Tonneburg was comprised of several small villages that surrounded the forest, and one of them acted as the heart of the territory. Incidentally, the settlement was big enough to have its own market. Lord Tonneburg’s manor sat apart from the villages, on the bank of a pond to the south of the forest.
The road Meyer had used to bring them here led to the largest village.
That said, the road was barely recognizable as one, and it did not seem that merchants and travelers often came from the outside world.
As Meyer guided them down the path, Lawrence and Holo noticed a person along the road.
A lone old man sat on a tree stump, and the moment he spotted the two of them, he rose to his feet. Evidently, he had been waiting for them.
Meyer told them that he was the mayor of the village they would be entering soon.
“Ah, there you are! The merchants that come to our market have spoken of you. You solve business problems with magic!”
“Magic? Oh, no. Only God’s guidance.”
It would only cause problems for Lawrence later down the line if a superstitious village believed he was genuinely a wizard, but the look on the mayor’s face made it seem like his village was on the brink of collapse. He ignored Meyer’s introduction and began to speak, clearing his throat.
“If all the trees are cut down, then we cannot maintain our livelihood. And that’s not all—a great calamity will befall the entire region if this comes to pass!”
His speech was exaggerated, like a pastor giving a sermon. Though Holo gave a docile nod, Lawrence wore a merchant’s mask.
A merchant who took every hyperbolic proclamation at face value was worse than useless, and the mayor seemed sensitive to that.
“It is not mere parable, Great Merchant.”
Lawrence showed his shock, and the elderly man’s glassy eyes bore straight into him.
“Our lord understands nothing. How are our pigs and goats supposed to grow fat if he cuts down our forest? And does he understand what sort of state that would lead to?!”
Meyer did not stick around to rein in the mayor, who leaned in as he talked to Lawrence and Holo; their ranger had, as always, gone ahead to check the roads.
After glancing briefly in his direction, Lawrence asked, “…Pigs?”
In all honesty, he had assumed the old man was concerned about the potential clear-cutting because of a pagan attachment to the woods. That and complaints about being forced into hard labor when the clearing process began in earnest.
Yet what came out of his mouth was talk of goats and pigs, which Lawrence had not been expecting.
Satisfied by his bewilderment, the mayor gave a deep nod.
“The villagers speak of the forest’s bounty, but the honey and nuts one can find among the trees is a trivial matter. Even the lumber is not the greatest thing the forest provides. What we cannot afford to lose is the nameless undergrowth.”
Lawrence could not bring himself to put on a fake smile or offer amicable agreement; instead, he found himself glancing at Holo for her wisdom. But even Holo, who was supposed to be thoroughly knowledgeable on all things regarding the forest, simply looked back at him with a quizzical expression.
“The forest undergrowth is what keeps our goats and our pigs fed. You must know that the horses pulling precious cargo for traveling merchants like yourself—those all-important beasts of burden—are raised on oats that grow wild in the forest.”
Wild oats that were too much like grass for human consumption were sold as horse feed. Lawrence knew that, of course.
“If the undergrowth vanishes, then goat milk and pork will not be the only things we lose. You came from Salonia, yes? You must have seen the impressive fields of wheat they have over there.”
For the third time, the conversation took another wild turn, and vexed, Lawrence struggled to find the words.
“Er, yes… They truly were impressive…”
“Yes, yes they are. But our Lord Tonneburg also does not understand that all the wheat fields around Salonia thrive on livestock manure.”
It was as though the old man had been pruned of all of his excess after many long years of farm labor. There was powerful conviction in the way the mayor spoke, and he wielded a persuasiveness that was hard to resist.
Lawrence, too, had once traveled the world as a peddler, the kind of person who in a sense also worked to support the bottom rungs of society, and was confident that he had seen all the fine detail the world had to offer.
But what the mayor was talking about was something that supported the world from its very root, something that would never enter a traveling merchant’s view.
“Those who never sully their hands with dirt could never imagine the sheer amount of grazing needed to keep the livestock fed. The grasses that grow in fallow fields and plains could never be enough. It is the Tonneburg Woods that single-handedly provide what other territories lack. If Lord Tonneburg understood how hard we work, how much we trade in livestock manure, then he would look to the heavens in astonishment and exclaim how rich in trade his land is!”
All merchants could see were the final products that came to market. Even merchants who dealt in herring egg futures never handled livestock manure, much less gave a first or second thought to pig or goat feed. As far as they were concerned, livestock simply lived off the land, and there was no need to deliberately spend money to feed them.
As Lawrence failed to find his words, he stared at Meyer, who had failed to mention any of this back at the checkpoint. Perhaps the easygoing atmosphere surrounding the merchants and travelers at the checkpoint was so powerful that he was convinced talk of rich soil would go unheard and unheeded.
There was always a suitable time and place for any topic.
And that was never truer than this moment now.