Which in turn suggested that there was a reason for his doubt.
But what was it?
“It couldn’t be—,” said Lawrence.
If Amati was looking for her, that meant she had not told him where she was going.
And if that alone was enough to cause Amati stress, it was very unlikely she had revealed her ears and tail to him.
It was enough to make Lawrence want to abandon the dark, dismal conclusions he’d come to only a moment ago and turn to brighter assumptions.
He had no confidence in his ability to tell whether or not this was wishful thinking, however.
It was vexing enough to make him nauseous.
Suddenly there was another cry from the crowd.
Lawrence looked hastily toward the stone seller’s stall and saw that somewhere along the line, the placard for the highest-value pyrite had been removed.
Which meant that it had sold at that price.
And that wasn’t even the reason for the shouts.
The placards marking the highest values for various types of pyrite had all been taken down, and there was a drop in the number of plates for buyers in line.
Someone had sold off a considerable amount.
Lawrence fought back the nausea that rose and looked about frantically, trying to spot Amati.
He was not in front of the stall.
He wasn’t even near it.
When Lawrence finally spotted him, Amati was in the crowd.
He was watching the stall with a shocked expression.
So it hadn’t been Amati who had made the large sale.
Lawrence felt but a fleeting moment of relief before more placards for waiting buyers went up, along with a new round of cries from the crowd.
Nearly everyone here had at least a small amount of pyrite; they were waiting for just the right moment to buy or sell. The market was starting to fluctuate, which would become another factor for them to consider.
Essentially, now was the right time to sell.
Lawrence was on the verge of giving up—but pushing him in the opposite direction was the thought that he could still accomplish something with his plan of carefully selling off a large amount.
But he soon thought better of it, like some kind of cowardly hare.
Lawrence had no idea what Holo was thinking or where she had gone. People’s hearts were not so easily understood. To think otherwise was to invite ruin.
And yet—Lawrence could not help thinking.
Expectation, suspicion, supposition, and reality were four hooks that tore at Lawrence’s thoughts.
What would Holo the Wisewolf say at a time like this?
Pathetically, Lawrence couldn’t help but wonder.
He felt that he could make a decision based off even her most casual observation.
He trusted her.
Just then—
“Um, excuse me—”
Lawrence felt a tug on his sleeve as the words reached his ears.
He whirled as if struck, expecting to see a certain cheeky girl behind him.
But it was a boy—Landt, to be precise.
“Um, Mr. Lawrence, may I have a moment?”
Lawrence turned with such speed that Landt was taken aback for a moment, but the boy's expression made it clear that there was urgent business.
Anxiety swept over Lawrence as he looked around; then he knelt down to bring his face closer to the much shorter Landt and nodded.
“A customer has come to our shop wishing to pay for wheat in pyrite.”
Lawrence understood immediately. Mark was willing to take the offer and then sell Lawrence that pyrite, assuming Lawrence could pay cash.
“How much?”
If Mark had sent the boy all the way over here, it had to be a sizable amount.
Lawrence swallowed and waited for the reply.
“Two hundred fifty silver,” said Landt.
Lawrence clenched his teeth to avoid shouting out at the unexpected development.
The wolf-god of the harvest might have abandoned him, but the goddess of fortune was still on his side.
Lawrence immediately pushed the small bag he’d gotten from Amati into Landt s hands. “Go, as fast as you can.”
Landt nodded, and then tore off like an envoy carrying a vital message.
Meanwhile, the market continued to fluctuate.
Perhaps indicating that the price had topped out, the number of buyers on the line placards had changed shockingly fast.
It was clear that the buyers and sellers were beginning to turn completely against one another.
With the price this high, some would start to sell while those who needed the price to go still higher would buy.
Occasionally Lawrence would catch sight of Amati at the other side of the crowd; he had no doubt that Amati was watching him, as well.
The fact that Amati kept such a close eye on both the stone seller’s stall and Lawrence suggested that he hadn’t yet raised the thousand coins he needed.
No, that’s not it—Lawrence corrected himself.
He might already have raised the money but was worried that if he sold off the pyrite he had on hand, trading might go awry and cause the price to crash before he could sell his entire stock.
And because Amati was party to Lawrence’s margin-selling contract, a crash in price would hit him with a huge loss.
There was one other important fact, as well.
The five hundred silver pieces’ worth of pyrite that Amati held still only existed in the form of a paper contract.
It could be bought or sold, yes, but the physical pyrite the contract represented could not be collected until that evening.
The market had started to fluctuate instead of simply rise, and the possibility of a drop was now much more real. If Amati was to sell the certificate, what would happen?
Margin transactions involved an interval of time between the exchange of money and goods.
In an environment where a drop in price was anticipated, a margin sale certificate—which promised future goods for immediate cash—was a joker, a worthless card with a grinning witch on it.
Once the market value of a product actually dropped, whoever held this joker would be ruined.
The slow-acting poison of Lawrence’s margin sale was beginning to take effect.
Amati was still glancing this way and that, desperate.
He was obviously looking for Holo.
Holo had probably guessed what Lawrence was up to and told Amati of the trap.
The winds seemed about to change; offense and defense were reversing themselves.
If Lawrence did not strike, he would be letting a once-in-a-millennium chance go by.
People nearly attacked the stone seller’s stall, and the price placards were swapped out one after another.
Lawrence held tightly to the pyrite in his breast pocket, desperately hoping Landt would return soon.
It did not take too much time to run to Mark’s stall and back.
Just then—
A voice echoed across the crowd. “A purchase is in!”
Someone had been unable to contain their excitement.
In that moment, as if the market were a wave-tossed ship that had suddenly regained its stability, the mood shifted again.
Someone had purchased a large amount of pyrite. This suggested that the price would continue to rise.
Buoyed by the expectation, the crowd seemed to settle down.
Landt had yet to return.
The more time passed, the more the market seemed to steady itself.
But the number of possible buyers was dropping—Lawrence could take this opportunity to sell off a quantity of pyrite and sweep away this stability.
If he did that, he might be able to clear out the buying line even if it was just for a brief amount of time.
Doing so at this precise moment would surely have a profound effect.
Lawrence made his move.
He slipped
between the crowds, pulling the bag of pyrite from his breast pocket as he arrived before the stone sellers booth.
“I’m here to sell!”
As everybody watched, Lawrence threw the bag of pyrite down in front of the stone seller.
The stone seller and his apprentices were stunned for a moment, but they quickly came to their senses and resumed business.
Lawrence had tossed a stone into a quiet lake; now came the rippling effect.
The measuring was done quickly whereupon the apprentices that held line placards took the pyrite pieces off to the various buyers who had ordered them.
Lawrence immediately received his payment.
Without bothering to count, he grabbed the bag of coins tightly and looked back out into the crowd.
He caught a glimpse of Amati’s stricken face.
Lawrence felt neither vindication nor pity.
His sole concern was his own goal.
He had sold all of the pyrite he had on hand. Any further attacks would have to wait until he had more.
Where was Landt? Where was Diana’s messenger?
If he had the four hundred silver pieces’ worth of pyrite he was expecting from Diana, there was no question he would be able to turn the marketplace around.
He was at the crossroads of destiny.
And then he heard a voice.
“Mr. Lawrence.”
It was Landt, his forehead shiny with sweat as he ran up to Lawrence and offered him another bag.
It was 250 silver pieces’ worth of pyrite.
Lawrence was torn between returning immediately to the stone seller’s stall to sell the pyrite he now had on hand or waiting for Diana’s messenger to come so he could be sure.
He cursed himself.
Had he not even now given up on Diana?
The negotiations had dragged on for so long. There was a limit to how optimistic Lawrence could afford to be.
He had to take his chances.
Lawrence turned and prepared to venture forth again.
There was a loud cheer that froze him in his tracks.
“Ooooh!”
The crowd blocked his view; he couldn’t see what was happening.
But the instant the cheer rose, Lawrence’s intuition almost compelled him to cry out and run—it told him the worst had happened.
He pushed his way back through the crowd to a place where he could see the price board.
It was admirable indeed that he didn’t fall to his knees on the spot
The top price on the board had been renewed.
Demand had pushed it back up.
It seemed some of the market buyers had decided that the disturbance a moment ago was a temporary fluctuation, and they had put in a wave of purchase orders.
Purchase line placards were put back on the board.
Lawrence suppressed the urge to vomit. The decision of whet lie 1 or not to sell the pyrite he had again pressed in on him.
There was still some small chance of success if he took quick action.
No—the wise decision would be to wait for Diana’s messenger.
The amount of pyrite he was negotiating for with her was worth four hundred pieces of silver then—it might well be as high as five hundred by now.
If Lawrence could add that to what he already had, it would be enough for another big sell-off.
As Lawrence was placing all his hopes in that small chance, he saw Amati, now looking much more at ease, walk away from the stall.
The young merchant was planning to sell.
It was unclear whether or not he was going to sell all he had, though.
Lawrence didn’t have to know the boy’s plan to realize that he would only exchange some fraction of his pyrite for coin. Amati had probably realized the nature of Lawrence’s slow-acting poison, so he would want to unload the certificate first.
Why had Diana’s messenger not come? Lawrence wondered if he had finally been abandoned by the gods.
In his mind, he screamed.
“Excuse me, are you Mr. Lawrence?”
In his despair, Lawrence thought he’d heard wrong.
“Mr. Lawrence, I presume?”
A small figure stood beside Lawrence, his face—or possibly her face as it was impossible to tell the sex of the person—hidden behind a shroud that covered all but the eyes.
It clearly was not Landt.
Which meant it was the person Lawrence had been waiting for.
“I have a message from Miss Diana.”
The messenger’s pale green eyes had a tranquility completely unlike the swirling commotion that surrounded them.
There was a mysterious aura about the messenger; Lawrence couldn’t help but feel this person was truly a messenger from the gods.
And if so—perhaps a miracle was about to happen.
“She wishes to tell you that the negotiations have failed.”
A moment passed.
“What?”
“The other party is unwilling to sell. Miss Diana apologizes for being unable to live up to your expectations,” said the messenger in a clear voice, as if announcing a death.
Was this—was this how it would be, then? Lawrence wondered.
True despair did not come from hopelessness.
No, when his last tiny speck of hope was crushed at the last moment—that was despair.
Lawrence could not reply.
The messenger seemed to understand this and turned around silently.
Somehow the messenger’s form receding into the crowd became conflated in Lawrence’s mind with the memory of Holo, as she 'd walked away from him in the tunnels under Pazzio.
Lawrence felt like an ancient knight in rusted armor as he looked up at the price board again.
The purchase line had returned to normal, and the price continued to climb.
One could ride the changes of the market, but only the gods could control them.
Lawrence remembered the words of a famous merchant.
With just a bit more luck—just a bit more—a merchant can be a god.
Having exchanged some amount of his pyrite for coin, Amati strolled away from the stall and returned to the outer ring.
Lawrence expected the young merchant to flash him a cocky, triumphant grin, but Amati did not so much as glance at Lawrence.
There must be someone else commanding his attention.
Holo had returned to Amati’s side.
“Mr. Lawrence...?”
It was Landt that now spoke to Lawrence; Holo was speaking to Amati and looked nowhere else.
“Oh, er, sorry...You’ve...you’ve done a lot of running around for me. Thanks.”
“Oh no, not at all.”
“Could you give Mark a message for me? Tell him my plan has failed,” said Lawrence, surprised at how easy it was to say.
Yet despite the “failure,” from the standpoint of a merchant it was a very nice outcome.
Lawrence still had some pyrite on hand. All he needed to do was buy a bit more to have what he needed to hand over to Amati in the evening and then subtract the cost of that from the money he’d made selling the previous lot of pyrite—the amount left over would probably be positive.
On top of that, he would be receiving one thousand silver coins from Amati, which could not be called anything less than a huge windfall.
Such profit would have been enough to make any merchant happy, but Lawrence felt only a vast emptiness.
Landt was momentarily at a loss as he looked about, but just as Lawrence was about to hand over his compensation, the boy’s eyes filled with a steely resolve.
“Mr. Lawrence.”
Landt’s expression was enough to stop Lawrence’s hand, which held a few silver coins.
“Are—are you giving up?”
Lawrence remembered his days as an apprentice—any time he wanted to make a comment, he had to be ready for a beating.
Landt was likewise prepared to be struck. His left eye twitched as if he expected
a fist to come at him at any moment.
“My master always tells me that merchants never give up.”
Lawrence pulled his hand away, and Landt’s shoulder twitched in response.
But the boy did not look away.
He was entirely serious.
“My master always says that it’s not—it’s not those who pray that the god of wealth watches over. It’s the stubborn ones who never give in that he blesses.”
Lawrence did not disagree.
But what he was after was not wealth.
“Mr. Lawrence.” Landt’s gaze pierced him.
Lawrence glanced over at Holo for a moment before looking back to Landt.
“I...” began Landt. “I liked H-Holo from the first time I saw her. But my master told me—,” said the faithful apprentice. He wordlessly completed every task given to him, yet now Landt was every inch a young boy. “He said that if I said that in front of you, I’d get a sound beating.”
Landt was on the verge of tears as Lawrence raised his hand up high.
“—!” Landt gasped and flinched.
But with his fist, Lawrence only tapped the boy lightly on his cheek, smiling. “Yes, I suppose I should give you a beating. A sound one, too,” he said with a chuckle—though he wanted to cry.
Landt seemed roughly ten years younger than Lawrence.
Yet with things the way they were, he felt no different than the boy.
Damn, he cursed himself.
It seemed that before Holo, any man would turn into a runny nosed lad.
Lawrence shook his head.
The stubborn ones who never give in, eh?
It was a laughable phrase, and he sighed at its seductive charm, looking up at the sky.
The words of a boy ten years his junior had wiped from his mind the maelstrom of supposition and doubt.
Landt was right.
He’d gotten this far, and the profit that remained in his hands was only proof of his true loss—he could lose it without regret.
There was no reason not to think everything through one last time before taking action.
Things of value did not always come with hard effort.
Mark had only a short while ago made him realize that.
Lawrence opened the spigot on his considerable memory, pulling out the materials he needed to construct a new approach.
The pillar of his new plan was something he’d forgotten until just a moment ago.
“The ones who just can’t give up—they’re the same ones who just can’t stop themselves from being so optimistic you wouldn’t believe it,” said Lawrence.