Town of Strife II

by Isuna Hasekura

  In the corner of his vision, Lawrence saw the man release Eve, raising both hands lightly.

  “Is she breathing?” Lawrence asked.

  “She should just be unconscious,” came the answer.

  It wasn’t hard for someone experienced with strangulation to first render an opponent unconscious before taking his or her life. How long the flame of one’s life stayed lit was up to the individual.

  “Mer…chant…you—” Whether he was finally coming back to reality or the difficulty he was having breathing due to the weight on his back was calming him down, Kieman’s voice was strained, and he glared at Lawrence out of the corner of one eye.

  “If Eve’s alive, I have some welcome news for you.”

  “What do you mean?” The guard slapped Eve’s face, and she immediately uttered a short groan.

  She wasn’t dead. Lawrence was genuinely surprised at how relieved he felt to know that someone who had once tried to kill him was still alive.

  Kieman seemed to still be suffering, probably because he could hear the sound of a large number of people entering the church. It was only a matter of time before they were found and Eve was brought to Reynolds.

  “Mr. Reynolds managed to raise the money on his own.”

  “That can’t be!” Kieman nearly tried to jump to his feet, despite the knife at his throat—that’s how shocking the news was.

  And yet it was true. It was the only possibility.

  “I’m a mere traveling merchant, so I’ve got my hands full trying to turn my own profit. My interests are opposed to Reynolds’s, so I can’t let him take everything.”

  Kieman wore a dubious expression, which wasn’t surprising—he didn’t understand.

  Lawrence turned his gaze away from Kieman and directed it at Eve.

  “…What…have you found…?”

  It was Eve’s hoarse voice that spoke up, as she righted herself with the guard’s help. Despite having just been on the verge of death, that was her first question.

  “I came here in pursuit of the wolf bones, you see.”

  And Lawrence told them everything he knew. Both Kieman and Eve were even more capable than Lawrence was at telling lies from truth. And then—

  “Please get off me, Mr. Lawrence,” said Kieman quietly, looking up at the ceiling.

  Eve smiled faintly.

  Lawrence did as he was requested, since both of them were merchants of higher status than him.

  “Can it be done?” Lawrence sheathed his dagger as Kieman coughed and sat up, tidying his hair and straightening his collar.

  “It must be. Of course—” Kieman’s gaze fixed upon the person whose life he had very nearly taken, and he continued smoothly. “That is assuming she doesn’t betray us.”

  “Well, there’s a chance to make some money.”

  Eve opened and closed her hand, making a show of rubbing her neck.

  “God’s face looked sort of like the old man’s. I’ll have to make sure next time I see him.”

  “We’ll just have to make enough to pay for the trip to heaven.”

  Once they started moving, they would work quickly. Lawrence knew he could depend on their abilities, since he still remembered how terrified he was when those same abilities were directed at him.

  Eve spoke in a reverent voice, befitting someone who had come back to life in a church. “Ah, it’s true, we merchants are a mad and sinful lot.”

  The group that entered the church was a strange one. Reynolds was at its head, followed by a series of retainers that deferentially carried small boxes, which were probably packed with gold coins.

  It looked almost like a bride accompanied by her dowry, but what he’d brought into the holy sanctuary were gold coins whose shine defied the glory of God.

  From their size, the boxes looked to contain perhaps one hundred coins. And there were fifteen boxes. They had been stacked ostentatiously in front of the narwhal, which in turn was in front of the altar, and before it all stood a proud, boastful Reynolds. He had placed himself where normally only a priest or bishop would stand, and in the pews for the faithful congregation the powerful southerners were assembled.

  For merchants as successful as Reynolds, deals valuing thousands of gold coins were not rare. But when they were conducted by movement of physical coins, that was another matter entirely.

  Merchants conducted business with verbal and written contracts because hard coin was as rare and valuable as any treasure. And when a large amount of coin was collected in one place, word would always get out. And when those coins were gold, it would always wind up recorded in the money changers’ ledgers. So it was hardly surprising to see so many praying figures in the pews, faintly illuminated by the dim candlelight.

  Reynolds’s attack had been perfectly executed.

  “Come! In answer to your request, I have brought my gold to this holy place! You must fulfill your part of the contract!”

  His belly was large, his cheeks jowly. Back in his shabby little trading house, those features had made him seem equally shabby, but now they were signifiers of dignity and power. His voice carried loud and high, like a stage performer giving the performance of his life.

  “As the second master of the Jean Company, I have come to record a trade that will go down in our history!”

  With a splash the narwhal stirred, perhaps reacting to his voice or the tense air in the sanctuary. And then the room fell quiet, as though water had indeed been spilled upon it.

  Lawrence moved away from where he had been watching the proceedings through a cracked door in the hallway and returned to the candlelit room.

  Immediately after Reynolds had led his procession to the church, a man claiming to be one of Chief Jeeta’s subordinates came for Kieman, but Kieman had sent him off without a moment’s hesitation. Whether or not the plan succeeded, he would be held responsible, and if it did succeed, Chief Jeeta would have to stay silent.

  Of course, Lawrence wasn’t a bit worried. Kieman and Eve had prepared a sharp-edged weapon with which to impale Reynolds.

  Lawrence wondered if there was a merchant in the world who could face their combined anger and emerge unhurt.

  He thought of Reynolds, proudly strutting around the altar, and couldn’t help but feel a bit bad for him.

  “That’s everything I can think of, I believe.”

  “With taxes, shipping fees, and hush money, I suppose that will about suffice. I’ve seen the Debau Company, and they should be able to hide something of this scale.”

  Between Kieman’s pen dancing over parchment and tallying figures and Eve’s top-to-bottom knowledge of trade routes, it was easy for them to work out the dealings of a single trading company. For a traveling merchant who went about with his cart and horse buying and selling goods as he went, it was a terrifying sight.

  “Mr. Lawrence, how’s the sanctuary?”

  “As we expected. Reynolds is being relentless, but naturally the southerners can’t respond immediately. That should give us some time.”

  Lawrence wasn’t participating in the pair’s operational planning, instead just reporting his observations. Yet mysteriously, this didn’t bother him at all.

  “Well, shall we move?” Kieman asked, at which Eve nodded, as did Lawrence.

  The plan to monopolize the narwhal was no longer viable, but that didn’t mean there still wasn’t profit to be had.

  Simply put, Reynolds now figured into Eve and Kieman’s discussion over how to divide the proceeds from the narwhal. Of course, whether that was voluntary or compulsory was not a matter of debate.

  “Here. Your last job.” Eve couldn’t wait for the ink to dry, so she scattered sand on the parchment before rolling it up and thrusting it at Lawrence. Her joking tone elicited an apologetic smile from Kieman.

  Lawrence thought he understood why Eve herself wasn’t smiling. As he took the parchment from Eve, he didn’t expect her to say it out loud.

  “I’d hoped to meet you on the river,” she said.<
br />
  “Better for me to see you off on your travels under the sun. After all, I’m the merchant you cheated.”

  Eve’s eyes narrowed, but she said no more.

  For his part, Kieman seemed to have roughly guessed from that exchange how his original plan would have played out. He grinned tiredly and shook his head.

  “Now then, if you’ll be so kind as to wait here.” Lawrence left the pair with those words, and as he exited the room and passed through into the hallway, he got the same old glare from Kieman’s messenger, who was posted there.

  Evidently the blood on his clothing was from having been kicked in the nose when trying to restrain Eve. Lawrence flashed the man a merchant’s smile in spite of himself, probably because he just didn’t like the man very much. Satisfied with that, he headed down the corridor.

  Here and there were groups of people gathered around the dim candlelight, whispering to one another. Were they even now trying to come up with some sort of scheme, or were they simply conferring on what might happen next?

  Either way, Lawrence held in his hand the letter that would overturn the ceremony that was currently taking place in the church’s majestic sanctuary. He naturally walked a little taller.

  Now he was the protagonist. Armed with that knowledge, he approached the guards posted at the sanctuary door and spoke with them, then strode inside with his head held high and a serious expression on his face.

  A strange murmur ran through the sanctuary, and Reynolds was the only one still wearing a brave, arrogant smile.

  “Mr. Reynolds,” murmured Lawrence, having made his way through the crowd and now standing in front of the altar.

  He was not unknown to the man.

  Reynolds faced him and greeted him with exaggerated pleasure, as though meeting an old friend. “Well, well! What have we here?”

  It was a fine act. Reynolds was indeed not a merchant to be trifled with.

  “Yes, actually, a certain woman asked me to deliver this.”

  It did not take very much time for Reynolds to understand that this referred to Eve. “Oh ho.” For just an instant, a look of revolting avarice flashed across his face; it was well suited to the flickering candlelight. He was surely thinking that joining his capital to hers for the sake of expedience could save him some effort.

  “It seems to be a request for trade.” Lawrence produced the letter from his breast pocket, which made Reynolds’s grin only widen. Given the circumstances, he was obviously thinking he would be able to use her as he liked.

  He excitedly opened the letter, like a young lad opening a love note.

  Lawrence congratulated himself on not laughing at the face he made next.

  “Given that you trade in a large volume of goods, Mr. Reynolds, she requests an inspection of your ledgers. Said inspection will be conducted by a keen-eyed representative of my trade guild.”

  “…Ah…er…”

  “We have evidence regarding your trade in copper coins, showing that you received fifty-eight crates from the Debau Company but sent sixty to the Winfiel kingdom—though at first we assumed you were merely evading tariffs.”

  Sweat dripped off Reynolds’s face as Lawrence murmured into his ear. It was as though Lawrence’s breath was too hot, and Reynolds was a wax figurine.

  “But you weren’t manipulating tariffs to make a bit of coin on the side. You were cooperating with the Debau Company to shift large amounts of capital downstream.”

  Depending on the packing method, the number of coins in a crate could differ. Using that little trick, they could transfer the money covertly.

  “You received payment for sixty crates from Winfiel, then paid Debau for fifty-eight. So long as you look at each transaction separately, they seem to add up in the ledger. But as to whether the number of coins in the crates matches the amount paid—that’s not clear from the books.”

  Reynolds’s face had gone pale, and his eyes flicked back and forth crazily.

  “But if we compare imports and exports, it’s clear that each time the two-crate difference remains at the Jean Company, doesn’t it? And you can use that method for all sorts of things.”

  That was what Lawrence had said when he’d heard Col’s answer to the riddle. The reason he had begun to wonder whether the trick might be seeing more use was because there were so many types of goods where it would apply.

  Just as there were too many people in the world for one to believe that one was the protagonist.

  “Copper ore, lead, tin, brass, and goods made from them. So long as they have a standard shape and are round, you can do this. The Roef mines are rich with metals, are they not?”

  “N-no…but—”

  “Are you suggesting that this is simply a secret shift of capital? I’m afraid that simply isn’t so. Shall we send my people to visit the Debau Company? When I first noticed your dishonesty, the first thing I assumed was that you were trying to avoid tariffs. But taxes are important. What would happen if the Debau Company was unwilling to pay theirs?”

  Reynolds’s face began to twitch and jiggle like a shaking child’s.

  Two birds, one stone.

  That’s what nearly anyone would say had they hit upon this plan.

  “Your method lets the Debau Company evade taxation, too. Each time they trade copper coin with the Jean Company, they lose two crates of coins from their books. And if there’s no profit, they don’t have to pay taxes. Now, then—”

  Lawrence paused to clear his throat, and Reynolds took the opportunity.

  “What do you want? How much? What’s your goal? Tell me!” Even caught off guard, Reynolds managed to control himself well enough not to raise his voice.

  Lawrence put a hand on his shoulder as though to calm him, smiled, and continued.

  “I am a mere messenger. Such negotiations…” He glanced over his shoulder past the crowd in the hallway. “…Will need to be discussed with my associates there.”

  What was left of Reynolds’s pride prevented him from collapsing to his knees on the spot. It would have been one thing if they had been the sort of merchants who could be cajoled or bribed. But the people waiting past the hallway at the entrance for Reynolds were misers who would happily commit murder.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I’m a mere traveling merchant trying to find some wolf bones, after all,” Lawrence said, turning and walking away.

  As he passed Kieman and Eve, he briefly shook their hands. The two of them were quite capable of cooking Reynolds’s goose—of that he had no doubt.

  He walked along the corridor, passing the grim-faced merchants there.

  He wasn’t the hero.

  He wasn’t a great merchant.

  He wasn’t meant for a grand stage, nor did he have strings he could pull at will.

  As he emerged from the church’s front door, the sun was completely down, and the torches behind him cast long shadows out into the night.

  When he looked back, the grand structure was given a strangely ominous majesty, being lit from below as it was by the torchlight.

  He descended the stone steps, passed through the crowd gathered to watch the commotion at the church, and continued on.

  It wasn’t that he was particularly confident. There was simply a place he had to go. A familiar scene in a familiar building.

  He entered through the door he himself had left open, climbing the creaking stairs to the third floor. His eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the darkness, so the hall was a bit dark, but he could tell where the door was.

  He stood in front of it and knocked twice, slowly.

  A presence on the other side of the door moved, and the door was soon opened.

  From the open door leaked candlelight and the smell of food. It had been a dizzying few days. Nonetheless, Lawrence smiled and spoke.

  “I’m back.”

  Holo and Col replied, “Welcome back.”

  The door gently closed behind him.

  FINAL ACT

  In the end, they neve
r quite found out what sort of absurd deal Kieman and Eve had forced down Reynolds’s throat. But going by the fact that the narwhal trade between Reynolds and the southerners—which had very nearly ended in disaster—wound up concluding smoothly, he must have accepted the involvement of the Rowen Trade Guild.

  Reynolds still technically purchased the narwhal, but in exchange for silence about his dishonesty and the Debau Company’s tax evasion, the profits would go to the southerners via the Rowen Trade Guild.

  Or something roughly along those lines.

  In order to quiet the northern landlords, Eve had probably acted as a mediator and directly allotted them a share of the proceeds.

  That was what Lawrence could gather from the state of the town, and he had no particular desire to know the whole truth. He’d been excused from acting as Kieman’s tool as well as nearly conspiring with Eve, so it was water under the bridge.

  And the next day saw them treated to a midday meal that fairly overflowed from the table. Lawrence didn’t even bother to ask who had footed the bill.

  “So, where is our next destination?” asked Holo as she devoured a piece of meat so tender it needed neither knife nor tooth to cut it.

  The food was so decadent that Col was having difficulty swallowing.

  “Good question…Mmm, this is delicious. What meat is this?” Lawrence was completely absorbed in the exquisite meal, and his perfunctory answer earned him a nasty glare from Holo.

  “Eve’s going to send someone around to tell us what they managed to learn from Reynolds about the wolf bones, so on that count you needn’t worry.”

  “Mm. ’Tis a mere verbal contract,” said Holo, devouring a deep-fried fish head.

  As one would expect from a coastal port town, there was a bowl full of sea salt on the table, and Holo had sprinkled it liberally on the morsel, and it seemed to be delicious indeed.

  She took bite after bite and quickly finished it off.