Read Online Spice & Wolf III by Hasekura Isuna - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Hasekura Isuna
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wanted.
For a moment, Lawrence almost felt sorry for the poor boy, but he knew Amati would be all too happy to undo the strings on his coin purse for Holo.
Nothing would make Lawrence happier than Holo’s mood being lifted on someone else’s coin.
If only he could be so clever when dealing directly with Holo, he thought.
She did not just pull his leg—she swept it clean out from under him.
As Lawrence wondered if Holo’s wit exceeded his own by as much as her age did, the man who entered the trading house just as Amati left scanned the room and then began to walk toward Lawrence.
Mark’s apprentice had apparently run about the town to inform Batos of Lawrence’s request, which was undoubtedly why Batos now approached him.
Lawrence greeted the man with a glance, flashing his merchant’s smile.
“Kraft Lawrence, I presume? I am Gi Batos.”
The hand that Batos extended in greeting was hard and rough, like a veteran soldier’s.
Listening to Mark tell it, Batos was the sort of man who preferred drinking his profits away to actually making any, but upon meeting the man in person, Lawrence got precisely the opposite feeling.
As he walked down the street, Batos had a stocky stability about him that brought to mind a stout coffin, and his face had a tough, leathery quality (from years of exposure to wind and sand) out of which grew a spiky beard that was almost sea urchin-like. When Lawrence shook Batos’s right hand in greeting, it felt nothing like the hand of an easygoing merchant who passed the days carrying nothing heavier than his cart horse’s reins; it was rough and strong enough, telling that this was a man who did heavy lifting year-round.
Yet despite Batos’s appearance, he was neither stubborn nor ill-mannered; the words he spoke had a priestly serenity to them.
"I daresay merchants who travel across many provinces, like yourself, Mr. Lawrence, are more numerous these days. Traveling to and fro between the same places, selling the same things as I do, gets quite boring.”
“Ah, but the town peddlers and craftsmen would surely be angry if they heard you say so.”
“Ha-ha-ha! Right you are. There are plenty of men who’ve spent fifty years selling naught but leather rope. No doubt I’d get an earful if I claimed to be tired of it,” Batos said with a laugh.
He told of how he was a trader of precious metals from the mines of Hyoram and that he’d spent nigh thirty years going back and forth between those rugged mountains and the town of Kumersun.
Any man who could carry those heavy loads through the mountains of Hyoram—where the wind was strong and the trees were few—was a man to be reckoned with.
“Still, I must say you’re a curious fellow, Mr. Lawrence.”
“Oh?”
“I refer to your search for a chronicler to learn the ancient tales of the northlands. Or has it something to do with a business prospect?”
“Oh no, nothing like that. Its just something of a whim, I suppose.”
“Ha-ha-ha! You’ve got good taste for one so young. I’ve only recently become interested in the old tales. Originally I intended to make a business of it, but I’m afraid they’ve quite become my master rather than the other way around!”
Lawrence couldn’t quite imagine what Batos meant by making a business of the old tales, but the man’s talk was intriguing, so he kept his mouth shut and listened.
“It came to me after so many years of going back and forth between the same places. The world I knew was very small, you see. But even there, people had been coming and going for hundreds of years, and I knew nothing about those times at all.”
Lawrence had an inkling of what Batos meant.
The more he traveled around, the more the world seemed to spread out before him infinitely.
If that was the breadth of the world, in a sense, then what Batos felt was the worlds depth.
“I’m old, you see, and I’ve not the vigor to go journeying afar. Neither can I travel back in time. So
For a moment, Lawrence almost felt sorry for the poor boy, but he knew Amati would be all too happy to undo the strings on his coin purse for Holo.
Nothing would make Lawrence happier than Holo’s mood being lifted on someone else’s coin.
If only he could be so clever when dealing directly with Holo, he thought.
She did not just pull his leg—she swept it clean out from under him.
As Lawrence wondered if Holo’s wit exceeded his own by as much as her age did, the man who entered the trading house just as Amati left scanned the room and then began to walk toward Lawrence.
Mark’s apprentice had apparently run about the town to inform Batos of Lawrence’s request, which was undoubtedly why Batos now approached him.
Lawrence greeted the man with a glance, flashing his merchant’s smile.
“Kraft Lawrence, I presume? I am Gi Batos.”
The hand that Batos extended in greeting was hard and rough, like a veteran soldier’s.
Listening to Mark tell it, Batos was the sort of man who preferred drinking his profits away to actually making any, but upon meeting the man in person, Lawrence got precisely the opposite feeling.
As he walked down the street, Batos had a stocky stability about him that brought to mind a stout coffin, and his face had a tough, leathery quality (from years of exposure to wind and sand) out of which grew a spiky beard that was almost sea urchin-like. When Lawrence shook Batos’s right hand in greeting, it felt nothing like the hand of an easygoing merchant who passed the days carrying nothing heavier than his cart horse’s reins; it was rough and strong enough, telling that this was a man who did heavy lifting year-round.
Yet despite Batos’s appearance, he was neither stubborn nor ill-mannered; the words he spoke had a priestly serenity to them.
"I daresay merchants who travel across many provinces, like yourself, Mr. Lawrence, are more numerous these days. Traveling to and fro between the same places, selling the same things as I do, gets quite boring.”
“Ah, but the town peddlers and craftsmen would surely be angry if they heard you say so.”
“Ha-ha-ha! Right you are. There are plenty of men who’ve spent fifty years selling naught but leather rope. No doubt I’d get an earful if I claimed to be tired of it,” Batos said with a laugh.
He told of how he was a trader of precious metals from the mines of Hyoram and that he’d spent nigh thirty years going back and forth between those rugged mountains and the town of Kumersun.
Any man who could carry those heavy loads through the mountains of Hyoram—where the wind was strong and the trees were few—was a man to be reckoned with.
“Still, I must say you’re a curious fellow, Mr. Lawrence.”
“Oh?”
“I refer to your search for a chronicler to learn the ancient tales of the northlands. Or has it something to do with a business prospect?”
“Oh no, nothing like that. Its just something of a whim, I suppose.”
“Ha-ha-ha! You’ve got good taste for one so young. I’ve only recently become interested in the old tales. Originally I intended to make a business of it, but I’m afraid they’ve quite become my master rather than the other way around!”
Lawrence couldn’t quite imagine what Batos meant by making a business of the old tales, but the man’s talk was intriguing, so he kept his mouth shut and listened.
“It came to me after so many years of going back and forth between the same places. The world I knew was very small, you see. But even there, people had been coming and going for hundreds of years, and I knew nothing about those times at all.”
Lawrence had an inkling of what Batos meant.
The more he traveled around, the more the world seemed to spread out before him infinitely.
If that was the breadth of the world, in a sense, then what Batos felt was the worlds depth.
“I’m old, you see, and I’ve not the vigor to go journeying afar. Neither can I travel back in time. So
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