Spice & Wolf III (22 page)

If there was no urgency, there was no way to swindle.

So what to do...?

He turned the problem over and over in his mind, always running into the same walls. Eventually without thinking, Lawrence said, “Say, Ho—”

He managed not to say “lo,” but a passing craftsman did look at him strangely.

Again, he realized how largely Holo’s small figure and invincible smile loomed in his mind.

It seemed impossible that he’d gotten along on his own for so long before her.

Holo would certainly be able to come up with some good ideas or at least set him on the right path.

Somewhere along the line, Lawrence realized, he’d become quite dependent on her.

What am I to you?

He simply could not answer the question with any kind of confidence.

“If I were Holo, what would I do?”

Lawrence didn’t imagine that he could imitate the endlessly mysterious Holo’s thought process perfectly.

But he was a merchant.

When a merchant came upon a new idea, it was his job to make that idea his own and get ahead of his competitors.

Holo always considered every facet of a situation.

Given the situation before him, Lawrence knew she would look at the whole problem from every possible angle.

It seemed easy but wasn’t. Sometimes the most brilliant idea would seem obvious in retrospect.

Amati was making a profit on the rising demand for pyrite. Lawrence needed to make him suffer a loss.

What was the simplest, most obvious way for that to happen?

Lawrence mused.

Unconstrained by the bonds of common sense, he thought.

One answer occurred to him.

“The demand for pyrite needs to fall.”

Lawrence said it out loud, then laughed foolishly.

So this is what happened when he tried to imitate Holo?

If the value of pyrite was to drop, that truly would be cause for celebration.

But demand was climbing and showed no signs of stopping. ’The price was already past increases of tenfold, twentyfold. It would climb and then—

“...And then?”

Lawrence stopped dead in his tracks as the realization hit him.

“Ten times? Twenty times? And then what...thirty? And after that?”

He felt as if he could see Holo snickering at him.

The price would not rise forever. The craze would end as it always did.

Lawrence almost felt like he might sob again. He clamped his hand over his mouth to stifle it.

There were two questions he had to answer:

The first was when the crash would come, and the second was would it be possible to make Amati fall with it?

Lawrence started walking again, his hand still over his mouth.

Even if the price of pyrite were to crash, would Amati really be pulled down with it? Lawrence doubted it. It would be underestimating the boy to assume so.

So the problem would be contriving to make that situation happen. If he could articulate the problem concretely, Lawrence didn’t think his mind was so very far behind Holo’s.

The ideal situation appeared in his mind, settling heavy and cold into his stomach. He’d experienced this sensation before. It wasn't logic, but the intuition that an important contest was upon him.

He took a deep breath and thought about a critical point: When would the crash occur?

It was obvious that the price could not continue to rise forever, but when would it crash—and more to the point, would it crash sometime before the end of the next day, when the contract between Lawrence and Amati was up?

Even a fortune-teller would find it impossible to predict such a thing, as would anyone short of the gods themselves.

Lawrence pictured in his mind the farmers in a wheat-producing region, using their own ingenuity to carry out the harvests that had once been the sole purview of the gods.

Rather than waiting terrified for the gods to make the price drop, why not become those gods?

A moment after the outrageous arrogance of the idea occurred to him, a great cry arose, and he turned to look.

Lawrence realized that he’d walked all the way back into town and arrived again at the center of the great intersection.

The straw puppets still collided with one another amid angry shouts, each collision bringing a shower of twigs and cries. It was like an actual war.

Lawrence set aside his scheming for a moment to appreciate the intensity of the scene, and he saw something that immediately brought him back to his senses.

He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

Amati.

Amati was right there.

At first he thought it was some cruel joke of the gods, hut then he wondered—even this coincidence might be somehow significant.

Lawrence stood in the heart of Kumersun at the intersection of the main streets running north to south and east to west.

Amati s back was toward the inn where Holo presumably still was.

Amati stopped and slowly looked behind him.

For a moment, Lawrence was afraid that Amati saw him, but no, Amati didn’t notice him at all.

Lawrence followed the boy’s gaze.

Its direction was obvious.

But what was there? Lawrence had to know.

And there, at a window on the second floor of the inn, facing the broad avenue, fox skin muffler wrapped about her neck, was Holo.

A terrible anxiety roiled in Lawrence’s stomach that was bitter with anger and a kind of impatience.

Holo nuzzled the muffler and then nodded.

Lawrence saw Amati put his hand over his chest in response, as though swearing an oath before God.

Whether Holo had invited him in or Amati had forced his way in, Lawrence did not know.

However, based on what he was seeing, Lawrence thought there was little reason to be optimistic.

Amati turned his back on the inn and walked away. He leaned forward and seemed hurried, as though he was escaping, which only exacerbated Lawrence’s suspicions.

In a moment, Amati had disappeared into the crowd, and Lawrence looked back to the inn window.

He held his breath.

Holo was clearly looking directly at him.

If Lawrence was able to spot Amati in the crowd, there was no reason the sharp-eyed Holo would have difficulty spotting Lawrence.

Although Holo did not look away immediately, neither did she smile. She simply looked at him steadily.

They stayed that way for some time. Lawrence was about to finally exhale when Holo suddenly withdrew from the windowsill.

If she had closed the window, he might have stayed frozen there.

But she didn’t. The window was left open.

It seemed to exert a pull on him, drawing him toward the inn.

Lawrence was of course not so naive as to think that Holo and Amati had simply spoken through the window.

Holo was no simple town girl, and Amati’s feelings for her were far from coolheaded. There was no reason to think that they hadn’t had a conversation in the room.

Holo had looked quietly unflustered and unconcerned, probably because she hadn’t been seen doing anything she would need to be concerned about.

Which meant she was provoking him.

Lawrence thought back to the conversation they had once had in Ruvinheigen. He believed that if he spoke to her honestly, she would understand.

He steeled himself and then headed for the inn.

Immediately upon entering the inn, Lawrence was greeted by a lively feast.

The tables were piled with all manner of food, and the guests were drinking, talking, and even singing.

It occurred to Lawrence that he and Holo should have been at one of those tables enjoying themselves, and despite his merchant’s aversion to regret, he felt a pang nonetheless.

But there was still a chance. If Holo had wanted to utterly reject him, she would’ve closed the window.

Lawrence held onto that tenuous idea, which gave him confidence, and ascended the stairs next to the counter, leading to the second floor.

Immediately, someone called out to him.

“Mr. Lawrence—”

Not particularly serene to begin with, Lawrence started and turned around; the innkeeper was also surprised, blinking as he looked at Lawrence while leaning over the counter.

...I’m sorry, is there something...?”

“Ah, yes, I was told to give you a letter.”

The mention of a letter sent a surge of uneasiness through Lawrence's chest. He stifled it with a cough.

Descending the stairs, he walked over to the counter and took the proffered letter.

“Who is this from?”

“Your companion left it just a moment ago.”

Impressively, Lawrence managed to hide his surprise.

It went without saying that the innkeeper had knowledge of all the comings and goings of his inn's residents.

Lawrence had left the inn, and Holo had remained. While Lawrence was out, Amati paid Holo a visit, and Holo now chose to communicate with Lawrence not directly but via letter.

No innkeeper could observe these events and not suppose something was afoot.

Yet the innkeeper betrayed no such suspicions as he looked at Lawrence.

Connections between merchants in a town like this ran deeply.

If Lawrence was to behave in an unseemly fashion here, the rumors would be all over town almost instantly.

“Might I borrow a light?” Lawrence said with careful control.

The innkeeper nodded and brought out a silver candlestick from the back.

The bright candle was not tallow, and Lawrence felt that his inner turmoil might be laid bare underneath its strong light.

In his mind, he smiled derisively at himself for entertaining such thoughts, and then he cut open the envelope with the dagger at his waist.

The innkeeper moved away, as if realizing it would be rude of him to read the contents of the letter, but Lawrence could tell the man still glanced at him from time to time.

He coughed lightly and removed the letter from its envelope.

One sheet was parchment; the other was normal paper.

His heart pounded. Hesitating here meant that he did not completely trust Holo.