Spice & Wolf II (19 page)

It seemed like Lawrence was off the hook, so he spoke briefly to the dockmaster. “Well, then, I’ll take my leave...”

“Yes...most unfortunate. I await sir’s return,” said the dock-master with an ingratiating smile. Lawrence took that as his cue to exit, so he started to move the wagon.

The dockmaster, however, took advantage of this small gap in Lawrence’s defense. “I believe I forgot to ask sir’s name,” he said. “Lawrence. From the Rowen Trade Guild.”

Lawrence gave his name without thinking, then suddenly, he wondered if giving his name to someone he didn’t know, in a situation he didn’t understand, was a mistake—but he could think of no reason why it would matter.

Most likely, the dockmaster simply hadn’t known what Lawrence had come to this place to do.

However—

“Lawrence, you say. Indeed. From the Latparron Company.”

The dockmaster grinned unpleasantly.

The jolt that ran through Lawrence’s spine was impossible to describe.

There was no reason he could think of for the dockmaster to know his name.

“You were bringing some armor to our company, yes?”

Lawrence was suddenly nauseated as he sensed he had fallen into some kind of trap. His instinct screamed it at him.

He looked slowly over to the dockmaster.

It can’t be. It can’t be. It can’t be.

“Actually, last night a messenger on a fast horse came to us. The Latparron Company has had their obligations assigned to our company. So, you see, you have a debt to us, Mr. Lawrence.”

With those words, everything changed.

Normally, obligation transfers did not take place over messenger horse. But the abnormality made the transfer all the more believable—for example, if two companies were engaging in fraud.

If Lawrence hadn’t been sitting in the wagon, he would have collapsed.

Even sitting, he lurched over from the force of the words.

Holo, surprised, caught Lawrence as he toppled.

“What is wrong?” she asked.

He didn’t want to consider it.

The dockmaster answered for him.

“The merchant beside you has failed at business—just like us." His happiness was clearly no more than schadenfreude.

“What?” asked Holo.

Lawrence wished desperately for this all to be a dream.

“The price of armor must have plunged some time ago. The old fox at Latparron shifted his dead stock onto us.”

The future was dark.

“We’ve been had...”

Lawrence’s hoarse voice was all that tied him to reality.

Chapter 4

"We both live by such agreements. You understand, right?”

These were the words every merchant feared.

And every merchant would lament his fate upon such a collapse.

“Of course I do. I’m a merchant, after all.” It was all Lawrence could do to say even that much.

“It’s simple. Of the exactly one hundred
lumione
worth of armor you bought from the Latparron Company, you will need to remit to us the amount recorded in the obligation deed, to wit—forty-seven and three-quarters
lumione
. You are aware of what this amounts to, correct?”

Remelio looked as stricken as Lawrence felt.

The man’s eyes and cheeks were sunken, his shirt hadn’t been changed in several days, and his eyes glittered strangely. He was not a big man to begin with, but Remelio’s weary, thin features made him look like a wounded bear cub.

He didn’t just seem wounded—he was wounded, nearly fatally.

Hans Remelio, the master of the Remelio Company, unconsciously ran his hand through his slightly graying hair as he continued to press

Lawrence.

“We’d like you to settle your debt immediately Otherwise..."

Lawrence thought about how much he would rather be threatened at knifepoint than hear this.

“...We’ll have to demand that the Rowen Trade Guild assume the debt in your place.”

It was the threat every merchant who was attached to a trading house feared.

The guild was a merchant’s second home, but it could turn into an angry debt collector in the blink of an eye.

In that moment, merchants who go about their work, prepared to half abandon their homes, have nowhere to go for respite.

“Well, the term of the loan was through the day after tomorrow, so give me two days. I’ll pay back the forty-seven and three quarters
lumione
by then,” said Lawrence.

It was not an amount he could hope to collect in two days. Even if he were to call in all the credit from every conceivable source he had, the money wouldn’t amount to half of what he owed.

A person could live for three months on a single
lumione
. Even a child knew that forty-seven
lumione
was a huge amount of money

As did the bearlike master of the company, Remelio.

Ruin.

The word seemed to hang before Lawrence’s eyes.

“What do you wish to do with the armor you brought, Mr. Lawrence? It will only sell for a pittance if it even sells at all regardless of where you go.”

Remelio’s thin, derisive smile was not meant to mock Lawrence.

After all, Remelio himself had been brought to the edge of ruin by the same plunge in armor prices that now threatened Lawrence.

Ruvinheigen served as a supply depot for knights, mercenaries, and missionaries heading north to suppress the pagans. Thus armor and scriptures were reliable sources of profit.

Every winter there was a major campaign. The march was timed to coincide with the birthday of Saint Ruvinheigen, and in order to equip the

mercenaries and knight brigades that amassed from surrounding nations, goods like armor, scriptures, rations, cold-weather clothes, horses, and medicine all flew off the shelves.

This year the march had been hastily canceled. There was political unrest in the nation that stretched out between the pagan territories and the

Ruvinheigen-controlled land where the battles normally occurred, and that nation’s disposition toward Ruvinheigen had suddenly soured. If it had been a normal nation that would have been one thing, but this particular nation bordered the pagan lands, and even within its borders, there were here and there pagan villages. One of the closest was Lamtra. Those who had to fight the pagans could cross into the other nation, but if they marched through it like they would any other year, there was no telling when the pagans, who silently watched them, might attack. The archbishop that controlled the grand diocese was in attendance, as were members of the imperial family from the south. They could not let the unthinkable happen.

Thus, the campaign was canceled.

As to how stricken the city’s merchants were because of this decision, one had to look no further than the predicament of the Remelio Company, which had operated in Ruvinheigen for many years. Even so, Lawrence should have realized something was awry while he was traveling—if the mercenaries that fought in the battlegrounds of the north were wandering around Ruvinheigen, there had clearly been some kind of change in the battlefield.

What’s more, given the drop in armor prices and the way Lawrence had learned of it, he had to assume that when he’d gotten the armor in Poroson, the master of the Latparron Company had already known.

In other words, when he’d thought he was taking advantage of a weakness in order to force favorable terms for himself, he had actually been used.

Having sold devalued armor to Lawrence at such a price, the Latparron Company master was probably still laughing to himself. And because the price of armor had dropped so much, he knew that it would be either impossible for Lawrence to pay him back or would take a significant effort.

Thus, he had sold the obligation to the long-standing Remelio Company, perhaps judging that it would salvage his position.

In the middle of all of this, Lawrence had drawn the worst lot.

It was a failure that made Lawrence want to tear his own limbs off.

And yet, Lawrence found some strength.

“I’ll sell it high somewhere. You’ll see. We’ll settle the debt in two days. Will that do?”

“Yes, we’ll be waiting.”

You could have put out a fire with the cold sweat that both men were bathed in, but somehow they managed to preserve the decency of a business negotiation.

They were both people, after all.

However, they were also both merchants.

Lawrence stood, and Remelio gave him some parting words.

“I should say,” he began, “that our company’s stalls are near I hr city gates. If you plan to use them, do let us know.”

In other words, don’t try to run away.

“I expect I’ll be busy with negotiations, so although I appreciate your informing me, I doubt I will use them.” If Holo had been there, Lawrence would have had to laugh at the battle of wills, but as both he and Remelio were on edge, he had to be honest.

Bankruptcy meant death in society. It would be better to be a beggar, shivering from cold and hunger. If creditors caught up with you, they would sell off everything you owned. Even your hair would be cut off and sold for wigs—and if you had good teeth, they would be pulled and used for someone’s dentures. Your very freedom could be sold, and you could be made to toil as a slave in a mine or aboard a ship. And even that wasn’t the worst that could happen. If a nobleman or wealthy person demanded it, you might even pay with your very life—but you would have no grave, and none would mourn your passing.