The situation called for extreme caution. It was unusual for the village to receive visitors, much less outsiders who had come for the sole purpose of dismantling their lord’s plans.
Lawrence had the sense that even the head of the village, who had come with Meyer to welcome Lawrence and Holo, viewed the two of them as a necessary evil. That was probably why he described Lawrence resolving trade disputes as magic.
And so Lawrence would be staying in the village as a guest of the church, just as traveling merchants who came to trade did.
The priest was the perfect picture of a good-natured old man. He welcomed Lawrence and Holo without ulterior motives and knew of what happened in Salonia as though it were common knowledge. He was eager to hear about the legendary independent priest who built a trout hatchery, and so Lawrence told him of Bishop Rahden, who hailed from warm seas.
Lawrence was hoping to hear more details about the village and the forest from the priest, but the old man was a fervent believer first and foremost; though the villagers respected him, he was not at all knowledgeable about the village or the region’s economy. “All I hope for is peace for the souls of Lord Tonneburg and his people,” he said sadly. Had Elsa been there, she would have rolled her eyes at this, especially since she traveled all over to reform poorly run churches.
And so, dinner was delightful, but ended fruitlessly.
Holo seemed unsatisfied with the scant servings of meat at the serene meal. The moment she settled down in their guest room, she immediately undid her pack to fish out some jerky.
But she was not as cheerful as she usually was; she only silently sipped on the mead Meyer had gifted her.
Though the forest was still in danger, the villagers were not particularly worried about the forest itself, much less the spirits that might have dwelled there. Their greatest concern was the livestock manure. Though she knew it was unreasonable to get angry over this, it was still enough reason for her to sulk.
In contrast, Lawrence had only just begun to understand the weight of the situation. And to make up for what he believed was a lacking dinner, he had gone to the priest to borrow something from him.
“What is it you’ve borrowed?” Holo asked dubiously, peering at what he unfolded over the writing desk.
“A map.”
Meyer had mentioned that the port city of Karlan was hoping to redraw the maps. He had also mentioned that Lord Tonneburg had decided to cut down the forest in order to preserve the lively village market.
The trick to trade was considering things while standing in another’s shoes.
“People always gather in churches for one reason or another. Church maps will always be reliable.”
“What am I looking at?”
Not many people could read letters, and that mostly held true for maps as well. The majority of people never left the village where they were born, so they never had any need to look at a map. That was especially true for a wolf who never lost her way even in the darkest forests at night, who only needed to bound up the side of a mountain to find its peak and gaze into the distance to confirm exactly where she was going.
Yet Holo had read her fair share of maps on countless occasions because she had sat side by side with Lawrence, gazing at them under candlelight.
“This is way is north, and this is the river we came down by boat. We then went south, and we should be around here now.”
The river that flowed from Salonia spanned the map from right to left, running across the top. Salonia stood on the rightmost edge, and downstream—on the leftmost edge of the map—sat what was likely the port town of Karlan. At the bottom of the map, south of the forest, was what looked like a large pond or a lake and a small drawing of what was likely the ruling lord’s manor. Below that, farther south, was a road that ran east to west, marking the bottom of the map.
Occupying everything between the north and south edges of the map was an all-consuming gray mass—the forest.
The village in which they were staying sat right on the northeastern edge of the massive forest.
“According to Meyer, they want to cut down the forest so they can build a road that goes south.”
An uncomfortably loud crack came from inside Holo’s mouth—she must have bitten into an errant piece of cartilage in the jerky.
The candlelight shone in her red eyes, and her canines gleamed.
“Fools,” she said, ripping into a new piece of jerky.
“In a merchant’s eyes, Karlan and Lord Tonneburg’s plans do make sense.”
The forest spread from the northeast to the southwest, dotted in places by what Lawrence surmised to be hills by name alone. This was not an easy wood to cross, and the seven or so villages in the area sat outside the forest. The only two settlements among the trees sat just inside the perimeter—the forest was truly untouched.
This map was marked with paths to show where church visitors should visit next, and all these paths took great winding detours around the forest.
“This is Karlan, the port city. And I guess at the bottom here, this area south of the forest must be a pond or a lake. Either way, there’s another small river flowing south from there. And that means if they manage to cut a path through the forest and build a road to the lake, they could easily carry cargo from north to south by boat. And voilà—a convenient trade route.”
If there were a road that went from the north of the forest to the southern lake, then they could build a pier there, along with warehouses to store cargo and inns to house travelers. Merchants would naturally follow. And due to the dense woods, they would not lack material to raise buildings and build boats. Setting up charcoal-burning huts and smithies would be the first thought of any merchant.
The road would connect north and south, opening the way to seaports—it was the perfect trade route for exporting metal, charcoal, and lumber. Lawrence could easily imagine the booming business the village would see.
“If people use the road, then the landlord can collect taxes. Lumber will sell like hotcakes. Before long, new villages would pop up and the population would grow. This map would change dramatically.”
Holo’s tail swished back and forth in displeasure.
“But it was said that if they do not accept this plan, then the fires of this village will be snuffed out. Why is that?”
She pointed to the village in which she and Lawrence were staying.
If he were to look out the window, he might be able to see the tip of a giant shapely finger.
“That would be because of where Karlan is located. See, look at the forest—” Lawrence pointed at the Tonneburg Woods. “Picture an even bigger map, one that contains the woods and everything around it. This forest stands in the way of Karlan doing any trade with landlocked communities. They have no choice but to rely on the river flowing from Salonia, but that’s also obvious to the lords who hold land along the river.”
Holo lifted her head, then nodded. “They are under their thumbs.”
Even if ships could reach their harbor, Karlan would have no choice but to watch the products in their warehouses rot if they were unable to do trade with the villages and towns farther inland. The only easy path into the rest of the continent was that river, and if Lawrence were one of the landlords along the river, then he would capitalize on that leverage without a second thought and levy heavy taxes at his checkpoint.
That was precisely why Karlan wanted a different path that would allow them easy access to the rest of the continent.
Holo played with the piece of jerky sticking out of her mouth.
“If Lord Tonneburg were to turn down Karlan’s proposal, then the new road would have to take a large detour around the western edge of the forest. They probably used this to threaten the lord.” Lawrence traced a finger along the left side of the map. “A new road on the western side of the forest would completely divert the small, but steady, trickle of merchants that pass through this village on their way south. The merchants from Karlan, at the very least, would have no reason to come to the eastern side of the forest, especially when their return trip would require traveling by river with high travel tolls. And so trade that only existed because merchants incidentally stopped by would vanish, and the villagers would have to venture elsewhere to sell their wares. And that’s doubly true when there aren’t any decent roads.”
Holo quietly chewed on her jerky, which was still sticking out of her mouth. She was likely thinking back on the rickety bridge they had to cross to get here.
“That said, I’m sure there are reasons why Karlan doesn’t necessarily want to build a road that runs along the western edge of the forest. If there weren’t any, then it would probably be under construction right now.”
It was hard to tell due to how the map was cut off, but Lawrence was almost certain there already existed a road somewhere toward the coast. If that road and the new one were too close, then it would invite conflict with the lords who owned the lands along the coastal route, among other problems.
It was likely that Karlan had recently gained ambitions to develop and flourish as a port city. But it was surrounded on all sides by powerful individuals who were already well established—there was not much room for Karlan to carve out a niche.
In his mind, Lawrence pictured a child who was physically growing, but was uncomfortable due to their small clothes.
“Building a new road isn’t very easy to begin with,” Lawrence said, his gaze dropping to the flask of mead in Holo’s hands. She glumly handed Meyer’s gift to him. After a sip, he returned it to her and continued. “It’s easy to collect taxes on a river, but that isn’t the case with regular roads. And so landlords typically make up for the cost of building those roads and their maintenance by forcing the commonfolk who live nearby to work on it. Those people have no choice in the matter—they typically spend three or four days a week laboring with absolutely no compensation. And in the meantime, their fields go neglected, and their lives get harder. I honestly thought they were going to tell me that their village was going to die out because of these troubles.”
But all the mayor talked about was the cycle of the livestock, the manure that fertilized the wheat fields, and the forest that supported the livestock.