Lawrence thanked her profusely and made ready to leave Diana’s house.
Just as he was closing the door, he thought he heard her say something very softly: “Good luck to you.”
When he turned to ask, the door was already closed.
Did she know of the battle between him and Amati?
Something was strange about the conversation, but Lawrence had no time to dwell on it.
Next, he needed to return to Mark’s stall and then search out others who might possess pyrite in quantity.
He was short on time—and as if that wasn’t bad enough, he had essentially no pyrite on hand.
Were this to continue, it would be no contest at all. His only recourse would be to pray for divine intervention.
Even if it meant leaning on his friend, Lawrence had to get
Mark to give him some names, and even if he had to pay more than it was worth, he had to get pyrite.
Lawrence wondered to himself if his frantic nocturnal dealings would bring him any closer to Holo, and his only answer was uncertainty.
When he arrived back at Marks stall, Lawrence found Mark sitting at the same table, still drinking ale, though now his apprentice was beside him, devouring a piece of bread.
Just as Lawrence thought it an odd time for the boy to be taking dinner, Mark noticed his presence.
“Any luck?” he asked.
“Just what you see,” said Lawrence, waving his hands lightly as he looked Mark in the eye. “I spoke with Diana, but someone’s beaten me to it. No telling how this’ll turn out.”
“Someone got there first?”
“I’ve no choice but to place my hopes in what you told me.”
Given Diana’s willingness to cooperate, Lawrence guessed the odds were maybe 70-30 of that working out.
But he expected that acting like there was no hope would make Mark a bit more sympathetic.
In his previous exchange with Mark, Lawrence had learned that his request for aid was an unreasonable one from the perspective of a town merchant.
Which left an appeal to emotion as the only other option.
However, Mark’s reply was slow in coming.
“Ah...yes, about that.”
Lawrence listened to the noncommittal statement as the blood drained from his face.
Mark thwacked his apprentice on the head, gesturing with his chin. “So? Let’s hear the results.”
The boy gulped down a bite of bread and quickly stood up out of the log chair. “If we pay in trenni silver, then...three hundred seventy pieces’ worth of py—”
“Don’t just say it in front of everyone!” Mark looked around hastily as he clamped a thick hand over the boy’s mouth. If the conversation were overheard, it would be trouble. “So that’s how it is.” Lawrence was confused.
Paying in trenni silver? Three hundred seventy pieces’ worth? “Ha-ha, I can’t help but enjoy it when you make that face. See, after you left, I thought it over.”
Mark took his hand from the boy’s mouth and reached for his ale cup, his tone amused.
“I refused your request because I have a reputation to uphold. Any other town merchant would do the same. But even I have bought some you-know-what to make some money on the side—and many others have done likewise. The reason I can only buy a limited amount is that I have very little cash on hand. By all rights, the price of wheat should be dropping since the people laying in goods for their return trips haven’t been buying wheat. And yet the people who’ve come to sell wheat are selling it right off—which is where all my cash has gone. So...”
Mark gulped down some ale, belching comfortably before continuing.
“So what of the people who do have cash? I can’t believe they’d be able to resist. They’ve probably been buying up you-know-what in large quantities behind the scenes. And here’s where you need some backstory. You see, these merchants aren’t lone wolves like you. Each one has their business, their position, their reputation. And they’ve bought this stuff, but the price has risen so high that it’s getting hard to sell. All they need do is sell a little bit to bring in a surprising profit, but this makes some of them even more nervous. So what happens next? I’m sure a clever fellow like you can figure it out.”
Lawrence nodded his head after a moment.
Mark must have had his apprentice running all over town, spreading a rumor—a rumor that had to go something like this: There’s a mad traveling merchant in town who wants to buy pyrite with cash. Why not take the chance to unload some of that pyrite that’s not selling?
It would be a perfect opportunity for those merchants.
And to be sure, there was no question that Mark had signed a contract promising him a service fee for brokering the hidden transaction.
It was brilliant—conducting a pyrite deal under the pretense of doing someone a favor.
But to have been able to pull together 370 trenni worth—there was clearly pressure to sell in the marketplace.
“So that’s how it is. If you’re on board, I’ll send the boy out immediately.”
There was no reason to refuse.
Lawrence undid the tie of the burlap sack he had on his back.
But then he stopped. “Still—”
Mark regarded him dubiously.
Lawrence returned to himself and quickly retrieved a bag ol silver coins from the sack and placed it on the table. “Sorry,” he muttered.
Mark seemed momentarily at a loss for Lawrence’s strange behavior. “This is when you thank me, right?”
“Ah, er, yes, sor...no, I mean—” Lawrence suddenly felt like he was speaking to Holo. “I mean, thanks.”
“Bwa-ha-ha-ha! If I’d known you were such an amusing guy, I'd have...Actually, I suppose not.”
Mark took the bag of silver from Lawrence and quickly looked at it; then he undid the string and handed the bag to his apprentice, who quickly emptied its contents and began counting the silver pieces.
“You’ve changed,” said Mark.
“...Is that so?”
“Quite. You used to be not an excellent merchant, but a merchant wholly from head to toe. That’s all there was of you. You never even truly thought of me as a friend, did you?”
Mark had the right of it. Lawrence had no response.
The wheat seller just smiled, though. “But what of now? Am I merely a convenient merchant to do a deal with?”
Lawrence was momentarily stunned. He couldn’t possibly nod at this statement.
Feeling as though he were trapped in the center of some strange illusion, he shook his head no.
“That’s why I could never content myself with the life of a traveling merchant. But there’s something even more interesting.”
Was this because Mark had been drinking? Or was there some other reason?
Mark continued, sounding truly amused. His face was chestnut round now despite the square cut of his beard.
“Let me ask you one thing. If it were me whose separation you were faced with, would you be running around town as frantically as you are now?”
The boy, who lived every day with Mark as his master, looked up at the two men.
Lawrence found this all very mysterious.
Though he certainly thought of Mark as a friend, he could not honestly bring himself to nod and say “yes” to that question.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha. Well, I look forward to the future. Still”—he paused, then continued quietly—“it’s for your companion that you’re so desperate.”
Lawrence felt as though he’d swallowed something hot and felt it pass down into his stomach.
Mark looked at his apprentice. “This is what a man looks like when he’s obsessed with a woman. But it’s the unbending branch that breaks in a strong wind.”
A single year weathered alone was worth less than half a year with company.
So how much older than Lawrence might Mark be?
“You’re no different from me. You’ve got the traveling merchant’s
curse,” said Mark.
“C-curse?”
“But it’s almost broken, which is what’s made you so amusing. Do you not see? Did you not begin traveling with your current companion out of nothing more than good fortune?”
Holo had happened to hide herself in his wheat-filled wagon as Lawrence had passed through the village.
That he’d become close to her was nothing more or less than good fortune’s gift.
“Bwa-ha-ha! I feel like I’m looking at myself when I first met Adele! You’ve got the curse, all right.”
Lawrence felt like he finally understood.
Though Holo was very important to him, there was a part of him that always preserved a certain cool distance between them.
He hadn’t realized how blind he’d become to his surrounding because of Holo.
It was an unbalancing situation.
“The curse...You mean that famous ‘traveling merchant', complaint’?”
Mark guffawed, then smacked his apprentice—who’d stopped working—upside the head. “The poets will tell you that money can’t buy love, and the priest will tell you that there are things more precious than money. But if that’s so, why is it we labor so hard to earn money, then gain something even more precious?”
Lawrence had thought so little about what exactly Holo was to him because she was always right there beside him.
If her presence had been something he had gained only after laboring long and hard, he would not have been so ambivalent.
He’d always believed that anything truly precious required much effort to gain.
If she was to ask him “What am I to you?” now, Lawrence was sure he could answer.
“Ah, such a fine tale I’ve not told in a long time. Combined with the information on conditions in the north, why, ten lumione seems a bargain!”
“If you’d made all this up, it’d be extortion,” said Lawrence indignantly. Mark only grinned, which in turn teased a smile out of Lawrence.
“I hope all goes well for you.”
Lawrence nodded, his mood clear like a cloudless evening sky. “Though I suppose how it turns out is up to you...”
“Hm?”
“Ah, nothing,” said Mark with a shake of his head. He gestured to the boy, who had finished counting up the silver coins. The apprentice was a model of competence as he made his preparations and was ready to depart a moment later.
“Right, off with you, then.” Mark sent the apprentice on his way and then turned back to Lawrence. “So where will you be sleeping tonight?”
“Haven’t decided yet.”
“Well, then—”
“Wait, I’ve decided. May I sleep here?”
Mark gave Lawrence a blank look. “Here?”
“Quite—you’ve wheat sacks aplenty. Lend me a few of those.”
“I can certainly lend you some, but come to my house. I won’t even charge you.”
“Ah, but this will bring luck.” The practice was something many a traveling merchant believed.
Mark gave up on pressing his invitation further. “I’ll see you here, dawn tomorrow.”
Lawrence nodded, and Mark raised his cup.
“A toast then to your dreams.”
Chapter 5
Lawrence sneezed grandly.
Of course, it didn’t make a difference when he traveled alone, but lately he’d had a certain cheeky, irritable companion, so Lawrence always minded himself. Now, though, it seemed he was slipping—hence the sneeze.
He frantically checked to see if the other occupant of the blanket was still asleep—only to realize that side was rather cold.
And then he remembered that he was alone, sleeping on the wheat sacks next to Mark’s stall.
He’d tried to prepare himself for it and had after all chosen to sleep alone, but upon awakening, he still felt a huge sense of loss.
Lawrence was used to someone being beside him when he awoke.
He had become so quickly accustomed to it that only now did he realize its value.
Lawrence overcame his reluctance to part from his warm blanket and stood up suddenly.
Frigid air immediately attacked him.
The morning sky was still dim, but already Mark’s apprentice was sweeping the area in front of the stall.
“Oh, good morning, sir.”
“Good morning,” said Lawrence.
It didn’t seem like this was a show put on for the benefit of his master’s acquaintance; undoubtedly it was the boy’s habit to wake this early in order to prepare the stall for opening. He casually greeted a few other boys that passed by.
He was an admirable apprentice.
More than whatever training Mark had given him, the boy simply seemed like an excellent individual.
“Ah, that reminds me—”
The boy turned around smartly as soon as Lawrence spoke.
“Did you hear from Mark what’s happening today?”
“Er, no...are we not forcing the dastardly villain into a trap?” asked the apprentice.
The boy lowered his voice and spoke in such an exaggeratedly serious fashion that Lawrence was stunned for a moment. With a true merchant’s discipline, he managed to keep a straight face anti nodded. “I can’t tell you all the details, but that’s it, more or less. I may have to ask a serious favor of you in the process.”
The boy held his broom at his side like a sword and gulped.
Seeing the boy made Lawrence sure of one thing.
He might well have been the promising young apprentice of a wheat seller, but in his heart he still longed for the life of a knight.
After all, one only sees “dastardly villains” in fairy tales.
Lawrence got a ticklish feeling, as though he was looking back on his younger self.
“What’s your name, lad?”
“Ah, er, it’s—”
When a merchant asked another person for their name, it was an acknowledgment of that person’s status.
The boy had probably never been asked his name before in his life.
Despite his visible fluster, he really was an admirable lad, Lawrence felt.
The boy straightened up and answered. “Landt. My name is Eu Landt.”
“Born in the northlands, were you?”
“Yes, from a village frozen in snow and frost.”
Lawrence saw that Landt’s description was not just an easy way to convey a sense of his hometown, but a literal description of how it must have seemed when he looked back on it for the last time.
That was how things were in the north.
“I see. Well, I’m counting on you today, Landt.” Lawrence extended his right hand, and Landt hurried to wipe his own hand off on his tunic before shaking Lawrence’s proffered hand.
The boy’s palm was rough and callused, and who knew what sort of future it might grasp?
Lawrence knew he had to win.
He let the boy’s hand go.
“Well then, first let’s fill our bellies, eh? Is there any place nearby that’s selling food yet?”
“There’s a stand that sells dry bread to travelers. Shall I go and buy some?”
“Indeed,” said Lawrence and produced two tarnished irehd pieces that were so dark they looked almost coppery.
“Er, one piece should be plenty,” said Landt.
“The other’s an advance on your help today. Of course, I’ll pay you a proper consideration when it’s all done.”
The boy was stunned.
Smiling, Lawrence added, “If you dawdle, Mark’s liable to arrive. No doubt he’ll claim breakfast is a luxury, don’t you think?”
Landt nodded hastily and then dashed off.
Lawrence watched his form recede for a while, and then he turned his gaze to the spaces between the many stalls across the street.
“Don’t you spoil my apprentice now.”
“You could’ve stopped me.”
Mark’s form appeared in the space between crates. His expression seemed irri
table, and he sighed. “It’s gotten cold lately. If he takes ill because I haven’t let him eat enough, that’s more trouble for me.”
It was clear enough that Mark had a good deal of affection for Landt.
But having Landt get some breakfast was no simple act of kindness; it was an important part of Lawrence’s plan.
Merchants were not saints, after all. Whatever their actions, they always have ulterior motives.
“Should be good weather today,” said Mark. “Good for selling,” he finished with a nod.
Lawrence took a deep breath.
The bracing morning air felt good.
When he exhaled, all the unnecessary thoughts in his mind seemed to leave with his breath.
All he had to think about now was making his plan succeed.
Once success was his, he could second-guess and doubt all he wanted.
“Right then, time to fill my stomach,” said Lawrence heartily as he caught sight of a winded Landt returning.
The atmosphere itself was different.
That was the first thing that struck Lawrence as he arrived at the marketplace.
What at first look seemed to be as quiet as a glassy lake's surface was a rolling boil as soon as one touched it.
Ever since sunrise, a single corner of the marketplace was the focus of an unusually dense crowd, and every persons gaze was turned to a single stall.
It was the sole stone seller in the town of Kumersun, and the only detail the crowd cared about was a makeshift board with prices written on it.
On the price board were written descriptions of the weight and shape of pieces of pyrite, and beside each description line was a wooden placard with the price and the number of people in line to buy it.
There was another column on the board that listed sellers, but it seemed unlikely that there would be a chance for these placards to stay there for long.
The board made obvious the supply and demand for pyrite, and the demand was high.
“Looks like the average price is...eight hundred irehd.”
That was eighty times the old price.
It could only be described as absurd. Like a runaway horse with no rider to check it, the price kept rising and rising.
Presented with an opportunity for easy money, human reason was like reins of mud—completely incapable of stopping this runaway horse.
Spice & Wolf III Page 17
