Spice & Wolf III (33 page)

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.