrence and Holo.

  When she stood directly in front of him, Holo had to look distinctly up, but it was Lawrence who felt overpowered.

  “There may be some possibility of that with the Jean Company, but there’s still a clear flaw there.”

  “Oh, aye?”

  Did she have some secret plan? Lawrence wondered, but his common sense refuted it.

  “Yes. What profit is there for Eve in doing that? If we ask her where the remains are, make no mistake that she’ll instantly be on guard against having them stolen away. Why would she…?” asked Lawrence when Holo’s provocative smile made him realize.

  Her tail was wagging her irritation for just that reason.

  “We need but seduce her. You’re trying to fool this wisewolf, so it should be no trouble at all, nay?”

  Love affairs trumped proper business deals.

  This wolf already knew full well things that Lawrence had learned in his many years as a merchant.

  But Lawrence didn’t understand why she was speaking about it with such irritation.

  Setting aside whether or not it was a real possibility, as a potential means to an end it certainly existed.

  So long as they were only discussing it, there was no need for such ill temper.

  Lawrence flinched a bit at Holo’s smile, and Holo looked suddenly behind her.

  “Col, my lad, close your eyes and cover your ears.”

  “Wha—?”

  He hesitated for but a moment.

  By this time well trained by Holo, Col obeyed her with frightening speed.

  Holo gave a satisfied sigh and turned back to Lawrence. “Did you think I had not noticed?”

  Her smile disappeared, and she grabbed Lawrence’s ear and pulled him close.

  “Wh-what are you—”

  “Even you can tell what someone has eaten by what remains on their mouth. But I can tell by scent alone. Even the slightest morsel if I get that close.”

  Lawrence soon realized what Holo was referring to by “that close.”

  He had listened to Eve by the spring of gold, then had his pathetic worries soothed on the second floor of the tavern.

  But why was Holo angry about that now of all times? Lawrence wondered, then realized something strange—something immediately following his conversation with Eve, and now the possibility of seducing her.

  And this strange roundabout talk of being able to tell what someone had eaten by scent alone.

  “Ah—”

  Just as Lawrence realized, Holo drew so near that he could count her individual eyelashes.

  “All I can do is pray you stop being such a reckless male. I’d then spend less effort trying to teach you the difference betwixt courage and foolhardiness.”

  When they had spoken by the spring of gold, Eve had drunk the same ale that Lawrence had.

  Among merchants, cup sharing was not something worth worrying about.

  But while that might hold true for merchants, it was not necessarily so for Holo.

  “Look here, this is a misunderstanding.”

  Lawrence tried to defend himself from at lea
st that count, whereupon Holo violently released his ear and spoke in a quiet voice.

  “I am perfectly aware of that. I told you, ’tis impossible to hide anything from me.”

  It had not particularly hurt, but Lawrence still rubbed his ear as he turned his gaze away tiredly.

  It would have been far more charming of her to simply admit her worry—and if he said so, he would get an ear bitten off.

  Also, this business with Eve was only a possibility, and the moment they would have to bet on that possibility was rapidly approaching.

  Or was it just the very fact of the prospect entering their field of view that upset Holo so?

  Lawrence wondered about it as Holo roused Col, who had obediently placed his head down on the table.

  He thought he understood, more or less.

  Holo was truly worried.

  As the tale of the wolf bones took on more plausibility, her worry was no doubt turning stronger.

  “In any case, what we should do now is—” Holo began with strange vigor, which snapped Lawrence out of his reverie.

  Col was cleaning up the table surface in Holo’s direction.

  Just as Lawrence was wondering what she was up to, Holo held Lawrence’s coin purse up, having loosened it from his waist at some point, and continued talking.

  “—We put an end to this stubbornness and ask young Col for his thoughts. Unless your heart’s set on seducing that vixen, that is.”

  Lawrence, of course, only slumped and sighed.

  Only the finest trading companies had glass windows.

  Normally they had either nothing at all or oil-soaked cloth at best.

  The inn where Lawrence and company were staying was no exception, and the opened outside windows freely let in both the clamor of the town and the frigid air.

  But for once, the cold wind had been forgotten.

  And it was not because they were doing something so hot it let them forget the cold.

  This was what it meant to be stunned into silence.

  “…It can’t be…,” Lawrence finally murmured.

  He rubbed his eyes and looked again.

  That did not, of course, change the reality of what was on the table.

  “…Aye, common sense is a troublesome opponent…and yet…and yet…”

  Lawrence knew of many methods to cheat in business, and the more complicated they were, the more power they had.

  Moneychangers’ fraud happened in the exchange markets, with their hundreds of varieties of coins, old and new, from near and far, and fraud around the buying and selling of physical wares involved either complicated machinations or deals made on intricate timelines.

  Of course, there were more straightforward frauds, but in most cases, those relied on the skillful tongue of the swindler as opposed to the method itself.

  This was the first time Lawrence had been so surprised by both a trick’s nature and its source.

  “Er…I don’t remember the exact amount, but if they used this method and made a bit of an adjustment, they would go from fifty-seven boxes of copper coin to sixty…I think.”

  Lawrence and Holo’s shock made Col’s voice a little less certain.

  “No, I’m sure it would. Yes, I see. And no one would be the wiser.”

  “Doubtless not. And still…hnh,” Holo muttered in frustration, pinching Col’s cheek.

  Lawrence could not even manage that.

  Col had discovered a mystery: Fifty-seven boxes of imported copper coin had become sixty boxes when exported.

  The answer lay in the difference between packing coins in parallel stacks of similar height or alternating rows.

  Either way resulted in a perfectly packed box, such that if any coins were stolen, it would be immediately obvious.

  Moreover, even if there were verbal instructions to “pack coins tightly in boxes,” the discrepancy would not be noticed, and in any case, transporting perfectly packed boxes of fixed size reduced the time spent counting coins, also ensuring that if any coins were taken, they would be immediately noticed. So at a given time and place, the only person concerned with how many coins were packed in a box was the buyer receiving them.

  While in transit, nobody worried about how many coins were in a box.

  This was because taxes were levied by the box, as were transportation fees.

  “I wonder, though—has no one else noticed this?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I’ll agree that Col is a bright lad, but there are many bright people in the world. If you did this for years, surely you would eventually meet someone else who knows the trick, would you not?”

  Ragusa, the boatman who carried the copper coins down the Roam River to the Jean Company, did the route several times a year and had been doing so for two years.

  And it was true that over two years, someone would have opened up one of the boxes and looked at its contents.

  But there was one important thing.

  “The Jean Company is probably cutting down on the taxes and transport costs they pay and turning profit on the excess, but there’s something very particular necessary for anyone to finally realize that they are making dishonest gains.”

  “Aye?”

  “…Ah! The manifest!” Col’s cheek was still being pinched by Holo, but with something to think about, he did not seem to notice or mind. He quickly gave the answer with a smile, coming back to himself and looking at Holo.

  Holo pinched harder on Col’s cheek, as that was indeed the correct answer.

  “Yes. Only after we know the details of the export and import can we begin to suspect foul play. There is far too much volume of trade in the world to constantly suspect this kind of fraud. One can’t inspect everything.”

  Even if he wanted to live cautiously, there were many things that escaped the eye.

  Lawrence picked up one of the copper coins that was lined up on the table and sighed.

  “Still,” said Holo, having harassed Col for a while, “this means we’ve found a weapon to threaten that company, does it not?” she added, her eyes flashing.

  Lawrence debated whether to toss cold water on that, ultimately deciding that hiding it from her would only worsen things.

  Disappointment was always worse when it took longer to arrive.

  “Unfortunately,” Lawrence began, at which Holo’s smile instantly froze. “As a weapon, it’s rather meager.”

  “Why?” She was more frightening now than when she wore her halfhearted face of annoyance.

  But nothing would be solved by holding back his words. “He’s reducing the number of boxes shipped by three and profiting via the reduced taxes and transport costs. If this comes to light, the Jean Company will either have to pay penalties or lose their credibility as a trading company. But…”

  “But the difference between that penalty and the profit from the wolf bones is too great. ’Tis the same as when we bought these clothes, is it not?” suggested Holo, grabbing at her own garments.

  She had calmed her irritated face, perhaps because she had realized there was nothing to do but accept reality.

  “That’s right. It might’ve been just the right weapon to use if they were only chasing the wolf tale for fun.”

  Holo did seem aggrieved, but she was not dejected about having lost one of their leads.

  Col, who had solved the riddle of the copper coins in the first place, had gotten ahead of her on that count.

  He had surely been looking forward to his knowledge being useful.

  Up until a moment earlier, Holo had been pinching his cheek, but now she ruffled his hair in an elder sisterly way.

  “Aye, well, that just means the problem’s a large one. ’Tis better this than something solved with the trade of a single apple.”

  “Quite right. If one method won’t work, we’ll just move on to the next.”

  Talk was cheap, of course.

  They needed but to find something that Reynolds would weigh favorably against the wolf remains, but if
such a thing were easily obtained, none of them would need to worry so.

  Or perhaps, as Reynolds had been gathering stories and thereby found some hint as to the bones’ location, Lawrence and company needed to follow that example and search out more information.

  If Reynolds, who did business in Kerube, had managed to find something, then perhaps Kieman had at least a crumb of knowledge.

  Lawrence did not know what Kieman was planning, but it surely involved Eve, and the guild would undoubtedly ask some favor of Lawrence on that count. So as compensation for that, perhaps he could ask for information.

  It seemed something was happening in the town, so it would not be possible for a little while, but if Kieman’s hand had to wait, Lawrence did not particularly mind.

  If there was a problem, it had to be—

  “If we’re thinking of our next move, our problem becomes this: When will Eve depart this town? Judging by what she said, it seems like she wants to free herself from the troublesome ties she has here. She likely plans to leave and not return for some time. And if Reynolds knows that—”

  “She’ll tell him what she knows, and soon.”

  Time, as ever, was the enemy.

  Lawrence muttered, and Holo continued speaking.

  “Which means there’s naught to do but seduce her.”

  Lawrence glared sharply at her—this after how angry she had been just a moment ago.

  But given the circumstances, even ridiculous possibilities had to be carefully considered.

  In reality, there were countless times when a missed chance would put something out of reach for all eternity.

  If the bones fell under Church authority, there was a very real possibility that they would vanish into darkness.

  Holo played with Col’s hair, and Lawrence stroked his beard as they both considered the possibilities.

  Col likewise was surely deep in thought, but three heads were not better than two.

  As precious time slipped away, Holo seemed to grow frustrated with thinking and moved away from Col and toward the bed, sitting down and fidgeting her tail out.

  Lawrence watched this and looked at Col, who likewise looked back at him.

  The two exchanged a sad smile, as though agreeing a short break was in order, when—

  “Hmph.” Holo looked up, her ears turning toward the hallway.