Spice & Wolf II Read online

  “’Tis a tedious place,” came Holo’s assessment of the uniquely religious town.

  “You’re only saying that because there’s nothing to eat.”

  “You speak as though I think of nothing else.”

  “Shall we take in a sermon, then?”

  Just ahead of them, a missionary preached to a crowd, one hand on a book of scripture.

  The listeners were not only townspeople—there were several merchants whose prayers were normally for naught but their own profit.

  Holo regarded them distastefully and sniffed.

  “He’s about five hundred years too young to be preaching to me.”

  “I daresay you could stand to hear a sermon on frugality.”

  Toying idly with the silken sash at her waist, Holo put her hand to her mouth and yawned at Lawrence’s suggestion. “I’m a wolf yet. Sermons are complicated and difficult for us to understand,” she said shamelessly, rubbing her eyes.

  “Well, as far as the teachings of the god of frugality go, they’re more persuasive here than anywhere else, I’d reckon.”

  “Hm?”

  “Nearly all the money made here flows to the seat of the Church northwest of here, Ruvinheigen—now there’s a place I’ve no desire to hear a sermon.”

  The Church capital of Ruvinheigen was so prosperous some said its walls had turned to gold. The upper echelons of the Church Council that controlled the region had turned to commerce to support their subjugation of the heathens, and the priests and bishops of Ruvinheigen put the merchants to shame.

  Lawrence wondered if that was precisely why opportunities for profit there were so absurdly plentiful.

  Just then, Holo tilted her head quizzically. “Did you say Ruvinheigen?”

  “What, do you know it?” Lawrence gave Holo a sidelong glance as he steered the wagon to the right once the street forked.

  “Mm, I remember the name, but not as a city—it was a person’s name.”

  “Ah, you’re not wrong. It’s a city now, but it was the name of a saint who led a group of crusaders against the pagans. It’s an old name—you don’t hear it much anymore.”

  “Hmph. Maybe ’tis him I’m remembering.”

  “Surely not.”

  Lawrence laughed it off but soon realized—Holo had set out on her travels hundreds of years ago.

  “He was a man with flaming red hair and a great bushy beard.. He’d hardly gotten a glance at my lovely ears and tail before he set his knights after me with spear and sword. I’d had enough, so I took my other form and kicked his knights around before sinking my teeth into that Ruvinheigen’s backside. He was rather lean and far from tasty.”

  Holo sniffed proudly as she related the gallant tale. The surprised Lawrence had no response.

  In the holy city of Ruvinheigen, there were records of Saint Ruvinheigen having red hair and the city itself having originally been a fortress that fought against pagan gods.

  However, in his battles against the heathen deities, Saint Ruvinheigen was said to have lost his left arm. That is why on the great mural in the city cathedral he was pictured with no left arm, his ragged clothing smeared with blood, resolutely ordering his crusaders forward against the pagans, the protection of God at their backs.

  Perhaps the reason Saint Ruvinheigen was always pictured in clothes so ragged he might as well be nude was because Holo had shredded them.

  Her true form was that of a massive wolf, after all. It was easy to imagine her bloodying someone after a bit of sport.

  I f what Holo said was true, Saint Ruvinheigen had probably been ashamed of being bitten on his rear and had omitted that bit from the story. In that case, the tale of the saint losing his left arm was pure fabrication.

  Had Holo bitten the real Saint Ruvinheigen?

  Hearing the story behind the history, Lawrence chuckled.

  “Oh, but wait a moment—,” said Holo.

  “Hm?”

  “I only bit him, I’ll have you know. I did not kill him,” said Holo quickly, anticipating Lawrence’s reaction.

  For a moment, Lawrence didn’t understand what she was getting at, but soon he realized.

  She must have assumed he would be angry if she killed one of his fellow humans.

  “You’re considerate at the strangest of times,” said Lawrence.

  “’Tis important,” said Holo, her face serious enough that Lawrence capitulated without any further teasing.

  “Anyway, this surely is a tedious city. The middle of the forest is livelier than this.”

  “I’ll unload my pepper, pick up a new commodity, and we’ll be on our way to Ruvinheigen, so just bear it until then.”

  “Is it a big town?”

  “Bigger even than Pazzio—more properly a city than a town really. It’s crowded, and there are lots of shops.”

  Holo’s face lit up. “With apples even?”

  “Hard to say if they’ll be fresh. With winter coming, I’d think they’d be preserved.”

  “...Preserved?” said Holo, dubious. In the northlands, salt was the only method of preservation, so she assumed preserved apples would also use salt.

  “They use honey,” said Lawrence.

  Pop! went Holo’s ears, flicking rapidly under the hood she wore.

  “Pear preserves are good, too. Also, hmm, they’re a bit rare, but I’ve seen preserved peaches. Now those are fine goods. They slice the peaches thin, pack them in a cask with the odd layer of almonds or figs, then fill up the spaces with honey, and seal it shut. Takes about two months for it to be ready to eat. I’ve only had it once, but it was so sweet the Church was considering banning the stuff...Hey, you’re drooling.”

  Holo snapped her mouth shut as Lawrence pointed it out.

  She took a nervous glance around, then looked back at Lawrence dubiously. “You...you’re toying with me, though.”

  “Can’t you tell if I’m lying or not?”

  Holo set her jaw, perhaps at a loss for words.

  “I’m not lying, but there’s no telling whether they’ll actually have the preserves. They’re mostly for rich nobles, anyway. The stuff isn’t just lined up in a shop.”

  “But if it is?”

  Swish, swish—Holo’s tail was switching back and forth beneath her robe so rapidly it almost seemed like a separate animal altogether. Her eyes were moist and blurred with overflowing anticipation.

  Holo’s face was so close to Lawrence that she rested her head on his shoulder.

  Her eyes were desperately serious.

  “Fine, fine! I’ll buy you some!”

  Holo gripped Lawrence’s arm tightly. “You have to!”

  He felt that if he looked sideways at her, he’d be bitten on the spot.

  “A little, though. Just a little!” Lawrence said. It was not clear if Holo was listening or not.

  “That’s a promise, then! You’ve promised!”

  “Okay, okay!”

  “So let us hurry on, then! Hurry, now!”

  “Stop grabbing me!”

  Lawrence shrugged her off, but Holo’s mind had wandered elsewhere. She seemed to look off into the distance and muttered .is she nibbled on the nail of her middle finger.

  “'They may sell out. Should it come to that...”

  Lawrence was beginning to regret having said anything about honeyed peach preserves, but it was too late for such regrets. If he dared to suggest he had decided not to buy any after all, it seemed likely she’d tear out his throat.

  It didn’t matter that honeyed peach preserves weren’t something that traveling merchants could afford.

  “It’s not a question of selling out—they may not have any at all,” Lawrence said. “Just understand that.”

  “We are talking about peaches and honey, sir! It beggars belief. Peaches and honey.”

  “Are you even listening to me?”

  “Still, it’s hard to give up pears,” said Holo, turning to Lawrence and looking up at him.

  Lawrence’s only reply
was to heave a long-suffering sigh.

  Lawrence planned to sell his pepper to the Latparron Trading Company, whose name was every bit as odd as the town in which it was located—Poroson.

  If one were to trace the name, it would surely hearken all the way back to the time before Poroson was a town and only pagans inhabited the area.

  The strange names were all that remained of the past, though. After all, everyone here was a true believer in the Church, from the tops of their heads to the tips of their toes.

  The Latparron Company would soon have its fiftieth master, and each seemed to be more devout than the last.

  Thus it was that no sooner had Lawrence called upon the company—which he’d not visited in half a year—than he was regaled with praise for the newly arrived priest, whose sermons he simply had to hear, as would they not save our very souls?

  Still worse, the master of the Latparron Company seemed to take Holo in her robes for a nun on pilgrimage and exhorted her to minister to Lawrence as well.

  Holo took the opportunity to rail at Lawrence at length, occasionally grinning in a way that only he could see.

  After some time, their preaching ended, and Lawrence swore to himself that he wouldn’t spare so much as a single coin for any honeyed peach preserves.

  “Well, then, that went a bit long, but shall we talk business now?”

  “I await your pleasure,” said Lawrence, clearly tired—but the Latparron master had put on his business face now, so Lawrence couldn’t let his guard down.

  It was possible that the master’s lengthy sermon was a tactic to wear his opponents down, making them easy prey.

  “So, what goods have you brought me this day?”

  “Right here,” said Lawrence, regaining his composure and bringing out the pepper-stuffed sack.

  “Oh, pepper!”

  Lawrence kept hidden his surprise at the master’s correct guess of the bag’s contents. “You know your goods,” he said.

  “It’s the smell!” said the master with a mischievous smile—but Lawrence knew pepper yet to be ground has little scent.

  Lawrence stole a sidelong glance at Holo, who looked on amused.

  “It seems I’m still a novice,” said Lawrence.

  “Just a matter of experience,” said the master. As far as Lawrence could tell from the man’s broad, easy manner, his mistaking Holo for a nun might also have been an act.

  “Still, Mr. Lawrence, you always bring the best goods at the most opportune time. By God’s grace, the hay grew well this year, and the pork has gotten fat merely walking the streets. Demand for pepper will be high for a while. Had you gotten here even a week sooner, I’d have been able to take it off your hands for a pittance!”

  Lawrence could only offer a pained smile in response to the cheerful man. The Latparron master had taken complete control of the conversation.

  He could now use strong-arm negotiating tactics. It would be hard for Lawrence to regain the upper hand.

  Traders like these in small companies were why the life of the merchant was a hard one.

  “Right, then, let’s take its measure. Have you a scale?”

  Unlike the money changers whose reputations depended on the accuracy of their scales, the scales that merchants carried were doctored as a matter of course. With commodities like pepper or gold dust, a small “adjustment” to a scale’s gradations could make a large difference, so both buyer and seller weighed items on their own scales.

  However, it wasn’t every day that Lawrence dealt with high-priced goods like pepper, so he had no scales.

  “No, I don’t have a scale—I trust in God.”

  The master smiled and nodded at Lawrence’s reply. There were two sets of scales on a shelf, and he deliberately brought out the set farther away. Though he was careful not to show it, Lawrence internally sighed in relief.

  Be he the most devout, faithful follower of the teachings of the Church, a merchant was still a merchant. Undoubtedly the first set of scales had been doctored. If Lawrence’s pepper was weighed on such scales, there was no telling how much of a loss he might sustain. It could be as bad as a silver piece for every peppercorn.

  Lawrence gave God his thanks.

  “Even if you believe in a just God, man should be able to discern whether the scripture before him is true or false. A righteous man still trespasses against God if he commits to memory false scripture, after all,” said the master, setting the scales down on a nearby table.

  He was probably trying to reassure Lawrence that his scales were accurate.

  Although merchants were always trying to outsmart one another, that didn’t mean trust was never necessary.

  “If you’ll excuse me for a moment,” said Lawrence, at which point the master nodded and took a step back.

  On the table was a beautiful set of brass scales, which gleamed a dull gold. It was the sort of set one would expect to see in the offices of a wealthy cambist in a large city and seemed a bit out of place in this shop.

  The Latparron Trading Company’s storefront was so plain it was easily mistakable for a simple home, and the only employees were the master and a few men. The interior of the shop was also plainly furnished with two shelves situated against the wall, one holding jars that seemed to contain spices or dried foodstuffs and another holding bundles of documents, paper, and parchment.

  While the scales seemed not in keeping with the rest of the shop, the balance of those scales was clear.

  The scales balanced in the center with plates of counterweights to the left and right.

  They did not seem to have been tampered with.

  Relieved, Lawrence looked up and smiled. “Shall we proceed to weigh the pepper, then?”

  There was no reason not to.

  “Let’s see, we’ll need paper and ink. Wait just a moment, please,” said the master, walking to the corner of the room and retrieving an ink pot and paper from the shelf. Lawrence was idly looking on when a tug at his sleeve pulled him out of his reverie. There was no one else there—it was Holo.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m thirsty.”

  “You’ll have to wait,” said Lawrence shortly—but he immediately reconsidered.

  She was Holo the Wisewolf after all. She wouldn’t make a complaint like that out of the blue. There had to be some kind of reason behind it.

  Having changed his mind, Lawrence was about to ask her to explain herself when the master spoke again.

  “Even the saints themselves needed water to live. Would you like water or perhaps wine?”

  “Water, if you please,” said Holo with a smile. Evidently she had only been thirsty after all.

  “Just a moment, then.” The master left the contract paper, ink, and quill on the table and walked out of the room, going to fetch the water himself.

  In this regard he seemed to be no merchant, but the model of a devout adherent of the Church.

  Yet even as Lawrence was impressed at the master’s faith, he gave Holo a sidelong glare.

  “I know this may seem like nothing to you, but to us merchants this is a battleground. You could have had as much water as you wanted later.”

  "But I am thirsty,” said Holo, looking away stubbornly—she hated being scolded. Despite her frightening intelligence, she could be strangely childish at times. There was no point in saying anything more.

  Lawrence sighed, and to chase away his frustration with Holo, he set his mind on estimating how much pepper he had.

  At length the master returned, carrying a wooden tray with an Iron pitcher and cup. Lawrence’s shame at having made a business associate and an elder perform such a menial task was very real, but the master’s smiling face seemed to have dispensed with business for the moment.

  “Well, then, shall we proceed with the weigh?”

  "Indeed.”

  They began to weigh the pepper as Holo looked on, leaning against a wall a short distance away, iron cup clasped between her hands.

  The
weigh was a simple enough task, with a set weight being prepared on one side of the scales and the other being loaded with pepper until it balanced.

  It was simple, but if one grew tired of seeing the counterweight sink and was tempted to call it good enough and proceed to the next load, a merchant could unwittingly sustain a significant loss.

  So both the master and Lawrence carefully balanced each load until each was satisfied before proceeding to the next.

  For all its simplicity, the weighing was sensitive work, and it took forty-five loads to finish. Pepper varied depending on its origin, but a load of Lawrence’s product balanced roughly with a single counterweight should have been worth about one gold lumione piece. Based on his most current knowledge of exchange rates, one lumione equaled thirty-four and two-thirds trenni, the silver coin commonly used in the port town of Pazzio. Forty-five loads at that rate would come to 1,560 trenni.

  Lawrence had bought the pepper for a thousand trenni, so that meant a profit of 560 pieces. The spice trade was indeed delicious. Of course, gold and jewels—the raw materials for luxury goods—could fetch two or three times their initial purchase price, so this was a meager gain in comparison, but for a traveling merchant who spent his days crossing the plains, it was profit enough. Some merchants would haul the lowest quality oats on their very backs, destroying themselves as they crossed mountains, only to turn a 10 percent profit when they sold in the town.

  Indeed, compared with that, clearing more than five hundred silver pieces by moving a single light bag of pepper was almost too savory to believe.

  Lawrence grinned as he packed the pepper back into its leather sack.

  "Right, that’s forty-five measures’ worth, then. Where does this pepper come from?”

  "It was imported from Ramapata, in the kingdom of Leedon. Here’s the certificate of import from the Milone Company.”

  "From Ramapata, then? It’s come quite a ways, then—I can scarcely imagine the place,” mused the master, narrowing his eyes and smiling as he took the certificate parchment Lawrence offered him.

  Town merchants often spent their entire lives in the villages of their birth. There were some who would go on pilgrimages after their retirement, but there was no time for such things when they were actively working.