Spice & Wolf III (29 page)

“Don’t just say it in front of everyone!” Mark looked around hastily as he clamped a thick hand over the boy’s mouth. If the conversation were overheard, it would be trouble. “So that’s how it is.” Lawrence was confused.

Paying in
trenni
silver? Three hundred seventy pieces’ worth? “Ha-ha, I can’t help but enjoy it when you make that face. See, after you left, I thought it over.”

Mark took his hand from the boy’s mouth and reached for his ale cup, his tone amused.

“I refused your request because I have a reputation to uphold. Any other town merchant would do the same. But even I have bought some you-know-what to make some money on the side—and many others have done likewise. The reason I can only buy a limited amount is that I have very little cash on hand. By all rights, the price of wheat should be dropping since the people laying in goods for their return trips haven’t been buying wheat. And yet the people who’ve come to sell wheat are selling it right off—which is where all my cash has gone. So...”

Mark gulped down some ale, belching comfortably before continuing.

“So what of the people who
do
have cash? I can’t believe they’d be able to resist. They’ve probably been buying up you-know-what in large quantities behind the scenes. And here’s where you need some backstory. You see, these merchants aren’t lone wolves like you. Each one has their business, their position, their reputation. And they’ve bought this stuff, but the price has risen so high that it’s getting hard to sell. All they need do is sell a little bit to bring in a surprising profit, but this makes some of them even more nervous. So what happens next? I’m sure a clever fellow like you can figure it out.”

Lawrence nodded his head after a moment.

Mark must have had his apprentice running all over town, spreading a rumor—a rumor that had to go something like this: There’s a mad traveling merchant in town who wants to buy pyrite with cash. Why not take the chance to unload some of that pyrite that’s not selling?

It would be a perfect opportunity for those merchants.

And to be sure, there was no question that Mark had signed a contract promising him a service fee for brokering the hidden transaction.

It was brilliant—conducting a pyrite deal under the pretense of doing someone a favor.

But to have been able to pull together 370
trenni
worth—there was clearly pressure to sell in the marketplace.

“So that’s how it is. If you’re on board, I’ll send the boy out immediately.”

There was no reason to refuse.

Lawrence undid the tie of the burlap sack he had on his back.

But then he stopped. “Still—”

Mark regarded him dubiously.

Lawrence returned to himself and quickly retrieved a bag ol silver coins from the sack and placed it on the table. “Sorry,” he muttered.

Mark seemed momentarily at a loss for Lawrence’s strange behavior. “This is when you thank me, right?”

“Ah, er, yes, sor...no, I mean—” Lawrence suddenly felt like he was speaking to Holo. “I mean, thanks.”

“Bwa-ha-ha-ha! If I’d known you were such an amusing guy, I'd have...Actually, I suppose not.”

Mark took the bag of silver from Lawrence and quickly looked at it; then he undid the string and handed the bag to his apprentice, who quickly emptied its contents and began counting the silver pieces.

“You’ve changed,” said Mark.

“...Is that so?”

“Quite. You used to be not an excellent merchant, but a merchant
wholly
from head to toe. That’s all there was of you. You never even truly thought of me as a friend, did you?”

Mark had the right of it. Lawrence had no response.

The wheat seller just smiled, though. “But what of now? Am I merely a convenient merchant to do a deal with?”

Lawrence was momentarily stunned. He couldn’t possibly nod at this statement.

Feeling as though he were trapped in the center of some strange illusion, he shook his head no.

“That’s why I could never content myself with the life of a traveling merchant. But there’s something even more interesting.”

Was this because Mark had been drinking? Or was there some other reason?

Mark continued, sounding truly amused. His face was chestnut round now despite the square cut of his beard.

“Let me ask you one thing. If it were me whose separation you were faced with, would you be running around town as frantically as you are now?”

The boy, who lived every day with Mark as his master, looked up at the two men.

Lawrence found this all very mysterious.

Though he certainly thought of Mark as a friend, he could not honestly bring himself to nod and say “yes” to that question.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha. Well, I look forward to the future. Still”—he paused, then continued quietly—“it’s for your companion that you’re so desperate.”

Lawrence felt as though he’d swallowed something hot and felt it pass down into his stomach.

Mark looked at his apprentice. “This is what a man looks like when he’s obsessed with a woman. But it’s the unbending branch that breaks in a strong wind.”

A single year weathered alone was worth less than half a year with company.

So how much older than Lawrence might Mark be?

“You’re no different from me. You’ve got the traveling merchant’s curse,” said Mark.

“C-curse?”

“But it’s almost broken, which is what’s made you so amusing. Do you not see? Did you not begin traveling with your current companion out of nothing more than good fortune?”

Holo had happened to hide herself in his wheat-filled wagon as Lawrence had passed through the village.

That he’d become close to her was nothing more or less than good fortune’s gift.

“Bwa-ha-ha! I feel like I’m looking at myself when I first met Adele! You’ve got the curse, all right.”

Lawrence felt like he finally understood.

Though Holo was very important to him, there was a part of him that always preserved a certain cool distance between them.

He hadn’t realized how blind he’d become to his surrounding because of Holo.

It was an unbalancing situation.

“The curse...You mean that famous ‘traveling merchant', complaint’?”

Mark guffawed, then smacked his apprentice—who’d stopped working—upside the head. “The poets will tell you that money can’t buy love, and the priest will tell you that there are things more precious than money. But if that’s so, why is it we labor so hard to earn money, then gain something even more precious?”

Lawrence had thought so little about what exactly Holo
was
to him because she was always right there beside him.

If her presence had been something he had gained only after laboring long and hard, he would not have been so ambivalent.

He’d always believed that anything truly precious required much effort to gain.

If she was to ask him “What am I to you?” now, Lawrence was sure he could answer.

“Ah, such a fine tale I’ve not told in a long time. Combined with the information on conditions in the north, why, ten
lumione
seems a bargain!”

“If you’d made all this up, it’d be extortion,” said Lawrence indignantly. Mark only grinned, which in turn teased a smile out of Lawrence.

“I hope all goes well for you.”

Lawrence nodded, his mood clear like a cloudless evening sky. “Though I suppose how it turns out is up to you...”

“Hm?”

“Ah, nothing,” said Mark with a shake of his head. He gestured to the boy, who had finished counting up the silver coins. The apprentice was a model of competence as he made his preparations and was ready to depart a moment later.

“Right, off with you, then.” Mark sent the apprentice on his way and then turned back to Lawrence. “So where will you be sleeping tonight?”

“Haven’t decided yet.”

“Well, then—”

“Wait, I’ve decided. May I sleep here?”

Mark gave Lawrence a blank look. “Here?”

“Quite—you’ve wheat sacks aplenty. Lend me a few of those.”

“I can certainly lend you some, but come to my house. I won’t even charge you.”

“Ah, but this will bring luck.” The practice was something many a traveling merchant believed.

Mark gave up on pressing his invitation further. “I’ll see you here, dawn tomorrow.”

Lawrence nodded, and Mark raised his cup.

“A toast then to your dreams.”

Chapter 5

Lawrence sneezed grandly.

Of course, it didn’t make a difference when he traveled alone, but lately he’d had a certain cheeky, irritable companion, so Lawrence always minded himself. Now, though, it seemed he was slipping—hence the sneeze.

He frantically checked to see if the other occupant of the blanket was still asleep—only to realize that side was rather cold.

And then he remembered that he was alone, sleeping on the wheat sacks next to Mark’s stall.

He’d tried to prepare himself for it and had after all chosen to sleep alone, but upon awakening, he still felt a huge sense of loss.

Lawrence was used to someone being beside him when he awoke.

He had become so quickly accustomed to it that only now did he realize its value.

Lawrence overcame his reluctance to part from his warm blanket and stood up suddenly.

Frigid air immediately attacked him.

The morning sky was still dim, but already Mark’s apprentice was sweeping the area in front of the stall.

“Oh, good morning, sir.”

“Good morning,” said Lawrence.

It didn’t seem like this was a show put on for the benefit of his master’s acquaintance; undoubtedly it was the boy’s habit to wake this early in order to prepare the stall for opening. He casually greeted a few other boys that passed by.