Chapter 91: Shopping
When he was about to head for his room, voices reached him from outside, so he peeked out of the window.
A figure that looked like the merchant, and the wooden crates stacked up. Beyond them he could see the back of Simon, the steward.
Something like a spear, on the stand between the merchant and Simon, caught his eye.
“…Eh? A spear — are they selling it?”
Ren’s curiosity got the better of him, and he went outside by the back door.
As he came closer to where the merchant and Simon were, low voices reached him.
“This one’s gone quite rusty, hasn’t it.”
“It’s an old thing.”
“Hmm…. Seven pieces, 3,200 G, I’d say.”
“…Can you not go a little higher?”
“There’s the cost of carrying it all, you see…”
Ren watched the exchange from a little way off. At Simon the steward’s side were two old spears, and besides them various things that had been put into wooden crates.
(They’re selling the spears…. But 3,200 G for spears and all the rest — isn’t that cheap?)
The reward Ren had been given when he organised the beginners’ corner of the reference room was 5,000 G. He had the impression that weapons were expensive, so even allowing that these were old spears, it surprised him that they were changing hands at such a price.
After he saw the steward go back inside the building, Ren approached the merchant.
The red-haired merchant turned round, gazed hard at Ren for a moment, then let a smile spread over his face.
“Well now, Young Master. What can I do for you?”
Ren gazed at the spear the merchant had been in the middle of putting away, hesitated a little, and opened his mouth.
“That spear…, I want it…”
“Oh ho…”
One of the merchant’s eyebrows sprang up.
“This?”
“Yeah.”
“Ah, but I’ve already bought it in, you see…. Well, it’s goods for sale, of course…”
“Will you sell it to me?”
“Now then…”
Chink…. Ren drew out the cloth pouch he kept inside his coat and showed five small silver coins from within it.
“If five small silver coins would do…”
The merchant’s eyes changed a little. He supposed that Ren must have overheard the total buying price just now. It wasn’t far off the sum he had paid for the spear. The spear in his hand he had bought for 400 G — four small silver coins’ worth. And Ren had named an amount just a little above it, exactly as though he “knew”.
It was a large sum for a child to be carrying, but for the son of a noble house it wasn’t an amount one could call unnatural either.
“…Young Master, I’ll speak plainly.”
“Yeah.”
“This spear is old. The head is rusted.”
“Yeah.”
“But the iron isn’t bad.”
“…Then if it’s looked after, it can be used, can’t it.”
A slightly relieved expression came over Ren’s face. The merchant realised that Ren truly did want to use the spear.
“…If it’s just this one, let us say I’ll sell it to you between ourselves. You seem to have heard the price, after all.”
“Thank you!”
“However—”
Ren’s face had brightened all at once. But the merchant put in a word of caution.
“I shall have a word with the steward about it afterwards.”
“Ah…. …Yeah. Understood.”
That Ren had bought the spear back might reach his father by way of Simon the steward. Ren hesitated for just an instant, but he nodded straight away.
(Father may have something to say about it…. Never mind, it’s fine…)
If his father learned that he had bought a spear back, he might be told “and you without even the Spear Arts skill”, or asked “where did you get the money”. Even so, he had wanted to buy the spear.
He held out the coins and received the spear. It was heavy in the hand. Completely different from the simple spear. He felt something like a presence about it, and not merely the plain weight of it. The corner of his mouth lifted of its own accord.
“Thank you for your custom. Will there be anything else?”
The merchant said it with a smile. For a merchant it was a stock phrase, but Ren took the words at face value and looked around the wooden crates set out on the stand.
The nearest crate held what looked like his mother’s old dresses. While he was looking over the crates set a little further off, the merchant turned back the cloth draped over one and showed him.
All sorts of goods appeared from under the cloth.
Dried fruit. Salt. Needles. Coloured thread. Metal fittings for mending pots. Cheap knives. Oiled paper. A small mirror.
Then several amber-coloured lumps, rolling loose, caught his eye.
They looked like stone, but they were slightly translucent.
“…What are these?”
When Ren asked, the merchant turned around.
“Ah, that’s resin, that is.”
“Resin?”
The merchant picked one of the lumps up out of the crate. About half the size of a fist.
Yellowish brown, the surface clouded a little and whitish.
“Close to pine pitch. You take it from conifers, you see.”
“From trees?”
“You wound the trunk of the tree and it seeps out and hardens, you see.”
The merchant tapped it lightly with a fingertip.
“Set light to it and it burns. Mix it with oil and it waterproofs. Crush it and warm it and it’ll serve as an adhesive too.”
Ren’s ears gave a twitch.
“Adhesive…. Waterproofing…?”
“It’s used for mending fletching and the like, yes. And for fixing beast bone or horn in place.”
Without meaning to, Ren pictured the simple spear he had made.
When he had thrust it into the river, the glue had gone soft and rubbery. If he used resin, he might be able to make it sturdier.
His simple arrows, too, sometimes had the fletching work a little loose when they got damp.
Ren took up the lump of resin in his hand.
It had a faint smell of pine about it.
“Can you get this in the forest?”
“If there are conifers. But go about taking it the wrong way and you’ll ruin the tree, you see.”
The merchant went on talking as he turned back the cloths on the other crates to show him.
“You score the trunk shallowly. Do it deep and it withers. The resin that seeps out, you leave a while and then scrape it off.”
“I see…”
“Mind you, take too much and the tree weakens.”
Ren was listening in earnest.
He had a feeling he had seen conifers in the shallow layers of the forest.
Perhaps he could gather some.
The merchant looked at Ren’s face and laughed.
“Young Master, are you fond of this sort of thing?”
“…It looks useful.”
“Ha ha! Very good, very good.”
Ren thought a little, then pointed at one of the smaller lumps.
“I’d like a little of this, please.”
“That chip there would be 100 G — no, 60 G will do.”
Ren took six large copper coins out of the cloth pouch.
The merchant took them with a practised hand and wrapped the resin in a scrap of cloth.
“It softens when you warm it. Take care not to bring it too near the fire.”
“Yeah.”
The resin he received was lighter than he had expected.
Ren looked down at the cloth bundle.
Fletching. The spear. Waterproofing.
It looked as though it could be used for all sorts of things. Thinking that, a smile rose to his face of its own accord.
From inside the mansion, Yuan’s slightly excited voice reached him faintly.
There in the corner of the rear garden, Ren gripped the small lump of resin and began to think about how he might work it.