The clergy heard these words and were moved, but the merchants hid their uncertain smiles behind their wine cups—because the more successful one became, the less one’s assets were concrete things, and the more they were numbers on certificates and entries in ledgers.
Thus if these written ledger entries and figures polluted the world, then the written teachings of God were no better, and so the irony was that those scriptures, too, should be thrown away for the betterment of the world—such was the view of most merchants.
Lawrence felt much the same way. He felt bad for Holo, but he would take the business of a successful merchant over prayers to gods that never answered any day.
“Heh,” Arold chuckled. “Fair enough,” he said in an uncommonly amused tone. His mood had improved.
He seemed more cheered by the irony behind Lawrence’s words than by the words themselves.
“Are you leaving soon? I seem to recall you giving me a good amount of coin for your stay…”
“No, I expect to wait until the Council of Fifty has finished their meeting.”
“…I see. You wanted to see Rigolo. You asked about a chronicler this morning, as I recall. That’s a word I’ve not heard in some time. Hardly anyone looks to the past these days…,” said Arold, narrowing his eyes as he stared off into space.
Perhaps the old man was looking back on his life thus far.
But his gaze soon snapped back to Lawrence. “Well, if you’re heading north, ’twould be better to leave sooner. Your horse should be able to get you part of the way, but beyond that…you’d want a longhair and a sleigh. If you’re in a hurry, that is.”
“There was a longhair in the stable, wasn’t there?”
“Aye, its master is a man from the north. I reckon he knows the route quite well.”
“His name?” Lawrence asked.
Arold looked surprised for the first time. It was strangely charming. “Huh. He’s been coming here for some time, but I’ve never asked his name. He’s fatter every year, too. It’s quite clear in my mind. Strange…I suppose these things happen…”
What sort of inn lacked even a guest register?
“He’s a fur merchant from the north,” Arold continued. “He’s all over town at the moment…but if I see him, I’ll pass your questions on.”
“I’d be very grateful.”
“Aye. But if you keep waiting for the Council of Fifty to finish, you’re liable to be here ’til spring,” said Arold, putting the cup of mulled wine to his lips for the first time.
This was the first time Lawrence had seen Arold so loquacious. He must have been in excellent spirits, Lawrence guessed.
“Will the meeting take so long?” Lawrence asked, pressing for more information.
Arold’s face turned unreadable, and he fell silent. No doubt the best response if he hoped to live out his remaining years in peace, Lawrence thought.
Lawrence was about to offer his thanks as a way of ending the conversation, but Arold then spoke, cutting him off.
“People’s lives tend up and down, and so do the towns that they live in. After all, those towns are just groups of people.” The words of a man who had retired from an active life.
But Lawrence was still young. “It’s in people’s nature to resist fate, I think. Just like how we seek forgiveness after making a mistake.”
Arold regarded Lawrence wordlessly with his blue eyes.
There was anger in his gaze and scorn.
But Lawrence liked the old man when he was like this, so he stood his ground.
Arold chuckled. “It’s hard to argue with that…It’s been pleasant talking with you. This is your third time at the inn, yes? What’s your name?”
Though he had never asked the name of the fur merchant who had long made use of his inn, Arold now asked Lawrence his name.
He wasn’t asking as the innkeeper, but rather as a craftsman.
When a craftsman asked the name of a customer, it was a mark of trust that they would complete the customer’s order, no matter how difficult the request.
Evidently this old tannery boss liked Lawrence for some reason.
“Kraft Lawrence,” said Lawrence, extending his hand.
“Kraft Lawrence, eh? I’m Arold Ecklund. In the old days, I’d make you some fine leather strap work, but these days all I can offer is a quiet night.”
“That’s more than enough,” said Lawrence, which Arold smiled at for the first time, showing a broken tooth.
Lawrence was about to leave when Arold’s gaze fell on something behind his lodger. Lawrence turned to look and did not expect the person he saw there.
It was the merchant Holo had earlier claimed was a woman, still wearing the same robes and carrying a burlap sack in her left hand. She must have been the one Lawrence heard rustling around in the storeroom earlier.
“You didn’t ask me until my fifth visit. You ask him his name so soon, Mr. Arold?” came the hoarse voice. If Holo hadn’t told him otherwise, Lawrence still would have assumed she was male, an apprentice merchant just starting out.
“That’s because I didn’t talk with you until the fifth visit,” said Arold, glancing at Lawrence before continuing. “And it’s so rare that you open that mouth of yours. Are you as sociable as I am, then?”
“Perhaps,” said the woman, and a smile quirked beneath her cowl. Lawrence noticed that she didn’t just happen to have an especially thin beard for a man—no, definitely a woman.
“You there,” she said, looking pointedly at Lawrence.
“Yes?”
“We should talk. You have business with Rigolo?”
If Lawrence had been Holo, his ears would have twitched. “Yes,” he answered, confident enough that not a single hair of his beard had so much as moved.
At the mention of Rigolo’s name, Arold turned away and reached for his wine cup. That was the effect that a merchant had these days when mentioning the name of one of the Council of Fifty.
“Shall we go upstairs?”
The woman pointed up. Lawrence had no objections and nodded.
“I’ll take this,” she said, grabbing a pitcher from behind Arold’s chair, then heading immediately up the stairs. Though they were not related, she seemed to know Arold quite well—so what was their connection?
Lawrence’s mind was full of questions, but Arold’s face had returned to its normal, unsociable mien.
He took his leave and followed the woman up the stairs.
There was nobody on the second floor, and the woman immediately bent her knees and sat down cross-legged in front of the fireplace. Her manner was that of someone used to sitting and standing in cramped places. If Lawrence had been a money changer, he would have figured her for a comrade-in-business.
She certainly wasn’t someone who had started out in business just yesterday.
“Ha, I knew it. This wine is too good to waste by drinking it warm,” she said after sampling the contents of the pitcher she had brought up.
Lawrence sat down as well, wondering why the woman was suddenly so sociable, whether her behavior was genuine, and if it wasn’t genuine, what her goal could possibly be.
After taking a couple of drinks from the wine pitcher, the merchant woman thrust it toward Lawrence. “You seem like you’ve got your guard well up. Can I ask why?”
While her cowl covered her face, obscuring her expressions from Lawrence, evidently she could see his face perfectly well.
“I’m a traveling merchant who does a lot of business with people I’ll never see again. I suppose it’s a habit,” he said, taking a sip of the proffered wine. It was indeed good.
The merchant woman looked at him evenly past her cowl.
Lawrence gave a pained grin and confessed, “Female merchants are rare. If one calls me over, I can’t help but be on my guard a bit.”
He could tell that she was momentarily disturbed at his statement.
“…It’s been years since anyone figured that out.”
“We
passed this morning in front of the inn. My companion has the keen senses of a beast, you see.”
She was part beast, in truth, and if Holo had not been there, Lawrence would never have noticed the merchant was a woman.
“One shouldn’t underestimate a woman’s intuition. Though I suppose I’m not one to talk.”
“I learn that lesson every day.”
Lawrence wasn’t sure if she smiled or not, but in any case, the woman put her hand to her neck and loosened the string that held her cowl in place; then with a practiced hand, she drew it back and off her head.
He watched her with a bit more anticipation than was polite. What intrepid visage might emerge? When he saw her face, Lawrence was not at all confident that he had been able to perfectly conceal his surprise.
“Name’s Fleur Bolan. But Fleur’s not much for intimidation, so I go by Eve.”
The woman, Fleur—or Eve—was young.
But she was not so young that youth was her only virtue. She was old enough to be polished and refined, making her all the more beautiful. At a guess, Lawrence would have put her at about his own age.
Her eyes weren’t just blue; they seemed forged from blue steel.
Her hair was short and blond. If she smiled, she would look like an uncommonly beautiful boy.
And when she wasn’t smiling, she looked like a wolf—a wolf that would bite your finger off if you tried to touch it.
“I’m Kraft Lawrence.”
“Kraft? Or Lawrence?”
“In business, Lawrence.”
“Call me Eve. I’m none too fond of Bolan, and I know all too well how I look to men when I wear makeup and a wig, and I don’t like that sort of compliment, either.”
His initiative stolen, Lawrence was silent for a moment.
“I’d planned to hide it, if I could,” she continued.
It surely being the fact of her sex.
Not wanting to be discovered by anyone else, she replaced the cowl on her head and fixed it again with the tie.
In his mind, Lawrence couldn’t help picturing a knife wrapped in cotton.
“I’m really not a particularly retiring person. If anything, I’m talkative and quite courteous, if I do say so myself.”
For whatever reason, Eve was now being open and garrulous, so Lawrence matched her small talk.
She was a woman, yes, but hardly some sheltered princess. He had little reason to be nervous.
“You’re an interesting fellow. I can see why the old man likes you,” said Eve.
“Nice of you to say so. But I’ve only exchanged the briefest of pleasantries with you, so I’ve no idea why you would be interested in me.”
“Merchants don’t get infatuated that easily, so unfortunately—not quite. But you’re no fool, you know this. Anyway, the reason I talked to you is simple. I just wanted someone to talk to.”
Judging by the features on the face beneath the cowl, something about her reminded Lawrence of Holo, despite Eve’s slightly crude manners.
If he wasn’t careful, she’d pull the rug out from under him, just like Holo.
“And the reason you chose me for that particular honor is…?”
“One reason would be the fact that old Arold likes you. He’s got a good eye for people. Another reason would be your companion, the one who saw through my disguise.”
“My companion?”
“Yes. Your companion. A girl, yes?”
If she had called Holo a boy, it would’ve been exactly the kind of story some wealthy libertine nobleman would love.
But Lawrence understood what Eve was trying to say.
If he was traveling with a woman, he would be a safe person to talk to.
“It’s one thing when I’m negotiating, but hiding the fact that I’m a woman while making chitchat is no easy thing. I know I’m unusual. And it’s not like I don’t understand why someone would want me to take off the cowl sometimes,” said Eve.
“This is going to sound like a compliment, but if you were to take it off while you were drinking with some fellow merchants, I’m sure they’d love it.”
Eve smiled with a lopsided smirk, and even that was an impressive gesture. “Like I said, I think about who I can chat with, and in the end, you need to be either an old geezer or with a woman.”
Female merchants were rarer than fairies. Lawrence couldn’t even begin to imagine her day-to-day worries.
“You don’t see merchants traveling with women very often. Clergy, perhaps, or the odd artisan or minstrel couple. But none of them have anything interesting to say to a merchant like me.”
Lawrence smiled a bit. “Well, there are quite a few circumstances around my companion.”
“And I won’t be nosy. The two of you seem used to travel and don’t seem connected by money, so I figured you’d be safe to talk to. That’s all.”
Eve finished talking and held her hand out for the pitcher.
It wasn’t polite to hang onto a pitcher of wine that was being passed around in lieu of a cup, so Lawrence apologized and handed it back.
“Anyway, that’s about the size of it, but you can’t just walk up to somebody and say, ‘Hey, how about a chat?’ That’s why I mentioned Rigolo’s name, but it wasn’t just talk. You want to see him, right?”
Eve looked at Lawrence from underneath her cowl, but he couldn’t read her expression at all. She was clearly an excellent negotiator.
This hardly seemed like small talk to Lawrence. He answered carefully. “Yes, as soon as I can.”
“Might I ask why?”
Lawrence could not imagine why she would want to know this.
It may have been simple curiosity or she wanted to use that knowledge somehow or she was testing Lawrence based on his response to being asked such a question.
If Holo had been with him, he would have had an advantage, but as it was, he felt like he was being cornered.
The situation was frustrating, but he would have to go on the defensive.
“I’ve heard Rigolo is the town’s chronicler. I’d like to ask him to let me see any of the old tales of Lenos.”
The subject of fur was too delicate to broach. As long as he couldn’t see Eve’s expression, it was dangerous to bring up. He had no clock to hide behind, so it would be easy for her to see if he was being too guarded.
Nonetheless, Eve seemed to detect a certain truth to Lawrence’s words. “Now that’s a strange reason. And here I was sure you’d want information on the fur trade.”
“Well, I am a merchant, so I wouldn’t pass that information up if I could get it. But it’s dangerous, and my companion doesn’t wish it.” Lawrence couldn’t help but feel that trying any ham-fisted trickery in front of Eve would get him burned.
“It’s true that the man’s study is piled high with volumes passed down over the generations. His dream is to be able to spend his days reading them, I hear. He’s always going on about how he wants to resign his position as secretary to the Council of Fifty.”
“Is that so?”
“Quite. He’s not a very sociable fellow to begin with, but his position means he knows all the ins and outs of the council, so there’s no end of people trying to cozy up to him. If you tried to just go and see him now, he’d give you the evil eye and send you away at the gate.”
Admirably, Lawrence managed a neutral “I see,” but he doubted that Eve thought he was as neutral as he tried to seem.
Eve was, after all, hinting that she would be able to introduce Lawrence to Rigolo.
“Oh, indeed. So if that’s what you’re interested in, I do quite a bit of trade with the church here. Rigolo normally works as a scribe for the church, you see. I’ve known him for some time.”
Lawrence did not question her.
If he was to do so, there was the danger that he would reveal his own motivations, which she would easily be able to see.
So he spoke the plain truth.
“It would certainly be of great help to me if you could arrange for
me to see those records,” Lawrence said.
The corner of Eve’s mouth might have quirked for just a moment, but perhaps it was just his imagination.
She seemed to be enjoying something about this exchange.
“Aren’t you going to ask me what I trade in?”
“You didn’t inquire after the occupation of my companion so I’ll extend you the same courtesy.”
This conversation made Lawrence nervous in a way entirely different from his exchanges with Holo.
And yet this is fun, he thought to himself, which is why when a chuckle echoed through the room, he didn’t realize it wasn’t from him for a moment.
“Heh-heh-heh. Excellent. Excellent indeed! More than a few times have I hoped to meet a young merchant with a female companion, but I’m truly glad I spoke up, Lawrence! I don’t know whether you’re as remarkable as you seem, but you’re surely not some two-copper peddler.”
“I’m honored by your compliments, but I’d ask you to wait a moment before shaking my hand.”
Eve grinned.
Her smile reminded him so much of a certain someone that he half expected to see sharp canines bared.
“I know you’re not some sweaty-palmed fool,” said Eve. “Your face has been unreadable from the start. I can see why old man Arold likes you.”
Lawrence accepted the flattery. “Well then, instead of asking what it is you deal in, might I ask a different question?”
Eve still smiled, but Lawrence was quite sure her smile did not reach her eyes.
“And what might that be?”
“How much will your introduction fee be?” Lawrence dropped a pebble into the dark and bottomless well.
How deep was it? And was there water in the bottom?
Presently the sound echoed back to him.
“I’ll ask for neither coin nor goods.”
Lawrence wondered if she was thirsty, but she offered him the pitcher as she continued.
“All I ask is that you chat with me.”
The wetly sentimental echo had returned.
Lawrence wiped his face clean of any emotion as he coolly regarded Eve and her statement.
Eve chuckled and shrugged. “You’re good. But no, it’s not a lie. It’s only natural you’d think it strange, but someone I can talk to without hiding the fact that I’m a woman—and a merchant, to boot—is worth more than limar gold.”