Spice & Wolf Page 10

  Lawrence was overwhelmed by exhaustion. To have been had by such a frivolous scheme!

  But it was true. He had been the one who’d sworn there was some larger ulterior motive. A traveling merchant so used to using every trick he could would naturally assume so. And so he had.

  Zheren had predicted a profit was almost sure to appear.

  “Heh. Humans are pretty smart,” said Holo, as though they were talking about somebody else’s problem. Lawrence could only sigh. Fortunately, he hadn’t yet gone out of his way to invest in trenni. All he had risked was what he had on hand. There was nothing in the contract he had with Zheren about how many he was obligated to purchase. All he could do now was pray there were no fluctuations in the marketplace. He could then point out Zheren’s lie, and there’d be nothing stopping him from getting his ten silver pieces back. Naturally if the price dropped, he’d be able to regain them legitimately, so losing only a single piece to him felt downright inexpensive.

  When a merchant let his guard down, normally he lost everything.

  But here, all Zheren had really done was hurt Lawrence’s pride. He slumped a bit before Holo, who snickered at him out of the corner of her mouth.

  “Although...” Holo began.

  Lawrence looked at her beseechingly, as if to say, there’s more? Holo looked back predatorily.

  “Isn’t it quite common for the silver purity to drop slightly?” Suspecting that his redemption might start with this, Lawrence forced himself to straighten his leaden back. “No, normally the purity is controlled with extreme care.”

  “Hm. And yet out of nowhere, there’s a deal that hinges on the purity of silver coins. Can that just be chance, I wonder?”

  “Uh..

  The grinning Holo seemed to be enjoying this state of affairs. No—she was definitely enjoying it.

  “Now, you being in that village, at that time, with that sheaf of wheat—that was chance. There is nothing so hard as discerning chance from fate. It’s harder than romance for a shut-in.”

  “That’s a strange analogy,” was all Lawrence could answer. “You’re lost in the maze of your own thoughts. When that happens, you need a new perspective. When I’m hunting prey, sometimes I’ll climb a tree. The forest looks different from on high. For example”—said Holo the Wisewolf with a crooked grin that bared her left fang—“what if the person who’s planning something isn’t that kid?”

  “Oh . .

  Lawrence felt like he’d been struck over the head.

  “There’s no reason Zheren’s profit had to come from you. For example, perhaps he was hired by somebody else, and those wages motivated him to pull you into the strange deal.”

  Though she was fully two heads shorter than him, Holo seemed a giant.

  “If you’re looking at a single withered tree, it can seem like a grievous wound to the forest. But from the forests perspective, that tree’s remains will nourish other plants, acting for the good of the whole forest. If you change your perspective, a situation right in front of you can reverse itself. So—have you seen anything new?”

  For a moment, Lawrence suspected that Holo already knew something, but from her tone it seemed that she was not testing him but rather was genuinely trying to help. Nothing was more important to a merchant than knowledge. But such knowledge was no mere commodity to be priced.

  The situation before him. His knowledge of that technique.

  Lawrence thought—thought about it from a different perspective.

  Zheren, the only man he’d talked to directly—what if Zheren’s gains were coming not from Lawrence, but from some other party?

  Lawrence’s breath caught in his chest the instant the thought came to his mind.

  If that were indeed the case, he could think of only one possible explanation.

  He’d heard the setup from another traveling merchant when they drank together in another town. The sheer scope of the tale was so huge he’d assumed it was yet another tavern-story.

  Still, the story could conceivably explain why someone would do something so apparently meaningless as buying up a depreciating silver currency.

  He could also see why Zheren would be lying even as he signed a contract before a public servant, and would use his influence in a tavern, acting in a way that didn’t make sense for a swindler.

  Zheren had been trying to lend the transaction as much credibility as he could in order to tempt Lawrence into buying up silver coins.

  If Lawrence was right, Zheren had been hired by another party to buy up silver coins. Whoever it was wanted to collect silver as discreetly as possible.

  The best way to collect a particular currency without attracting any attention would be to hire merchants to do it for you, appealing to their self-interest.

  Merchants who stood to turn a profit by buying up silver currency would not want to share information with others and would naturally be extremely careful. Then, you could just wait for an opportune moment and smoothly take over the collected currency, accomplishing your goal without influencing the marketplace or tipping anybody off.

  It was a common technique for buying up a commodity in advance of a higher price.

  The really clever part of this plan was that if the silver currency fell, the merchants would want to unload their silver in order to minimize their losses.

  This would make taking over their silver holdings far from difficult, and pride would keep the merchants who’d sustained losses from admitting that they’d invested in silver currency.

  It was a perfect plan for colleting coinage without anyone knowing.

  The massive scale of the plan could yield obscene profits. At least, the profits mentioned in the stories about such plans were stupendous.

  Lawrence chuckled in spite of himself.

  “Heh. You’ve figured something out, have you?” said Holo.

  “Let’s go.”

  “Hm? Uh, where?”

  Lawrence had already started jogging away. He turned to Holo, impatient. “The Milone Company. That’s how the plan works. The more depreciating silver currency that can be bought up, the more profit there will be!”

  Once he’d discovered the motivation behind someone’s plan, he could profit from it.

  And the bigger their plan, the better.

  Chapter 4

  The whole of the Milone Company went from shocked to vigilant upon Lawrence’s visit. Unsurprisingly—as Lawrence proposed that together they deal with the plot behind Zheren’s swindle. If Lawrence had found Zheren’s initial proposal difficult to believe, the Milone Company found Lawrence’s scheme that much harder to swallow.

  And of course there was the matter of the furs. They weren’t so angry as to have it color future transactions, but the supervisor did smile ironically upon seeing Lawrence.

  Even so, what spurred the Milone Company into tentative action was seeing the contract that Lawrence had signed with Zheren before the public witness, proving that they could investigate the deal as much as they wished before proceeding.

  Lawrence also asked them to check into Zheren’s background, impressing upon them that this was no simple fraud.

  If they did so, the Milone Company would naturally have to wonder why the plan was so intricate for a mere swindle. They’d want to investigate it simply for their own future reference,

  Lawrence anticipated—and he was right.

  After all, if everything Lawrence said was true, the Milone Company stood to reap enormous profit.

  The Milone Company, like any company, was ever-watchful for a chance to get ahead of its competitors. Lawrence’s expectation that they would overlook a proposals shadiness if it promised sufficient gain was correct.

  Having sparked an initial interest in the plan on their part, Lawrence’s next task was to prove Zheren’s existence. He and Holo hurried to the Yorend tavern that evening and informed the barmaid that they wished to meet with Zheren. As expected, Zheren did not frequent the place every night, and the barmaid told La
wrence that he’d not yet come by that particular day. But at length as the sun sank low Zheren arrived.

  Lawrence made idle merchant chatter about this subject and that, and all the while a Milone employee sat at a nearby table, eavesdropping. In the days to come, the Milone Company would investigate Zheren and determine whether Lawrence’s proposal was true or not.

  Lawrence believed that Zheren had to have the support of a powerful merchant. If that was true, it would be easy for the Milone Company to trace.

  There was, however, a problem.

  “Will we be in time?” Holo asked upon returning to their inn that evening.

  Just as Holo suggested, the problem was time. Even if Lawrence’s expectations were correct, depending on circumstances they could miss the chance to realize any gain. No—there would be profit either way, but perhaps not enough to induce the Milone Company to act. Without them, it would be difficult for Lawrence to turn a profit on his own. On the other hand, if the Milone Company moved quickly, the potential gain would be stunning.

  Both his own plan and the plan he suspected Zheren of being a part of depended on time.

  “We should have enough time. That’s why I came to the Milone Company in the first place.”

  By candlelight, Lawrence poured some wine he’d bought at the tavern into a cup. He looked down into the cup briefly before draining half of it in one go. Holo was sitting cross-legged on the bed; she drank her cup dry and looked at Lawrence.

  “Is this company really so capable?” she asked.

  “Doing business in foreign countries requires very keen ears—hearing merchants talking in a bar or customers in the marketplace. If they weren’t much better at collecting information than t heir competition, they’d never be able to open up branches in foreign countries, much less have those branches flourish. The Milone Company is very good at this sort of thing. Investigating someone like Zheren is child’s play for them.”

  Lawrence poured more wine for Holo—at her urging—as he spoke. By the time he finished, Holo had already drained her cup again. It was astonishing.

  “Huh.”

  “What is it?” Holo asked, staring listlessly off into the distance. At first Lawrence thought she must have been pondering something, but soon it was clear that she was merely drunk.

  “You’ve had quite a bit,” he said.

  “The charms of wine are many.”

  “I suppose this is a good vintage. Normally I never drink anything so fine.”

  “Is that so?”

  “When there’s no money, I’ll drink wine thick with grape drippings, wine so bitter it can’t be drunk without adding sugar, honey, or ginger to it. Wine transparent enough to see the bottom of the cup is a true luxury.”

  Hearing this, Holo looked vaguely into her cup. “Hm. And I thought this was normal.”

  “Ha! Well, you’re higher and mightier than I.”

  Holo’s expression stiffened. She set her cup down on the floor, then immediately curled up into a tight ball on the bed.

  Her reaction was so sudden that Lawrence could only look on in shock. He assumed that it wasn’t simply because she was now sleepy.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, not having the faintest idea what her problem was, but Holo’s ears didn’t so much as twitch.

  He said nothing more as he racked his brain trying to figure out her problem, and finally hit upon it—the conversation he’d had with her when they’d first met.

  “Are you angry because I said you have more status than I do?”

  When Lawrence had demanded to see Holo’s wolf form, she’d said she hated being feared.

  She also despised being celebrated as some kind of deity.

  Lawrence remembered a song he’d heard from a traveling minstrel. It claimed that the reason a god needed a festival every year was because it was lonely.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  Holo didn’t move.

  “You’re a...how shall I say it? You’re nothing special—wait, no, that’s wrong. You’re not a commoner. Ordinary? No, that’s not it...”

  Lawrence became more and more agitated as he failed to find the right words.

  All he wanted to say was that Holo wasn’t special, but he simply couldn’t articulate that.

  As he continued to cast about for something to say, Holo’s ears finally pricked, and he heard her snicker slightly.

  Holo rolled over and smiled indulgently at Lawrence. “How inarticulate. You’ll never attract a female that way.”

  “Urgh.”

  Lawrence immediately remembered a time when he had stayed over at a certain inn, waiting for a blizzard to pass, and become taken with a girl there. She flatly rejected him, for no reason other than the one Holo gave: he was desperately inarticulate.

  The sharp-eyed wolf soon discerned this. “I was right, eh?” she chuckled. “Still, that was...immature of me.”

  Lawrence softened at Holo’s apology, and he offered his own again. “Sorry.”

  “I do truly dislike it, though. Younger wolves were friendly enough, but there was always a line. Weary of it, I left the forest. I suppose”—Holo looked off into the distance then down at her hands again—“I was looking for a friend.”

  Holo gave a self-deprecating smile.

  “A friend, eh?”

  “Mm.”

  Lawrence would have thought this topic unpleasant for her, but Holo’s answers had been strangely upbeat, so he asked the question that was on his mind.

  “And did you find one?”

  Holo smiled bashfully and did not immediately answer.

  Given her expression, her answer was obvious. She smiled as she was thinking of the friend she’d made.

  “Yes.”

  But Lawrence didn’t find her happy nodding at all funny.

  “He’s a fellow from the village of Pasloe,” she continued.

  “Oh, the one whose wheat you borrowed?”

  “Mm. He’s a bit foolish, but very cheerful. He wasn’t the least hit surprised when he saw my wolf form. I suppose he is a bit odd, but a good fellow nonetheless.”

  To hear her speaking as though of a loved one, Lawrence wrinkled his nose but hid it behind his wine cup—he didn’t want her to see.

  “He really is a fool though. Sometimes I’m at a loss.”

  Holo spoke happily, seeming slightly bashful to be discussing the past. She no longer looked at Lawrence but hugged her tail, playing absently with its fur.

  Suddenly she let out a childish giggle and tumbled back on the bed, sounding for all the world like a child sharing a secret with a friend.

  She was probably just tired, but to Lawrence’s eyes it seemed as though she had left him behind and was letting her memories flood over her.

  That was no reason to rouse her, though, so with a small sigh, he drained his wine cup.

  “Friends, eh?” he murmured, then placed the cup on the table and stood. He walked over to the bed and drew the blanket up over Holo.

  Her cheeks were slightly flushed as she slept innocently, but the longer he looked at her the more clouded his thoughts became, so he turned his back to her and headed for his own bed.

  But as he blew the tallow candle out and lay down, he felt certain regret.

  He wished he’d claimed a lack of money and gotten a room with a single bed.

  Lawrence sighed more deeply this time as he faced away from her.

  If his horse had been there, it probably would’ve sighed at him, too, he thought.

  “We accept your proposal,” said the head of the Milone Company’s Pazzio branch, Richten Marheit, in an even tone. It had been only two days since Lawrence had come to the Milone Company with his proposal. The company was indeed very efficient.

  “I am very grateful. May I assume that you’ve discovered who is backing Zheren?”

  “He has the support of the Medio Company. I hardly need mention that they’re the second-largest company in the city.”

 
; “The Medio Company, eh?”

  Based in Pazzio, Medio had many branches. They were the largest agricultural broker in Pazzio, particularly for wheat, and were all the more impressive for having their own ships with which to move their product.

  Yet something stuck in Lawrence’s mind. The Medio Company was large, but he’d expected Zheren’s backer to be even larger—perhaps a nobleman.

  “We believe there is a still-larger figure behind the Medio Company. With their resources alone, it would probably be impossible to enact the plan you’ve described. There is probably a nobleman operating behind the Medio Company, but there are many such figures who deal with them, and we’ve been unable to narrow it down to a single person. But as you yourself said, it won’t matter as long as we’re first to act.”

  Marheit smiled slyly, showing a confidence borne of having the immense resources of the Milone Company to call on, the likes of which Lawrence could barely imagine. Their main branch was patronized by none but royalty and high priests. They had nothing to fear from a deal like this.

  It was important for Lawrence not to betray any temerity. In negotiation, showing weakness or servility was tantamount to losing. He had to be bold.

  He replied in an even tone.

  “Well, then, shall we discuss how to split the profits?”

  It went without saying that these negotiations would give rise to his dreams.

  Seen off by all the employees of the Milone Company branch except the boss, Lawrence left humming a tune, unable to suppress his happiness.

  He’d proposed that the company give him five percent of its profits from the currency exchange. This was a mere one-twentieth of its take, but Lawrence couldn’t stop smiling.

  After all, if the Milone Company moved as he suggested, the amount of trenni silver that could be bought up was not one or two thousand, but rather two or three hundred thousand. If—as the rough estimates suggested—they exacted a ten-percent return from the deal, Lawrence’s share could exceed a thousand coins of pure profit. If he topped two thousand coins, and wasn’t too extravagant, he would be able to set up a shop in a town somewhere.