Spice and Wolf - Volume 1 - Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

The river Slaude meanders slowly across the plains. It it said to trace the path left behind by a giant snake that slithered from the mountains to the west through the plains to the eastern sea, and its wide, slow path is an essential transportation route for the region.

Pazzio is a large port town situated near the midpoint of the river. Not far upstream lie large fields of wheat; still farther are thickly forested mountains. Logs are floated downstream year-round; barges carrying wheat or corn, depending on the season, navigate up and down the river. That alone would be enough to ensure the town’s prosperity, but because there are no bridges across the Slaude, its ferries make it a natural gathering place.

It was past afternoon but not yet dusk; Lawrence and Holo arrived during the busiest time of the day.

Pazzio’s trade had grown since the town recovered its autonomy from the monarchy—now merchants and aristocrats ruled it. Consequently, there were heavy tariffs levied on goods entering the town, but there were no immigration checks or demands for identification. Had it been a castle town, the opposite would be true, and Holo’s nonhuman status would be a problem.

“Have they no king here?” was Holo’s first utterance upon arriving in the city.

“Is this your first time coming to a city of this size?”

“Times surely change. In my day, a city this large would have been ruled by a king.”

Lawrence felt a slight sense of superiority—he’d been to cities many times the size of Pazzio. He tried not to let it show lest Holo point it out. And in any case, he’d been just as naive when he first started out.

“Heh. I’ll just say that your intentions are admirable,” quipped Holo.

Apparently Lawrence had been a bit careless about hiding his thoughts.

Although Holo’s attention was focused on the many shops that lined the road, she’d still noticed his expression. Had it just been a lucky guess? The idea that she could discern his thoughts so easily was unsettling and far from funny.

“This isn’t…a festival, is it?”

“If it were a Church celebration day, the streets would be so crowded we couldn’t pass through them. Today, though, there’s still space.”

“Ho. Difficult to imagine that,” said Holo with a smile, leaning out of the cart and scanning the merchant stalls they passed.

She looked every bit the country bumpkin on her first visit to the town, but Lawrence suddenly thought of something else.

“Hey.”

“Mm?” was her only reply as she continued to stare at the many vendors.

“Will it be all right, not covering your head?”

“Huh? Head?”

“I know it’s festival time in Pasloe right now, so most of the villagers will be drinking and celebrating—but not all of them, and some of the ones who don’t may be visiting Pazzio right now.”

“Oh, that,” said Holo, sitting back down in the wagon, suddenly irritated. She looked back at Lawrence, her cloak just barely covering her ears. “Even if they could see my ears, nobody would notice. They’ve all long forgotten about me.”

There was such vehemence in her voice it was a miracle she didn’t shout. Lawrence reflexively raised his hands as if calming a startled horse. Holo was no horse, but it seemed to have some effect.

She snorted derisively and pulled the cloak down, facing ahead and pouting.

“You lived there for hundreds of years—surely there are some legends passed down about you. Or did you never take human form?”

“There are legends. And sometimes I’d appear as a human.”

“So there are stories about you appearing as a human?”

Holo gave Lawrence a belabored sidelong glance, sighed, then spoke. “As far as I remember, it went something like this. She looks like a beautiful girl of about fifteen. She has long, flowing brown hair and wolf ears, along with a white-tipped tail. Sometimes she would appear in this form, and in exchange for keeping her appearance a secret, she promises a good harvest.”

Holo regarded Lawrence flatly with a look that said, “Happy?”

“Well, it sounds like you pretty much told them everything about yourself. Is that really okay?”

“Even if they were to see my ears or tail, they would doubt—just as you did. They’ll never realize the truth.”

Holo slipped her hand underneath the cloak and fussed with her ears, perhaps because they pushed against the inside of the fabric uncomfortably.

Lawrence looked sideways at her. He wanted her to be more careful, but if he said as much she would surely get genuinely angry.

It seemed that discussion of Pasloe was taboo. He felt better when he considered that the legends of Holo made no mention of her actual facial features, only identifying her by her ears and tail. As long as she kept those concealed, she would go unnoticed. Legends were just legends—it was not as if she were on a Church wanted poster.

A few moments after Lawrence resolved not to press the matter, Holo appeared to be considering something. At length, she spoke.

“Hey…”

“Mm?”

“Even…even should they see me, they won’t know who I am…will they?”

Her mood had changed completely from before; it was almost as if she wanted to be discovered.

But Lawrence was no fool. He stared expressionlessly forward at the horse. “It is certainly my hope that they won’t,” he answered.

Holo smiled slightly, almost ruefully. “You needn’t worry.”

Once Holo started looking happily at the stalls again, Lawrence realized she’d been speaking to herself as well as him.

There was no need to press the matter, however—Holo was quite stubborn.

Lawrence couldn’t help smiling at Holo now. She’d cheered up completely and was excitedly looking at the delicious fruits they passed.

“There’s quite a collection of fruit! Are they all picked nearby?”

“It’s because Pazzio is the gateway to the south. When the season’s right, you can even see fruit from regions nearly impossible to visit.”

“There is much fruit in the south, and good.”

“Surely you have fruit in the north as well.”

“Aye, but it’s tough and bitter. To make it sweet it must be dried and cured. We wolves can’t do such work, so we have to take it from the villages.”

Lawrence would’ve expected birds, horses, or sheep to be more likely targets for wolves. It was hard to imagine them driven by a desire for something sweet. Perhaps a bear—bears often took the leather bags filled with grapes that hung from the eaves of houses.

“I would think wolves would prefer spicy things. It’s bears that crave sweets.”

“We don’t like spicy food. Once we found red fang-shaped fruit among the cargo of a shipwreck. We ate it and regretted it loud and long!”

“Ah, hot peppers. Expensive, those.”

“We dunked our heads in the river and decided humans were terrifying indeed,” said Holo with a chuckle, enjoying the memory for a moment as she gazed at the stalls. After a time, her smile faded, then finally reappeared as she sighed. The pleasure of nostalgia is never without its companion, loneliness.

Lawrence was trying to decide what he should say when Holo seemed to perk up.

“If it’s red fruit we’re talking about, I’d rather have those,” she said, tugging on his clothing and pointing out a stall.

Beyond the stream of passing people and wagons, there was a stall with a generous pile of apples.

“Oh, those are fine apples.”

“Are they not?” Holo’s eyes glittered beneath the cloak. He wondered if she noticed that her tail was swishing back and forth underneath her skirts. Perhaps she really did like apples. “They look rather toothsome, no?”

“Indeed.”

What Holo was hinting at was clear enough, but Lawrence pretended not to notice.

“Now that I think of it, I had a friend who invested more than half his worth in apples. I’m not sure where they were from, but if they turned out like these, he’s surely doubled his money.” Lawrence sighed regretfully. “I should’ve done the same.”

Holo’s expression shifted as if to say “that’s not the point I was trying to make,” but again Lawrence pretended not to notice.

“Hmph. Well…that’s most unfortunate,” Holo replied.

“But the risk was very high. If it were me, I would’ve transported them by ship.”

“A…ship, you say?” As they talked, they continued to move along the road with the clop-clopping of the horse’s hooves as accompaniment. Holo was becoming anxious. She clearly wanted the apples, but was just as clearly loath to say so, hence her agitated responses to Lawrence’s comments.

“You see, a group of merchants will sometimes pool their money to hire a ship. The amount of money they raise determines the amount and type of cargo, but unlike land transport, if there is an accident you may lose lives as well as money. Even a strong wind can put you in danger. However, there is profit to be had. I’ve twice traveled by sea this way, so…”

“Mm…ah…”

“What’s wrong?

They passed the apple booth, and it began to recede behind them.

There is nothing more fun than knowing the heart of another. Lawrence smiled his best merchant smile.

“Right, so about shipping…”

“Mm…apples…”

“Hm?”

“I…I want…I want apples.…”

Lawrence thought she’d be stubborn until the end, but since she’d finally admitted her desire, he decided to go ahead and treat her.

“Earn your own food, why don’t you.” Holo glared at Lawrence as she munched away on an apple; he made a show of shrugging helplessly.

She’d been so charming when she finally gave in and admitted her desire that Lawrence had generously given her a silver trenni coin of considerable value. She’d returned with more apples than she could carry. She appeared not to know the meaning of the word restraint.

By the time her face and hands were sticky with juice, well into her fourth apple, she got around to complaining again.

“You…munch…earlier, you…mmph…pretended like you didn’t…chomp…notice!”

“It’s amusing knowing what someone else is thinking,” said Lawrence to Holo as she ate the apple down to its core.

Thinking he’d have one for himself, Lawrence reached back to the pile of apples in the wagon bed, but Holo slapped his hand away even as she started on her fifth apple.

“Mine!”

“Hey, I paid for them.”

Holo’s cheeks were stuffed; she waited until she had finished swallowing to reply.

“I’m Holo the Wisewolf! I can make this much money any time I want.”

“Don’t let me stop you. I’d planned to use that money for lodging tonight.”

“Mmph…grm…But, I…munch…”

“Answer once you’re done eating, please.”

Holo nodded and didn’t speak again until her stomach contained no less than eight apples.

Did she still intend to have dinner after all that?

“…Whew.”

“You certainly ate a lot.”

“Apples are the devil’s fruit, full of tempting sweetness as they are.”

Lawrence couldn’t help laughing at her overstatement.

“Shouldn’t a wisewolf be able to conquer temptation?”

“While one may lose much because of avarice, nothing was ever accomplished by abstinence.” The sight of Holo licking her fingers clean of the sweet juice strengthened her argument. If it meant missing such pleasure as this, asceticism was the height of folly.

All this was merely academic, of course.

“So, what was that you were going to say earlier?”

“Hm? Oh, yes. I’ve no money and no immediate means to earn money, so as you do business I’ll just put a few words in to help you bring in more profit. Agreed?”

No merchant worth his salt simply answers “agreed” when so asked. It’s common sense to refrain from answering until making sure of the other party’s intentions. A verbal contract is still a contract and must be honored, come what may.

Thus Lawrence didn’t answer right away. He didn’t understand what Holo was getting at.

“You’ll soon be selling the marten furs, yes?” As if guessing at the reason for his hesitation, Holo turned to the wagon bed behind them.

“Today, hopefully. No later than tomorrow.”

“Well, I’ll try to say something to bring your profit up, if I can. Whatever the difference I make, I keep,” she said, licking her little finger clean as if it were nothing.

Lawrence mulled it over. Holo seemed confident that she could sell the marten pelts higher than he could. Wisewolf or no, he had seven years of experience as a traveling merchant. He wasn’t such a weak dealer that a few words tossed in from the side would bring up his prices, and there was no guarantee the buyer would accept such prices.

Yet his curiosity at exactly how she would attempt this farce overpowered his doubt that it would actually happen, so in the end he said, “Agreed.”

“It’s done, then!” replied Holo, burping.

“But this isn’t just limited to our pelts. You’re a merchant, too—there may be no chance for me to talk up our price.”

“How modest of you.”

“Wisdom is knowing thyself first.”

The statement would’ve sounded better had she not said it while casting her gaze longingly back toward the remaining pile of apples.

The pelts’ destination was the Milone Company, a brokerage house that acted as an intermediary for a variety of goods. The Milone Company was the third-largest house in the city; the two above it were local businesses that had their headquarters in Pazzio. The Milone Company was headquartered in a mercantile nation far to the south and run by a powerful trader of noble lineage; the Pazzio location was a branch.

Lawrence had chosen the Milone Company over the local brokerages because it would pay higher commodity prices in order to best its competitors and also because, having so many branches in different places, it could provide valuable information.

His aim was to dig up information akin to the story he’d heard from the young merchant Zheren. Who better to ask about currency exchange than traders who routinely crossed borders to do business?

After securing lodgings for the two of them, Lawrence trimmed his beard and set out.

The Milone Company was the fifth building from the docks and the second-largest shop in the area. It had a huge gate that faced the docks to accommodate wagon traffic, which made the shop seem even bigger at a glance. Commodities of all kinds were piled around the gates, as if to show off the company’s prosperity. It might have been their peculiar way of competing with the local businesses, which could trade on their long-standing local connections and didn’t need flashy displays to prove they were turning a profit.

Lawrence stopped his wagon at the loading area, and presently an employee came out to meet them.

“Welcome to the Milone Trading Company!”

The smart-looking man tasked with unloading had a neatly trimmed beard and hair. Normally a trading company’s unloading dock was a chaotic swirl of banditlike men shouting this way and that—Milone was an exception.

“I’ve sold wheat here before, but today I have furs to sell. Will you take a look?”

“Yes, yes, but of course! The man inside and to the left will be happy to see you.”

Lawrence nodded and with a flick of the reins drove the wagon inside. Around the area were stacked all sorts of goods—wheat, straw, stones, timber, fruit, and more. The staff was quick and efficient, which is how the Milone Company was successful even in foreign countries, a fact that would impress any traveling merchant.

Even Holo seemed impressed.

“Ho there, sir, where are you headed?”

The two were watching the busy loading and unloading in the shop but stopped at the sound of the voice. They looked in its direction and saw a large man with steam rising from his suntanned body. He didn’t seem like the man Lawrence had been directed to find, but he was certainly huge.

“Is he a knight?” Holo said under her breath.

“We’re here to sell furs. I was told to come to the left side of the shop.” Lawrence met the man’s eyes and smiled.

“Right, then, I’ll just take your horse. This way, if you please.”

Lawrence did as he was told and angled his horse toward the man. The horse snorted. Apparently he sensed the man’s vitality.

“Ho-ho, a good horse, sir! He looks stout of heart.”

“He works without complaint; I’ll say that much,” said Lawrence.

“A horse that complains—now that would be something to see!”

“You’re not kidding.”

The two men laughed, and the worker led Lawrence’s horse inside the unloading area, and after hitching him to a sturdy wooden fence, called out.

The person that answered was a man who looked more fit to be carrying a quill and ink than hay bales. He seemed to be the buyer.

“Kraft Lawrence, I presume? We thank you for your patronage.”

Lawrence was used to being greeted politely, but he was impressed that the man knew his name before Lawrence had given it. He’d last visited the company during a winter three years ago, selling wheat. Perhaps the man that now greeted Lawrence in the entryway still remembered him.

“I’m told you’ve come to sell furs today.” The buyer skipped over the usual pleasantries about the weather and jumped straight to the heart of the matter. Lawrence coughed slightly and shifted into his trader persona.

“Indeed I have. These are the very ones, here in the back of the wagon, seventy total.” He hopped down from the wagon and invited the buyer to view the furs. He was followed by Holo, who jumped down from the wagon a moment later.

“Ho, these are good marten furs indeed. The year has been a good one for crops, so marten fur is scarce.”

About half the marten fur that reached the marketplace came from farmers who hunted in their free time. When the harvest was plentiful, they were too busy to hunt, and marten fur was scarcer. Lawrence decided to push his position.

“You only see furs this fine once every several years. They were drenched with rain on the way here, but look—they’ve lost none of their luster.”

“’Tis a fine luster, to be sure, and with good lie. What of their size?”

Lawrence pulled a largish pelt from the bed and offered it to the buyer, since it was generally prohibited for people other than the owner of the goods to touch them.

“Oh, ho. They’re not lacking in size. You said you had seventy?” He didn’t ask to see all the pelts; he was not so unrefined. Here was the challenge of trade—there was no buyer that would not want to see each pelt, but likewise was there no seller that would want to show each.

This was the intersection of vanity, propriety, and desire.

“Well, then…Sir Lorentz…ah, my apologies, Sir Lawrence, you’ve come to trade with us because you sold wheat here in the past?”

The same name was pronounced differently in different nations. It was a mistake Lawrence himself made often enough, so he forgave it with a smile and produced a wooden abacus from his pocket, which the man looked at. Different regions and nations had different ways of writing numbers, and because nothing was harder than trying to puzzle through these differences, merchants hardly ever wrote figures down while negotiating. Moving the wooden beads of the abacus would make the numbers completely clear, although one still had to be mindful of exactly what currency was being counted.

“I can offer…say, one hundred thirty-two silver trenni.”

Lawrence pretended to think on the matter for a moment. “You don’t see furs like these often. I brought them to you because I’ve done business with you in the past, but…”

“We certainly appreciate your business.”

“For my part I’d like to continue our association.”

“As would we, I assure you. In light of friendly relations, then, what say you to one hundred forty?”

It was a somewhat transparent exchange, but within the mutual deception was truth—which made the dealings more interesting.

One hundred forty trenni was a good price. It wouldn’t be wise to push past that.

But just when Lawrence was about to say “It’s done, then,” Holo—who’d been silent up until that point—tugged slightly on his sleeve.

“Excuse me a moment,” said Lawrence to the buyer, then leaned down, putting his ear level with Holo’s hood.

“I don’t quite know—is that a good price?”

“Quite good, yes,” said Lawrence simply, smiling to the company representative.

“Well then, do we have an agreement?” It seemed the buyer was ready to conclude the deal. Lawrence smiled and was about to reply.

“Wait just a moment.”

“Wha—” said Lawrence, without thinking.

Before he could say anything further, she kept speaking—just like a canny merchant would.

“One hundred forty trenni, you said, yes?”

“Uh, er, yes. One hundred forty in silver trenni pieces,” answered the representative, a bit taken aback by the sudden question from the up-to-now silent Holo. Women were rare in places of trade—not unheard of, but rare.

For her part, Holo either didn’t know or didn’t care; she spoke as freely as she pleased. “Ah, perhaps you didn’t notice?”

The buyer, quite taken aback, looked at Holo. He seemed not to understand what she was getting at; Lawrence didn’t know, either.

“My apologies, but have I overlooked something?” The buyer, a merchant from a neighboring country, looked to be roughly the same age as Lawrence. He was a veteran of countless negotiations, who’d dealt with innumerable parties in his career.

It was to his credit that despite his experience, he appeared to be sincerely apologizing to Holo.

Of course it was far from surprising that he was taken aback. Holo had effectively asked him if he knew what he was looking at.

“Mm. I can see you’re a fine merchant, so surely you pretended not to notice? I can see I won’t need to hold back with you.” Holo grinned underneath her cloak. Lawrence nervously hoped she wasn’t showing her fangs, but more than anything he wanted to know what she was doing.

The buyer had been accurate and honest. If Holo was telling the truth, then Lawrence himself had also missed an important detail.

Which was impossible.

“My intention is anything but, I assure you. If you’ll kindly point out what you’re speaking of, we will be happy to adjust the price appropriately…”

Lawrence had never seen a buyer act so meekly. To be sure, he’d seen them pretend meekness, but this was no act.

Holo’s words had a strange weight, and her delivery was perfect.

“Master,” she said to Lawrence. “It’s not polite to make sport of people.”

It was hard to tell whether she called him “master” to mock him or because it was appropriate to the situation, but in either case, if he bungled his response here, he knew he’d hear about it later. He frantically groped for a response.

“Th-that was certainly not my aim. But perhaps you should be the one to tell him.”

Holo grinned a lopsided grin at Lawrence, flashing a fang. “Master, pass me a fur, if you please.”

“Here.”

It struck Lawrence as silly that he had to exert himself to maintain his dignity in the face of being called “master.” Holo was the only master here.

“Thank you, master. Now, if you please, sir…” said Holo, turning to the buyer and showing him the fur. At a glance its lay, size, and luster did not seem to merit an increased price. Even if she were to talk up the lay as being especially fine, the buyer would unavoidably ask to examine the fur more closely, and would inevitably find flaws. The price was unlikely to drop, but the relationship between buyer and seller would suffer.

“These are fine furs, as you can see,” Holo said.

“I quite agree,” replied the buyer.

“You won’t see their like in many years. Or perhaps I should put it this way—you won’t smell their like in many years.”

Holo’s words froze the air in an instant. Lawrence had no idea what she was talking about.

“’Tis a scent, but to miss it you’d need to be blind!” Holo laughed. She was the only one. Lawrence and the buyer were too stunned to be amused.

“Well, a smell is worth a thousand words. Would you care to sample the scent?” Holo handed the pelt to the buyer, who took it and looked uncertainly toward Lawrence.

Lawrence nodded slowly, hiding his confusion.

What was the point in smelling the pelts? He had never heard of such a thing in all his dealings.

Neither had the buyer, surely, but he had no choice but to placate his vendors. He slowly brought the fur up to his nose and sniffed.

At first, his face showed a mixture of confusion and surprise. He sniffed again, and only the surprise remained.

“Oh? Smell something, do you?” Holo said.

“Ah, er, yes. It smells like fruit, I’d say.”

Lawrence looked at the fur in surprise. Fruit?

“Fruit indeed. Just as fur is scarce this year because of the harvest, so did the forest overflow with fruit. This marten was scampering about in that same forest until just a few days ago, and it ate so much of that plentiful fruit that the scent suffused its body.”

The buyer sniffed the fur again. He nodded, as if to say “true enough.”

“The truth is that while the fur’s luster might be better or worse, it generally changes little. Does the problem not come, then, when the fur is made into clothing, when it is actually used? Good fur is durable; bad fur soon wears thin.”

“True, as you say,” said the buyer.

Lawrence was astonished. How much did this wolf know?

“As you can tell, this particular fur has the sweet scent of a marten that has eaten very well indeed. It took two strong men to pull the hide clear of the body, it was so tough.”

The buyer tugged on the fur experimentally.

He couldn’t pull too hard on goods he hadn’t yet purchased, though—something Holo knew full well.

She was a perfect merchant.

“The fur is as strong as the beast itself was, and will keep the wearer as warm as a spring day, shedding rain from dawn ’til dusk. And don’t forget the scent! Imagine coming across a perfumed piece of clothing like this among coats made from nose-wrinkling marten fur. Why, ’twould sell so dear your eyes would pop out.”

The buyer was indeed imagining the scenario, gazing off into the distance. When Lawrence thought about it, he could see that the goods would sell high—or perhaps, he could smell as much.

“So, what do you think would be a fair price, then?”

The buyer snapped out of his reverie and straightened himself, then played with some figures on his abacus. The beads flew back and forth with a pleasant tak-tak-tak sound, finally displaying a figure.

“What say you to two hundred trenni?”

Lawrence’s breath caught in his throat. One hundred forty pieces was already a respectably high price. Two hundred was unimaginable.

“Mmm,” Holo murmured to herself. He wanted to beg her to stop—this was going too far, but she was implacable.

“How about three pieces for each fur—two hundred ten in total?”

“Er, well…”

“Master,” she said to Lawrence. “Perhaps we should try elsewhere—”

“Uh, no! Two hundred ten pieces, then!” said the buyer.

Hearing this, Holo nodded, satisfied, and turned to her “master.” “You heard the man, master.”

She was definitely teasing him.

The tavern called Yorend was on a slightly removed alleyway, but it looked well-kept enough. Local craftsmen appeared to make up the bulk of its clientele.

Lawrence found himself suddenly tired when they arrived at the Yorend tavern.

Holo, on the other hand, was quite energetic, probably because she’d managed to outwit two merchants at once. The hour was yet early, so the tavern was mostly empty, and their wine was out very quickly—Holo drained hers in one huge draught, while Lawrence was content to nurse his.

“Ah, wine!” said Holo, belching a fine belch. She lifted her wood cup and ordered another round, which the tavern girl acknowledged with a smile.

“What troubles you? Aren’t you going to drink?” said Holo, munching away on some fried beans.

She didn’t seem to be particularly dizzy with success, though, so Lawrence decided to broach the subject directly.

“Have you ever worked as a merchant?”

Holo, still munching the snack and holding her refilled glass, smiled ruefully. “Oh, I’m sorry, have I injured your pride?”

Naturally, she had.

“I don’t know how many deals you’ve done in your life, but I watched countless transactions when I was in the village. Long ago, I once saw a man use that technique—I didn’t invent it myself. When was that, anyway…?”

Lawrence didn’t speak, but his eyes held the question: Is that true? Holo looked slightly troubled as she nodded, and Lawrence sighed even as he felt somewhat relieved.

“I really hadn’t noticed, though. Last night when I slept in the furs, I didn’t smell any fruit.”

“Oh, that. That was from the apples we bought.”

Lawrence was speechless. When had she pulled that trick?

And suddenly, he felt a chill of worry.

It was fraud!

“It’s his own fault for being tricked,” said Holo. “He’ll be impressed once he figures it out.”

“…You may have a point.”

“There’s no point in being angry when you’ve been tricked. A real merchant knows to be impressed.”

“That’s quite a sermon. You sound like a wizened old trader.”

“Heh. And you’re just a babe in arms, yourself.”

Lawrence had to laugh. He shrugged as he drank his wine. It had a keen taste to it.

“All this aside, did you do as you were supposed to?” Holo was talking about the Zheren matter.

“I asked around the Milone Company to see if anybody knew about nations that would be issuing new silver currency, but they didn’t seem to be hiding anything. As long the information isn’t something that needs to be monopolized, they’ll normally share it. Makes for good business relations.”

“Hm.”

“But chances for this kind of deal aren’t common. That’s why we’re involved.”

It wasn’t vanity. It was reality. In currency speculation, prices either rose, fell, or held steady. Even if the details became complex, all one had to do was turn it over in one’s head until one hit upon the solution.

Once the proposed deal was reduced to the party that would gain and the one that would lose, there were few decisions to make.

However…

“Still, whatever the trick, as long as we can avoid getting fleeced and come out ahead, we’ll be fine. “

Lawrence drank some wine and popped some beans into his mouth—Holo was paying, so he decided he might as well take advantage of it.

“I don’t see the owner anywhere. I wonder if he’s out,” he said.

“Zheren did say we could contact him through the bar. He must be on good terms with the establishment.”

“Well, traveling merchants usually base their operations out of either a tavern or a trading house. In fact, I’ve got to get to a trading house later on. And the owner really isn’t around, is he?” said Lawrence, scanning the tavern yet again. It was a fairly spacious establishment, with fifteen round tables; only two other people—craftsmen from the look of them—were in the tavern.

He couldn’t very well just go talk to them, so he asked the girl when she brought them another round of wine along with some roasted herring and smoked mutton.

“The owner?” said the girl as she set the wine and food on the table. Her arms were very slender; Lawrence wondered where she got the strength to handle the heavy food. “He’s gone to buy ingredients at the marketplace,” she continued. “Do you have some business with him?”

“Could you possibly tell him we’re trying to get in touch with a man named Zheren?”

If they didn’t know Zheren here, that was fine, too. Many merchants used taverns as convenient points of contact, so a misunderstanding was entirely possible.

But it turned out to be unnecessary concern on Lawrence’s part. The girl’s eyes brightened immediately at the mention of Zheren.

“Oh, Mr. Zheren? I know of him.”

“Do you?”

“He normally comes soon after sundown. Feel free to stay here until then.”

She was a shrewd girl indeed, but she had a point. It was an hour or two until dusk, which would be just enough time to enjoy a nice leisurely drink.

“We’ll take you up on that, then,” said Lawrence.

“Do enjoy yourselves!” said the girl with a bow, then turned to attend to the tavern’s other two patrons.

Lawrence drank from his cup of wine. Its tart scent wafted across his nose, fading to sweetness on his tongue. Some liquors, like rum, traded on their intensity, but Lawrence preferred the sweetness of wine or mead. Sometimes he’d have cider just for a change.

Beer was good, too, but its flavor depended on the skill of the craftsman and the tastes of the person drinking it. Unlike wine, whose quality depended entirely on price, a beer’s deliciousness was unrelated to its cost, so merchants tended to avoid it. There was no way to know if the particular brew would suit your taste unless you were from the region or town—so when he wanted to appear local, Lawrence would order beer.

Lawrence thought on this when he noticed that Holo, sitting opposite him, had stopped eating. She appeared to be deep in thought. Lawrence spoke up to get her attention, but she was slow in answering.

“…That girl, she’s lying,” she finally said, once the girl had disappeared into the kitchen.

“Lying how?”

“Zheren doesn’t necessarily come in here every day.”

“Hm.” Lawrence nodded, looking into his wine cup.

“Well, I hope we’ll see Zheren soon, as she says.”

The girl’s lie meant that she was already in touch with Zheren. If not, things would be complicated now for both Lawrence and the mysterious young merchant.

“As do I,” said Holo.

The reason for the lie was unclear, though. It could be that she was able to call Zheren anytime she wanted and simply wanted to keep Lawrence and Holo at the table and ordering wine for a little while longer. Merchants and traders told lies large and small all the time. Worrying over every single one would soon drive one to distraction.

So Lawrence wasn’t particularly worried, and he imagined Holo was the same.

And other than Holo’s delight at the honeycomb-shaped honeyed stew, the sun set without incident, and soon customers began filtering into the tavern.

Among them was Zheren.

“I rejoice at our reunion!” said Zheren, raising his wine cup. It knocked against Lawrence’s with a pleasant klok. “How fared your furs?”

“They fetched a good price—as you can tell from the wine.”

“I envy you! I daresay you had an angle?”

Lawrence didn’t reply immediately, instead taking a drink of wine. “That’s a secret.”

Holo was busily devouring the beans, possibly to hide her smirk.

“Well, in any case, I’m glad you were able to sell them for a good price. For my part, more capital means more profit.”

“Just because I have more capital doesn’t mean I’ll be increasing my investment.”

“Say it’s not so! I’ve prayed for your good fortune in anticipation of just that!”

“Then you’ve been praying at the wrong place. You should’ve just prayed for me to up my investment.”

Zheren gazed upward, his face a mask of exaggerated tragedy.

“So, to business, then,” said Lawrence.

“Ah, right.” Zheren composed himself and looked at Lawrence, but looked briefly to Holo as well, as though he knew she, too, was a figure not to be underestimated.

“In exchange for selling me the information of which silver currency is due to become purer, you want a portion of the profit I’ll make. Does that sum it up?”

“Indeed.”

“Is this story of a purer coin true?”

Zheren faltered slightly at the directness of the question. “Well, I’m predicting it based on information I got from a small mining town. I think it’s trustworthy, but…there are no guarantees in business.”

“True enough.”

Lawrence nodded, satisfied at seeing Zheren cringe. He brought some stew to his lips and continued.

“If you’d told me it was a sure thing, I’d have had to walk away. Nothing is more suspicious than a guarantee.”

Zheren sighed in relief.

“So, what would you want for a percentage?”

“Ten trenni for the information, plus ten percent of your profit.”

“That’s a very conservative demand given the potential gain.”

“It is. If you should take a loss, I won’t be able to compensate you. If I had to, all my assets would be forfeit. So I’ll take ten percent of whatever you make, but if you take a loss, I’ll refund you the information fee, and no more.”

Lawrence mulled the issue over, his mind long since fuzzy from liquor.

Zheren’s proposal boiled down to roughly two possibilities.

The first was that he, Lawrence, would sustain a loss, and Zheren would use that for his own gain.

The second was that Zheren’s proposal was basically sound.

However, thanks to Holo, he knew that Zheren’s claim that the currency in question would rise in value owing to an increased silver content was a lie. If so, Zheren planned to profit from Lawrence’s loss, but Lawrence didn’t yet know how.

Given this, Lawrence began to wonder if Holo’s estimation of Zheren was mistaken after all. It didn’t make sense that Zheren’s goal was the paltry information fee.

But it wouldn’t matter how much time he spent thinking about it. Only when he got the information from Zheren would he be able to get a fresh perspective.

If it became obvious that he would sustain a loss, he could just get his information fee back. With a little bit of speculation he could dodge any problems, and now his interest in whatever Zheren was planning was greater than ever.

“That sounds good enough to me.”

“Oh, er, thank you very much!”

“Just to confirm, you want ten trenni to provide me with the information, and ten percent of my earnings. However, if I lose money, you’ll return the fee to me, and you won’t be liable for further losses.”

“Yes.”

“And we’ll sign a contract to this effect before a public witness.”

“Yes. As for the settlement day, can we make it three days before the spring market? I expect the currency to change within the year.”

The spring market was still half a year out. It was enough time for the currency to settle into its new value, be it up or down. If it actually rose, there would be an accompanying increase of confidence in the currency, and people would be happy to do business using it. Its market value would rise rapidly. Those who sold it impatiently would lose out.

“That will do. It should be sufficient time.”

“In that case, I look forward to seeing you at the public witness’s office early tomorrow morning.”

There was no reason to refuse. Lawrence nodded, and raised his cup. “To profit for both of us!”

At the sight of both men raising their cups, the listless Holo scrambled to get her cup in her hand.

“To profit!”

There was a pleasant klok as the cups knocked against each other.

The public witness, just as the name implies, is a public service for providing witnesses for contracts. However, just because a contract was signed before a public witness, the town guard would not necessarily catch someone who breached it. Even the monarchy, in charge of the public good as it was, would not do that.

Instead, the offending party’s identity would be spread around by the public witness. This was fatal to a merchant. For larger deals, this was even truer—a merchant with a bad reputation wouldn’t even be able to deal with traders from foreign countries, at least not in that particular city.

The consequences weren’t particularly effective for people who were going to retire from trading, but as long as they planned to continue as a merchant, the incentive was enough.

It was before such a public witness that Lawrence signed the contract, paid Zheren the ten trenni, and received the information without incident. Lawrence and Holo then parted ways with Zheren and headed into the town marketplace. The empty wagon would only cause problems in the crowded town center, so they left it at the inn and went in on foot.

“This is the silver the boy mentioned, yes?” Holo held a silver trenni. It was the most widely used currency in the region because among the hundreds of different kinds of currency in the world, it was one of the most trusted, and also simply because this town and the region around it were within the nation of Trenni.

Nations that did not have their own currency were doomed to either collapse or become client nations of larger powers.

“It’s a well-trusted coin in this region,” said Lawrence.

“Trusted?” Holo looked up at Lawrence as she played with the coin on which the profile of the eleventh ruler of Trenni was engraved.

“There are hundreds of currencies in the world, and the amount of gold or silver in each varies constantly. Trust is an important part of currency.”

“Huh. I only knew of a few different kinds of money. It used to be that business was done in animal skins.”

Lawrence wondered exactly how many hundreds of years ago she was talking about.

“So, how about it? Have you worked something out now that you know which coin he was talking about?”

“Well, there are several possibilities.”

“For example?” asked Holo as they walked past the stalls in the marketplace. She stopped suddenly, and a big man who had the look of a worker about him bumped into her. He was just about to shout at her when Holo looked up from underneath her cloak and apologized. The man reddened and managed to say, “W-well, be more careful.”

Lawrence silently resolved not to be swayed by this particular tactic of Holo’s. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Mm. I want to eat one of those.”

Holo was pointing at a bread stall. It was just before midday, so fresh-baked bread was lined up in neat rows. In front of a stall, a maid was buying more bread than she could possibly eat, probably for the midday meal of some craftsman and his apprentice.

“You want some bread?”

“Mm. That one, there, with the honey on it.”

Holo indicated some long, thin loaves that were being showily displayed from the eaves of the stall. The honey-drizzled bread was popular in most places. Lawrence seemed to remember that the tradition was started in a certain city where a baker had hung the loaves from the eaves of his shop as he drizzled them with honey as a way to attract customers. The tactic had been so successful that fights broke out among the people who wanted to buy the bread, and the baker’s union had made it official policy that all honey bread would be henceforth hung from the eaves.

The bread did look delicious, but Lawrence couldn’t help grinning at Holo’s sweet tooth showing itself yet again.

“You have money,” he told her. “Go ahead and buy some if you want.”

“I don’t imagine bread and apples are far apart in price. Will you carry the mountain of bread I’ll bring back with me? Or shall I ruin the baker’s day by asking him for so much change?”

Lawrence finally understood. All Holo had were silver trenni coins—each of which was worth far more than it took to buy a loaf of bread. She’d bought more apples than she was able to carry with a similar coin.

“All right, all right. I’ll give you a smaller coin. Here, hold out your hands. One of these black coins should get you one loaf.”

Lawrence took the silver coin from Holo’s hands and replaced it with several brown and black copper ones, pointing at the coin he wanted her to use.

Holo scrutinized the currency carefully. “You’d best not be cheating me,” she said suspiciously.

He thought about kicking her, but Holo soon turned on her heel and headed for the baker’s stall.

“Always with the quick tongue,” retorted Lawrence, but in truth he couldn’t claim he wasn’t enjoying himself.

When he saw Holo walking back, her face the very picture of contentment as she sank her teeth into the bread, he couldn’t help laughing.

“Don’t bump into anybody else,” Lawrence said. “I don’t want to have to deal with a fight.”

“Don’t treat me like a pup, then.”

“It’s hard to see you as anything else when your mouth is covered in sticky honey.”

“…”

For a moment Lawrence thought she was sulking in anger, but the aged wolf was not so easily provoked.

“Am I charming, then?” She looked up at Lawrence with her head cocked slightly, whereupon he slapped her on the head. “You certainly can’t take a joke,” she grumbled.

“I’m a very serious person,” said Lawrence.

Her faintly flustered demeanor went unnoticed.

“So, what was it you were thinking about?”

“Oh, right, right.” It was better to bring up the previous topic of conversation than stay in this uncomfortable territory. “So, back to the trenni coin. Zheren may well be telling the truth.”

“Oh?”

“There are reasons to raise the silver content. So…here, take this coin, a silver firin. It’s from a nation three rivers south of here. It’s got a respectable silver content and is quite popular in the marketplace. You could say it’s the trenni’s rival.”

“Huh. Seems one thing never changes: a nation’s power is in its money.” The always-quick Holo munched away on her bread.

“Exactly. Nations do not always fight through strength of arms. If your country’s currency is overwhelmed by a foreign coin, you’ve been just as thoroughly conquered. All the foreign king needs to do is cut off your supply of money, and your marketplace will die. Without money, you can neither buy nor sell. They control your economy.”

“So they’re increasing the silver content in order to gain advantage over their rival,” said Holo, licking her fingers after finishing the bread.

Having come that far, Lawrence imagined that Holo might realize she had something to say.

“I suppose my ears aren’t completely omniscient.” Evidently she did.

“It’s entirely possible that Zheren wasn’t actually lying,” agreed Lawrence.

“Mm. I quite agree.”

She was being so reasonable that Lawrence found himself taken aback. Even though she’d admitted she wasn’t perfectly accurate, he fully expected her to angrily chide him for doubting her senses.

“What, did you think I was going to be angry?”

“I surely did.”

“Well, I might be angry at that!” she said with a mischievous smile.

“In any case, Zheren might not have been lying.”

“Hmm. So where are we going now?”

“Now that we know which coin to look into, we’re going to look into it.”

“So, to the mint?”

Lawrence couldn’t help laughing at her naive question, which earned him a sharp, angry look. “If a merchant like me showed up at the mint, the only greeting I’d get would be the business end of a spear. No, we’re going to see the cambist.”

“Huh. I guess there are things even I don’t know.”

Lawrence was understanding Holo’s personality better and better. “Once we’re there, we’ll see how the coin has been performing recently.”

“What do you mean?”

“When a currency’s value changes drastically, there are always signs.”

“Like the weather before a storm?”

Lawrence smiled at the amusing analogy. “Something like that. When the purity is going to increase a lot, it increases a little at a time, and when it’s going to drop, it will drop gradually.”

“Mmm…”

It didn’t seem like Holo fully understood, so Lawrence launched into a lecture, sounding for all the world like a determined schoolteacher.

“Currency is based on trust. Relative to the absolute value of the gold or silver in them, coins are obviously more highly valued. Of course, the value is set very carefully, but since what you’re actually doing is arbitrarily assigning a value to something with no inherent worth, you can think of it as a ball of trust. In fact, as long as the changes to a coin’s purity aren’t large, they’re impossible to detect. Even a cambist has difficulty with it. You have to melt the coin down to be sure. But because a currency is based on trust, when it gains popularity its actual value can exceed its face value—or do the opposite. There are many possible reasons for changes in its popularity, and one of the biggest is a change in the gold or silver purity of the coin. That’s why people are so sensitive to changes in a currency—so sensitive that even changes too small to detect with eyeglasses or a scale can still be considered major.”

He finished his lengthy digression. Holo stared off into the distance, appearing to be deep in thought. Lawrence suspected even the canny Holo wouldn’t understand everything from the first explanation. He prepared himself to answer her questions, but none were forthcoming.

When he looked more carefully at her face, she seemed not to be trying to piece things together in her head, but rather as if she was confirming something.

He didn’t want to believe it, but she may well have understood perfectly the first time.

“Hmph. So when whoever makes the coins wants to change the purity, first they’ll make a minute change to see what the reaction is, then they’ll adjust it up or down, yes?”

Having an apprentice like this was certainly a mixed blessing. A superior apprentice was the pride of any merchant, but humiliation lurked.

Lawrence hid the frustration he felt—it had taken him a full month to understand the concept of currency valuation. “Y-yeah, that’s about right,” he answered.

“The human world certainly is complicated.” Despite the admission, her comprehension was terrifyingly quick.

As the two conversed, they approached a narrow river. It wasn’t the Slaude that flowed by Pazzio, but rather an artificial canal that diverted water from the Slaude, so that goods coming down the river could be efficiently transported into the city center without having to bring them ashore first.

To that end, rafts were constantly floating along the river, tended by boatmen whose voices as they shouted at one another were now audible.

Lawrence was headed for the bridge that spanned the canal. Cambists and goldsmiths had long situated their businesses on bridges. There they would set up their tables and their scales and do business. Naturally, they were closed on rainy days.

“Oh ho, it’s quite crowded,” remarked Holo as they reached the largest bridge in Pazzio. With the sluice gates closed, flooding was impossible, so a bridge far larger than could ever be constructed over an ordinary river connected both sides of the canal, with cambists and goldsmiths packed elbow-to-elbow along its sides. All were highly successful, and the cambists in particular were kept busy changing money from lands near and far. Next to them, the goldsmiths busied themselves with their jewelry and alchemy. There were no crucibles for melting metal, but small jobs and orders for larger ones were common. As one would expect from a place where the bulk of the city’s taxes were levied, the place fairly smelled of money.

“There are so many; how does one choose?”

“Any merchant worth his salt has a favorite cambist in each town. Follow me.”

They walked up the congested bridge, Holo scurrying to keep up with Lawrence.

The bridges were crowded with passersby even in the best of times, and even though it was now illegal everywhere, the apprentices of the cambists and goldsmiths would jump from the bridge on errands for their masters, turning the milieu carnivalesque. The liveliness inevitably resulted in fraud—and it was always the customers who risked being cheated.

“Ah, there he is.” Lawrence himself had been swindled many times in the past, and only once he’d made friends with certain money changers had it stopped.

His favored cambist in Pazzio looked a bit younger than him.

“Ho, Weiz. It’s been a while,” said Lawrence to the fair-haired cambist, who was just finishing business with another customer.

Weiz looked up at the mention of his name and smiled broadly upon recognizing Lawrence. “Well, if it isn’t Lawrence! It has indeed been a while! When did you get into town?”

The association between the two professionals had been long. It was like a friendship, formed not out of kindness but necessity.

“Just yesterday,” replied Lawrence. “Took a detour from Yorenz to do some business.”

“You never change, old friend. You look well!”

“I’m all right. How about yourself?”

“Hemorrhoids, my friend. Finally caught the curse of our trade! It’s not pleasant.”

Weiz spoke with a smile, but it was the unpleasant proof of the true cambist. Sitting all day in one place so as not to miss a customer, nearly all of them suffered from hemorrhoids eventually.

“So, what brings you here today? Coming by at this hour means you must have need of my services, eh?”

“Yeah, actually, I have a favor to ask…uh, are you all right?” asked Lawrence. As if coming out of a dream, Weiz looked back to Lawrence from somewhere else. His eyes soon drifted away to elsewhere, though.

He was looking at the figure next to Lawrence.

“Who’s the girl?”

“Picked her up in Pasloe on my way here.”

“Huh. Picked her up, you say?”

“Well, more or less. Wouldn’t you say?”

“Mm? Mm…might not be quite the word for it, but more or less, I’ll allow,” said Holo with some reluctance, pausing her curious glancing here and there to answer Lawrence.

“So, what’s your name, miss?”

“Mine? ’Tis Holo.”

“Holo, eh? Good name.”

Weiz grinned shamelessly; Holo returned it with a not-altogether-displeased smile that Lawrence did not particularly appreciate.

“Well, if you have nowhere in particular to go, why not work here? I just happen to find myself in want of a maid. Someday you might follow in my footsteps, or perhaps even become my bride—”

“Weiz, I’ve come for a favor,” said Lawrence, cutting him off. Weiz looked suitably offended.

“What? Have you already had your way with her?” Weiz had always had an indelicate manner of speaking.

Far from having “had his way with her,” Lawrence found himself being toyed with by Holo, so he answered with an emphatic negative.

“Well, then, you should let me have a go,” snapped Weiz, looking to Holo and smiling sweetly. Holo fidgeted nervously, occasionally pausing to say things like “Oh, my,” an affectation Lawrence failed to find amusing.

Naturally, he concealed his irritation. “We’ll discuss that later. Business first.”

“Hmph. Fine, then. What do you want?”

Holo snickered.

“Have you any recently minted trenni coins? If you can, I’d like the three most recently issued coins.”

“What, do you know something about the purity changing?”

Weiz knew his business—he’d immediately realized what Lawrence was up to.

“Something like that,” said Lawrence.

“Well, watch yourself, friend. ’Tisn’t so easy to get ahead of the crowd,” said Weiz—which meant that even the cambists hadn’t heard of any imminent changes.

“So, do you have any or don’t you?”

“I do indeed. There’s a new coin came out just last month, at Advent. Then the one before that…here it is.”

Weiz produced four coins from slots in the wooden box behind him and gave them to Lawrence. The year of issue was carved in the wood.

There was no visible difference between any of the coins.

“We handle money all day and haven’t noticed anything. They’re cast in the same mold, using the same ingredients. The lineup of artisans at the mint hasn’t changed in years. There’ve been no coups, and there’s no reason to change the coin,” said Weiz.

The weight and color of the coins had already been scrutinized, but Lawrence still held them up to the sun and looked at them carefully. It seemed there really hadn’t been any change.

“It’s no use, friend. If you could tell just by looking, we’d have noticed long ago,” said Weiz, his chin in his cupped hands. “Give it up,” he seemed to be saying.

“Hm. What now, I wonder,” said Lawrence with a sigh, returning the coins to Weiz’s outstretched palm. They made a pleasant clinking sound as they fell.

“Don’t want to melt them down, eh?” said Weiz.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I can’t do that,” Lawrence retorted.

Melting down currency was a crime in any country. Weiz laughed at the preposterous notion.

However, Lawrence was now at a loss. He’d been sure that if there had been any change in the coin, Weiz would’ve had some idea of it.

What to do?

It was then that Holo spoke up.

“Let me see them,” she said, at which point Weiz looked up and gave her his best smile.

“Oh, certainly, certainly,” he said, handing the coins over—though when she reached out to take them, he took her hands, not letting go for some time.

“Oh, sir, you’re such a cad!” said Holo with a smile, to shattering effect. Weiz reddened and scratched his head.

“Can you tell something?” Lawrence asked, ignoring Weiz. He doubted even Holo would be able to discern the purity of a coin.

“Well now, let’s see,” she said.

Just when he wondered what she would do, Holo brought the hand that contained the money to her ear and shook it, jingling the coins.

“Ha-ha, now that’s impossible,” said Weiz with a grin.

It was said that master money changers with decades of experience could tell a coin’s purity just by listening to its sound, but that was mostly legend. It was like saying a merchant’s goods would always appreciate.

But Lawrence wondered. Holo had a wolf’s ears, after all.

“Hmm,” said Holo once she was finished. She chose two coins and returned the rest to the money changing table.

She jingled those two coins together, then repeated the process with different combinations of coins, a total of six times to check all possible combinations. Then she spoke.

“I cannot tell,” she said.

Perhaps possessed by the memory of how bashful Holo had been when he’d grabbed her hands, Weiz put on an expression of sympathy so exaggerated it was hard not to wonder if he’d ever return to normal. “Oh, too bad! Too bad, indeed!” he said.

“Well, we’ve wasted enough of your time,” said Lawrence. “We’ll have a drink sometime.”

“Indeed! That’s a promise—a promise, you hear me!”

Overpowered by Weiz’s vehemence, Lawrence promised, then the pair put the cambist’s stall behind them.

Nonetheless, Weiz waived enthusiastically at them as they left. Holo looked back several times and waved shyly in return.

Once the crowds closed around them and Weiz could no longer be seen, Holo looked ahead again. She burst into laughter.

“He’s an interesting sort!”

“For a matchless philanderer, I suppose so.” It wasn’t a lie, but Lawrence felt he had to take Weiz down a notch anyway. “So, what about the silver purity? Has it risen or fallen?” he asked, smiling down at Holo. Her grin disappeared and she seemed surprised.

“You’ve gotten quite good at ferreting the truth out, haven’t you?”

“I’m the only one who knows about those ears of yours, after all. I know I saw them twitch.”

Holo chuckled. “Can’t let my guard down.”

“But what surprised me is that you didn’t say anything about it there. Your lie was unexpected.”

“Whether or not he would’ve believed me, aside, we don’t know what the other people nearby would’ve done. The fewer people as know a secret, the better, no? I suppose you can consider it compensation.”

“Compensation?” Lawrence parroted back. He wondered what he’d done that merited compensating.

“You were a bit jealous back then, no? This is in exchange for that.”

Lawrence’s expression stiffened at Holo’s teasing glance.

How had she known? Or was she just a little too good at luring him into tipping his hand?

“Oh, don’t worry about it. All men burn with foolish jealousy.”

It was painfully true.

“But women are fools to take delight in it. This world is full of fools no matter where you look,” said Holo, drawing slightly nearer to Lawrence.

It seemed that Holo had experience with romance as well as matters mercantile.

She chuckled. “Though to me, you’re both just lowly humans.”

“Yet here you are, in human form. Best not bare your fangs now, in front of your beloved wolves.”

“Ha, a flick of my lovely tail charms human and wolf alike!” Holo put a hand on her hip and swayed insouciantly. Somehow Lawrence got the feeling that she wasn’t lying.

“Joking aside,” she said, to Lawrence’s relief, “it was just a bit, but the new coins have a slightly duller sound.”

“Duller?”

Holo nodded. A duller sound meant that the silver purity had dropped. A small change was hard to discern, but if the purity dropped enough for the silver coins to become visibly darker, any plebian could tell the difference in sound. If what Holo said was true, it could be a sign that the trenni was going to become less pure.

“Hmm…but if that’s true, it’s reasonable to assume that Zheren was lying all along,” said Lawrence.

“I wonder. The boy will have to return your ten trenni, depending on how this plays out.”

“I’d gotten that far. If he’d just wanted to swindle some money by selling bad information, he’d have done it at the church without going to all the trouble of meeting at a bar.”

“’Tis a puzzlement.”

Holo laughed, but in his mind Lawrence was frantically trying to figure out the situation.

But the more he thought about it, the stranger it got. What was Zheren planning? He was unquestionably planning something. If Lawrence could figure out the motive, he knew he might be able to profit as well. That’s why he’d taken this risk in the first place, but the fact that he still hadn’t the faintest idea of Zheren’s true motivation bothered him.

How did anyone make money from a drop in silver price and coin purity in the first place? All he could think of was long-term investment. If gold or silver fell from a high price to a low, you could sell at the high price, then buy up exactly what you sold after it fell. You’d end up with exactly as much gold as you started with, plus the difference in price. Speculation on gold and silver was always fluctuating. If you waited for it to return to its original price, you could realize a profit in the end.

However, he didn’t have time for that kind of long-term planning. For one thing, half a year simply wasn’t enough time.

“Well, Zheren brought me the deal, so he must have something to gain. He must.”

“Assuming he’s not some kind of fool,” added Holo.

“He did mention not being responsible for losses. Which means…”

“Heh-heh,” Holo began to laugh.

“What?”

“Heh. Ha-ha. Ha-ha-ha! You’ve been taken, my friend!”

Lawrence turned to Holo, startled. “Taken?”

“Oh, yes.”

“For…what? The ten trenni?”

“Hee-hee-hee. Forcing money out of someone isn’t the only kind of swindle.”

Lawrence had heard of and seen many scams in his seven years of experience, but he had trouble understanding what Holo was talking about.

“What a scam! A plan where his opponent may or may not gain, but he is guaranteed to never lose!”

Lawrence’s head swirled, white-hot. He nearly forgot to breathe. Soon the blood rose to his face.

“That boy will never lose. In his worst case, his profit is zero. If silver drops, all he does is return your money to you. If it rises, he gets part of whatever you make. It’s a business that requires no capital. Even if no profit appears, he’ll be fine.”

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 forest’s 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.