In the ten years since they last visited Kerube, it had grown into a city much livelier than they remembered. The north side of town, notably, which had been run down at the time, had now steadily developed, and the mouth of the river that separated the two sides of town was abuzz with a festive atmosphere.
Torchlight from the taverns reflected off the surface of the water, and melodies from bards came floating on the wind. If Lawrence left Holo to her own devices, she would surely spend the night here.
But perhaps she was satisfied after running as hard as she could from Karlan; with the fur on her tail mussed, she asked for only one cup of watered-down wine, and simply enjoyed the comfortable autumn breeze.
“…Well, if this isn’t a surprise.”
Lawrence, with Holo in tow, paid a visit to the Rowen Trade Guild trading house, and Kieman, who had sat around a table with other aged merchants, opened his eyes wide in surprise.
“I’m not imagining things, am I?”
It was a late hour where a more respectable merchant would return to their inn to prepare for the morrow. But who should appear out of the blue but an acquaintance who should, at the present moment, be working in the distant, deep mountains—of course even the most seasoned of merchants such as Kieman would be flustered.
“We have urgent business,” Lawrence replied boisterously.
Kieman gradually regained his senses, after which, he allowed them into the back.
He broached the topic just as drinks were served by the errand boys, who had likely been sleeping in their own little corner of the trading house, considering the time.
“Is this about the Twilight Cardinal again?”
“Again?” Lawrence repeated, and Kieman blinked.
“Haven’t you heard? Those two came by not too long ago. It was so sudden, and they came spouting what sounded like nonsense.”
Lawrence wondered if they had missed something in one of Col and Myuri’s letters; he glanced at Holo, but Holo only tilted her head.
Kieman watched the exchange and gave them a knowing nod.
“I doubt they’re writing to you every detail of their adventure. It was the talk of the town for a while around these parts. People say the Twilight Cardinal guided a ghost ship to heaven.”
Myuri had indeed written about a ghost ship with great excitement in one of the letters.
But Kieman’s name had not been mentioned, nor was this heaven business.
What sort of adventures were they having beyond the content of their letters?
Lawrence hummed, and Kieman lifted his glass in a light chuckle.
“Anyway,” he said, changing the subject. “You said you had urgent business?”
“—Apologies. We do. Sorry for arriving so late.”
Kieman smiled. Holo sniffed her drink; the look on her face told Lawrence that what they were served at Eve’s was much better.
“It seems we’ll be working under Eve’s name before long in Karlan.”
Kieman froze—if witches existed and could petrify people with their spells, then this was probably what that would look like.
“…I see. This is appropriately urgent, then.”
When he finally squeezed out his voice, there was a vexed look in his eyes. Yet the corners of his mouth were still lifted in a smile.
“That snake of a woman… Using Lawrence as her insurance, I see.”
Holo, who had been sipping on her drink, glanced up at Lawrence. He noticed.
They were right.
“Kerube acts in secret to obstruct Karlan’s development, all to protect its own trade,” Lawrence orated like a bard.
Kieman inhaled, his chest expanding to the point of bursting, and then sighed deeply.
“Do you understand how much trouble this has caused us?”
The candlelight made him seem so much skinnier.
Or perhaps it was just anxiety.
“How are you getting involved in Karlan, Lawrence? You seem to be on her side, so why have you come all the way out here to see me?”
Though he did not explicitly voice his suspicions that this meeting was a part of Eve’s strategy, Lawrence could see that it was a genuine question, but also the hesitation as to whether or not Kieman could trust them.
“It’s complicated,” Lawrence began. He informed him of the reason why they left Nyohhira, and Kieman was surprised by what happened in Salonia.
“That was you?!”
It was an exciting time, due to the festival, so word of the bizarre city had traveled across the land via mouths of the merchants. And Kerube, too, had likely been watching how things regarding Salonia’s lumber might unfold.
“I had first heard of how things are in Karlan from the lord of Tonneburg and his ranger. And it seems Karlan and Kerube have not been on the best of terms for quite a long time, and it doesn’t seem like Lord Tonneburg has built a very good relationship with Kerube, either.”
The hedged wording was Lawrence’s way of being considerate.
As Kieman’s surprise faded, what Lawrence told him seemed to settle in.
“The Lord of Tonneburg must think of us as bloodsucking leeches or something, doesn’t he?”
“Is Lord Tonneburg borrowing everything from the trading companies in this city?”
There was a slight chance that he proudly said he was not borrowing anything from Karlan.
And who owed who was a very important detail at this stage.
“It is a debt from a long time ago, you see. There is nowhere else to borrow from in this area. And if that lord owed Karlan, then I doubt they would jointly decide to cut down the forest.”
Holo smiled wryly; they had been missing an important detail until now.
“Despite how he carries himself, he is a noble at heart,” she said.
It was clear from the way she said it that it was not a genuine compliment.
“Is he wrestling with a feeling of inferiority because of the unequal footing due to the debt?”
“We can call it a sense of repulsion that comes from an inferiority complex. He probably thinks, Why must I be reserved when dealing with mere commoners?”
Matthias had been rather magnanimous with Lawrence, but that was because he owed him nothing. He would not be the same with someone to whom he owed generations’ worth of debt. Especially not with one his family had been borrowing from for years, with whom he had a humiliating relationship.
“If he came to us, we would gladly talk to him about his debts and his problems with the Church. The lumber from that forest is valuable, after all. But I don’t think he wants us to appraise his forest like that. And I think he agreed to Karlan’s plan because they are on equal footing; Karlan, after all, can get the upper hand by using the lumber as a shield. In which case, anyone would treat him as a very important person. Particularly tempting for an undistinguished lord.”
Kieman shrugged, but Lawrence’s heart ached for the position Matthias had been forced to live in for many years. He was a good man; a great deal of self-restraint was necessary to preserve the forest that could fetch him mountains of gold with the snap of a finger.
“I think it is…right, in a way, that Karlan feels animosity toward us. They often have disputes with our merchants over suppliers, and the flow of goods in this area is most advantageous for us. They are hoping to change that flow by greatly lowering their taxes, however.”
Lawrence was not sure how much of what Kieman said he should accept at face value, but perhaps the relationship between Karlan and Kerube was a lot more like his own metaphor than he originally thought.
A bull in a porcelain shop.
Kerube must be hurting Karlan, but it was not out of malice. Their body was simply too big; they had no personal vendetta against the porcelain.
“Change location, and perspective changes drastically. You, Merchant Lawrence, should understand this.”
But Lawrence was forgetting his basics—he had taken so long to start a fire.
Lawrence cleared his throat and said, “Er, well, I came here to see what sort of picture Eve is really trying to paint. And it seems she has not given us the whole story. But she doesn’t seem to be as vicious as she used to be, so I’m not sure what to make of that.”
The details on Kerube, most notably, were elusive.
How had Eve taken Kerube by the scruff and kept them down?
When Lawrence said that, Kieman narrowed his eyes and pressed his lips into a thin line, as though telling him he was being ridiculous.
“That snake of a woman has only honed her viciousness.”
Lawrence could feel Holo hold her breath beside him.
“What’s worse is that it seems she’ll be stringing us up for a full-frontal attack.”
Lawrence glanced at Holo again. But Holo did not look at Lawrence; instead, her eyes glinted with dark curiosity, waiting for what Kieman would say next.
“She has woven herself such a precise plot, all to harass us.”
“Which means?”
Kieman flattened his wild bangs with a hand.
“Wool. She is going to string us up with her wool.”