“I’m sure you and the Church had a lovely honeymoon for a while. I’ve heard that it was throwing so much money around that nobody could figure out where it was coming from. But then it all ended, I’m guessing because of the northern campaign. The Church started to solidify its base of power and pulled out of the salt-smuggling racket rather than risk an uprising or two. And just then, this fur trouble came up. And being clever, this is what you proposed to the bishop–”
Eve raised the tip of her blade high.
Lawrence backed up another step.
“If the merchants waiting outside the town were going to buy up all the fur, why not just do it ourselves?”
Eve had said that she had heard the results of the Council of Fifty’s meeting from her contacts inside the Church.
Still, her skill had been far out of the ordinary.
Rather than imagining Eve had come up with all of this on the spot, it made more sense for Lawrence to believe that she had plotted it all along, and only just then took action.
And it went without saying who stood to profit the most from a rule that restricted fur sales to cash.
It would be extremely lucrative for the Church, in whose coffers sat a nearly unimaginable amount of money from the tithes it collected.
The bigger a trading firm became, the more of its business took place on paper, in entries on ledgers, with all of the money going into and out of the firm assiduously recorded, making raising money behind closed doors difficult.
And with the careful body searches being conducted at the town gates, and in the case of merchants coming to buy fur, the questioning of the origin of their money, a significant number of merchants could be contained.
But Eve still maintained confidence that she could buy up fur.
It was true that the foreign merchants had made long preparations, but now that the craftsmen and suppliers had rioted, none of them would risk giving foreigners any money at all.
And yet Eve was nervous.
That could mean only one thing.
She knew where the foreign merchants were going to get their money, and she knew there was nothing she could do to stop it.
That was the true motive of the Church in deciding to cut ties with the fallen noble merchant who, in addition to smuggling salt, had approached the archbishop of the region by the sea.
Eve said that the Church had claimed it was more advantageous to deal with a trade company than with an individual merchant.
And that was exactly so.
If the Church was going to partner with a trading company in an effort to buy up fur, then the action implied they had gained a powerful patron, thus allowing them to abandon her.
Eve must have thought that none of the outside merchants could possibly be carrying a large amount of money, but what if the Church carefully moved its tithe money outside the town?
The revolting craftsmen and merchants would discover that contrary to their belief, the foreign merchants had a large amount of money, probably because some entity within the town had betrayed them.
There hadn’t been a single lie in the story that Eve had presented Lawrence.
There had not been a lie… but it wasn’t the truth, either.
“The statue in Rigolo’s house is certainly rock salt. And you’re right that I was the one who brought the furs to the attention of that lousy bishop and right about him cutting me loose and finding another patron, as well. I’ll leave it up to you as to whether to believe me or not,” said Eve with a laugh, tossing the knife to the floor.
“Trust me,” she seemed to be saying.
Lawrence didn’t even wonder whether or not there was a need for her to lie this far in.
He would simply decide whether she was lying or not and act accordingly.
That was all.
“And the reason you think I brought the deal to you… that’s probably right, too.”
“I’m a shield to protect you.”
Eve shrugged. “I’m a salt smuggler who knows all the Church’s worst secrets. Of course, before we parted ways, they guaranteed my life. It was a verbal contract, so you never know. If a good opportunity were to arise, though, I’m sure they’ll use me again. So it must be true. And I did make a profit myself. I didn’t have any intention of starting an uprising, and I’m sure they know that.”
“But you couldn’t let the deal that you proposed to them get away.”
“Exactly. Even if it means I’ll be interfering with their expectations, I can t let this profit go.”
“So you thought to yourself, ‘They can kill one person, but it’s hard to kill two.’”
What would the Church think of Lawrence, a man who used his own companion as collateral in a deal that went against the interests of the town?
From the outside, he surely looked like a conspirator who knew all the ins and outs of Eve’s plan.
One person can be easily silenced, but as soon as there are two, things become difficult – all the more so when the second person is an outsider on whom they have no background information. Without knowing where Lawrence came from, there was no telling what trade firm or guild might come storming into the city if he was killed.
Lawrence had unknowingly played that role.
And because he hadn’t known anything about it, his performance had been magnificent.
He must have either seemed simply reckless or looked like he believed the Church unworthy of fear.
If he hadn’t known anything, if he had pretended not to know anything, the deal would surely have gone off well.
“So what’s it going to be?” Eve asked.
“It’s going to be this,” said Lawrence, and in that instant, he lunged for both the bag of gold and the blade.
“…”
“…”
The two glared wordlessly at each other.
A cold sweat broke out on Lawrence’s forehead.
The moment he reached out for the blade, a small knife had appeared in Eve’s hand, and she plunged it down at him.
And this time she was not striking with the flat of the blade.
That much Lawrence could predict, but getting out of the way would be a gamble.
“Do you crave money so much?” he asked.
By some miracle, he was able to twist Eve’s left hand away by the wrist.
While she was far from powerless, she was still a woman. The knife fell from her hand.
“D-don’t you…?”
“I do – no…” Lawrence paused before continuing. “I did.”
“That’s a funny–”
“Joke,” perhaps she would have said, but Lawrence twisted her arm around and shoved her against a stack of wooden crates, grabbing her collar with his free hand and yanking it back, cutting off her voice.
“If you kill me and hide my corpse, it probably won’t be found until long after the deal’s done. The Church would never guess that our partnership had fractured. I have to say, I’m impressed. Or were you simply planning to take the gold and run?”
Eve stood on tiptoes, her face contorted.
The oily sweat on her brow was proof that this was no act.
“No, you wouldn’t do that. The reason you tried to kill me is the bag you were looking for when I first entered the storeroom. You’re just dying to use it.”
That instant, Eve paled.
She realized that if he continued to choke her, her life could genuinely be in danger, and this showed on her face.
Money was more important to her than her life.
Lawrence laughed.
“So, it’s the money you made smuggling salt? What you managed to pile up over time must be at least equal to what I brought – maybe more. And you were going to buy fur with all that, with me none the wiser.”
Eve did not answer.
The tortured expression on her face seemed to come more from her fear that the money in her breast pocket would be taken than the fact that her plan had been revealed.
“The
reason you couldn’t do the fur deal yourself is because you have too much money on hand. If you tried that alone, the Church would think nothing of killing you. So you brought me in. It’s easy to kill one person, but killing two – that’s hard. And you’ll continue to pull together money to invest until the Church gets serious about eliminating us. It’s one thing not to care about a stranger’s life, but you don’t even care about your own. All you care about is profit!”
If it hadn’t been for that fact, Lawrence probably would have stayed quiet.
He probably would have pretended to be ignorant of the salt smuggling and simply focused on the deal.
But he couldn’t watch someone take such massive risks and simply let that go.
No matter how great the profit, there had to be a limit to the amount of risk one allowed.
What Eve was doing was tantamount to suicide.
Having come this far, he wanted – needed – to ask her why.
“What is it…?”
“…?”
“What is it at the end of all of this that makes taking such absurd risks worthwhile?”
Even as Lawrence hoisted her off the ground, even as her face turned dark red, even then, Eve smiled.
“I’m a merchant, too. Making money brings me happiness. But I don’t know what lies at the end of it all. First you make one silver piece, then two. Then after two, three. But have you never stopped to consider what awaits at the end of this drive to quench that constant thirst?”
Of course, Lawrence hadn’t considered this, either.
He didn’t have the luxury.
That was because since meeting Holo, he suddenly felt freer. His constant quest for profit had somehow diminished.
Its place had been supplanted by conversations with Holo.
Eve was probably his exact opposite.
She put profit above her own life.
“Wh-what… what do…” she began, her voice hoarser than usual.
Lawrence slackened his grip somewhat, and Eve wheezed as though asthmatic, coughing. Her smile never wavered as she continued.
“What do I… think is waiting?”
Her blue eyes stared straight into his. “Are you so childish as to think something is waiting?” she sneered.
He didn’t tighten his grip again. She had hit her mark perfectly.
“Every time I looked at the rich bastard that bought me, I wondered to myself – what could he possibly be doing with so much money? No matter how much you make, there’s no end to it, but the next day comes, and you can’t keep yourself from earning more. How awful to be rich, I thought.”
Eve coughed, took a deep breath, and continued. “And I must look like a pathetic creature to you. After all, I chose the same path he did.”
The next moment, Lawrence felt like he saw Eve’s hand move.
And then without really understanding what had happened, by the time he realized he’d been punched, he collapsed to the floor.
“I watched his vain efforts, even watched him die, and yet still I chose this path. Do you know why?”
It wasn’t the small knife that was now perched beneath Lawrence’s throat.
It was the large cleaver clutched in her hand, waiting vigilantly for a chance to do its job.
“–– That’s why,” said Eve, striking Lawrence’s face a terrible blow with the blade’s handle. His vision exploded in red light, then half his face blossomed into hot pain.
He realized his body felt much lighter, but he couldn’t get up.
Neither could he close his mouth, and with what felt more like unbearable disorienting pressure all over his body, he couldn’t even raise his voice. Yet somehow, using his elbow, Lawrence managed to roll over and get into a crawling position. He couldn’t move any more than that, and he looked at the drops of blood that pattered to the floor through his tear-blurred eyes.
His ears could still sort out the sounds around him, so he knew that Eve had left the storehouse.
She had probably taken the money.
That thought filtered like pleasantly cool water through his swimming head.
He didn’t know how long he was in there before some random guest of the inn entered and rushed to his side, helping him sit up.
He was a large, round man with clothes fringed in fur from all over. It had to be the old fur trader from the north Arold had mentioned.
“Are – are you all right?”
Lawrence laughed at the clichéd phrase in spite of himself, then managed a “sorry,” and nodded.
“Was it a robber?”
Finding a person collapsed in a storehouse naturally suggested as much.
But Lawrence shook his head in the negative.
“A broken deal, then?”
There were only so many types of misfortune that could befall a merchant.
“Oh, what’s this…” said the man, and when Lawrence saw what he had picked up, he forgot all about his painful face and laughed.
“What’s wrong?”
Evidently the fat man couldn’t read because he only cocked his head curiously at the paper, and when Lawrence reached for it, he handed it over, puzzlement written all over his face.
Lawrence looked down at the paper once again.
He really wasn’t misunderstanding.
Apparently Eve couldn’t quite bring herself to toss Lawrence entirely aside.
“Obsession maybe?” Lawrence murmured to himself, swallowing blood.
But that didn’t seem quite right.
Immediately after she had struck Lawrence with the haft of her cleaver, he’d caught the merest glimpse of Eve’s face.
It was neither obsessed nor avaricious.
“Hey, are you all right?” The man hastily tried to help Lawrence up when he started to stand, but Lawrence merely nodded and declined.
Eve had left him Arold’s deed to the inn.
As a fellow merchant, he could hardly fail to understand what she meant by this.
Having gotten to his feet, Lawrence began to walk, albeit unsteadily.
He tottered out of the storehouse and into the stable.
“She needs to see, does she?”
Eve had taken all his money.
There was only one place for Lawrence to go.
“She needs to see.”
He laughed again, then spat blood.
Epilogue
There were so many people in the streets that it was impossible to pass near the town square to get to the docks, owing to the fight between those trying to make the councils decision public and those who opposed that decision.
Angry shouts and bellows were exchanged, and tensions were high.
Not a one of them noticed Lawrence’s terrible state. That was how bad the riot was.
As long as the sun or moon was out, he could navigate a complicated city with nothing but the date and the direction. He ran through the streets, heading for the Delink Company.
Eve had probably gone directly to buy fur.
It didn’t seem like Lawrence was going to make staggering amounts of money, but he felt he didn’t mind.
Leaving behind the letter that proved Arold was surrendering the inn was probably Eve’s last concession, but for Lawrence it was enough.
The letter of guarantee he held was probably worth just shy of the amount he had borrowed from the Delink Company. At the very least, the merchants wanted to curry favor with Eve, who was nobility, a goal they would be able to accomplish. Whether or not they would be able to quickly collect the money from Lawrence was a secondary concern, and they would probably be willing to wait a bit on however much he came up short.
The problem was Holo.
What sort efface would she make once she found out Lawrence had let the deal that would have given him his dream slip away?
She would be enraged surely.
“Well, well!” It wasn’t just Eringin. Each of the members of the Delink Company considered him, their expressions neutral. Lawrence expected nothing l
ess.
When he asked where Holo was being kept, they led him to a single room within the building.
However, once he put his hand on the door, they stopped him with their eyes.
“Don’t lay a hand on the collateral,” they seemed to say.
Lawrence produced the deed that Eve had given him and handed it over to the Delink Company. They did the profit-loss computation so fast it put a traveling merchant to shame.
Eringin smoothly put the deed into his breast pocket and smiled – genuinely for once – before withdrawing.
Lawrence put his hand to the door and opened it.
“I said no one may enter–!” cried Holo, then cut herself off.
He had hoped she might cry, but evidently he didn’t give Holo enough credit.
Nonetheless, she was clearly shocked, her face a mask of anger.
“Why, you… you…” Her trembling lips seemed to make it difficult to articulate words.
Lawrence nonchalantly closed the door behind him and sat on the chair in the middle of the room.
“You fool!”
Holo flew at him. Surely those words were made to describe exactly what happened this moment.
He had expected it and so managed to avoid being thrown from the chair.
“Don’t – don’t tell me – don’t tell me you called off the deal!”
“I certainly didn’t. It was stolen right out from under me.”
Holo’s surprise was like that of a maiden whose favorite dress has been stained, and she grabbed Lawrence by his lapels using all of her strength.
“Was that not your dream?!”
“It was my dream. No. It still is.”
“Then why – why?”
“Why am I so calm, you mean?”
Holo looked on the verge of tears, her lips trembling violently.
Lawrence had been certain that regardless of the outcome of the deal, he would be separating from Holo in this town.
Holo felt the same way.
“We merchants worked a few things out, so I was left enough to buy you back from this company.”
At a loss for words… Lawrence wanted to label and frame Holo’s face as it was just then.
“Do – do you not remember why I was so frightened?”
“It’s too embarrassing. I can’t bring myself to speak of it.”
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