Spice & Wolf II (16 page)

It seemed like the order of the day in the district was getting a light snack at one of the booths, watching the performers, and taking in a sermon after you had your fun.

After Lawrence and Holo arranged for a room at an inn and stabled the horse, they started for the trading house to begin their business arrangements when they found themselves drawn toward the commotion of happy voices and delicious scents.

They held some fried lamprey eel, which seemed to be a popular snack. The sweetness of the oil masked the earthy smell of the stuff, and no sooner had you finished a piece than you wanted another, which seemed to be human nature. The next thing Lawrence knew, he and Holo had stopped in front of a drink stand, taking in the comedy show over some beer.

"Mmm, that’s tasty,” said Holo after she drained one cup, and with foam still clinging to the corners of her mouth, she ordered another round. The barman was only too happy to serve such a profitable customer.

Having snacked on fried eel and beer all afternoon, Holo no longer looked anything like a nun.

The outfit she used upon entering the city would have been less convincing because of Lawrence’s presence—nothing was fishier than a person of faith traveling with a merchant, after all.

So Holo had switched her robe for a rabbit-skin cape, but she folded the robe up and wrapped it about her waist, using the resulting makeshift skirt to hide her tail. Her perpetually troublesome ears were concealed under a triangular kerchief.

Thus had Holo transformed from nun to town lass. The square was packed with girls who had abandoned work for an afternoon of fun, so she hardly stood out. The way she drank, with no regard for her coin purse, made it easy to think she was parting some guileless merchant from his money.

Actually, as Lawrence paid in advance, the barman seemed to think it was he who had been tripped up by this casually expensive girl.

Lawrence gave the man a pained smile to deflect the issue, but the barman wasn’t necessarily wrong, either.

“The liquor is good and the people lively—’tis a good city, no?”

“The liveliness comes at a price—we have to watch ourselves, especially around any knights or mercenaries. A quarrel with their ilk will be more trouble than we need.”

“You can count on me,” said Holo.

Lawrence sighed instead of voicing his thoughts on the matter. “Right, well, we should be moving on.”

He had finished his second beer while Holo had downed four in the same amount of time, so it seemed an opportune moment to leave.

“Mm? Already? I’ve not yet begun to drink.”

“You can drink more tonight. Let’s go.”

Looking back and forth from Lawrence to her cup, Holo finally seemed to give up and backed away from the stall. The barman called out “come again!” and his voice disappeared into the crowd alongside Lawrence and Holo.

“So, then, where do we go?”

“To the trading house—and at least wipe your mouth, hm?”

Only now aware of the foam at the corners of her mouth, Holo brought her sleeve to her lips as if to wipe them.

However, thinking better of this at the last second, she instead grabbed Lawrence’s sleeve and wiped her mouth on it.

“Why, you—I’ll remember that.”

“And yet you’ve already hit me,” said Holo, holding his head off with one hand and glaring at him, her other hand firmly clamped around Lawrence’s.

Her anger at being poked lasted but a moment.

“Still,” she continued.

“Hm?”

“Why must you drag me along to this trading house? I’d just as soon drink my fill in the square.”

“It’s too dangerous to leave you alone,” warned Lawrence.

Holo looked blank for a moment, then giggled bashfully—perhaps she’d misunderstood.

“Mm, ’tis true. I am a bit too lovely to be left alone!”

It was true that Holo, with the fall of her red-brown hair swaying, tended to attract attention, and some of those who looked on must have envied Lawrence, who held her hand.

It wasn’t that he didn’t take a bit of pride in walking around with Holo, but the fact was that there was no telling what trouble he would get into if left on her own.

The square was a fun, lively place, but fun, lively places seemed to attract more than their share of trouble. If by some fluke her true form was exposed there, it would be disastrous.

"No amount of loveliness will put Church guards or temple knights off your tail,” said Lawrence. “What if you get drunk and let your ears or tail show?”

“Why, I’ll just turn on them. I’ll grab you in my jaws, and we’ll dash from the city. I can surely leap over those walls. Isn’t there some old story about a knight and a princess like that?”

“What, the one where the knight rescues the captured princess?”

“That’s the one!” said Holo, amused. For Lawrence, there wasn't a trace of romance in the idea of Holo assuming her wolf form and escaping with him between her teeth.

Quite the contrary, just the thought of being clamped between those great jaws made Lawrence want to shudder.

“Well, don’t do that,” he said.

“Mm. If you’re the one that’s captured, there’s little gain in res cuing you.”

Lawrence made a pained expression and looked at Holo, who eyed him mischievously.

The two of them passed around the swirl of people and headed north on a narrow lane where storefronts stood under the sparkling, sunlit eaves that lined the block. There were no trading companies here, but rather buildings with merchant unions and trading houses. Some were economic associations created by mixed groups of merchants from different areas; others were buildings for craft unions created by textile merchants who cooperated regardless of their origin.

The world offered no protection for merchants who met with danger or accidents. Just as knights wore helms and breastplates, merchants banded together to assure their own safety. The latest economic alliances were a match for even a merchant’s worst enemy: a nation bent on abusing its power.

One famous story had eighteen regions and twenty-three guilds coming together in the most powerful economic alliance ever created, matching forces with an army fourteen thousand strong and claiming victory almost instantly. The union that was formed to preserve profits transcended borders and was a good example of the solidarity to which such groups could give rise.

For that reason, the buildings these unions and associations made use of were somehow quite orderly, and those that frequented them conducted themselves politely.

Without civility, a long-standing rivalry between (for example) a fishmonger and a butcher might escalate into violence and overflow into the town.

Such manners generally sprung from an aversion to sullying one’s organization’s good name, but they were still very important to merchants.

Commerce depended on trust and reputation, after all.

“Right then, I’ve got business to take care of, so just wait here,” instructed Lawrence once they arrived at the trading house with which he was associated. He saw the building painted in the local style and could not help but feel a certain nostalgia. He kept it to himself, though, out of consideration for Holo, whose homeland was still far away.

Holo regarded him as he feigned indifference. “What, are you not going to bring me in and show me off to your old village mates?”

It seemed she had spotted the bit of pride he’d mustered along the way, but that wasn’t enough to bother him anymore.

“That would basically amount to a preamble to marriage. My town’s marriage ceremonies are quite rowdy—are you sure you’re up for that?”

This sort of thing was quite universal. Holo’s knowledge of the human world seemed to give her some idea.

She shook her head in distaste.

“I’ll be done soon. If you wait nicely, I’ll buy you some sweetbread,” said Lawrence.

“I’ll thank you not to treat me like a child.”

“Oh, you don’t want any?”

“I do.”

Lawrence couldn’t help but laugh at Holo’s serious reply, and leaving her there, he ascended the steps to the building and rapped on the door of the trading company. The door had no knocker, which was a sign that only members should knock.

After waiting some time, however, there was still no answer.

Lawrence ventured to open the door on his own. Given the time of day, it was possible that everyone was out in the marketplace—and as he expected, the interior was silent. The first floor was a spacious lobby set up as a drinking hall in which the members could relax, but the chairs were set atop the round tables, and a mop leaned against one wall. Evidently the room was being cleaned.

Nothing had changed in the year Lawrence had been away, save the hairline of the guild master who tended the front counter—which had receded. He imagined the master’s already large belly had grown larger, but unfortunately the man seemed to find it difficult to stand, so Lawrence couldn’t be sure.

The master lifted his gaze from the counter and with a friendly smile began his usual ribbing. “Well, now, what a poor merchant is this! Wandering around a trading house at this hour—cares not a whit for making money. You’d do better changing into a thief’s clothes and getting yourself to an alehouse!”

“The greatest merchants make money without dirtying their shoes with so much as a speck of dust; their only stain is the ink upon their fingers. Running around the marketplace all day is the sign of the third-rate merchant. Am I wrong?”

Every time they met like this, Lawrence used to get angry recalling the master’s inexplicable habit of jesting at him when he was a young apprentice. Somewhere along the line, he had learned to spar right back without getting flustered.

Lawrence easily returned the master’s jape, then straightened and brought his heels together smartly, squaring himself to the counter as he approached it.

The man ensconced behind the counter was squarely built and stout and slapped his forehead at Lawrence’s reply, grinning. "You’ve gotten clever, boy. Welcome home, my son!”

“Stop the ‘my son’ nonsense.”

“What are you saying? All in the Rowen Trade Guild are my sons and daughters.”

The two shook hands over the familiar exchanges.

"And yet I know of all the times you wet your bedroll after we made camp—and is it not the teaching of God that a good father knows well his son? Or should I mention the time you stole the cash box and snuck off with your friends, trembling, to the whorehouse?”

"All right, all right. I’m Kraft Lawrence, then, son of the great Jakob Tarantino.”

"So, Kraft my boy. You’re back in Ruvinheigen after a year gone. How fares our family in other towns?” Jakob's manner was as overbearing as always, and it hit Lawrence with all the harsh edge and warmth of liquor. The trading house was truly his homeland in a foreign city.

This was the kind of harsh hospitality he only tasted at home.

"They’re all doing well by the grace of the saints.”

"Good, good. Well, now, if you’ve gone the rounds among family, you must be fairly brimming with profit! If your purse is heavy, your trousers sag. If your trousers sag, the ladies won’t like you. And you, lad, are a vain one. Am I wrong?”

Lawrence had no comeback. Laughing at the master’s heavy-handled way of seeking a contribution, he replied, “I’ve heard that the ability to handle figures gets bad with age, but old Jakob’s eyes are still sharp, I see.”