Spice and Wolf - Volume 6 - Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

The boy’s name was evidently Tote Col.

After the boy had taken a short nap, Holo’s stomach started growling, so Lawrence handed out some bread, which Col ate guardedly, like a wild dog.

But his features weren’t especially disheveled, which made him seem more like an abandoned dog than a strictly wild one.

“So, how much did you pay for these papers?”

Col hadn’t bought just one or two forgeries from the merchant on his travels; in his tattered bag, he had a whole book’s worth.

Eating the fist-sized piece of rye bread in two bites, Col answered shortly, “One trenni…and eight lute.”

The fact that he mumbled the words so reluctantly had nothing to do with the bread in his mouth.

Given his appearance, the memory of paying out a full trenni and more must have been desperately frustrating.

“That’s quite an investment…Was the traveling peddler you bought them from so impressive-looking?”

It was Ragusa who answered Lawrence’s question. “Hardly. Dressed in rags, he was, and with no right arm.”

Col looked up and nodded, surprised.

“He’s famous around here,” said Ragusa. “Walks around selling his papers. I bet he said something like this to you, aye? ‘Look at this stump of mine—I’ve risked this much danger to come by these, but I’m not long for this world. I’m thinking of returning home, so I’ll turn these deeds over to you.’”

Col’s eyes were glazed over—it must have matched what he’d been told nearly word for word.

Swindlers generally had an apprentice with them, and such lines were passed on from master to apprentice.

As to the matter of the man’s missing right arm, it suggested he had once been caught by a constable somewhere, and his arm was taken as punishment.

A thief who stole money forfeited a finger, but a swindler who stole trust—that was an arm. A murderer who took life lost his head. If the crime were especially heinous, hanging was evidently worse than decapitation.

In any case, the boy slumped and looked down, the ignominy of having been fooled by a swindler whose untrustworthiness was well-known adding insult to injury.

“Can you read, though?” Lawrence asked as he flipped through the forgeries.

“A little…” came the uncertain reply.

“More than half of these aren’t even forgeries.”

“…Wh-what do you mean, sir?”

Lawrence found himself a bit impressed at Col’s politeness. Perhaps he had indeed worked for a respectable master once. Lawrence and Col’s meeting having been what it was, that was a bit surprising.

Col’s expression was one of total defeat; he could hardly have looked any more depressed than he did.

Perhaps feeling sorry for him, Holo—who was sitting next to the boy—offered him some more bread.

“Most of these are documents stolen from some trading firm somewhere. Look here, there are even notices of payment sent,” said Lawrence, handing the sheets to Holo—but although Holo could read, she didn’t know anything about notices of payment.

She cocked her head, but when she tried to show them to Col, he shook his head.

Perhaps it felt too much like looking upon his own failure.

“If this is the kind of thing you bought, I see them all the time. These papers themselves aren’t good for drawing any money, but they’re good for getting a laugh among merchants. They were stolen from some trading firm somewhere and have been passed around from one merchant to another since then,” said Lawrence.

“One of my customers got tricked by them, too,” added Ragusa as he nudged the boat’s prow away from a rock in the river.

“Who would steal this?” asked Holo.

“Usually an apprentice at the firm who’s gotten tired of being worked too hard—they’ll grab them on their way out as a final piece of pay. Rival firms will pay a decent price for the information they contain, and of course, there are swindlers who will buy them up as well. It’s advice that gets passed along from one young apprentice to another. If you take money, the company will come after you in earnest. But with something like this, the firm has its reputation to consider, so it’s harder for them to pursue.”

“Huh?”

“Consider how it would look for a firm to madly chase down a missing copy of its ledger—people would think there was something extraordinary on that ledger, wouldn’t they? And that’s bad for business.”

Holo nodded, impressed by this angle she hadn’t considered.

Lawrence flipped through page after page as he talked but seemed to be finding them genuinely interesting.

It wasn’t every day that one could easily see which firms had ordered which goods from which shops in which towns.

Col’s situation was a sad one, though.

“You know what they say, ‘Ignorance is a sin.’ What do you say, lad—you’ve no money anyway, so what say I buy these in exchange for your food and fare?”

The boy’s eyebrows twitched in surprise, but he didn’t look up, instead staring intently at the inside wall of the boat.

No doubt he was making some calculations in his mind.

There might be something genuine hidden somewhere in that sheaf of paper, or the pages might all be useless, but if he let this opportunity pass he’d never again meet someone willing to trade for them. And yet—he’d paid more than a trenni for the lot of them…

Just as Holo often bragged of her ability to see through Lawrence’s intentions, Lawrence himself was confident in his ability to figure profit-loss calculations.

Yet unlike Holo, that did not come from an ability to discern people’s subtlest shifts in expression, but rather from his long experience as a merchant.

“F-for how much?” asked Col.

As though bearing some grudge, he looked carefully up at Lawrence—perhaps because he felt that if he betrayed any lack of confidence, the price would be beaten down.

His effort was quite charming, and Lawrence had to force himself not to smile at it; he coughed and calmed himself. “Ten lute.”

“…” Col’s face twitched, and he took a deep breath before answering. “Th-that’s too low.”

“I see. Keep them, then,” replied Lawrence immediately, thrusting the sheaf back at Col.

What little vitality Col had mustered drained immediately from his face.

His disappointment showing so clearly made him look more tattered and worn than if he hadn’t tried to put on a brave face in the first place.

Col bit his lip as he looked back and forth from the sheaf of papers to Lawrence.

His stubbornness in trying to sell the papers for a bit more had dropped his profits to zero. That same stubborn mask would now be an obstacle if he wanted to ask for anything more.

That was surely what he was thinking.

When he calmed himself a bit, he saw Holo and Ragusa’s indulgent smiles and must have realized that it was showing his weakness that would allow him a means of escape.

A merchant will throw away all of his pride if it brings profit.

Of course, Col was not a merchant, and he was yet young.

Lawrence withdrew the sheaf of papers, scratching his chin with the corner of the stack. “Twenty lute, then. I can go no higher.”

Col’s eyes widened, as though his face had just broken through the surface of the water, but he then immediately looked down.

His relief was obvious, and obvious was his desire to hide it.

Lawrence looked at Holo, who bared her fangs at him, as if to say, “Don’t tease the boy overmuch.”

“I accept your offer…,” said Col.

“That’s not quite enough to make it all the way to Kerube, though. We’ll have to let you off on the way, or else…” Lawrence looked askance at the good-natured boatman who had been enjoying the proceedings thus far.

“Ah, I suppose it’s all right,” said Ragusa with a laugh, taking Lawrence’s meaning. “There’ll be odd jobs on along the way. Lend a hand, and I’m sure I can make it worth your time.”

Col looked about like a lost puppy, then gave a hesitant nod.

Toll checkpoints along the river were so common they were a nuisance.

All you needed to collect some money was the ability to stop boat traffic, so it was understandable—but without them, the journey would have been twice as fast.

Even worse, the more affluent landlords could afford to build checkpoints that connected overland roads on either side of the river, which would then become places where boats could load and unload cargo.

Soon people would gather to sell food and drink to the boatmen, and the checkpoint would take on aspects of a roadside inn, and many of them had come to be miniature towns in their own right.

All this slowed river traffic, and there were even times when walking would have been faster.

Ragusa would try to hurry his boat through, but he had nothing on those who were hauling furs.

The fur traders needed to reach Kerube as soon as they possibly could and would throw so much money at the toll collectors that the collectors could hardly complain, and despite the narrow river and Ragusa’s skill, his boat was passed by.

“We’ll never catch the vixen like this…”

They were stopped at the latest of who knew how many checkpoints, where Ragusa evidently had some appointment he had to keep.

He immediately started talking with a merchant who approached, and calling out to Col, he began moving cargo.

Thus it was that one boat passed them and then another; Holo was leaning against Lawrence as she napped, but her eyes opened, and she watched the boats vaguely and muttered.

Ever since boarding the boat, Holo had been exceedingly sleepy, so Lawrence wondered if she was feeling poorly, but then he remembered how she had cried when he had gone to pick her up from being held as collateral by the Delink Company.

It had been many a year since Lawrence himself had cried, so he had forgotten—crying took a surprising amount of energy.

“Still, it’s faster than a wagon,” replied Lawrence vaguely as he looked through the papers he had bought from Col.

“I wonder,” said Holo.

The rocking boat began to feel like a cradle.

Ocean waves could easily make one sick, but the gentle motion of the river was rather conducive to napping and was far from unpleasant.

“That boy, he’s quite earnest.”

“Hmm? Oh yes.”

Holo was watching Col move cargo on the pier.

Just as she said, Col was following Ragusa’s instructions without complaint as he helped in preparing goods for shipment. He couldn’t quite manage carrying the large wheat-filled bags from Ragusa’s boat, so instead, he carried smaller bags aboard, which seemed to be filled with some sort of legume.

Watching him work now, Lawrence could scarcely imagine that this was the same boy who’d called out “Master” as he clung to a final thread of hope.

Humans were capable of incredible feats when pressed.

“Oh, indeed, to get taken in the way he was, he would have to be earnest.”

Given the paltry amount of one trenni and eight lute, Lawrence imagined Col had been taken for everything he had.

Most people who are swindled were quite earnest, whether greedy or not. They would never imagine that the tale being told to them was a lie.

“I heard somewhere that the more earnest the man, the easier a mark he is.” Holo was back in fine form.

Lawrence escaped into his sheaf of papers.

“Heh. So, have you found anything of interest?”

“…A few things, I suppose.”

“Hmph. For example?” asked Holo as she casually looked over at the pier, whereupon something seemed to surprise her.

Lawrence followed her gaze and saw a mule loaded so heavily it seemed on the verge of collapse.

Ragusa and Col had been loading wares aboard this traveling merchant’s mule.

Its appearance was a bit of an act, but Holo made a face as though she sympathized with the beast.

“For example, here. An order letter for copper coins.”

“Copper…coins? Why would you buy money of all things? Are there still others playing at that scheme from before?”

“No, this is just because they need them. They’ve paid a bit above market price, look. ‘Per usual, transport costs and customs duties are the responsibility of the buyer.’ This is proof of regular purchases.”

“Hmm…wait a moment. I feel as though I remember hearing something. Why would they do that…? I seem to remember…” Holo closed her eyes as wrinkles appeared in her furrowed brow.

Outside of speculation, there were any number of reasons to buy up currency.

But in the case of the low-value copper coins recorded on the sheet, there was only one.

Holo looked up and smiled. “I have it. It’s for small change!”

“Oh ho, you’ve been paying attention.”

Holo swelled up and grinned at Lawrence’s praise.

“Indeed,” Lawrence continued. “These are being specifically imported to be used as change. If someone comes to shop, and you don’t have change ready, you won’t do proper business. Travelers constantly take small change out of a city. This coin is probably crossing the channel by way of Kerube. The island kingdom of Winfiel is on the other side of the channel, and it’s famously short on currency. That’s why currency that circulates this way is called ‘rat coin.’”

Holo looked at him blankly.

Something about her face made Lawrence want to poke her nose with his finger.

“When war is imminent or a nation’s situation is unstable, travelers and money flow out of the region, like rats fleeing a sinking ship—hence the term.”

“I see. Quite an apt phrase.”

“Indeed, I’d quite like to meet whoever invented it…hmm?”

As he continued to read the paper in question, Lawrence stopped talking when his eyes fell upon something.

He felt as though he had seen the company’s name somewhere.

A short cry came from the direction of the pier as Lawrence tried to remember why the name seemed familiar.

When he looked up, he saw Col about to fall from the edge—but fortunately he avoided drowned rathood as Ragusa grabbed him by the collar and pulled him up; he dangled there like a helpless kitten.

What Lawrence heard next were laughing voices and what he saw was Col’s sheepish smile.

He didn’t seem a bad sort.

Holo’s keen eye for people seemed to have been proven reliable yet again.

“So? What is it?” she asked.

“Hmm? Ah, yes, the company name that’s written here…I feel as though I’ve seen it somewhere. Maybe it was somewhere in these papers.”

As Lawrence was leafing through them, the boat suddenly heaved.

Ragusa and Col had finished their labors and returned to the vessel.

“Well done. You’re quite the hard worker,” said Holo to Col, who had returned to the boat’s prow, and his stiff face softened somewhat.

He was probably a quiet lad by nature, but he seemed to have noticed Lawrence flipping through the stack of papers as though looking for something.

Col’s face was curious as he watched Lawrence.

“Unfortunately, there’s nothing worth money here,” said Lawrence without looking up; he sensed the boy flinching.

Holo smiled slightly, punching Lawrence in the shoulder as if to say, “Don’t tease him.”

Lawrence did understand the boy’s hopes, though.

He himself had once been taken in by something similar.

“Ah, here we are.”

“Oh?”

Lawrence pulled out a single sheet of paper.

It was still clean, and the writing on it was neat.

It was dated roughly a year earlier and appeared to be a record of the various goods the company had loaded aboard a ship. If there were omissions when the records were entered in the register, they couldn’t be amended, so this functioned as a kind of rough draft. Thus the list here would not have differed from what was actually noted in the ledgers, and it included clearly written descriptions of goods, their amounts, and their destinations.

The information networks of companies like these, while not strictly worldwide, brought them reports from distant branch shops and allies, and when added to their proactive gathering of news from local sources, they were like a mountain of jewels to an independent merchant.

Looking at a list of the goods such a company was sending out to distant locals was like looking into a mirror reflecting the information that company had gathered.

Of course, one had to know how to interpret such knowledge.

“Which is why this has no monetary value.”

“Er, um, I mean—” Col had been staring holes into Lawrence’s coin purse, but flustered now, he looked away.

Lawrence smiled, then stood and extended his hand. “Here.”

Col looked at Lawrence searchingly, then turned his eyes to the paper.

“See? ‘Recorded by Ted Reynolds of Jean Company,’ it says.”

The rocking of the boat made it difficult to read, so despite the cold, Lawrence emerged from under the blanket and sat down next to Col. The boy looked up at Lawrence with trepidation, but his interest seemed to be with the paper.

“What else?” he pressed Lawrence childishly, his eyes a misty blue.

“The destination is an island nation beyond the channel from Kerube, downriver. It’s called the kingdom of Winfiel. Oh, also—this is the home of the vixen.” These last words were aimed at Holo.

Lawrence could see her ears twitch beneath her hood.

Even if she didn’t plan to pursue the woman, Holo seemed not to harbor any warm feelings toward her, either.

“Anyway, this is a memo of a variety of different goods collected in the port of Kerube that will be sold to another company—the name isn’t here—in Winfiel. These are the goods. Can you read them?”

To the question of whether or not he could read, Col answered, “A little.”

He squinted as though his eyesight was poor, staring intently at the words written on the page.

His mouth seemed glued shut for a time, but at length it opened. “…Wax, glass bottles, books…buckles? Iron plate…er…tin, goldsmithing. And…ah, nee—?”

“Eni. It’s a kind of coin.”

“Eni?”

“Indeed. You’re quite good.”

Back when he had been an apprentice, Lawrence had never been happier than when his master praised him and mussed his hair. He recognized that he was not quite as rough as his master had been, so he patted Col’s head somewhat more lightly than his master would have.

Col ducked his head in surprise, then smiled bashfully.

“Next to the names of the goods are the amounts and the prices. Unfortunately we can’t wave this aloft and expect anyone to give us money for it. It would be a different story if there were evidence of smuggling on it, though.”

“There isn’t any?”

“Unfortunately not. So long as they don’t write, ‘These are smuggled goods,’ there’s no way to tell. Unless they’re bringing in something obviously prohibited, that is.”

“I see…,” said Col with a nod, looking back at the paper. “Er, so then…”

“Yes?”

“What is it about this paper?”

No doubt he wanted to know why Lawrence had gone looking for this one sheet in particular.

“Oh, on another sheet there was a record of a copper coin order, and this was the company that placed the order. Though they’re made across the sea, here in Ploania territory, they’re a copper coin that’s mostly used in Winfiel as small change…”

As Lawrence talked, a strange feeling came over him.

He looked up, then stood.

Opposite him, Holo had been vaguely paging through the sheaf, but she now looked up in surprise. “What is it?”

“Where’s the paper from before?”

“Mm. Here it is.”

Holo produced a page with a rustling sound, handing it to Lawrence.

Holding the memorandum in his right hand, Lawrence took the order sheet from Holo with his left.

As he looked back and forth between the two, he realized the source of the strange feeling.

The two documents were dated about two months apart. The company was the same.

The copper coins that had been bought up with the sheet in his left hand had been exported on the memo in his right.

“Oh ho. An interesting coincidence, indeed,” said Holo, her interest piqued as she peered at the papers Lawrence held; opposite her, Col timidly tried to see for himself.

Since the supposed accomplice-less swindler operated out of this area, then he would have gotten materials from a trading firm somewhere along the Roam River.

By coincidence, he had put together orders and sales from upstream and downstream.

But what gave Lawrence that queer feeling was not the coincidence.

No one was more obsessed with numbers than a merchant.

Only a fortune-teller was equally so.

“But the numbers don’t add up,” said Lawrence.

“Hmm?” replied Holo. Col leaned in closer—evidently his eyesight really wasn’t very good.

“Here it says they bought up fifty-seven chests, but the export was sixty. That’s three more.”

“…Is there something wrong with that?”

Lawrence laid the two sheets of paper down on the deck and pointed at the relevant spots, but Holo and Col alike only looked mystified.

“Well, I mean…with money, for whoever makes it, the more they make, the more they profit. But because there’s so much profit in it, the number of sheets they can issue is strictly limited. If ‘money is the root of all evil,’ as they say, then that goes double for creating money. The temptation is very strong. So normally, they are very careful to make only just as much as is ordered.”

“But they may or may not send everything they have on hand, may they not? If the destination is across the sea and the ship is unsteady, they might have to send less than the usual amount. So they added the remainder there.”

It wasn’t a bad notion, but to have only three chests left over—it was hard to imagine.

In any case, Lawrence knew that there was more likely to be some kind of mitigating circumstance that explained the discrepancy.

It was natural for a merchant to be suspicious when confronted by a strange phenomenon.

“Well, that may be so, but what it comes down to is a question of belief. I simply believe there is something strange here.”

Holo pursed her lips and shrugged. “And what are these chests, then? What do chests have to do with coin counts?”

Lawrence was about to ask Holo if she was joking when he saw Col nod, evidently also confused.

Held between their questioning looks, Lawrence was mildly taken aback—until he realized he had forgotten that a merchant’s common sense was not like the rest of the world’s.

“Basically, you don’t carry a large amount of coins all jangling around in a bag. It takes too long to count.”

“Your jokes are clever ones,” said Holo lightly, eliciting a smile from Col; their eyes met.

A merchant’s wisdom was born of experience.

And much of that wisdom was counterintuitive.

“Suppose you need to transport ten thousand coins. How much time do you think counting those coins will take? If you’ve moved them all jumbled together in a sack, you have to take them out, pick them up one at a time, then line them up and count them. For one person, it’s surely half a day’s work.”

“So use ten people.”

“True. But when it comes to worrying about thieves, it’s worse with two people than one, and worse still with three. If just one person is doing the counting, and the count comes out wrong, you need only doubt that one person. But with ten, you’d have to suspect all of them, and you’d need a lookout to watch them for theft. That’s no business at all.”

“Mm,” said Holo with a nod; Col cocked his head curiously.

They seemed not to understand the advantage of a chest. “Furthermore, you might not notice if a sack was to be stolen while in transit.”

“But is that not the same for a chest?”

“…Oh! I-I see!” Col’s eyes shone as he raised his hand excitedly.

Then he seemed to realize he’d just raised his hand without thinking and hastily lowered it—as though trying to hide a mistake.

Holo tilted her head curiously, but as for Lawrence, seeing the boy’s actions came as a surprise.

He acted every bit like a student.

“Are you a student?” he asked.

It would certainly have explained the boy’s curiosity, his strangely polite speech, and his surprisingly deep knowledge of things.

Yet Col shrank away at the question. When just a moment ago he had appeared to be finally opening up, that expression disappeared, and he backed away from Lawrence, fear writ large on his face.

Lawrence was dumbfounded—but of course, he knew the reason for this reaction.

He calmed himself and smiled. “I’m but a simple traveling merchant. It’s all right, lad.”

Col trembled, and Lawrence smiled.

Holo looked back and forth between the two, confused, but seemed to more or less guess at the situation.

“Hmph,” she muttered, then approached Col, who couldn’t back up any farther lest he find himself in the river. She held her hand out to him.

“My companion is a greedy merchant, but he’s also so softhearted I don’t know what to do with him. You needn’t be afraid.”

The same smile had a rather different value when worn by a woman rather than a man.

On top of that, Holo’s features were certainly pleasant.

Still frightened, Col tried to squirm away when Holo took hold of his arm, but as she pulled him close, he stopped resisting—in his way, he was just like Holo.

“Heh. Come now, don’t cry. All is well.”

There was something novel and fresh about seeing Holo so skillfully comfort Col, perhaps because Lawrence always saw her at her most abrasive.

The slender lines of her body seemed if anything to incite the protective instincts of men, but within her body was a wisewolf that had protected a village for centuries—surely a being worthy of being called a god.

Even the great heroes of the area could surely not match her generosity.

“It’s just as she says. So, what did you understand?” asked Lawrence. For the nonce, it would be better to demonstrate that he had no interest in the fact that Col was a student and instead talk about something entirely unrelated.

Holo seemed to feel the same way, and she slowly released her grip on his arm as she said something softly.

Though a tinge of his earlier fear remained in his eyes, Col seemed to regain some degree of calm.

It was perhaps out of a sense of male pride that he tried to hide his tears by wiping them away, then looked up. “Y-you’re really not…?”

“No. I swear to the gods.”

These were the magic words.

Col took a deep breath and sniffed loudly.

For Holo’s part, she had a complicated look on her face as she smiled ruefully.

“S-so…you want to know why…the coins are in chests?”

“Yes.”

“Is it not because, er…with a chest, the coins can be packed snugly within?”

Holo wrinkled her brow.

“An excellent answer. It’s just so. Chests of a set size are chosen and coins packed precisely into them. So long as the chest size or coin thickness doesn’t change, the coins will always fit exactly into the chest, and if even a single one is stolen, it will be immediately obvious. Also, you will always know exactly how many coins a given chest holds. There’s no need for extra guards nor extra manpower to count coins. It’s a better system in every way,” said Lawrence, smiling at Col. “Years ago, I would never have conceived of this. Seems you really are an educated lad.”

Col straightened in surprise, then smiled sheepishly.

In contrast, Holo looked entirely uninterested. It was difficult to know whether or not she really hadn’t also figured the question out—her kind heart might have led her to keep quiet.

“But if this three-chest discrepancy really does point to something out of the ordinary, that would be interesting,” said Lawrence pointedly to Holo, who shrugged as if to say, “I’ve had it with getting into trouble.”

If she was being like this now and if Lawrence was to decide he wanted to chase down Eve, she might well come up with a reason not to.

“Er, uhm—,” Col interrupted their wordless exchange.

“Mm?”

“What could be ‘out of the ordinary?’ Just for example, I mean.” Col’s bashful smile vanished, replaced with a serious expression.

Lawrence was slightly surprised, and Holo glanced at Col, then met Lawrence’s gaze.

“Just for example, eh? Hmm. As proof of illicit coin minting, say.”

Col’s breath caught in his throat. Illicit minting was a serious crime, indeed.

Lawrence smiled nervously. “That’s an example, though—just an example!”

Disappointed, Col slumped.

It was a bit strange—or rather, he didn’t seem like someone who had been swindled and just wanted his money back.

Perhaps he needed money.

Perhaps he had borrowed the money he’d used to buy these papers.

The thought occurred to Lawrence as he looked at Holo, who only smiled and shrugged.

Holo might have been able to read people’s intentions, but their memories were a mystery even to her.

“It’s just that thinking of all the possibilities is a good way to kill time aboard ship, that’s all,” added Lawrence.

Col nodded regretfully.

The boy had a daring imagination—he’d made a desperate bid in calling Lawrence master just when his counterfeit taxation privilege letter was getting him in trouble on the pier. Yet he had turned out to be a well-behaved boy, save for his strange fixation on money.

And he was a student.

On the way to the Church city of Ruvinheigen, Lawrence had met a shepherdess whose situation piqued his interest; this boy was roughly as interesting.

How had he come to be wandering this area, and what had made him buy this stack of counterfeit documents and ledgers?

Lawrence wanted to get every bit of information out of the boy, but if he pressed too hard, Col’s mouth would snap shut like a startled clam. It was an old story—a student descending from drinking and gambling into swindling and finally theft. None were so persecuted by the world as a student who drifted among such pursuits.

Col’s fear was surely shaped by his knowing all too well just how cold the world’s notice could be.

So Lawrence put on his best merchant’s smile and asked, “There are all sorts of students, so what sort are you?”

Half the itinerant “scholars” in the world were only self-proclaimed and hadn’t done so much as a speck of real study in their lives. But Col could read, so he seemed not to be one of those.

As Lawrence tap-tapped the papers to put their edges in order, Col’s answer was hesitant. “Er…Ch-church…law.”

“Oh?” Now this was a surprise.

Studying Church law—did he intend to become a high-ranking priest?

Those who became students or scholars did so either because their family was wealthy and they could afford to or because they wanted a way to become a member of society without inheriting the family business—or because they simply didn’t want to work and instead called themselves scholars.

In any case, students who studied out of a genuine desire to learn were rare.

And among them, those who studied Church law were a special sort indeed.

They didn’t want to become monks, but they wished to rise high in the Church ranks.

The field attracted a crafty lot, indeed.

“Were you expelled from school?”

Waiting for Col to answer might well have taken until sundown, so in response to Lawrence’s question, Col gave a small nod.

It was the way of such things for students to pool their money and hire a tutor, renting out an inn room or a mansion’s guest-house for taking lectures in—so of course, those who couldn’t continue to pay were expelled.

There were stories of saints who would send birds to eavesdrop upon such lessons, then return to recite them—but even miracles had limits.

And Lawrence had heard that most tutors wouldn’t so much as answer a question without a gift.

It was a difficult path unless one came from a wealthy family or was a genius at making money.

“So, for a school in this area…Erisol, perhaps?”

“N - no…it was Aquent.”

“Aquent?” Lawrence asked, looking up in surprise. Col cowered as though he had been scolded.

Holo’s accusing eyes were almost painful.

But the town of Aquent was so far away that Lawrence couldn’t help but raise his voice in surprise.

As he watched Holo pat Col’s back encouragingly, Lawrence stroked his beard. “Sorry. It just seemed a bit far, that’s all. It’d take quite some time to make the trip on foot.”

“…Yes.”

“If I remember correctly, Aquent is a place where sages and scholars meet—a place where streams of pure water flow toward the town center, where the apples of wisdom grow year-round; the conversation exchanged there in a single day compares with all the words from four nations, and if you wrote the day’s conversations down, they would reach to the bottom of the ocean. Its name is Aquent, a paradise of reason and wisdom.”

“It sounds an amazing place! ’Twould be nice to have apples year-round. A paradise indeed!” said Holo, practically licking her chops. Col looked a bit surprised, but soon a faint smile appeared on his face.

Even he could tell when Holo was exaggerating.

“Um, that’s actually…not true,” he said.

“Hmm? R-really…?” replied Holo, sounding very disappointed, indeed, as she turned to Col.

Perhaps feeling obligated due to the kindness he’d been shown, Col hastily tried to smooth things over. “Er, um, well, but—there are lots of different fruits lined up year-round at the shops. Even lots of rare ones.”

“Oh?”

“Like a hairy fruit about this big, that doesn’t break even when struck with a hammer—but inside it is a sweet milk.”

He was speaking of the coconut.

When the season was right, when the great trading vessels stopped in warm southern ports, sometimes you saw such things—but Holo had certainly never seen one.

And the imagination could run all the wilder if it had no reality with which to anchor itself.

Holo looked at Lawrence.

Her eyes shone with a light that was entirely sincere.

“If we happen to see any, I’ll buy you some.”

It wasn’t honeyed peach preserves, but they would hardly come across coconuts, so Lawrence wasn’t worried about keeping this promise.

Of course, if they did find some, then he would be in trouble.

“But really, Aquent isn’t a paradise. There’s lots of fighting there,” interjected Col.

“No doubt the inns are full of thieves. If you sleep alone, your clothes will be gone come morning, and if you go to a pub, it will be filled with brawling. When tempers rise, so too do flames, I’ll bet,” said Lawrence.

With a mountain of layabout students ranging from Col’s age to Lawrence’s, it would be like throwing pirates and brigands together in the same room.

Lawrence was being a bit overdramatic, but Col’s regretful smile did not deny any of what he said.

A place full of schools would be lively indeed, for good or ill.

“Um, but I did meet some wonderful teachers there, and I learned a lot.”

“Indeed, to be able to read so well at your age is impressive.”

Col’s bashful smile was incredibly charming.

Holo grinned as well.

“So, how did you wind up all the way out here?” Lawrence asked, and Col—still smiling—looked down.

“I tried my hand at the book business…”

“The book business?”

“Yes. My teacher’s assistant told me that my teacher was going to write new annotations to a certain book and so I should buy copies of that book before the price rose…”

“And did you?”

“Yes.”

Lawrence skillfully kept his face neutral.

When a famous scholar wrote notes on a given book, packages of the book plus the annotations would sell very well indeed.

It was quite common for a scholar and a bookstore to cooperate—the bookstore would buy up copies of an unpopular book, and then the scholar would write annotations for that book.

Scarcity led to escalating prices, which in turn brought greater attention.

Thus it was quite plausible that in towns with schools or universities nearby, talk of such and such a scholar planning to write annotations for such and such a book would be common.

A merchant might easily buy sheepskins or wheat flour a year in advance of selling it, but the publishing business was less reliable than tomorrow’s weather, and Lawrence never involved himself in it.

But Col, who had apparently never cast an eye to the avarice and clamor all around him, instead devoting himself to study, hadn’t the slightest inkling of the pitfalls of that business.

What Col had invested in wasn’t a business at all.

It was a magnificent fraud.

“I knew I didn’t have enough money to see my studies through to the end, so I thought I’d try to turn a profit. And the book’s price was going up nearly every day, so I knew if I wanted to make any money, I’d have to buy soon. But I didn’t have enough, so I borrowed the money from a merchant friend of the assistant.”

It was a textbook trap.

The rising price was either a ruse on the part of the bookseller or rumors had gotten out that had led to increased demand.

And as the price began to rise, more and more people would come to believe that the rumors of new annotations were true, which would drive the price up still higher.

After that, it was a great gamble to see who would pull the unlucky number.

If there was someone more foolish, one could sell to them and turn a profit.

But not infrequently, the original buyer was the biggest fool.

Lawrence expected Holo to be rolling her eyes at the tale, but when he glanced at her, she was regarding Col with an expression of deep sympathy—an expression he’d never seen before.

It was not really very funny.

“But for some reason, the teacher didn’t write the annotations, and…the book turned really cheap,” Col finished with an embarrassed smile, and with the story turning out exactly as Lawrence guessed, he understood.

Col had stumbled into a trap and even borrowed money to buy books.

Obviously he could no longer pay his tuition, to say nothing of eating or repaying the debt—so he had beat a hasty retreat.

He might have wound up in a northern town like this because the connections between students were stronger than any clumsy merchant’s. There were so many shiftless scholars in this area that it was easy to keep track of who was in which town.

Most of the schools and scholars were in the south, but in a big enough city, there were people who would try to gain learning for free from the street-corner preachers. When Lawrence and Holo had been in Ruvinheigen, groups of young men looking roughly like Col would gather to listen.

But once Lawrence and Holo arrived in this region, such groups disappeared.

It was cold, after all, and passing the winter was difficult.

“So then I, er, I started traveling about, looking for charity, and I wound up around here. I heard in the winter a lot of people come through here, so there would be a lot of work.”

“Ah, the winter campaigns, eh?”

“Yes.”

“I see.”

But as Col fled from the debt collectors and actually headed north, the winter campaigns had been canceled and there was no work at all. To survive through the winter at this rate would take what little money he had on hand.

That was when the mysterious swindler had appeared.

Though Col had tried to study Church law, it seemed God’s treatment of him had only ever been cold.

Or perhaps this was a test from God.

“And so after all these twists and turns, you came to our boat,” said Holo.

“Y-yes, it seems so.”

“’Tis quite an amazing encounter. Wouldn’t you say?” Turning to Lawrence, Holo smiled.

Col’s grime-smeared cheeks reddened.

“Though it can’t be said to have been a fortunate trip, it’s come together in the end. The world is indeed full of malice, but there are some pitfalls one can avoid so long as one knows of them—ignorance is a sin, after all. But you needn’t worry anymore,” said Holo proudly. Had her hood been pulled back, her ears would surely have been twitching.

Had the maternal-seeming calm she had possessed a moment ago gone elsewhere?

No, wait, thought Lawrence.

He realized that Holo was like this because despite having said such brave things as she extended a helping hand to Col, she did not intend to shoulder that responsibility herself.

“Ignorance is…a sin?”

“Quite. But you needn’t worry. After all, my companion’s weathered all manner of adversity to become a full-fledged marshman…mmph…!”

As he glared at Holo through narrowed eyes, Lawrence put his hand over Holo’s big mouth.

After she stopped mumbling, he could tell she was trying to bite him, so he pulled his hand away.

“Perhaps you’d like to teach him with all the knowledge and experience you’ve acquired?” said Lawrence.

“Hmm? You surely do say the strangest things, sir. Despite my being but a girl of tender years, are you saying that your knowledge and experience would be inferior to my own?”

“Urgh—”

Owing to the necessity of hiding her true nature, Lawrence could say nothing at all to refute Holo, but Holo could speak as she wished.

Col was dumbstruck as he looked at the two of them.

Holo’s red-tinged eyes seemed to be smiling, but she made no move to back down.

While she had blithely extended the boy her sympathy, it was Lawrence who would be in a bad position if he was forced to play mentor—as though he knew what troubles could be avoided if one was given enough knowledge from another. What Col truly needed to learn was not where the pitfalls were, but rather how to search for them in the first place.

It was not something easily taught in a day.

Holo know that all too well.

And yet she was hounding Lawrence to do it anyway.

“Why was it that you took such good care of me, eh?” Holo grabbed his earlobe and whispered the words into his ear. “Was it because I was so lovely? Are you such a shallow male?”

“That—”

That hadn’t been the only reason, but it had certainly been part of it.

If he refused to lend wisdom and aid to Col now, he would have no grounds on which to refute the accusation.

Holo’s gaze pierced him.

“Fine—fine! Now get off,” said Lawrence. It would be no joke at all if she stretched his earlobe out longer on that side.

Holo finally released him. “Quite. That’s my companion all right,” she said with a pleased smile, flicking his ear.

Lawrence wanted to get her back, but there was no telling how much rage he would incur if he was to do so. “So does the boy in question actually want to learn?”

He turned his gaze to the dumbfounded Col.

The puppy-like Col could surely tell who was master of whom, just as a real dog could.

Though he gaped for a moment at the sudden question put to him, he was in the end a smart lad.

Col straightened his posture and took a breath. “I-I would be honored to accept your instruction.”

Holo nodded, satisfied.

Of course, she wasn’t the one doing the teaching.

Lawrence scratched his head and sighed.

While he did enjoy teaching, he wasn’t comfortable with all its attendant formalities.

But he couldn’t let that stop him.

After all, it hadn’t only been Holo’s fetching form that had led him to pick her up and bring her along with him.

“I guess it can’t be helped, then. Now you’re really on board with us.”

Just as Lawrence said so, the boat rocked lightly.

Col reddened, and Holo gave an exaggerated sigh.

Just as Lawrence was regretting having said such, Holo spoke.

“You needn’t worry. That is what I love about you.”