Spice and Wolf, Vol. 6

  Col straightened in surprise, then smiled sheepishly.

  In contrast, Holo looked entirely uninterested. It was difficult to know whether or not she really hadn’t also figured the question out—her kind heart might have led her to keep quiet.

  “But if this three-chest discrepancy really does point to something out of the ordinary, that would be interesting,” said Lawrence pointedly to Holo, who shrugged as if to say, “I’ve had it with getting into trouble.”

  If she was being like this now and if Lawrence was to decide he wanted to chase down Eve, she might well come up with a reason not to.

  “Er, uhm—,” Col interrupted their wordless exchange.

  “Mm?”

  “What could be ‘out of the ordinary?’ Just for example, I mean.” Col’s bashful smile vanished, replaced with a serious expression.

  Lawrence was slightly surprised, and Holo glanced at Col, then met Lawrence’s gaze.

  “Just for example, eh? Hmm. As proof of illicit coin minting, say.”

  Col’s breath caught in his throat. Illicit minting was a serious crime, indeed.

  Lawrence smiled nervously. “That’s an example, though—just an example!”

  Disappointed, Col slumped.

  It was a bit strange—or rather, he didn’t seem like someone who had been swindled and just wanted his money back.

  Perhaps he needed money.

  Perhaps he had borrowed the money he’d used to buy these papers.

  The thought occurred to Lawrence as he looked at Holo, who only smiled and shrugged.

  Holo might have been able to read people’s intentions, but their memories were a mystery even to her.

  “It’s just that thinking of all the possibilities is a good way to kill time aboard ship, that’s all,” added Lawrence.

  Col nodded regretfully.

  The boy had a daring imagination—he’d made a desperate bid in calling Lawrence master just when his counterfeit taxation privilege letter was getting him in trouble on the pier. Yet he had turned out to be a well-behaved boy, save for his strange fixation on money.

  And he was a student.

  On the way to the Church city of Ruvinheigen, Lawrence had met a shepherdess whose situation piqued his interest; this boy was roughly as interesting.

  How had he come to be wandering this area, and what had made him buy this stack of counterfeit documents and ledgers?

  Lawrence wanted to get every bit of information out of the boy, but if he pressed too hard, Col’s mouth would snap shut like a startled clam. It was an old story—a student descending from drinking and gambling into swindling and finally theft. None were so persecuted by the world as a student who drifted among such pursuits.

  Col’s fear was surely shaped by his knowing all too well just how cold the world’s notice could be.

  So Lawrence put on his best merchant’s smile and asked, “There are all sorts of students, so what sort are you?”

  Half the itinerant “scholars” in the world were only self-proclaimed and hadn’t done so much as a speck of real study in their lives. But Col could read, so he seemed not to be one of those.

  As Lawrence tap-tapped the papers to put their edges in order, Col’s answer was hesitant. “Er…Ch-church…law.”

  “Oh?” Now this was a surprise.

  Studying Church law—did he intend to become a high-ranking priest?

  Those who became students or scholars did so either because their family was wealthy and they could afford to or because they wanted a way to become a member of society without inheriting the family business—or because they simply didn’t want to work and instead called themselves scholars.

  In any case, students who studied out of a genuine desire to learn were rare.

  And among them, those who studied Church law were a special sort indeed.

  They didn’t want to become monks, but they wished to rise high in the Church ranks.

  The field attracted a crafty lot, indeed.

  “Were you expelled from school?”

  Waiting for Col to answer might well have taken until sundown, so in response to Lawrence’s question, Col gave a small nod.

  It was the way of such things for students to pool their money and hire a tutor, renting out an inn room or a mansion’s guest-house for taking lectures in—so of course, those who couldn’t continue to pay were expelled.

  There were stories of saints who would send birds to eavesdrop upon such lessons, then return to recite them—but even miracles had limits.

  And Lawrence had heard that most tutors wouldn’t so much as answer a question without a gift.

  It was a difficult path unless one came from a wealthy family or was a genius at making money.

  “So, for a school in this area…Erisol, perhaps?”

  “N - no…it was Aquent.”

  “Aquent?” Lawrence asked, looking up in surprise. Col cowered as though he had been scolded.

  Holo’s accusing eyes were almost painful.

  But the town of Aquent was so far away that Lawrence couldn’t help but raise his voice in surprise.

  As he watched Holo pat Col’s back encouragingly, Lawrence stroked his beard. “Sorry. It just seemed a bit far, that’s all. It’d take quite some time to make the trip on foot.”

  “…Yes.”

  “If I remember correctly, Aquent is a place where sages and scholars meet—a place where streams of pure water flow toward the town center, where the apples of wisdom grow year-round; the conversation exchanged there in a single day compares with all the words from four nations, and if you wrote the day’s conversations down, they would reach to the bottom of the ocean. Its name is Aquent, a paradise of reason and wisdom.”

  “It sounds an amazing place! ’Twould be nice to have apples year-round. A paradise indeed!” said Holo, practically licking her chops. Col looked a bit surprised, but soon a faint smile appeared on his face.

  Even he could tell when Holo was exaggerating.

  “Um, that’s actually…not true,” he said.

  “Hmm? R-really…?” replied Holo, sounding very disappointed, indeed, as she turned to Col.

  Perhaps feeling obligated due to the kindness he’d been shown, Col hastily tried to smooth things over. “Er, um, well, but—there are lots of different fruits lined up year-round at the shops. Even lots of rare ones.”

  “Oh?”

  “Like a hairy fruit about this big, that doesn’t break even when struck with a hammer—but inside it is a sweet milk.”

  He was speaking of the coconut.

  When the season was right, when the great trading vessels stopped in warm southern ports, sometimes you saw such things—but Holo had certainly never seen one.

  And the imagination could run all the wilder if it had no reality with which to anchor itself.

  Holo looked at Lawrence.

  Her eyes shone with a light that was entirely sincere.

  “If we happen to see any, I’ll buy you some.”

  It wasn’t honeyed peach preserves, but they would hardly come across coconuts, so Lawrence wasn’t worried about keeping this promise.

  Of course, if they did find some, then he would be in trouble.

  “But really, Aquent isn’t a paradise. There’s lots of fighting there,” interjected Col.

  “No doubt the inns are full of thieves. If you sleep alone, your clothes will be gone come morning, and if you go to a pub, it will be filled with brawling. When tempers rise, so too do flames, I’ll bet,” said Lawrence.

  With a mountain of layabout students ranging from Col’s age to Lawrence’s, it would be like throwing pirates and brigands together in the same room.

  Lawrence was being a bit overdramatic, but Col’s regretful smile did not deny any of what he said.

  A place full of schools would be lively indeed, for good or ill.

  “Um, but I did meet some wonderful teachers there, and I learned a lot.”

  “Indeed, to be able to read so well at
your age is impressive.”

  Col’s bashful smile was incredibly charming.

  Holo grinned as well.

  “So, how did you wind up all the way out here?” Lawrence asked, and Col—still smiling—looked down.

  “I tried my hand at the book business…”

  “The book business?”

  “Yes. My teacher’s assistant told me that my teacher was going to write new annotations to a certain book and so I should buy copies of that book before the price rose…”

  “And did you?”

  “Yes.”

  Lawrence skillfully kept his face neutral.

  When a famous scholar wrote notes on a given book, packages of the book plus the annotations would sell very well indeed.

  It was quite common for a scholar and a bookstore to cooperate—the bookstore would buy up copies of an unpopular book, and then the scholar would write annotations for that book.

  Scarcity led to escalating prices, which in turn brought greater attention.

  Thus it was quite plausible that in towns with schools or universities nearby, talk of such and such a scholar planning to write annotations for such and such a book would be common.

  A merchant might easily buy sheepskins or wheat flour a year in advance of selling it, but the publishing business was less reliable than tomorrow’s weather, and Lawrence never involved himself in it.

  But Col, who had apparently never cast an eye to the avarice and clamor all around him, instead devoting himself to study, hadn’t the slightest inkling of the pitfalls of that business.

  What Col had invested in wasn’t a business at all.

  It was a magnificent fraud.

  “I knew I didn’t have enough money to see my studies through to the end, so I thought I’d try to turn a profit. And the book’s price was going up nearly every day, so I knew if I wanted to make any money, I’d have to buy soon. But I didn’t have enough, so I borrowed the money from a merchant friend of the assistant.”

  It was a textbook trap.

  The rising price was either a ruse on the part of the bookseller or rumors had gotten out that had led to increased demand.

  And as the price began to rise, more and more people would come to believe that the rumors of new annotations were true, which would drive the price up still higher.

  After that, it was a great gamble to see who would pull the unlucky number.

  If there was someone more foolish, one could sell to them and turn a profit.

  But not infrequently, the original buyer was the biggest fool.

  Lawrence expected Holo to be rolling her eyes at the tale, but when he glanced at her, she was regarding Col with an expression of deep sympathy—an expression he’d never seen before.

  It was not really very funny.

  “But for some reason, the teacher didn’t write the annotations, and…the book turned really cheap,” Col finished with an embarrassed smile, and with the story turning out exactly as Lawrence guessed, he understood.

  Col had stumbled into a trap and even borrowed money to buy books.

  Obviously he could no longer pay his tuition, to say nothing of eating or repaying the debt—so he had beat a hasty retreat.

  He might have wound up in a northern town like this because the connections between students were stronger than any clumsy merchant’s. There were so many shiftless scholars in this area that it was easy to keep track of who was in which town.

  Most of the schools and scholars were in the south, but in a big enough city, there were people who would try to gain learning for free from the street-corner preachers. When Lawrence and Holo had been in Ruvinheigen, groups of young men looking roughly like Col would gather to listen.

  But once Lawrence and Holo arrived in this region, such groups disappeared.

  It was cold, after all, and passing the winter was difficult.

  “So then I, er, I started traveling about, looking for charity, and I wound up around here. I heard in the winter a lot of people come through here, so there would be a lot of work.”

  “Ah, the winter campaigns, eh?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see.”

  But as Col fled from the debt collectors and actually headed north, the winter campaigns had been canceled and there was no work at all. To survive through the winter at this rate would take what little money he had on hand.

  That was when the mysterious swindler had appeared.

  Though Col had tried to study Church law, it seemed God’s treatment of him had only ever been cold.

  Or perhaps this was a test from God.

  “And so after all these twists and turns, you came to our boat,” said Holo.

  “Y-yes, it seems so.”

  “’Tis quite an amazing encounter. Wouldn’t you say?” Turning to Lawrence, Holo smiled.

  Col’s grime-smeared cheeks reddened.

  “Though it can’t be said to have been a fortunate trip, it’s come together in the end. The world is indeed full of malice, but there are some pitfalls one can avoid so long as one knows of them—ignorance is a sin, after all. But you needn’t worry anymore,” said Holo proudly. Had her hood been pulled back, her ears would surely have been twitching.

  Had the maternal-seeming calm she had possessed a moment ago gone elsewhere?

  No, wait, thought Lawrence.

  He realized that Holo was like this because despite having said such brave things as she extended a helping hand to Col, she did not intend to shoulder that responsibility herself.

  “Ignorance is…a sin?”

  “Quite. But you needn’t worry. After all, my companion’s weathered all manner of adversity to become a full-fledged marshman…mmph…!”

  As he glared at Holo through narrowed eyes, Lawrence put his hand over Holo’s big mouth.

  After she stopped mumbling, he could tell she was trying to bite him, so he pulled his hand away.

  “Perhaps you’d like to teach him with all the knowledge and experience you’ve acquired?” said Lawrence.

  “Hmm? You surely do say the strangest things, sir. Despite my being but a girl of tender years, are you saying that your knowledge and experience would be inferior to my own?”

  “Urgh—”

  Owing to the necessity of hiding her true nature, Lawrence could say nothing at all to refute Holo, but Holo could speak as she wished.

  Col was dumbstruck as he looked at the two of them.

  Holo’s red-tinged eyes seemed to be smiling, but she made no move to back down.

  While she had blithely extended the boy her sympathy, it was Lawrence who would be in a bad position if he was forced to play mentor—as though he knew what troubles could be avoided if one was given enough knowledge from another. What Col truly needed to learn was not where the pitfalls were, but rather how to search for them in the first place.

  It was not something easily taught in a day.

  Holo know that all too well.

  And yet she was hounding Lawrence to do it anyway.

  “Why was it that you took such good care of me, eh?” Holo grabbed his earlobe and whispered the words into his ear. “Was it because I was so lovely? Are you such a shallow male?”

  “That—”

  That hadn’t been the only reason, but it had certainly been part of it.

  If he refused to lend wisdom and aid to Col now, he would have no grounds on which to refute the accusation.

  Holo’s gaze pierced him.

  “Fine—fine! Now get off,” said Lawrence. It would be no joke at all if she stretched his earlobe out longer on that side.

  Holo finally released him. “Quite. That’s my companion all right,” she said with a pleased smile, flicking his ear.

  Lawrence wanted to get her back, but there was no telling how much rage he would incur if he was to do so. “So does the boy in question actually want to learn?”

  He turned his gaze to the dumbfounded Col.

  The puppy-like Col could surely tell who was master of w
hom, just as a real dog could.

  Though he gaped for a moment at the sudden question put to him, he was in the end a smart lad.

  Col straightened his posture and took a breath. “I-I would be honored to accept your instruction.”

  Holo nodded, satisfied.

  Of course, she wasn’t the one doing the teaching.

  Lawrence scratched his head and sighed.

  While he did enjoy teaching, he wasn’t comfortable with all its attendant formalities.

  But he couldn’t let that stop him.

  After all, it hadn’t only been Holo’s fetching form that had led him to pick her up and bring her along with him.

  “I guess it can’t be helped, then. Now you’re really on board with us.”

  Just as Lawrence said so, the boat rocked lightly.

  Col reddened, and Holo gave an exaggerated sigh.

  Just as Lawrence was regretting having said such, Holo spoke.

  “You needn’t worry. That is what I love about you.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  In instructing the apparently easily deceived Col, Lawrence knew that if he tried to show examples of every possible swindle or scam, there would be no end to it.

  What he needed to teach was a frame of mind that would help Col avoid being tricked.

  After that, once Col knew one or two ways of making money, he would probably be able to save some up so long as he didn’t succumb to greed.

  Of course, overcoming greed was one of the most difficult things for humans to do.

  “When someone tells you of a fine opportunity, you need to think about how they will profit from it. Or don’t just consider the circumstances that will bring you gain—consider how you stand to lose, as well. Most scams can be avoided by simply doing that much.”

  “But don’t things sometimes go well and sometimes not?”

  “Of course. But when you’re being swindled, the profit is generally too good. When the balance between the profit and loss is strange, it’s better to get out. So if the gain is great or the loss is too large, don’t do it.”

  “Even if the gain…is great?” Just as would be expected from someone who wanted to learn badly enough to pay for it, Col was dedicated and clever.

  Though Lawrence had been reluctant to take him on, the boy was quick enough on the uptake that teaching him was enjoyable.