Spice & Wolf III (32 page)

I’m just a lowly merchant.
Lawrence thought to himself as he looked around for Holo.

The events that happened in the port town of Pazzio and the Church city of Ruvinheigen had been but a dream.

As soon as the thought struck him, he realized that it seemed to be exactly so.

Lawrence smiled weakly as he looked into the hotly swirling crowd, but Holo was nowhere to be found, so he moved elsewhere.

Some time had passed since the opening of the market, but the day's festival had not yet started, so more and more people seemed to be making their way in.

Holo remained elusive.

Cursing his inability to find her now
—now of all times
!—he realized something.

After he’d met her gaze in the crowd, Holo had walked away.

Had she simply left right then and there?

If so, where had she gone? Had she decided his failure was a foregone conclusion, Lawrence wondered, and returned to the inn?

It would stand to reason.

The idea was so humiliating that Lawrence felt broken just thinking it—and yet he believed it himself.

He wanted some wine.

Immediately after the thought occurred to him, he uttered a small, questioning sound. “Huh?”

He’d been scanning a fairly small area, so his eyes were bound to notice the detail eventually.

Amati had entered his field of vision, which caused Lawrence to make a noise of confusion and surprise.

Amati s right hand was pressed up against his chest, probably holding a bag of coin and pyrite.

The problem was not in what he was doing, but rather the expression of concern on his face and the way that he looked here and there, searching for something—just like Lawrence.

Lawrence suspected Amati of putting on some kind of act.

But then by some miracle, the crowd between them thinned, and Amati noticed Lawrence. He was clearly surprised to see his rival.

And then Lawrence glimpsed a look of relief on Amati's face. Though the crowd quickly closed in around them and blocked Lawrence’s view again, there was no mistaking what he had seen.

A single thought jumped out at Lawrence.

Amati—like him—was looking for Holo. Not only that, Amati had been relieved to see that Holo
wasn’t
with Lawrence.

Lawrence felt a thump, as though someone’s shoulder had bumped into him from behind.

He turned to see one mercantile-looking fellow talking excitedly with another.

That’s odd,
he said to himself, whereupon he felt the same thump reverberate from his back to his chest.

Then he realized.

It was the pounding of his heart.

Amati had been frantically looking for Holo and was obviously very worried that she would be with Lawrence.

The young merchant did not trust her fully.

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.