If they wanted to get it back, their only options were to take it by force of arms or to purchase it—either of which would be extremely expensive.
If the town was plunged into war, it wouldn’t simply be a matter of business; the only ones who stood to gain anything were people in other towns. The people of Kerube would all lose. And they simply didn’t have the money to purchase the narwhal outright.
It was easy to feel sympathetic for the northerners, who would be unarmed if the unreasonable happened and fighting actually broke out. But unreasonable situations were like pebbles scattered across the road. If you stumbled and fell on one, hardly anyone would help you back to your feet.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.”
The messenger finally arrived with the reply as the pungent smells of wine and meat were beginning to seep into Lawrence’s body. Lawrence hadn’t looked at Eve’s last message to Kieman, but he could tell this missive was a significant one.
The reply he’d just been handed was sealed with red wax.
“This is the last one, but you must bring her response.”
It would have been easy to assume the small-framed messenger was faint of heart, but in truth he was the kind of man who might well be carrying a poisoned dagger in his breast pocket. Lawrence was well aware that his saying “must” wasn’t simply for emphasis.
The seal to the letter was to ensure that Eve need not doubt its contents. Whatever it was, it contained Kieman’s final conclusion.
“Understood. I will.”
A tool was a tool. There was no need for thought.
The man gave a satisfied nod at Lawrence’s reply. Lawrence started walking, and the man watched him go. With this meeting concluded, his job must have been finished.
Or maybe, Lawrence wondered to himself as he headed out again into the ever-crowded streets, looking up at the sky, the only clear thing he could see.
Maybe they doubted him.
For some reason the idea made Lawrence smile.
“Early tomorrow morning, we’ll make a show of formally bringing the narwhal out. On the river we’ll exchange the narwhal and the ship it’s on for the deed of land. After that, get lost. Signed, Lud Kieman.”
Lawrence was sure that last sentence was a joke. Once Eve had finished reading the letter aloud, she didn’t hesitate to hand it over. It showed just what she had read, with Kieman’s signature at the bottom.
If Eve was to take this to a trading house, Kieman’s position would quickly become a bad one. That he had seen fit to give her such a document meant that he had decided it was safe to do so.
There was no telling what that meant.
He couldn’t possibly have decided to unconditionally trust Eve, so he had to have some sort of contingency ready if she decided to publicly expose him.
“It’s a simple, naive exchange. What do you think?”
“If things go poorly, we can always capsize the boat to obscure the truth, so it doesn’t seem like such a very bad idea.”
The plan didn’t differ much from what Holo had proposed to Lawrence, and Eve raised an eyebrow at it. “I see,” she murmured, amused. “So perhaps I should write something like this, eh?”
As she spoke, she playfully wrote with her pen upon a sheet of parchment. It was hardly the sort of paper a mere merchant would scribble upon for fun. It was more suited to having the wisdom of God recorded upon it by a grim-faced monk in a stone monastery somewhere, but Eve’s handwriting was as beautiful as any monk’s.
“Understood. I, Eve Bolan, shall ride upon the boat for the exchange. Aboard your boat shall be the creature of legend, as well as—”
She looked at Lawrence.
“—Kraft Lawrence.”
Lawrence didn’t respond to this, but Eve did not seem to care.
She smoothly signed the letter and casually tossed it over to the old man who was still stirring the wax. Once sealed and tied with a strand of horsehair, it was ready.
And now Lawrence would have to be on the boat for the exchange.
“I haven’t given you my response.”
From behind him, on the other side of the door, Lawrence heard the faint sound of the two guards laughing.
He’d heard that they had been spared their death sentences by Eve. Amazingly, she had gained their trust by telling them her plans and convincing them to cooperate. All to get Lawrence to stand here as he was.
Rough looking though they might be, they were no fools.
“Response? You say the strangest things sometimes. Of what value are words to liar merchants like us?” said Eve, amused.
Lawrence could not hide his wry smile. Of course, facial expressions held no great meaning for merchants. He held his smile, making no other movements.
“Trading is a dangerous business. Only God can see the mind of another, but God has no desires. Only humans stained by their greed, trade, and nothing is more dangerous than trusting the greedy. I’ve written my reply to Kieman, and you’ll take it to him. As far as the outcome goes, we might pray or threaten, but all we can do is wait. I’ve played my whole hand. So all I can do is give you this letter.”
Taking the letter from the old man, she immediately thrust it at Lawrence. How easily she turned it over—it was not an overstatement to say the letter would decide her very fate. It seemed less out of courage than a sheer lack of value for her own life.
If things went poorly, her worth would vanish, and anything so worthless was likewise useless.
Lawrence took the letter and remembered the words of a famous, reckless hero.
“Kieman will do as this letter instructs. If he defied it and put an additional person on the boat, then we’d have to add another person to ours, and with each side suspicious of the other, there’s no telling how far the arms race would go. So—”
She paused, placed the hand with which she’d given Lawrence the letter on her desk, looked down, and took a deep breath. She had to be nervous.
She continued, stressing her words.
“So when next we meet, it will be upon that lonely river amid the morning mists.”
As the wolf of the Roam River, Eve did indeed share some qualities with Holo.
Lawrence took in the sight of her hand on the desk. It was as though she wanted to be held, but couldn’t let that show—as though she wanted to trust in others, but couldn’t bring herself to.
“May I ask one thing?” Lawrence asked, which made Eve’s hand twitch slightly.
“What?”
“I have my companions.”
If Lawrence betrayed his guild during the exchange on the river, then he and Eve would have to move the narwhal to another boat, and from there head out to the open ocean. But that would leave Holo and Col on land, which complicated things.
That had to be one of the reasons Kieman had chosen this simple plan. Holo and Col functioned as hostages.
Her expression unchanging, Eve removed her hand from the desk. “Yes, and I have Arold.”
The name pierced Lawrence’s heart.
“I’ve given you my reply. Go,” Eve finished, looking irritated and waving Lawrence off dismissively.
Lawrence got the feeling that if he contradicted her, she would start yelling.
And I have Arold.
Eve’s words were heavy with implication. If they could be trusted, Arold was one of the few things she held dearer than money.
Of course, Lawrence was aware of the power of Holo’s true form, so there was nothing to fear. She could certainly keep them safe and save Arold, too
The problem was Eve’s readiness to invite danger. She knew nothing of Holo’s power.
She trusted Arold enough to bring him along with the fur from Lenos and even pay his travel expenses, but now she was prepared to leave him behind.
Lawrence wanted to imagine that this was because she now trusted him even more than Arold, but he knew how foolish such a notion was.
It made far more sense to assume that Eve was simply prepared
to abandon everything for her own profit, as though she had sworn to turn everything she touched into gold.
Unfortunately, as in the old legend, the fool who wished to turn everything into gold was unable to eat, and thus starved to death.
That was what Lawrence found so shocking about her words. He asked himself whether he could so easily toss her aside were she to choose a path from which he could see no salvation.
If she could discard Arold, then she could just as easily kill Lawrence on the boat or betray him again later.
And if he could imagine that she’d be laughing afterward, that would have been one thing. But he didn’t think she would laugh.
Do I feel sympathy for her? Lawrence asked himself and could not answer.
Was this just empty speculation? The likelihood was very high.
But there was little in the world that didn’t amount to speculation. There were even those who doubted the existence of God.
So what should he do?
How could he grasp his own profit in one hand while holding on to Eve’s hand with the other? Lawrence agonized over the question as he gave the letter to the messenger in the tavern.
“…Thanks for all your hard work. The boss’ll tell you the rest once you’re back at the inn,” said the messenger, giving Lawrence a pat on the shoulder before leaving. There hadn’t even been time to wonder what sort of misunderstanding might have taken place.
The meeting seemed to have ended without much evidence of trouble, and when Lawrence wandered around the spring of gold, he saw many groups of people conversing excitedly. A bonfire had been lit in anticipation of nightfall, and soldiers stood proudly around the meeting table, trying to look as though they were guarding a holy throne.
Suffice it to say it was a feast of money, power, and honor.
And yet the participants were a small-minded, miserable lot. Perhaps there was a reason why God was said not to care for merchants.
The sky was beginning to redden, and the outlines of crows—or possibly gulls—could be seen in the distance.
Lawrence had thought trading and the earning of money to be a more elegant, noble pursuit.
He watched the lamplights of the town flicker to life one by one as he swayed in the ferry from the delta to the south side of the river.
Eve certainly wouldn’t back down now, nor would Kieman have proposed a careless plan. What his side would fear most would be losing the narwhal in exchange for a fake deed. That would be an even more disastrous outcome than his plan being revealed.
And if Lawrence pulled out, the situation would not be improved. The plan was like kneaded bread that had risen and been put in the oven. All they could do was wait for it to bake.
Lawrence’s options were either to pray or to run. There was nothing else. If persuading either Eve or Kieman was impossible, then what could he do to ensure a good outcome?
The ferry reached the docks, and Lawrence blended into the crowd and came ashore. Most of the people were merchants watching the meeting on the delta, and they chattered freely and happily.
Lawrence found it intensely irritating, but he knew the crowd wasn’t the real problem.
And yet he felt a nauseous desire to scream and rail, like he had been chasing a cloud he couldn’t possibly grasp.
A drunken merchant stumbled into him. Lawrence clenched his fists and was about to fly at the man when something else caught his eye.
“Hey…don’cha go bumpin’ inta me…,” slurred the drunken man with suspicious eyes, but he was literally out of Lawrence’s sight.
Because past him—
Amid the throng of people disembarking from the steady stream of boats that arrived at the docks was a figure he knew well. She faced him, and from under the scarf that was wrapped around her head, she looked at him with eyes he’d never seen before.
“Hey, are you listenin’ ta—”
“Excuse me.” His gaze never wavering from the figure, Lawrence pressed a tarnished silver coin into the drunken man’s hand, then started walking.
What he didn’t understand was why she would be here on the south side of town now that the meeting was over.
And something about the way she was just standing there made her seem cornered.
What had happened? Lawrence wasn’t even sure whether to ask, but she settled the question for him.
“Things have gone bad.” From beneath the scarf, her husky voice was downright hoarse. “It’s too late for me…but I wanted to at least…”
“—”
Eve staggered as though her last strength had given out. Lawrence held her up but then immediately pulled back. This was no joke.
She was eerily light, and her body was hot.
Beneath her scarf, her breathing was shallow and an oily sweat had broken out on her forehead. In her right hand she held tight to a single piece of parchment.
“What happened?”
Eve was mostly supported by Lawrence now, and she bit her lip and looked at him desperately.
Whatever had happened, it wasn’t good.
He looked at her right hand and the parchment it held. It had to be regarding something important.
“We stick out too much here. We should find an alley somewhere—” Lawrence said to Eve and started to pull her along.
Just then, the church bell rang high and loud, and the people coming and going around the docks all stopped, and each of them looked at the church bell tower, before joining their hands and offering prayers.
Ding-dong. The bell continued to toll as Lawrence helped Eve through the crowds. It must have been God’s will.
Coming out of the crowd, it didn’t take long for them to find an alley to duck into. The precise moment they stopped, the bell’s ringing ended, with naught but its echoes lingering on—as though God’s protection over them had ended right then.
“Where are you going?”
It wasn’t impossible. This was a crowded port.
The meeting had just ended, and people were leaving the delta.
But it couldn’t be a coincidence, given that right next to Kieman was that little messenger. If he had eyes sharp enough to deliver his master’s messages no matter how wild the crowds, he could certainly spot Eve.
Before Lawrence’s mind could begin to turn, his vision spun.
It wouldn’t be possible to escape with Eve.
“Given the state my friend’s in, I was taking her to the inn.”
“Is that so?” Kieman smiled, as though they really were just making idle chitchat. But the messenger—along with another man who seemed to be a subordinate—took a quiet step forward. “How truly fortunate for us to encounter you here.”
Lawrence moved to protect Eve, and the two approaching men shifted.
Being attacked by bandits was hardly uncommon. And both humans and beasts would change their stances just before attacking.
So what should I do? Lawrence asked himself.
It wasn’t in his best interest to let Kieman know he’d allied himself with Eve, and in any case Kieman might not have realized that himself yet. In which case, he could bet on that chance and hand her over.
That was certainly possible, but could he really do it? Now that she was sweating and weak and seemed desperate to tell him something? Could he abandon her, even as she flinched at Kieman’s words?”
“No, I—”
“…You do indeed seem to be carrying a letter. May I assume the sender is Ted Reynolds?”
Eve shook her head weakly.
Kieman’s tone had changed from that of a merchant to something like a coy nobleman’s. But Lawrence’s mind was on other matters.
A letter from Reynolds?
“Well, we’ll hear all about it. Although we don’t have terribly much time.” As he spoke, Kieman gave a light wave of his hand, and the two men pulled Eve away from Lawrence with ease.
Lawrence reached out to her without thinking, almost reflexively, but froze when the small messenger pointed a dagger
at his side.
“The wolf tried to set us up. Quite thoroughly, I should add.” Sometimes a smile revealed anger. When a long-distance merchant like Kieman smiled like that, what would the fate be of those hauled off by his henchmen?
Kieman looked at Eve as she was taken away and spoke as though addressing a worthy adversary. “The possibility had occurred to me, of course, but the method—my goodness.”
“You’re wrong…I had no intention of selling the narwhal to Reynolds—”
Kidnappers had strange ways of restraining people. Eve was plainly trying to free herself from their grasp, but a passerby would see only a drunkard who needed help to stand. Her mouth was covered, but her eyes flicked to and fro wildly.
Eve was dragged off by the two men, and just before they vanished into the crowds, Kieman spoke to Lawrence. “Mr. Lawrence, if you speak of this to anyone else, you’ll regret it.”
It was a first-rate joke on Kieman’s part, but his next words were terrifyingly cold.
“I’m quite desperate myself, you see.”
Then, as though following after Eve, who had melted into the crowds and been washed away, Kieman disappeared into the throng.
Lawrence realized the messenger was no longer holding a knife to his ribs. He had been left alone.
For a while he was unable to move, the afterimage of what he had just witnessed burned into his mind.
From within the horrible writhing organism that was the crowd, a hand had reached out, compelled by a single desperate hope.
And Lawrence had been unable to reach it.
A hundred coins could sink beneath the waves in a single moment.
So in this whirlpool of goods like the narwhal, whose value truly defied imagination, where would one misstep land him? Surely a priest would go pale at the thought of the place.
And Eve had already made a misstep.
After crossing so many dangerous bridges, she had finally lost her footing.
Kieman’s words echoed in his ears. “…If you speak of this to anyone else, you’ll regret it. I’m quite desperate myself, you see.”
Their plan had utterly failed somewhere. Ted Reynolds’s name had come up, and Eve said she had no intention of selling him the narwhal.
Town of Strife II Page 12
