“With a drink in your hand?”
As Holo gave him a little glare, she stood up at the same time Lawrence did.
“I have gained a fair interest in trading, if not to the same degree as you.”
More of the same consideration from before? Lawrence thought, but Holo paid him no heed and opened her mouth. “For instance…”
“I am unaccustomed to gathering pieces one after another and thinking of how to put them all together as you do. I am more accustomed and better suited to thinking of one thing very carefully.”
“Certainly, you tend to repeat the same things over and over again.”
Holo looked up at Lawrence, grinning and laughing, kicking him around the ankle.
“So, there’s a part tugging at me concerning about this…”
“… Tugging at you?”
As Lawrence asked while extending his leg, Holo wore a serious expression and continued. “All this talk from you about coins reminds me of that bird country.”
“Bird country? Ahh, the kingdom of Winfiel.”
Holo nodded and continued.
“Why does this town not end up like that country?”
“Like that country?”
He parroted the question back, not understanding what she meant.
But Holo did not mock him for it, saying, “Aye.”
“When we went around the marketplace, everyone there smelled of soil and water. People of the forests and mountains. That is to say, they do not come to this town very frequently. So I wondered, why do things not become like in that bird country?”
The sharper the person, the less one attached a conclusion at the end of a long explanation.
Feeling like he was being tested, Lawrence somehow turned his head around to follow Holo’s logic.
“In… in other words… ah, you mean everyone selling their own cargo and returning home with coins in return.”
“Aye. Perhaps ’tis gold coins, perhaps ’tis silver. I wonder if ’tis not silver?”
Lumione gold pieces held their value well but were much scarcer than trenni silver pieces.
Indeed, debasement of trenni silver pieces through reducing the silver content was no trivial matter, something he had experienced firsthand in the uproar when he had met Holo.
However, using gold coins when one made small purchases was simply too inconvenient. If one were going to exchange them sooner or later, they would be better off having silver coins to begin with.
As Lawrence thought about it, he went, “Mm?
“In other words, no matter how much time passes the number of silver coins isn’t increasing; if they’re not careful, they’ll fall into a severe currency shortage just like Winfiel.”
“And in that bird country, you could eat to your heart’s content on a single coin, could you not?”
Holo’s fangs were peeking out as she spoke, probably because all that walking around had stirred her hunger.
“But that isn’t happening… Ah, that’s right. Never mind the market price, there’s no extreme currency shortage that we can see anywhere. Which means…”
“Someone is bringing in a great deal of it?”
“Yes. It’s making me think that, too. Perhaps the huge price spike in silver coins in Lenos was because large quantities were flowing up here.”
Lenos and Lesko were linked via the Roef River.
Perhaps someone astute had bought a large quantity of silver coins, or maybe people gained a great quantity from dealings during the disturbance over pelts. It was not strange at all to think that only a price fluctuation of that scale could drive silver coins out of an entire town.
Lenos and Winfiel had both suffered from a simple lack of coinage.
“Ah, and also.”
“Mm?”
“This place is awash with silver, yes? I wonder why they do not mint it themselves?”
Lawrence momentarily considered it, but he immediately dismissed the thought.
“You need craftsmen to mint a coin, see. You need hammers for stamping. You engrave the design for the coin into metal. You put that below the base form of the coin and pound it from above. The craftsmen who make the hammers aren’t likely to be let go by their king and to counterfeit them would be no different from an act of war against the kingdom of Trenni. Well, after that is the most important thing of all.”
Lawrence dug an appropriate coin out of his wallet, saying this:
“Coins are always marked by the passage of time. They get shaved, they tarnish. If it’s something new, you’ll notice the new minting immediately. It pretty much can’t be faked.”
Holo looked over the coin thoroughly; she then looked at Lawrence.
“Certainly, no matter how skillfully you dress it up, you cannot erase the fresh scent.”
Lawrence’s cheek twitched for a moment, but he replied calmly.
“Well, that’s why pure maidens like it; it’s just like them.”
Lawrence meant it as sarcasm, but it seemed to make Holo shamelessly happy.
But he corrected himself that if a misunderstanding improved her mood that, too, was fine.
“At any rate, someone has to be steady bringing in silver coins.”
What bothered him was, how could you replenish such a large outflow of silver coins? He could not even imagine how many coins were in circulation in an entire town or how many of those coins left the town all together.
But given the town’s gold and silver coin price differential, there had to be quite a few people sneaking out of town and sneaking back with silver coins. A large shipment of silver coins would require an armed escort and would spark a huge uproar, but a large number of travelers moving a little at a time might amount to the same thing.
Lawrence thought it must, but it just did not sit well.
But why?
When he had this feeling, it was usually because the answer was right under his nose.
Lawrence twisted his neck around and shifted to an exceedingly simple fact.
“Hey.”
“Mm?”
Perhaps because it was getting late, the stalls that had been selling only snacks were putting out dishes that were more like dinners. Holo’s face turned from the roadside stalls to Lawrence with a look of regret.
“What was the first impression you had of the Debau Company?”
“That one? That is…”
“Ah no. But how to put this… Er… all right, how about I put it like this. What did you expect this town to be like based on your impression of the Debau Company?”
Holo seemed to fume a bit from Lawrence’s vague wording, but she thought a little and replied.
“Probably the same as you did. Besides, we heard from that dancer girl on the ship on the river; a place with a lot of money, but no place for people to live, she said.”
“Yeah, she did say that. But that’s probably what a town that really is the entrance to a mine is like.”
“Aye. And we did not know that. That is to say, we had no way to imagine what this town’s atmosphere was like. We were not able to gather any information at the prior towns, were we?”
Lawrence nodded.
As he nodded, he said, “So I was right.”
“What about it?”
“Ah… er… I wondered if I’d missed something people had said or if I’d had a misconception about this town because of a failure of imagination.”
“Indeed.”
“But it doesn’t feel like that. If you didn’t hear anything, either, we really didn’t hear anything about it.
“Which means, it truly is strange. Even the talk of a silver coin influx feels inconsistent… It’s not the number of coins, it’s more fundamental than… Er… wait. Transporting silver coins?”
Around the time Lawrence pondered whether to finish speaking or not, the two of them arrived back at the inn.
Part of the stone pillars in front of the building had been hollowed out, with candles within emanating a flickering light.
That youngster was briskly cleaning up the entrance to the stables, looking relieved in the face of the day’s end.
The youngster was surely sighing in relief because he had been able to do many things today, just as the Myuri Mercenary Company from which Holo had received Myuri’s message had done many things in its history.
The many people within the same receptacle known as the world were much like how various textiles were manufactured. There were vertical threads and horizontal threads crossing each other, and there were things that would not cross in a single lifetime.
Lawrence found it a very mysterious thing.
But that was why on occasion a mysterious thread was weaved into a mysterious cloth.
“Hey.”
“Mm?”
Holo looked up at Lawrence as he called out to her.
They had exchanged ideas back and forth several times over; Lawrence thought it would be nice if it continued well after.
Of course, as he was not a fool, he did not expect they could simply repeat the same thing over and over again.
Even so, Lawrence hesitated for a while before finally saying this: “There’s one obviously strange thing we discovered that bothers me more than the rest.”
Holo lightly raised an eyebrow.
A moment later, she curled up the corner of her lip.
“I do not wish for preambles. What is it you wish to say?”
She knew all about his inability to let any stone go unturned.
Trying to hide his guilty conscience, Lawrence looked all around before looking down at Holo.
“It might sit poorly with you.”
“And?”
“But… but through this we might be able to see the Debau Company’s plan; furthermore, whether it’s going to be bad for Yoitsu and the northlands. If it’s not, this town might grant my longtime wish of having my own store.”
It was probably because Lawrence spoke of such convenient possibilities with such a serious face.
Her eyebrow still raised, Holo made a strained laugh.
“Aye. And?”
Lawrence gazed straight into those red-ringed amber pupils. The shift from sunlight to candlelight as dusk fell over Lesko seemed to deepen those colors even further.
As usual, he needed to take a short breath before answering.
“I don’t want you to hate me, but I won’t kill my own curiosity, either.”
Holo took in a breath that seemed to puff up her body and made a wolfish, bare-fanged smile.
“Mm. ’Tis not a problem, then. Though I know not what has come to your mind.”
Holo took Lawrence’s hand and the two walked side by side. As they entered the tavern, the mercenaries were already busy, dancing with girls that were probably office assistants rounded up from nearby stores.
In a corner of the tavern, Luward, Moizi, and two others were seated at a table and, unlike the others, were quietly eating their food. Perhaps sensing Lawrence’s gaze, Luward noticed and raised his mug in a greeting.
As Lawrence could not go raising his voice here, he did as townspeople often did, making his own greeting by lightly raising his cap.
When Luward motioned to the table, Lawrence looked at Holo and nodded.
Lawrence put his hand on Holo’s back, gentlemanly moving her forward through the congested tavern.
And instead of saying, “Don’t drink too much,” he leaned his mouth close to Holo’s ears and said this: “Gold coins don’t well up out of the ground like a spring. That being the case, either the Debau Company’s hiding something or someone else is hiding what they’re doing. Or perhaps both.”
The pat he gave to her back must have looked to Luward and the others like encouragement to ease Holo’s nerves.
However, it was not so. There were only so many actors dancing in the Debau Company’s backyard. If someone was hiding something, the possibility that someone was a person very close by was very high.
Holo replied, “I see,” nodding with a daring look.
Lawrence and Holo bounded to the mercenaries’ dining table.
Chapter 4
“Oh, you looked around town? Was there anything interesting?”
Luward was using polite language in front of Holo.
“Yes, several things.”
The silverware was actual silver.
Furthermore, there were small utensils that resembled pitchforks that Lawrence had only heard rumors about.
Apparently, nobles in the south used them to impale meat and vegetables for eating.
“We have merchants in our supply corps, but it feels odd to call them merchants. And Moizi here can do planning but not trading.”
“Coins are too small for my hands.”
Following in Luward’s footsteps, Moizi showed off his rocklike hands, able to grip both sword and pen.
“So for that reason, we’d like to hear your opinion, Mr. Lawrence. For various reasons, we are not blessed with the opportunity to befriend a merchant very often.”
He was a member of a mercenary band. It was said, when such a band passed through, not even a single turnip was left behind.
Having dinner and sharing quiet conversation with someone like Lawrence was a very unusual occurrence, to the point it still seemed to be throwing them off somewhat. Usually, they only spoke to merchants to extort money, to extort merchandise, or to ask questions under pain of decapitation or disembowelment.
Even if that was overstating the case, he did not think they would meet many merchants they could have a frank discussion with. At best, it would just be people with particular idiosyncrasies like those of the Delink Company and Philon Company.
But merchants neither frightened their enemies nor were frightened by them. That had to be rather difficult to deal with.
“I’m unsure I can fulfill such expectations, but…”
With a smiling face, Lawrence paused there, putting down the bread that was in his hand.
“… The thing that most surprised me is how cheap buildings are being sold.”
“Ah, that’s right… I heard from my subordinates that Mr. Lawrence and… Miss Holo had been in front of a building for sale.”
Luward was unsure what honorific to use for Holo, but Holo grinned pleasantly back at him.
“Yes, I’m a little embarrassed at having been seen like that.”
“You shouldn’t be. Many of our members who survive over the years save up and find a town to live in. It’s a dream we can understand.”
Surely that was not simple flattery.
Luward and Moizi exchanged looks and cut the meat up, and in no time at all Holo’s empty plate had been filled to the brim.
“But those prices really are low enough to shock, then?”
Luward was not a man capable only of swinging a sword.
“Yes. Furthermore, this town doesn’t seem to have small annoying guilds.”
“That’s correct. A number of our men seem to be thinking about staying behind here as well. Some are getting on in years and feeling their old wounds.”
Luward spoke as he looked around the inn like a king surveying a town from his castle.
Certainly, the Myuri Mercenary Company had many valiant veterans as befitted its history.
Excepting newly formed groups focusing only on the short-term, transitory issues of battle day after day, leaving midway to live in a town was probably fairly common. Perhaps the company had support from a variety of places thanks to that.
“Most of all, it’s great to not have people asking questions.”
So Luward said.
No guilds meant there was no one to inspect or monitor a person, either.
This town didn’t even have walls.
“That’s certainly the case. And there’s money in it, too, I think.”
Lawrence’s words drew the gazes of everyone at the table.
Money was money no matter how you earned it.
That was not something mercenaries that had sh
ed much blood could easily ignore.
“What do you mean?”
“The price of goods and the price of coin are both determined naturally, as if by the hand of God. Surely it is the same for the coin prices in this town. However, it is not always so.”
With meat still impaled on Luward’s pitchfork-like utensil, he looked at Lawrence, then at Moizi.
No doubt the care they put into the movements of their gazes and their speech were all on account of Holo.
Lawrence trusted in that and focused on his own speech.
“What appears to be decided by naturally comes from numerous people acting in their own interests.”
Luward and the others, accustomed to predicting the movements of people on the battlefield and the movements of rulers atop maps, made various nods.
Lawrence, confirming that was the case, said this: “The coin prices in this town surprised me more than the low prices of buildings. However, even if all of this is by the hand of God, God is not responsible for everything.”
He had meant to close his mouth if anyone raised an objection, but everyone at the table was listening closely to Lawrence’s story.
Like wolves, their ears were open no matter which way their feet pointed.
“In other words, let’s say there’s an unusual deviation in this town’s prices, say in coins, trenni silver pieces in this case. Even if they accumulated in this town by natural circumstance, there would absolutely not be an accumulation of silver coins alone.”
That would be like having the white of an egg in the center.
Luward, who favored the showy, glanced up at the ceiling slightly as he interjected.
“So there has to be someone bringing coins in.”
“That’s right. And when one person moves, it always attracts the attention of other people. After all, I didn’t have any idea about this town’s currency movements whatsoever.”
He leaped one step beyond his logic.
The audience, led step-by-step through Lawrence’s story, looked completely left behind.
“?”
Everyone craned their necks forward to hear how Lawrence’s story continued.
If this were a negotiating table, here was where merchants would decapitate these men of the blade in one fell swoop, making a killing.
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