Spice and Wolf, Vol. 6

  It had been many a year since Lawrence himself had cried, so he had forgotten—crying took a surprising amount of energy.

  “Still, it’s faster than a wagon,” replied Lawrence vaguely as he looked through the papers he had bought from Col.

  “I wonder,” said Holo.

  The rocking boat began to feel like a cradle.

  Ocean waves could easily make one sick, but the gentle motion of the river was rather conducive to napping and was far from unpleasant.

  “That boy, he’s quite earnest.”

  “Hmm? Oh yes.”

  Holo was watching Col move cargo on the pier.

  Just as she said, Col was following Ragusa’s instructions without complaint as he helped in preparing goods for shipment. He couldn’t quite manage carrying the large wheat-filled bags from Ragusa’s boat, so instead, he carried smaller bags aboard, which seemed to be filled with some sort of legume.

  Watching him work now, Lawrence could scarcely imagine that this was the same boy who’d called out “Master” as he clung to a final thread of hope.

  Humans were capable of incredible feats when pressed.

  “Oh, indeed, to get taken in the way he was, he would have to be earnest.”

  Given the paltry amount of one trenni and eight lute, Lawrence imagined Col had been taken for everything he had.

  Most people who are swindled were quite earnest, whether greedy or not. They would never imagine that the tale being told to them was a lie.

  “I heard somewhere that the more earnest the man, the easier a mark he is.” Holo was back in fine form.

  Lawrence escaped into his sheaf of papers.

  “Heh. So, have you found anything of interest?”

  “…A few things, I suppose.”

  “Hmph. For example?” asked Holo as she casually looked over at the pier, whereupon something seemed to surprise her.

  Lawrence followed her gaze and saw a mule loaded so heavily it seemed on the verge of collapse.

  Ragusa and Col had been loading wares aboard this traveling merchant’s mule.

  Its appearance was a bit of an act, but Holo made a face as though she sympathized with the beast.

  “For example, here. An order letter for copper coins.”

  “Copper…coins? Why would you buy money of all things? Are there still others playing at that scheme from before?”

  “No, this is just because they need them. They’ve paid a bit above market price, look. ‘Per usual, transport costs and customs duties are the responsibility of the buyer.’ This is proof of regular purchases.”

  “Hmm…wait a moment. I feel as though I remember hearing something. Why would they do that…? I seem to remember…” Holo closed her eyes as wrinkles appeared in her furrowed brow.

  Outside of speculation, there were any number of reasons to buy up currency.

  But in the case of the low-value copper coins recorded on the sheet, there was only one.

  Holo looked up and smiled. “I have it. It’s for small change!”

  “Oh ho, you’ve been paying attention.”

  Holo swelled up and grinned at Lawrence’s praise.

  “Indeed,” Lawrence continued. “These are being specifically imported to be used as change. If someone comes to shop, and you don’t have change ready, you won’t do proper business. Travelers constantly take small change out of a city. This coin is probably crossing the channel by way of Kerube. The island kingdom of Winfiel is on the other side of the channel, and it’s famously short on currency. That’s why currency that circulates this way is called ‘rat coin.’”

  Holo looked at him blankly.

  Something about her face made Lawrence want to poke her nose with his finger.

  “When war is imminent or a nation’s situation is unstable, travelers and money flow out of the region, like rats fleeing a sinking ship—hence the term.”

  “I see. Quite an apt phrase.”

  “Indeed, I’d quite like to meet whoever invented it…hmm?”

  As he continued to read the paper in question, Lawrence stopped talking when his eyes fell upon something.

  He felt as though he had seen the company’s name somewhere.

  A short cry came from the direction of the pier as Lawrence tried to remember why the name seemed familiar.

  When he looked up, he saw Col about to fall from the edge—but fortunately he avoided drowned rathood as Ragusa grabbed him by the collar and pulled him up; he dangled there like a helpless kitten.

  What Lawrence heard next were laughing voices and what he saw was Col’s sheepish smile.

  He didn’t seem a bad sort.

  Holo’s keen eye for people seemed to have been proven reliable yet again.

  “So? What is it?” she asked.

  “Hmm? Ah, yes, the company name that’s written here…I feel as though I’ve seen it somewhere. Maybe it was somewhere in these papers.”

  As Lawrence was leafing through them, the boat suddenly heaved.

  Ragusa and Col had finished their labors and returned to the vessel.

  “Well done. You’re quite the hard worker,” said Holo to Col, who had returned to the boat’s prow, and his stiff face softened somewhat.

  He was probably a quiet lad by nature, but he seemed to have noticed Lawrence flipping through the stack of papers as though looking for something.

  Col’s face was curious as he watched Lawrence.

  “Unfortunately, there’s nothing worth money here,” said Lawrence without looking up; he sensed the boy flinching.

  Holo smiled slightly, punching Lawrence in the shoulder as if to say, “Don’t tease him.”

  Lawrence did understand the boy’s hopes, though.

  He himself had once been taken in by something similar.

  “Ah, here we are.”

  “Oh?”

  Lawrence pulled out a single sheet of paper.

  It was still clean, and the writing on it was neat.

  It was dated roughly a year earlier and appeared to be a record of the various goods the company had loaded aboard a ship. If there were omissions when the records were entered in the register, they couldn’t be amended, so this functioned as a kind of rough draft. Thus the list here would not have differed from what was actually noted in the ledgers, and it included clearly written descriptions of goods, their amounts, and their destinations.

  The information networks of companies like these, while not strictly worldwide, brought them reports from distant branch shops and allies, and when added to their proactive gathering of news from local sources, they were like a mountain of jewels to an independent merchant.

  Looking at a list of the goods such a company was sending out to distant locals was like looking into a mirror reflecting the information that company had gathered.

  Of course, one had to know how to interpret such knowledge.

  “Which is why this has no monetary value.”

  “Er, um, I mean—” Col had been staring holes into Lawrence’s coin purse, but flustered now, he looked away.

  Lawrence smiled, then stood and extended his hand. “Here.”

  Col looked at Lawrence searchingly, then turned his eyes to the paper.

  “See? ‘Recorded by Ted Reynolds of Jean Company,’ it says.”

  The rocking of the boat made it difficult to read, so despite the cold, Lawrence emerged from under the blanket and sat down next to Col. The boy looked up at Lawrence with trepidation, but his interest seemed to be with the paper.

  “What else?” he pressed Lawrence childishly, his eyes a misty blue.

  “The destination is an island nation beyond the channel from Kerube, downriver. It’s called the kingdom of Winfiel. Oh, also—this is the home of the vixen.” These last words were aimed at Holo.

  Lawrence could see her ears twitch beneath her hood.

  Even if she didn’t plan to pursue the woman, Holo seemed not to harbor any warm feelings toward her, either.

  “Anyway, this is a memo of
a variety of different goods collected in the port of Kerube that will be sold to another company—the name isn’t here—in Winfiel. These are the goods. Can you read them?”

  To the question of whether or not he could read, Col answered, “A little.”

  He squinted as though his eyesight was poor, staring intently at the words written on the page.

  His mouth seemed glued shut for a time, but at length it opened. “…Wax, glass bottles, books…buckles? Iron plate…er…tin, goldsmithing. And…ah, nee—?”

  “Eni. It’s a kind of coin.”

  “Eni?”

  “Indeed. You’re quite good.”

  Back when he had been an apprentice, Lawrence had never been happier than when his master praised him and mussed his hair. He recognized that he was not quite as rough as his master had been, so he patted Col’s head somewhat more lightly than his master would have.

  Col ducked his head in surprise, then smiled bashfully.

  “Next to the names of the goods are the amounts and the prices. Unfortunately we can’t wave this aloft and expect anyone to give us money for it. It would be a different story if there were evidence of smuggling on it, though.”

  “There isn’t any?”

  “Unfortunately not. So long as they don’t write, ‘These are smuggled goods,’ there’s no way to tell. Unless they’re bringing in something obviously prohibited, that is.”

  “I see…,” said Col with a nod, looking back at the paper. “Er, so then…”

  “Yes?”

  “What is it about this paper?”

  No doubt he wanted to know why Lawrence had gone looking for this one sheet in particular.

  “Oh, on another sheet there was a record of a copper coin order, and this was the company that placed the order. Though they’re made across the sea, here in Ploania territory, they’re a copper coin that’s mostly used in Winfiel as small change…”

  As Lawrence talked, a strange feeling came over him.

  He looked up, then stood.

  Opposite him, Holo had been vaguely paging through the sheaf, but she now looked up in surprise. “What is it?”

  “Where’s the paper from before?”

  “Mm. Here it is.”

  Holo produced a page with a rustling sound, handing it to Lawrence.

  Holding the memorandum in his right hand, Lawrence took the order sheet from Holo with his left.

  As he looked back and forth between the two, he realized the source of the strange feeling.

  The two documents were dated about two months apart. The company was the same.

  The copper coins that had been bought up with the sheet in his left hand had been exported on the memo in his right.

  “Oh ho. An interesting coincidence, indeed,” said Holo, her interest piqued as she peered at the papers Lawrence held; opposite her, Col timidly tried to see for himself.

  Since the supposed accomplice-less swindler operated out of this area, then he would have gotten materials from a trading firm somewhere along the Roam River.

  By coincidence, he had put together orders and sales from upstream and downstream.

  But what gave Lawrence that queer feeling was not the coincidence.

  No one was more obsessed with numbers than a merchant.

  Only a fortune-teller was equally so.

  “But the numbers don’t add up,” said Lawrence.

  “Hmm?” replied Holo. Col leaned in closer—evidently his eyesight really wasn’t very good.

  “Here it says they bought up fifty-seven chests, but the export was sixty. That’s three more.”

  “…Is there something wrong with that?”

  Lawrence laid the two sheets of paper down on the deck and pointed at the relevant spots, but Holo and Col alike only looked mystified.

  “Well, I mean…with money, for whoever makes it, the more they make, the more they profit. But because there’s so much profit in it, the number of sheets they can issue is strictly limited. If ‘money is the root of all evil,’ as they say, then that goes double for creating money. The temptation is very strong. So normally, they are very careful to make only just as much as is ordered.”

  “But they may or may not send everything they have on hand, may they not? If the destination is across the sea and the ship is unsteady, they might have to send less than the usual amount. So they added the remainder there.”

  It wasn’t a bad notion, but to have only three chests left over—it was hard to imagine.

  In any case, Lawrence knew that there was more likely to be some kind of mitigating circumstance that explained the discrepancy.

  It was natural for a merchant to be suspicious when confronted by a strange phenomenon.

  “Well, that may be so, but what it comes down to is a question of belief. I simply believe there is something strange here.”

  Holo pursed her lips and shrugged. “And what are these chests, then? What do chests have to do with coin counts?”

  Lawrence was about to ask Holo if she was joking when he saw Col nod, evidently also confused.

  Held between their questioning looks, Lawrence was mildly taken aback—until he realized he had forgotten that a merchant’s common sense was not like the rest of the world’s.

  “Basically, you don’t carry a large amount of coins all jangling around in a bag. It takes too long to count.”

  “Your jokes are clever ones,” said Holo lightly, eliciting a smile from Col; their eyes met.

  A merchant’s wisdom was born of experience.

  And much of that wisdom was counterintuitive.

  “Suppose you need to transport ten thousand coins. How much time do you think counting those coins will take? If you’ve moved them all jumbled together in a sack, you have to take them out, pick them up one at a time, then line them up and count them. For one person, it’s surely half a day’s work.”

  “So use ten people.”

  “True. But when it comes to worrying about thieves, it’s worse with two people than one, and worse still with three. If just one person is doing the counting, and the count comes out wrong, you need only doubt that one person. But with ten, you’d have to suspect all of them, and you’d need a lookout to watch them for theft. That’s no business at all.”

  “Mm,” said Holo with a nod; Col cocked his head curiously.

  They seemed not to understand the advantage of a chest. “Furthermore, you might not notice if a sack was to be stolen while in transit.”

  “But is that not the same for a chest?”

  “…Oh! I-I see!” Col’s eyes shone as he raised his hand excitedly.

  Then he seemed to realize he’d just raised his hand without thinking and hastily lowered it—as though trying to hide a mistake.

  Holo tilted her head curiously, but as for Lawrence, seeing the boy’s actions came as a surprise.

  He acted every bit like a student.

  “Are you a student?” he asked.

  It would certainly have explained the boy’s curiosity, his strangely polite speech, and his surprisingly deep knowledge of things.

  Yet Col shrank away at the question. When just a moment ago he had appeared to be finally opening up, that expression disappeared, and he backed away from Lawrence, fear writ large on his face.

  Lawrence was dumbfounded—but of course, he knew the reason for this reaction.

  He calmed himself and smiled. “I’m but a simple traveling merchant. It’s all right, lad.”

  Col trembled, and Lawrence smiled.

  Holo looked back and forth between the two, confused, but seemed to more or less guess at the situation.

  “Hmph,” she muttered, then approached Col, who couldn’t back up any farther lest he find himself in the river. She held her hand out to him.

  “My companion is a greedy merchant, but he’s also so softhearted I don’t know what to do with him. You needn’t be afraid.”

  The same smile had a rather different value when worn by a woman rather than a man.
>
  On top of that, Holo’s features were certainly pleasant.

  Still frightened, Col tried to squirm away when Holo took hold of his arm, but as she pulled him close, he stopped resisting—in his way, he was just like Holo.

  “Heh. Come now, don’t cry. All is well.”

  There was something novel and fresh about seeing Holo so skillfully comfort Col, perhaps because Lawrence always saw her at her most abrasive.

  The slender lines of her body seemed if anything to incite the protective instincts of men, but within her body was a wisewolf that had protected a village for centuries—surely a being worthy of being called a god.

  Even the great heroes of the area could surely not match her generosity.

  “It’s just as she says. So, what did you understand?” asked Lawrence. For the nonce, it would be better to demonstrate that he had no interest in the fact that Col was a student and instead talk about something entirely unrelated.

  Holo seemed to feel the same way, and she slowly released her grip on his arm as she said something softly.

  Though a tinge of his earlier fear remained in his eyes, Col seemed to regain some degree of calm.

  It was perhaps out of a sense of male pride that he tried to hide his tears by wiping them away, then looked up. “Y-you’re really not…?”

  “No. I swear to the gods.”

  These were the magic words.

  Col took a deep breath and sniffed loudly.

  For Holo’s part, she had a complicated look on her face as she smiled ruefully.

  “S-so…you want to know why…the coins are in chests?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it not because, er…with a chest, the coins can be packed snugly within?”

  Holo wrinkled her brow.

  “An excellent answer. It’s just so. Chests of a set size are chosen and coins packed precisely into them. So long as the chest size or coin thickness doesn’t change, the coins will always fit exactly into the chest, and if even a single one is stolen, it will be immediately obvious. Also, you will always know exactly how many coins a given chest holds. There’s no need for extra guards nor extra manpower to count coins. It’s a better system in every way,” said Lawrence, smiling at Col. “Years ago, I would never have conceived of this. Seems you really are an educated lad.”