Spice and Wolf - Volume 11 - Chapter 1

THE WOLF AND THE GOLDEN PROMISE

Plop a soft lump of bread dough down on the table.

Carve a winding groove through it with your finger, and then let water flow through the groove. Let a few trees grow here and there.

Doing all that would result in the scene that lay before him, he was sure.

Such thoughts ran through Lawrence’s mind as he sat in the driver’s seat of the wagon, musing on the taste of baked bread—a taste he had not enjoyed in several days. He could not help but swallow hungrily.

They’d left town some three days earlier, so it was too soon to be thinking so fondly of hot food. In the past, he had crossed entire mountains on nothing but a moldy crust of oat bread and a bit of salt. When he thought of that, these travels with bread, wine, and even a side dish of some kind seemed disturbingly luxurious.

And while he often told himself as much, his purse strings had been rather loose on this journey, with his mood similarly so.

In his seven years’ travel since starting out at the age of eighteen, this was easily the most luxurious trip he had taken.

“Poultry legs.” Perhaps having heard his gulp, Lawrence’s traveling companion spoke up as she sat next to him in the driver’s seat.

Her face was buried in her fox fur muffler, and she busied herself by combing more fur in her lap—but this was not the pelt of a dog nor a fox, but the unmistakable fur of a wolf.

Normally a wolf’s fur would be a bit shorter, scruffier, and generally shabbier. But the fur that his companion now tended to was without exaggeration of the finest quality, its warmth at night nearly miraculous. It was neatly combed, thanks to her periodic nibbling of its roots.

Lawrence wondered how much it would cost to buy it were the fur for sale—but soon thought better of the notion. Far more relevant than how much it would take to buy was the question of how much it could be sold for.

Because after all, the fur in question was no pelt, but rather was still attached to the flesh-and-blood tail of its wolf owner.

“I assume that’s something you’d like to eat?” said Lawrence, to which his traveling companion Holo flicked her ears—her proudly pointed ears, their fur the same color as that of her tail. They sat regally atop the flowing chestnut brown of her hair and were unquestionably not human.

The seemingly teenaged girl sitting next to him in the driver’s seat of the wagon was not simply a human with wolf ears and a tail, but in fact, a great wolf who dwelled within wheat and ensured good harvests.

“And a hen would be best rather than a cock,” she said.

“A hen gives eggs, too.”

Lawrence thought of eggs beaten until fluffy and perfectly fried. Conversations with this particular wolf always turned to food. Though she proclaimed herself the Wisewolf of Yoitsu, her interest in worldly pleasures was greater than that of any human.

“Poultry…I tell you, the peculiar spring of raw chicken meat is truly irresistible. Though the feathers can be a bit of a bother…”

If she had been joking she would have had a strained smile, but unfortunately Holo was quite serious. Her lips concealed very sharp fangs.

“I’ve never eaten one raw, but they’re worth the trouble of cooking, that’s for sure.”

“Oh?”

“Pluck the feathers, remove the organs, debone the meat, then steam it with seasoning, boil the meat with vegetables, fill the bird with stuffing, then crisp the skin with hot oil, then roast it one more time with fragrant spices…Hey, you’re drooling.”

“Muh…mmph.”

Lawrence had heard of this particular luxury dish, though he had never actually eaten it. But for Holo’s active imagination, a secondhand description was more than enough. These were the only times she forgot her wisewolf’s pride and stared up at him, her eyes imploring.

He had managed to become accustomed to this, having traveled with her long enough. And no amount of her begging on the road truly frightened him—because one could not buy what was not being sold.

Given his overwhelming advantage, Lawrence cleared his throat and answered, “Wait a moment. Cooking is all well and good, but there are other places where a special effort results in a more delicious meat.”

“…Other places?” Holo looked up at him with her red-tinged amber eyes.

“There are fowl that are neither cock nor hen, you know.”

“Oh?” Despite her centuries of life, it seemed there were subjects not covered by the wisewolf’s memory. But rather than finding this frustrating, she merely urged him on out of pure, simple curiosity. “Go on, go on!”

Lawrence cleared his throat again, this time for a rather different reason than before, and continued. “They take the males and castrate them.”

“Ho. And that…”

“It yields an even tastier meat than a hen’s. It’s not tough like a cock’s, but their energy doesn’t go into making eggs like a hen’s does.”

“Mm…” Holo’s gaze moved purposefully, and she grinned a bare-fanged grin. “That does indeed sound tasty.”

Her true form was as a huge wolf that could swallow Lawrence in a single bite. But more importantly, he got the feeling that she was making sport of his most important parts—as a man, that is.

He cleared his throat, and then again more loudly, and lightly flicked the cart horse’s reins.

Holo chuckled, amused, and didn’t press her attack any further. Her tail swished to and fro.

“Do not worry. I’m well aware you’re a capable male when there’s need of it.” She smiled, flashing white fangs, and if he didn’t laugh her jest off, he’d have been no man at all. She had him dancing in the palm of her hand and he knew it, but there was nothing he could do about it.

“Still…”

“Ouch—!”

She grabbed his ear and pulled, and he leaned in response, tugging on the reins, which in turn prompted a neigh from the horse.

“…You’re hardly fit to be called a male, exaggerating your tales because you’re unconcerned whether I’ll beg you for poultry!”

She seemed to have seen right through him.

Holo let go of his ear as though tossing it aside, then folded her arms across her chest, looking displeased.

“Hmph. Consider my teasing your punishment for that. Speaking of such delicious things, when on our journey all we have to eat are these plain rations—why, I could just die.”

Even if that did leave them even, this last part was too much for Lawrence to let pass unanswered. “Look here, our food may be plain, but the bread’s a mix of wheat and rye, and the wine is fine and clear, and we’d get along perfectly well without it. And then we have cheese and jerky, and we also have fruits and raisins, which is quite luxurious enough. In the past I used to travel on nothing but raw garlic and onions. Compared with that, what we have is unbelievable luxury.”

Though Holo sometimes acted strangely childish or animalistic, her fundamental intelligence was enough to cause even Lawrence to quail. She was not someone who couldn’t understand reason.

And yet she still had no trouble saying things like, “I shall die, surely.”

She turned away with a sniff.

Could such purposeful acting truly exist?

Lawrence made a face as he bit his tongue and glared at Holo.

If he took the bait, he would lose. But if he ignored her, it would obviously become a test of wills, and he knew for a certainty that he would be the one to finally surrender. This was what it meant to be perfectly seen through.

To put it politely, all Lawrence wanted was to have pleasant journeys with Holo. And Holo was perfectly willing to take that desire hostage.

“Fine, fine.”

“…What is fine?” she replied coldly, her back still turned.

“I’m sorry. If we can find some poultry, I’ll buy it for you. But that offer is only good while we’re on the road.”

That was as far as Lawrence was willing to compromise. When it came to buying her such things in a town, even if his mouth opened to make the offer, as long as his coin purse was unable to open to back up that offer, he would never actually make it.

Holo still did not deign to turn around; her ears merely twitched.

No doubt that clever mind of hers was thinking things through—deciding whether or not he had really been pushed as far as he could be pushed.

“I seem to recall that I told you earlier—I can tell a man’s lies from truth.”

“Certainly. I remember quite well.”

“Is that so?”

“It is.”

“Mm…”

Holo again fell silent for a time.

Meanwhile Lawrence felt like a criminal awaiting his sentencing as he waited for her next words, though when he thought carefully about it, he knew perfectly well he had committed no crime.

Yet there was no escaping this unreasonable situation.

Finally Holo appeared to realize that Lawrence’s proposal was as far as he could go and still conclude the discussion as jokingly as it had started, so she turned back to him and smiled pleasantly.

Unfair! he shouted inwardly. Holo’s ever-changing smiles would be able to deceive any man, not just one weary from years of lonely traveling.

“Hmph. Still, you—”

“Hmm?”

The horse walked lazily on for a little while before Holo spoke.

“What you said earlier—it was no lie, was it?”

“What I said earlier? Oh, about the castrated fowl…?”

“Fool. No, about buying one for me should we encounter one.”

Why was she going to such lengths to confirm this? Lawrence had an ill premonition for a moment, but then Holo tugged at his sleeve, and he realized it was no mere premonition.

In an instant, his heart and mind were those of a merchant’s.

“Did I say that…?”

“You did, did you not?” Holo leaned in close and growled a low growl.

Now, finally, Lawrence saw what she meant. Far up along the sloping road, there was a person. And though Lawrence’s eyes could not make it out, he knew that Holo could see a chicken there, too.

“Surely you don’t intend to quibble over whether or not you were speaking to me, do you?”

Nothing was as terrifying as Holo’s unfriendly smile. But it seemed likely that he was going to have to kneel down and explain to her just how much a single chicken would cost.

But that would work only if she was willing to listen. And at the moment, that seemed very unlikely. Lawrence looked at Holo next to him and sighed. If he failed to tread lightly, his life could be in danger.

“Fine. I’m sorry. I’ll keep my promise. However—”

“However?” she shot back, her retort nearly overlapping with his words and her gaze very serious.

Lawrence had to choose his words very carefully. “Just one.”

Holo looked him steadily in the eye and did not move. After a suffocating silence, she faced forward with a huge smile.

Lawrence was sure he knew how a bird too terrified by a wild dog’s gaze to fly away must have felt. He thought about it as he looked ahead, whereupon the figure up the road noticed their approach and stood.

The figure waved, and as they drew near enough that Lawrence could tell he was smiling, he saw the chicken tied up at the figure’s feet.

“Just one,” he repeated, just to be clear.

“How about something to liven up your travels, sir?”

Travelers were few in this expanse of wilderness, and the strange peddler who had waited for a sole customer out under the midwinter sky was a lanky man of about Lawrence’s age. He had the particular wiry build of a farmer. When they were close enough to shake hands, Lawrence was surprised at how thick the young man’s skin was.

“Besides the chicken, I’ve got some excellent ale. How about it?”

His body was far sturdier than any traveling merchant’s. He was clothed in plain, simple clothing, and despite the mist puffing whitely from his mouth, he didn’t appear cold at all. Far from it, he wore a merry smile, and beside the chicken pecking at the roadside grass sat a waist-high barrel.

The young man seemed in fine condition, but the iron bands holding the barrel staves together were rusted and seemed likely to give way at any moment. Nevertheless, the chicken seemed fat and happy—it was a strange combination.

Lawrence stroked his beard thoughtfully.

Holo wasn’t urging him to quickly finish the purchase, either—she was probably just as preoccupied as Lawrence was with wondering just how this man came to be on this desolate road in the first place.

“Might we taste the ale?” Lawrence finally asked since silence wasn’t going to accomplish anything.

The man nodded grandly. “But of course!” he said, chest thrust out, and then produced a largish measuring cup. He removed the barrel’s lid and drew a cupful of ale. “It’s just been brewed. Look, it’s even still bubbling!”

When Lawrence put it to his lips, he found that it was surprisingly tasty—either the water was good or the wheat had been good.

Holo wanted some, too, so he gave her a sip, and her eyes immediately turned imploring.

“So, how about it?”

At the man’s repeated question, Lawrence nodded, and his eyes returned to the chicken.

He could tell that beneath Holo’s robe, she was trying very hard to keep her tail from swishing to and fro.

Roast chicken and ale. No wonder she was so happy.

“I suppose we’ll take some ale with the chicken.”

The only reason the man didn’t notice the flicker of movement underneath Holo’s hood was because he himself nearly jumped for joy.

But Lawrence was not just Holo’s traveling companion. He was something of a traveling merchant, and so these were the next words out of his mouth: “But I think I’d like several chickens. Not just the one.”

“Huh?” the man replied, and Holo, too, looked at Lawrence in surprise.

She had recently started to understand how the market worked and thus had a faint notion of just how costly even a single chicken could be—hence her surprise at Lawrence’s saying he wanted more than one.

“There’s a village nearby, is there not? We’re not in a terrible hurry, so perhaps you’d take us there to buy more.”

It was obvious that the man wasn’t a merchant hauling his goods down the road, which meant he must have come from a village in order to make some coin or trade for goods he had a pressing need of.

Just as Lawrence suspected, the man nodded at first dazedly, then again with greater strength. “Truly? Of course, of course!” His face full of happiness, he immediately secured the barrel with rope and hoisted it to his back. His smaller items were quickly put in a burlap sack and fixed to the lid of the barrel, and then he took hold of the rope the chicken was tied to. “Well, then, follow me!”

And then he strode energetically right off the road.

The direction he was heading in was wild land, but Lawrence decided it was not so rough that the wagon could not traverse it. He pulled on the reins to turn the horse in the proper direction.

It was none other than Holo who chose that moment to tug at his sleeve. “Come now, if you’re angry, you might say as much,” she said, a worried expression on her face.

She must have thought Lawrence saying he wanted to buy more than one chicken was meant as a kind of snide remark on her behavior.

Lawrence laughed in spite of himself, at which point it was Holo who seemed angry, and she glared at him.

“Sorry, sorry. No, I just had an idea, you see.”

“…An idea?” Holo’s head tilted quizzically as she faced him.

“Call it a merchant’s intuition.”

Holo regarded him with extreme skepticism, but Lawrence was not worried. She might confound him with her acting and her snares, but that was because she had confidence in his merchant’s eye.

“If this goes well, I really will buy you more than one.”

Holo’s expression did not change. “We’ll see, but I shan’t expect much.”

Lawrence, however, expected quite a lot.

There would be business to do once they arrived where the young man was so spiritedly taking them.

The young man finally led them to a small village, from which could be seen far-off forests and springs. It looked all the poorer for the slapdash construction and placement of the dwellings with fields that seemed haphazardly plowed.

Towns and villages without good government either overflowed with chaos or fell into poverty. This seemed to be one of the latter.

“Quite a remote place,” said Holo bluntly, and Lawrence couldn’t claim he didn’t understand.

It was said that roads existed to connect towns to other towns and to connect villages to landlords’ estates.

And yet, if this place’s poor condition wasn’t enough, it was no exaggeration to say that it seemed completely isolated from the outside world. The words landlocked island were perfectly appropriate.

“Well, we’re here! Welcome to Jisahz!”

Small though it was, a wooden fence stood marking the territory that belonged to the village. Once he’d passed it, their guide turned and shouted his pronouncement.

It was a village; little else could be said.

The villagers had been watching Lawrence and Holo for some time, and they now drew nearer to get a better look.

“W-well, then, this way! You can wash the dust from your feet at my home!” The man did not bother to introduce Lawrence or Holo to the villagers, instead walking proudly ahead of the horse and wagon.

It was enough to make Lawrence laugh, to say nothing of Holo. The man could not help how proud he was to be leading travelers into his village.

However, from the words “wash the dust from your feet,” Lawrence guessed this was a village of the Church. And seeing his guess had been correct, he smiled faintly.

The man pounded loudly on the door of his home, then immediately threw it open and went inside. Next, a verbal exchange could be heard, after which a stout woman emerged from within, looking flustered.

Lawrence found her resemblance to the man rather amusing. “Goodness, welcome, welcome! Go on, dear. Call the village elder!”

The smile remained fixed to Lawrence’s face, though not because he found this treatment particularly pleasant. Holo, too, seemed to have realized something, perhaps having noticed Lawrence’s smile.

“Er, I’m very grateful for the warm welcome, but we’re mere traveling merchants, so…”

“Yes, yes, and honored merchants are most welcome! Please do come in! I’m sorry we can’t offer much, but…”

Still sitting in the driver’s seat of the wagon, Lawrence smiled an appreciative smile and then turned to Holo. She was quite perceptive, and once Holo nodded her agreement, he turned back to the woman.

Not having to explain every detail to Holo was awfully convenient. Lawrence was perfectly able to continue their little act.

“Well, thank you. We’re sorry to impose on your generosity.”

“Not at all. Come in! You can leave your wagon right there. Dear! Go fetch some hay and a bucket of water!” cried the woman to a man in the crowd with a hoe over his shoulder. No doubt he was the master of the household. With a look on his face as though wondering what was happening, he nonetheless ran off to do as he was told.

Lawrence descended from the wagon and Holo followed.

Just before they were welcomed into the house, Lawrence caught a glimpse of the young man from earlier leading a much older man by the hand.

The floor of the house had neither wooden planks nor stone tiles and was simply made of hard-packed earth. A hole dug in the earth served as a hearth, around which were arranged a wooden table and chairs. The farming implements that leaned against the walls were likewise entirely wooden.

Onions and garlic dangled from strings, and on a shelf high against one wall there was a milky white-colored substance—yeast, probably.

Despite its dinginess, the building was spacious, and Lawrence suspected that several families might live here given the number of chairs, pots, and bowls.

Lawrence did not particularly dislike town inns, but as he himself was from a tiny village, he felt very comfortable in surroundings like these. It was Holo who seemed less at ease here.

“Ah, so you’re heading north, are you?”

“Yes, to a town called Lenos.”

“I see…Well, you can see what sort of village this is. We’re very grateful to be able to welcome a traveling merchant like yourself.” While it was said that titles make the man, village elders all seemed to look somehow similar. The thin, aged village elder of Jisahz bowed deeply.

“No doubt it was God’s will that I be led to this town and to be welcomed so warmly. If I can help you in any way, please ask.”

“We thank you for that.”

Lawrence’s smile was a genuine one. He truly did believe that this was the result of divine guidance.

“Let us give thanks to God for this encounter, then.” As the village elder spoke, Lawrence and Holo both raised their wooden cups and drank a toast.

“…Aah, that is fine ale, indeed.”

“It is shameful—thanks given to God call for wine, but we cannot raise grapevines here.”

“God determines the flavor of wine, but it’s the skill of humans that give ale its taste. And you surely possess fine brewing methods to make this ale.”

The elder shook his head humbly, but he could not hide his pleasure at hearing this. Holo stared down at the table, but Lawrence knew it was not because she found this conversation tiresome, nor because the food was too poor for her taste.

Just what are you planning? her quick glance to Lawrence said.

“In truth, our brewing uses a secret technique,” said the elder, only too pleased to have the village’s ale praised.

To earn the high regard of an elder, the key was to listen closely to everything he or she said. Lawrence was just giving the old man his full attention when he heard a commotion from outside.

“So, yes…oh?” said the elder, looking over his shoulder.

“Elder! Drey and the others, they’re at it again!” shouted a man, pointing outside after he burst into the room, his hands black with soil.

The elder stood, looking pained, then turned back to Lawrence and bowed his head. “My apologies. I must tend to this.”

“Not at all. You’ve welcomed us quite warmly enough. Your duties to the village are more important.”

The elder bowed again before being hurried out the door by the other man.

The village custom seemed to be that only the elder welcomed guests, so once he left, Lawrence and Holo were alone.

There still seemed to be people outside, so if they called, no doubt someone would come, but Holo seemed to welcome the solitude.

“So then—”

“I imagine you’d like an explanation, eh?”

Holo plucked a bean off the table, popped it into her mouth, and nodded.

“This is a colony village,” said Lawrence.

“Colony?” Holo repeated back to him.

“There are many reasons, but it happens when people move into undeveloped land and found a new town or village there. And sometimes, once in a while, villages get founded in isolated places like this one.”

Holo’s eyes glanced curiously to and fro as she drank her beer. “Why would they do such a thing?” she asked almost childishly.

“This is just a guess, but do you recall the rocks and logs we saw piled next to the spring when we entered the village? I’ll bet they plan on building an abbey.”

“An…abbey?”

“Yes. It’s a place where a chosen few devout believers can conduct their worship. Undisturbed by worldly temptations, they can live simply, humbly, and purely, which is why they would choose a desolate place like this.”

It would be a silent fortress, dedicated to rules that Holo would no doubt have trouble following for even a single day.

But such a place would not be built by robed, scripture-carrying lambs of God. The people of this village were probably related to criminals or had been connected to pagans.

Building an abbey in such a remote location was not merely a question of erecting the buildings—to ensure the monks could sustain their lives, fields and drinking water had to be secured. By engaging in this grueling work, the villagers could atone for their sins.

“Hmm…If it’s as you say, then…,” Holo began and then suddenly seemed to recall just what sort of people made up the Church. Having done that, she arrived at the answer on her own.

“So then, you’re going to take advantage of their weak position.” Her choice of words was quite intentional.

“I’m merely going to help some people who are in trouble.”

“Oh, indeed. You want to be the first to mark this village as your territory and make it into grist for your business.”

Lawrence’s constant, easy smile was thanks to this village. It was like discovering a lake brimming with fish.

Farm tools, craft equipment, livestock, and looms for textiles and clothing—the era when a village could be truly self-sustaining was now long past. When a village was created, supply and demand followed soon after.

Finding a village where the people led plump chickens around on ropes and sold delicious ale from barrels by the roadside was, to a traveling merchant, like discovering a mountain of treasure.

In exchange for its poultry and ale, Lawrence would provide the village with its necessities. If he could become the sole provider for the village, the profit would be tastier than any ale could ever be.

Holo made an exasperated face, sipping her drink as she looked at Lawrence out of the corner of her eye.

He thought he saw her ears flick rapidly beneath her hood, but then she grinned and faced him. “Hmm. Well, do enjoy playing the savior.”

“…?”

Before Lawrence could ask what she meant, there was a hasty-sounding knock at the door. Behind it was the man who’d called for the village elder earlier.

Lawrence could guess at what he wanted.

“My apologies, honored travelers. If either of you can read, we have need of your assistance, if you would be so kind.”

Here in this remote village where no merchant ever visited, he was being asked if he could read.

Lawrence bounded to his feet at his unbelievable luck.

“Enough! Would you break the agreement we’ve already made? My field is six chiechen in size!”

“That is a plain lie! It’s mine that was clearly stated to be six chiechens! Yours is five! So why is mine now smaller? And now you’ve the nerve to build this fence—”

Lawrence did not need to have the situation explained to him. From the angry shouting that was audible some distance away, it was clear enough.

From the use of the chiechen unit, he could even make a guess as to where the men were from. There was a land of forests and springs known as Rivaria, where a wise king named Chiechen the Second had once ruled.

In his kingdom’s land surveys, the span between the king’s outstretched arms was used as a unit of measurement: one chiechen.

Of course, even with the measurement the wise king had decreed, there was no end to land disputes.

Before the two arguing men stood the village elder, at a complete loss for words. As the village did not have the benefit of a long tradition, there was no authority to settle the fight. Resolving this sort of baseless dispute was very difficult without the authority to transcend reason and decide by fiat.

“Elder, I’ve brought them.”

“Aah, yes.” The elder appeared at his wits’ end and he looked at Lawrence imploringly. “It is very difficult to ask you this, but…”

“A fight over land division, is it?” Anyone doing business with small villages like this would find that such disputes were very common.

Yet the elder seemed to find Lawrence’s statement evidence of some deep wisdom. “Yes, that is it exactly,” he said, bowing very deeply. “In truth, this village was built on the orders of a certain nobleman, and there are often fights over the size of the lands as they were decided at that time. Normally we resolve them calmly, but those two have nursed a grudge for a very long time, it seems…”

The shouting had moved from an argument over land size to simple exchanges of contempt. The villagers surrounded them in a large circle, seemingly irritated, with only Holo finding the scene amusing.

“So then, is there a written deed for the land?” Lawrence asked. That had to be the reason he’d been asked if he could read.

The village elder nodded and produced a sheet of parchment from his breast pocket. “This is the same, but none of us can read what’s written upon it.”

A village where the whole of the population was illiterate was like an unlocked treasure chest.

Merchants converted agreements into written words.

So how long could one remain honest in a place where none could read those words?

“If I might have a look at it, then.”

Such villages were not common, and merchants with the good fortune to be the first to visit them were still fewer in number.

Lawrence solemnly regarded the parchment, his heart pounding with excitement.

“…Ah, I see.”

The moment he looked at the parchment, he realized that such good fortune did not exist after all and quirked a small smile.

The village elder blinked, and Lawrence’s smile became a wry one.

It was no surprise none could read the parchment—the land deed had been written in the holy characters of the Church.

“There are a few among us who can read, but none of them can understand this parchment. We believe it must be in the letters of some foreign land.”

“No, this is the special writing of the Church. I myself can only read numbers and a few set phrases in it.”

Lawrence had seen land deeds and certificates of privilege written with the letters of the Church before.

From beside him Holo peered at the parchment, but she, too, appeared unable to read it. She soon lost interest in it and returned to watching the two men shout.

“Hmm, yes. I believe I see where the trouble is.” Lawrence read through the parchment again and delivered his pronouncement. “Did those two men happen to be craftsmen before?”

As the argument turned into a physical brawl, Holo snickered beneath her hood, and the villagers finally moved to separate the men.

The elder seemed to be debating whether to go in himself, but hearing Lawrence’s question, he looked up in surprise. “Th-that’s right. But how did you know?”

“The land is divided such that they both should receive six chiechen. There’s no mistake about that. But here…,” said Lawrence, pointing out a single word.

The elder narrowed his eyes and looked, but since the word was written in letters he could not read, no understanding came to him.

“‘Sheepfold,’ it says. One of the sheepfolds is six chiechen, the other five.”

The elder stared at the parchment blankly for a while and then finally seemed to arrive at the conclusion. He squeezed his eyes closed and smacked his own balding head. “I see…,” he murmured. “So they didn’t realize they were meant to be sheepfolds…”

Land division was very important to villagers. Before they’d set out for the new colony, there was no doubt these illiterate villagers had the particulars of that division explained to them. But how were people who’d never so much as tended a garden meant to understand such specialized terminology?

The only parts that would linger in their minds would be the numbers.

And that would lead to fights like this.

“It seems that Chai Barton donated just a bit more to the abbey, so Barton was given the six-chiechen sheepfold.”

“Barton’s the one on the left there. Goodness, to think that’s what they’ve been fighting over…”

“Without any experience with such matters, it’s hard to understand the importance of a mere sheep pen.”

Just as the name suggested, a sheepfold was a fenced area for keeping sheep—but the goal was not generally to raise them within such a pen, but rather to bring them there at night so that their droppings could fertilize the area.

Since it was obvious that more sheep went into a larger pen, just as a smaller one would hold fewer, pens were measured not by their capacity but rather their area. Some farmers would fill their pens to capacity, while others wouldn’t even cover half the area with sheep.

The elder bowed politely to Lawrence, then trotted off toward the two arguing men. He spread the parchment out in front of the two men, who were forcibly pulled apart by other villagers. As Lawrence looked on with an indulgent smile, the two men finally exchanged a grudging handshake.

“That was settled rather too quickly,” said Holo, sounding disappointed.

“Memories are all too often mistaken. Not so with the written word.” Those words had been well drilled into Lawrence by his master. One of the reasons traveling merchants were always losing out to city merchants was that they had to remember each purchase and sale without writing it down in a ledger.

Whenever there was a dispute, the written word would always triumph.

“You can’t expand your business if you’re having fights like this every day. It’s why contracts are so important.”

Holo listened to Lawrence, seemingly uninterested. “Important enough that you were thinking to back out of your promise of chicken.”

“Quite so,” said Lawrence, just as the village elder turned to face him, then bowed slowly.

Lawrence gave the man a slight wave. It was nice to be useful to someone else once in a while, he thought.

That evening, the villagers celebrated the end of the two men’s conflict by slaughtering a chicken and roasting it whole. There was also as much liquor as one could drink—as long as they wanted ale.

This would satisfy even Holo surely.

Or so Lawrence thought, but after partaking of only a small amount, Holo retired like the pious nun she appeared to be.

Evidently an entire building had been set aside for them to stay in, and upon excusing herself, she was led there. Perhaps she was weary from traveling, and the meat and ale were proving heavier than expected.

He couldn’t discount the possibility, so after participating in the feast a bit longer so as not to offend his hosts, Lawrence, too, returned to their accommodations.

The third day of a winter’s journey often decided whether one’s body would accustom itself to the rigors of travel, and even veteran travelers could find their strength failing if they weren’t careful.

And Holo had already felt poorly several times.

Even the wisewolf who dwelled in the wheat was not immune to exhaustion.

Lawrence quietly opened the door to the building he was led to; inside it was dark and quiet.

He took a tallow lamp and slowly entered, and found that storage boxes had been arranged to form a makeshift bed in the center of the room on the earthen floor. The villagers themselves slept on straw spread upon the floor, so this was special treatment for honored guests.

What he could not guess at was why they had prepared only a single bed. Did they suppose they were being considerate?

In any case, Lawrence regarded Holo, who was already curled up in a blanket. “Are you all right?”

If she was asleep, that was fine.

After a few moments without a reply, Lawrence concluded that she was.

If she awoke the next day and was still feeling unwell, Lawrence would offer the villagers some money and stay a bit longer.

Having decided as much, Lawrence extinguished the lamp and curled up on the straw of the bed, pulling the thin linen blanket over himself.

He was careful not to wake Holo and seemed to have been successful.

Though merely straw, this bed was far more comfortable than the bed of his wagon. All he could see was the ceiling and its joists and what moonlight streamed through the small hole in the roof that was there to let smoke out from the hearth.

Lawrence closed his eyes and considered the village’s situation.

It held thirty or forty people. Nearby there were forests and springs, and fruit, fish, and wild honey were all surely abundant. It sported fine pasturing, too. Excepting the relative rockiness of the land, it seemed quite fertile.

If the abbey were completed, it would easily support a hundred people.

As long as no other merchant had already marked the place as his own, it seemed possible that Lawrence would be able to monopolize its trade. During the feast, he had spoken with the villagers; he had talked to them about trading for iron tools, cattle, and horses.

When a nobleman donated a remote parcel of land for the construction of an abbey, it often happened that they or someone close to them was nearing death. The plans were rushed, construction proceeding without important details having first been decided. And it was not necessarily true that the nobleman even lived near the land being donated.

Since deeds to lands were recorded on paper, they traveled like so many dandelion seeds blown on the wind. It was not unusual for land to be turned over to someone the nobleman had never met and barely knew of. The beggar’s patchwork of land division that resulted from such situations was the seed of many a dispute.

Thus it was common for neighboring communities to avoid contact with newly settled occupants, fearing they’d be drawn into such conflict. This village seemed to be typical of such situations, and evidently the merchants of nearby towns and villages were reluctant to do business with it. The village elder had said the young man taking the beer and chicken to the side of the lonely road where Lawrence had found them had been a last-ditch effort.

For Lawrence, the timing could not have been more fortunate. For the village, he was like a messenger from God.

It was only understandable that his face would redden with pleasure despite not having too much to drink. An opportunity he’d often dreamt of during his lonely travels was now right before his eyes.

So just how much profit would it bring him?

As the night grew darker, his mind brightened. The notion of his prospects here was a stronger liquor than any ale he’d been served, and—

He felt Holo shift in the bed, and then she spoke up with a sigh. “Honestly, you are a hopeless male.”

“Hmm, so you were awake, eh?”

“How could I sleep with the sound of you grinning away like that?”

Lawrence couldn’t help but touch his face to check.

“I left the feast in such a state, and you just kept grinning away, not a care in the world…”

Now that she had said as much herself, it was clear she had intentionally left early.

But Lawrence sensed that if he pointed it out he’d only earn her ire, so he chose his words carefully. “Your voice seems so cheerful now—I can’t tell you how relieved that makes me.”

Holo’s tail shifted beneath the blanket they shared. But Holo herself, who could tell when a person was lying, grabbed Lawrence’s cheek and bared her fangs. “Fool.”

She would’ve been angry no matter what his answer had been, but he could have done worse, it seemed.

Holo sulkily rolled over so that she was facing away from Lawrence. Given the obviousness of her actions, she was probably not so very furious.

“Why did you leave so early? The chicken and ale were both delicious.”

The villagers had brought out special ale, and it had been just as splendid as their claims suggested it would be. When Lawrence asked about it, they said that spices had been dried, ground, and added to the brew.

The chicken was so well fed that fat fairly dripped from it, so what could she be so unsatisfied with?

Holo did not immediately respond. Only after a fair span of time did she finally speak in a low moan. “Did you truly find that ale delicious?”

“Huh?” Lawrence responded, but not because Holo was speaking quietly.

“I could not drink it. I cannot believe anything so foul smelling would be called ‘delicious.’”

People had differing tastes, of course, so it was not hard to imagine that she would not find the heady scent of the ale to her liking. But why it would make her so angry, so sad—Lawrence could not guess at that.

His gaze wandered for a moment before he spoke very carefully, as though Holo were a bubble beside him that might pop at any moment.

“They put the spices of their homelands into it. It’s a very peculiar scent. For people who like that scent, it’s wonderful, but for those who don’t—”

“Fool.”

She kicked him under the blanket and then faced him.

Her features were distorted, but not by the moonlight that streamed in from the hole in the ceiling.

When she looked like this, Holo was holding back whatever it was that she truly wanted to say. And Lawrence never knew the reason why.

“Enough!” she finally said, then rolled back over and curled up tightly.

When they slept on the wagon bed, she would lay her tail on his legs—but not only did she snatch it away, she also took the blanket they had been sharing.

Her ears were turned away, making it all too clear she was in no mood to listen to him. It was evident enough from her turned back that she wanted him to take notice of something.

“…”

Surely she was not this displeased merely because the ale was not to her liking. She had broached this only as an excuse for her anger.

Lawrence reflected on how obsessed he’d been with gaining the village’s business ever since they had encountered the young man by the roadside.

He had heard that a hunter’s faithful hound would often become jealous when that hunter took a wife.

He wondered whether his reluctance to believe that Holo would feel similarly was the “foolish male” thinking that she’d accused him of.

Lawrence stole a glance at Holo’s back and then scratched his head.

In any case, he would have to pay more attention to her tomorrow.

This wolf’s mood changed just as often as the weather in the mountain forests from which she came.

In the winter drizzle, Lawrence would put his blanket over his goods, shivering with his arms clasped around him as he passed the night. Compared with that experience, sleeping under a roof on a bed of straw was vastly preferable.

When morning came, he awoke with his usual sneeze, reflecting on such notions to avoid cursing the situation in which he’d found himself.

Next to him was Holo, curled up in her blanket asleep, snoring soundly.

He couldn’t claim not to have felt a twinge of anger.

But when he looked at her sleeping face, Lawrence could only sigh softly and stand from the bed.

While technically a house, it was still a roughly hewn dwelling dug into the earth.

His breath was white, and when he moved his body, his cold-stiffened joints creaked.

It was lucky that the floor was hard-packed earth rather than wood. He went outside without waking Holo and looked up at the sky—the weather would be fine, it seemed—and he yawned.

People were already gathering around the well to draw water, and in the distance the cries of oxen, pigs, and sheep could be heard.

It was the very picture of an industrious little village.

Lawrence couldn’t help but anticipate the coming morning. He smiled a rueful smile to himself.

It was near noontime when Holo finally awoke, and normally such sloth would be regarded with hard stares in villages like this.

But here everyone smiled, perhaps because they were all settlers. Nearly all of them had packed up their households and moved them, livestock and all, along a long and difficult road. They knew well that travelers had their own special sense of time.

Lawrence had been right that there wouldn’t be any breakfast, though.

It was considered a luxury even in the most prosperous towns, so of course it would be absent here in this simple, hardscrabble village.

“So, what are you doing?”

Lawrence wondered if Holo had slept in because she had known that there would be no breakfast.

In Holo’s hand were thin slices of boiled rye bread, between which were sausages made from pork slaughtered to preserve it over the winter.

It was a lunch that Lawrence would have felt guilty to receive for free, but unfortunately that had not been a problem.

As she chewed away on the food, Holo’s eyes followed Lawrence’s hands, which busied themselves with the task to which they’d been set.

Lawrence had a variety of things he wanted to tell Holo as she devoured her food and washed it down with ale, but given that her ire from the previous night had subsided, there seemed to be little reason to rouse it again.

Such thinking would probably result in spoiling her, but instead of saying any number of things, Lawrence answered her question.

“Translation.”

“Trans…lafuh?” she said.

It would have been absurd to warn her not to talk with her mouth full. Lawrence plucked a bread crumb from the corner of her mouth and nodded. “Yes. They asked me to translate this troublesome Church document into the language they’re familiar with, so that scuffles like yesterday’s won’t happen.”

It was work that would cost them a goodly amount if they had to go to a town to have it done.

Of course, while he was not charging them for the service, Lawrence was unable to guarantee the accuracy of his translation.

“Huh…” Her eyes half-lidded, Holo gazed at the parchment on the desk and the wooden slate Lawrence was using for his translation, but she finally seemed to lose interest and took a drink of ale. “Well, so long as you’re working I can keep eating and drinking without any hesitation.”

After tossing off this smile-freezing line, Holo popped the last remnant of lunch into her mouth and then moved away from Lawrence’s side.

“I wish you’d hesitate a little for my sake, at least,” Lawrence murmured to Holo’s back with a long-suffering sigh. He started to return to his work when he realized something. “Hey, that’s mine—”

No sooner had Lawrence said this than Holo was already chewing on her second piece of bread.

“Come, don’t make such a nasty face. ’Twas only a bit of a joke.”

“If it’s only a joke, why is there so little bread left?”

“I ought to be allowed to beg from you a little at least.”

“Such honor you do me,” said Lawrence sarcastically, which made a displeased Holo sit upon the table at which he was working.

He wondered whether she was about to flirt with him in her usual way when she suddenly looked down at him with a malicious smile. “Perhaps I’ll go beg from the villagers next time, then, eh? ‘Sir, sir, please, might I have some bread?’”

It hardly needed to be said whom such an act would harm. But if he gave in here, he really would be spoiling her.

“Just how many servings do you plan to eat, then?” he shot back, snatching the bread away from Holo’s clutches and returning to his work.

Holo drew her chin in irritably and sighed. It occurred to Lawrence that he was the one who should be sighing, but then—

“I suppose when the villagers ask me that question, I’ll put a hand to my belly and answer thus…”

Lawrence knew if he went along with this, he would lose. He picked up his quill as though refusing to listen.

“‘Well…I’m eating for two now, so…,’ I’ll say,” said Holo, leaning over and murmuring in Lawrence’s ear.

Lawrence spit the bread right out of his mouth, which was in no way a deliberate overreaction.

Holo smirked viciously. “What, is this the first time you’ve realized I eat enough for two?” she asked deliberately.

In negotiations, the winner was whoever used all the weapons at their disposal. Still, Holo used her weapons too well.

Just as Lawrence had decided not to listen further to a single word she said and was brushing the table free of crumbs, Holo’s hand shot out and plucked the link of sausage contained within the piece of bread.

“Heh. Come now, you’ve been working there since morning—you’ll get wrinkles on your forehead if you keep it up. Go outside and take in some of the cold air, eh?”

If Lawrence had been inclined to take her at her word, the way he had been when they’d first started their journey together, he would’ve told her to mind her own business—and thereby invited her ire.

Lawrence was silent for a moment, then closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. He then raised a hand to about shoulder height to indicate his surrender and spoke. “I can’t let seed grain fall on a field that’s already been harvested.”

“Mm. I can’t promise I won’t take a liking to the wheat here.”

It was a joke only Holo-who-lived-in-wheat could tell.

She put her robe’s hood over her head, hid her swishing tail, and made for the door, putting out her hand to open it.

“It’s true that your taking a liking to the wheat here would be troublesome. I couldn’t stand to watch you eating food off the ground,” said Lawrence.

At this, Holo puffed out her cheeks in irritation and bit another piece off the bread that Lawrence held.

Taking a leisurely look around the village was not such a bad way to pass the time, and Holo hadn’t visited a normal village like this one since leaving Pasloe.

And while she might not have left Pasloe with much fondness, the atmosphere of the small farming village was still a comfortingly familiar one. She gazed at the hay, bundled and set aside as compost, and the tools leaning here and there, still dirty from use, all common sights back in Pasloe.

“They don’t have much trade with towns, so evidently they sow beans even during this season.”

Normally farming work was finished by this time of year, replaced by spinning and weaving or wood carving—indoor jobs all—but this village was apparently different.

The nearest town was three days away by horse cart, and worse, that town refused to do business with the village out of fear of accident.

Securing a food supply was the villagers’ first priority; everything else came after that.

“Beans are good for when the soil’s been exhausted. Of course, the earth here is good enough that they should be able to get good harvests for a while without worrying over such details.”

It didn’t take long for them to reach the edge of the village, and from there the fields continued for as far as they could see—an impressive feat given the village’s population.

Given that the fields lacked fences or trenches, the land was probably communally worked.

The forms of a few villagers could be seen in the direction of the spring, perhaps digging irrigation ditches.

The usefulness of a lie was suddenly clear, since just as Holo had said, the lines had disappeared from Lawrence’s forehead thanks to their excursion.

“So, how much do you suppose you’ll be able to wring from this village?”

The fence that enclosed the village was sturdier than its rickety appearance suggested. Holo sat on it, so Lawrence did likewise, waving to the villagers in the field who’d finally noticed them before he looked at Holo. “That’s not a very nice way to put it.”

“You were putting things much more nastily yesterday.”

For a moment Lawrence wondered if Holo’s ill temper the night before had been because he’d seemed too greedy. But no, given how amused she seemed now, that was surely not so.

“Profit is generated whenever goods are exchanged. If it’s going to come bubbling up without my having to do any work, I have only to drink my fill.”

“Hmm…As though ’twere wine, eh?”

She was talking about the wine made from drippings collected from skin or cloth bags of grapes hung from eaves. The grapes crushed themselves under their own weight, and the flavor was incomparable.

As usual, the wolf’s knowledge of food and drink was quite thorough.

“This time I ought to be able to turn a profit without relying on you. For an opportunity met through happenstance by the wayside, it’s quite large. Even if you do stuff yourself with chicken.”

A gentle breeze blew, and the mooing calls of cattle could be heard in the distance. He barely had enough time to notice how quiet it was before the piercing clucking of chickens sounded behind them.

“I have depended on your abilities quite a bit, after all. It’s nice this way, even just as a change of pace, isn’t it?”

He was counting his chickens before they hatched a bit, but surely he’d be forgiven this much. Plus, if he weighed what Holo’s drink and food cost against how much her help had earned him, the latter was by far the greater. In all honesty, sometimes he wanted her to eat and drink without any care.

“So you—”

“Hmm?”

“You truly imagine I could eat and drink without worry?”

Lawrence realized something, and in that moment it felt as though time stopped. “Is that why you were angry last night…?”

She might beg him for this or that, but it wasn’t as though that was all Holo did. She always repaid her debts and was a constant help to him at every turn during their travels.

Wasn’t it because she hated being singled out as special that Holo so detested being called a god? If so, Lawrence’s concern might have had the opposite of its intended effect.

“It’s not something you need agonize over…that’s what I think anyway. You’re honorable to a fault, after all.”

At these words Holo shot him a resentful glance, as though angry at having been made to explain something she didn’t want to. “Hmph. I’m only an ignorant wolf, after all. I can’t even read those words.”

Already anxious about not contributing, Holo would have awoken to see Lawrence toiling away at the desk. From her perspective it would’ve seemed like he was deliberately spiting her.

“Ah, if that’s the problem, then I have an idea.”

“…?” Holo’s expression softened, and she looked at him.

Lawrence smiled. “Why don’t you just give them some wheat-growing advice?”

The joke was sharp enough that Holo seemed to have difficulty knowing whether to be angry or not. A complicated expression passed over her face before she puffed her cheeks out and turned away.

“I’m sure they’d be happy to get even a bit of wisdom. They’ve gotten into farming without even knowing what a sheepfold is. Isn’t there something you could tell them?” Lawrence then added, “The happier they are, the easier my work will be.”

Holo looked at him, her eyes brimming with tears—“such cunning tricks you use,” they seemed to say. “Hn…”

“Come, you needn’t agonize so. Surely there’s some small thing you could teach them,” Lawrence said with a smile, which made Holo close her eyes in thought.

Her brow wrinkled, and her ears flicked back and forth beneath her hood.

She really was too honorable for her own good.

Still smiling, Lawrence turned his gaze away from Holo, directing it lazily upward at a bird flying overhead. Just then—

“Mr. Lawrence!”

Hearing the sound of his name being called, Lawrence looked back at the village.

“Mr. Lawrence!”

The voice coming from behind him was the village elder’s.

“Ah, sorry, my translation isn’t yet…”

“No, no—I know we’ve already burdened you with work, and it pains me to admit it, but there’s another matter I’d like to ask you about…”

“Another matter?” Lawrence made an effort to hide his excitement, given the village’s current difficulty in obtaining goods. He stole a glance at Holo, whose face was sulky and uninterested. “Well, if there’s anything I can do, I’ll be happy to.”

It would have been a lie for him not to smile here.

The village elder seemed enormously relieved at Lawrence’s open smile. “Oh, thank goodness. I’m so grateful. Truth be told, the village has recently had more and more problems like the one you saw yesterday. I was hoping we could borrow your wisdom…”

“…My wisdom?” asked Lawrence, still smiling.

At this the elder explained the problem, a look of utter desperation on his face.

Lawrence hung his head, agonizing over the amount of parchment on the desk before him that had yet to be translated.

The problem that the elder had brought to him was, in fairness, something common to all villages. But older communities had long-established ways to resolve such problems—be it divine decree, the authority of the village elder, a certificate from a nearby lord, or a village assembly whose decisions were absolute.

But this village had none of those.

When a newly established community collapsed, the cause was often a lack of a strong force bringing people together. Those were the difficult circumstances this village found itself in, and it was amid such circumstances that they presented Lawrence with their problem. Unsurprisingly, it concerned land divisions.

Evidently the lord had only vaguely defined the village territory and then left it up to individuals to decide how to divide it up into the amounts they had each been allotted.

And that was the problem.

They had been allotted a certain size, but nothing about the physical arrangement of those parcels had been written down.

“So everyone just chose bits of land here and there, and we didn’t realize we needed a common point of reference until disputes started happening.”

“Right. When the village was just starting out, there was enough land that there wouldn’t be problems right away. But without a starting reference, you end up with small slivers of land where nobody knows who they belong to—if I drew a map it’d be plain as day.”

“I should think tearing a piece of flatbread into pieces would make a better example than any map,” said an amused Holo as she sat on the desk.

“Oat bread, you mean? I doubt they’d find such tough stuff tasty.”

“I suppose I wouldn’t claim it’s delicious if you asked me, but that texture is addictive. My fangs do itch for it from time to time…,” said Holo with a grin, flashing her sharp fangs.

Lawrence couldn’t help but flinch a bit.

“What? I should think your fangs are keener than mine by far.”

“Huh?” replied Lawrence innocently.

Holo poked him in the chest with her finger. “Their poison’s already working on me.”

After a chicken walking around outside clucked three times, Lawrence looked back down at his work, whereupon Holo gave his leg an irritable kick.

“Are you saying your work’s more important than I am?”

“Of course.”

“Wha—” Holo let slip in spite of herself, and when Lawrence saw her wide eyes and pricked-up ears, he realized he’d misspoken.

“No, what I mean is that if I can’t help the villagers, they won’t be indebted to me. Our profit depends on that, but I can talk with you later…”

“You’d best hope my good graces aren’t so limited!” spat Holo, then turned away.

Lawrence was quite confident in his ability to charm those he’d deal with for only a short time, but such superficial treatment wouldn’t work on Holo.

And yet the village elder had given Lawrence the authority to solve the village’s most important problem. If he couldn’t rise to the challenge, the despairing village would surely never trust him with all their trade.

Money couldn’t buy love, it was true, but obligation could purchase money.

“…” Lawrence couldn’t find the words to reply to Holo, even as he couldn’t very well afford to dismiss the problem before him. Sitting at the desk, he was very literally at a loss for words.

He had never encountered a problem like this during his time alone as a traveling merchant. He doubted his old master would have been able to tell him how to solve it, either.

After weighing everything, the key would be to understand which was the weightiest. Having determined that much, Lawrence was about to speak when—

“You truly are a fool. ’Tis enough to make me wonder whether you have any aptitude for study at all.”

Sitting as she was upon the desk, Holo’s head was naturally higher than Lawrence’s, so it was no surprise that he found her high-handedness a bit irritating. But something about the color of Holo’s red-tinged amber irises said she would brook no argument.

Reason did not enter into it. He had learned this from hard experience during his travels with her.

“What did I just tell you? What did I just endure such embarrassment to tell you? I am right here, and yet you toil away there, alone…”

“Ah…”

She was right—they had just discussed that.

Holo had felt hesitant because she’d had nothing to do, and yet here again Lawrence was working alone.

She glared at him resentfully. What she needed from Lawrence was not an apology, but a request.

“Might I…er…borrow your wisdom?” He stumbled slightly over the words as Holo watched him through half-lidded, stoic eyes.

Her tail flicked back and forth as though weighing rejection against agreement. Finally she heaved a sigh. “I suppose I might be the biggest fool of all,” she said.

Lawrence was about to ask what she meant, but Holo kept talking, so he straightened up and listened.

“Hmph. Truth be told, all my wisdom amounts to is what I learned in that vexing village of Pasloe.”

“…Stone or wood markers can be moved, so we can’t use those. Even if we put the boundaries in writing, verifying the position of those boundaries is just another thing to argue about.”

Of course only God could create a perfect solution, but what Lawrence needed was something that everyone could acknowledge as being fair. And since they’d gone to the trouble of asking him for help, if all he could propose were obvious solutions, it would invite their despair rather than their trust.

Lawrence then wondered if Holo was going to show her true form, but just as the thought occurred to him, she punched him lightly. “Fool. Did you forget what it was that brought me to tears in Pasloe?”

So she wouldn’t be providing divine intervention.

Which meant that the only option that remained would be to gather all the villagers together and show them where the reference point was, such that everyone would remember.

“So what should we do, then? Without an astronomer we can’t accurately determine direction or position. We could use the mountains and springs as landmarks, like a sailor would, but recording that in writing is impossible. A map based only on landmarks is too vague.”

An imprecise map indicating landmarks was good enough for a traveler, but what they needed now was a far more accurate depiction of land divisions within the village.

“Yesterday during that scuffle, you said that people’s memories were too vague, did you not?”

“Huh? Er, yes, that’s why this needs to be in writing.”

“Hmm. I understand that people trust writing because once something’s written, it won’t change. But are people’s memories really so untrustworthy?”

Lawrence didn’t understand what Holo was getting at. He had no choice but to answer. “At the very least, when there’s a dispute between two people, it’s not objective to rely on anyone’s memory. And when it comes to land, records must last years, even decades.”

Holo listened to Lawrence’s argument. “I suppose that’s true,” she said. Then she added, “But suppose you did something like this?” She smiled an amused smile, leaned close to Lawrence’s ear, and whispered her solution.

Surprised, Lawrence looked up at her, and the wisewolf shook her head happily.

“As you say,” she continued, “great landmarks like mountains, springs, or hills are too broad, but if you combine several, you can determine locations quite accurately. When I was in the mountains, I could tell where I was by what I could see from the ridge.”

Even the villagers would be able to understand that—but with no good way to write it down, it would be another source of conflict. People could be especially emotional when it came to verifying borders, which made things doubly frustrating.

“However, it so happens that there are memories that everyone can agree upon.”

Lawrence had to admit that with Holo’s method, everyone would agree. And in any case, he didn’t have any better ideas.

He stood from his chair and took Holo’s hand.

Record keeping was always a difficult task. Stories of Holo’s homeland of Yoitsu existed only because they had been written down and then kept within stone walls or basements. And only a small number of people could do that, so God only knew whether such records would survive the centuries.

And when it came to just how unreliable verbal records were, the endless vicious arguments surrounding them ought to have made that quite clear.

Lacking a good solution, would people simply abandon a conflict? Nay, such was not the way of the world.

Somehow, solutions would be found, and after decades of fighting, people would put forth great mental effort to find compromises that all involved could agree to.

And it was just such a solution that Holo had chanced to hear of during her time in the wheat fields.

“Mr. Lawrence, the villagers have all been assembled.”

“Good work. Where’s the representative?”

“By God’s grace, there seems to be just one suitable person.” The village elder had heard the plan from Lawrence, and his reaction had been just the same as Lawrence’s when it had been conveyed to him by Holo. First, “Is that possible?” And then, “It just might be.”

It required no special technique, nor tools, nor funds. And yet the resulting record would remain clear for decades, and all around would be able to agree on its meaning.

The elder quickly gathered the villagers around the village well, which had evidently been nominated as a reference point in the past.

Next, they had to pick who among them would be responsible for making the record.

After much deliberation, the executor chosen was Holo.

She had the distinction of being a neutral outsider, which, it was reasoned, would make her decision that much more effective.

The villagers had been told only they were assembling to decide their property lines, and as such, they showed faces filled with doubt. This was hardly a surprise given how hard they themselves had been working to find a solution that all would accept.

The village elder placed his hand on the chosen representative’s shoulder and cleared his throat. “In the name of myself and the name of the village, I swear to almighty God to settle here and now the problem of land division that has plagued us for so long.”

His hoarse voice nonetheless carried well, as he had once been a cowherd who worked cattle on wide-open plains.

“You have all been gathered here to bear witness to this and to remember the events of today should we be so unfortunate as to again quarrel over this matter.”

Lawrence and Holo both kept their gazes downcast, and in Holo’s case at least this made her look all the more demure and lovely.

She’d eaten and drunk only in moderation the previous night, so as far as the villagers were aware, she was every bit the pious nun she appeared to be, which made her the perfect person to execute the agreement.

The village elder coughed again and spoke. “The ceremony we are about to witness was delivered to us by these two wise travelers and has long been used to settle property. As elder of this village, I recommend this boy as the representative for the ceremony.”

The elder then nudged forward a boy whose years could still be counted on one hand. His eyes were round and wide and his beautiful fair hair angelic.

Though he had not yet been told what he was to do, or perhaps what was to be done to him, he was surrounded by serious-faced adults. He was still with nervousness as the elder continued. “Are there any objections?”

While several villagers looked at one another, none raised a hand. This was not surprising given that none of them had been told the nature of the ceremony. Lawrence had explained that once it was complete, there would still be opportunity to hear from anyone who might feel it had been insufficient.

Lawrence and the elder agreed, though, that there would be no such complaints.

“Very well, then. Let us begin.”

No one said a word.

The elder leaned down and whispered something into the boy’s ear, then nudged him toward Lawrence and Holo.

The boy hesitated, looking back at the elder, then to Lawrence and Holo. The elder gestured for him to go, and the boy tremulously approached.

In a village like this that had so little contact with nearby towns, even an adult would be nervous around an outsider. As the boy came nearer, his nervous gaze alit on a particular spot in the assembled crowd.

It was clear who he had found, Lawrence thought. It was his mother.

“We thank you,” said Lawrence with a smile and an outstretched hand as the boy walked up.

The boy hesitantly took the hand and mumbled a reply.

Lawrence then indicated Holo next to him.

Holo was relatively small framed, but the boy was even smaller. While Holo wore her hood and continued to look down, the boy could see her face as he approached.

The boy suddenly straightened and gave a shy little grin, and Lawrence could tell this was because Holo smiled at him.

When he shook hands with her, his expression turned suddenly friendly—perhaps there were no young girls in this village.

“My name’s Holo. What’s yours?”

“Ah—it’s Clorri.”

“Clorri, eh? ’Tis a good name.”

The boy shied away ticklishly at the compliment and hair ruffle he received. The ceremony was probably the last thing on his mind at that moment, so happy he appeared.

“Now, then, Clorri, we’re going to play a bit of a game. Don’t worry, all will be well. ’Tis not difficult.”

Holo’s words brought him back to reality, and his face suddenly stiffened. But Holo gave him a gentle hug, which seemed to help him summon some courage. It seemed all men were alike, regardless of age.

“First, we face north and pray.”

“Pray?”

“Aye. Any prayer will do. You pray every day in this village, do you not?” Holo had some small knowledge of the Church.

The boy nodded and brought his still-shaky hands together in preparation for prayer.

“The north has its own special angels and so does the south. If you pray for tasty food, you might just receive it,” said Holo with a mischievous smile. “Try it,” she encouraged him, and the boy began to pray.

“When the angels and spirits hear your prayers, there are omens. You need to remember very carefully the lay of the land, so you don’t miss them.”

The boy nodded as Holo spoke, then with eyes as wide as saucers carefully memorized the scene before him, then gulped and began to pray.

North, east, south, west.

By the time he had prayed in each of the four directions, he’d no doubt thought of every tasty thing he could remember.

“Mm. Well done. Now then, Clorri.”

It was time.

“The angels and sprits love smiles. Give them your biggest smile!”

The boy obediently grinned a huge, toothy smile.

There was the sound of something whistling through the air, then—a terrific smack rang out.

“—!”

The assembled villagers all gasped audibly in unison as they looked on. To a one their gazes were nailed to the unfolding scene.

Holo shook her stinging hand and smiled sheepishly. She must not have held back at all.

She had bade the boy smile so he would not bite his tongue.

The boy’s eyes were wide in shock at having been slapped across the face with such force, and he neither moved nor wiped the blood at his nose as he stared up at Holo, who until that moment had seemed so angelic.

“Though human memory is vague, there are moments that none of us can forget. This brave boy, Clorri, will surely remember the scenery he memorized today for years and decades to come,” said Holo, smiling as she faced the villagers, whereupon a murmur finally rippled through the crowd.

They’d finally come back to the moment after being stunned so, and the murmur soon became a commotion, which then turned to laughter.

When they came to this village, the villagers had left behind their familiar former lands. Before setting out on the journey to their new home, surely each of them had stood at the edge of their former village or town, hearts full of worry and anticipation. There they would carve the sights in every direction into their memories before beginning their journey.

If later asked about it, they would be completely able to answer with perfect precision exactly where they had been that day, the day they turned back and looked at their homeland for the final time.

“If there be anyone who objects to this ceremony, raise your hand!” shouted the village elder, and the villagers fell silent and then shouted, “No!” in unison.

Villager after villager came up to offer words of thanks to Holo and to God, and some even danced.

Holo, the elder, and—quite naturally—the boy’s mother all came up to him, and when he was given a hand and helped to his feet, he finally seemed to understand what had happened. He burst into tears like tinder set aflame, bawling away as he clung to his mother’s generous bosom.

“In my old village, we didn’t use slaps—we threw stones.”

The mother—who was the only one who’d been told ahead of time what was to happen—half smiled, but seemed to feel genuine pride that her son had been chosen for such an important role. She thanked Lawrence and Holo both in God’s name.

“Mm. Well, this should settle things,” Holo said proudly, standing a little taller.

Villages everywhere commemorated the days of events important to them, most commonly with feasts. Jisahz was no different, and that night there was a grand celebration.

The village elder shook their hands so frequently in thanks that Holo’s and Lawrence’s palms began to swell, claiming that their names would go down in history as being of great importance to the village’s development.

Given that, it was certain that maintaining a long-term relationship with the village would be no difficulty at all.

Lawrence was unable to keep his delight at this from reaching his face as they waited for evening to arrive and the villagers to complete their feast preparations.

When he raised both arms to stretch, he looked at Holo and saw her sprawled out on the bed, tending to her tail.

“Finished, are you?”

“Yes, somehow.”

“Well, then, we can drink and carouse to our hearts’ content.”

“I still have to complete my business negotiations, though. Of course…” Lawrence paused and brought his hand deliberately to his breast, then continued in a courteous tone. “This is all thanks to my wise traveling companion.”

Holo replied to this artificially exaggerated thanks by puffing her chest out with equal exaggeration.

Of course, while this was only half-serious, the truth was she had been of great help to him. He owed her more than just a few chickens—a wagonload of ale would probably be about right.

“It seems I’ve wound up owing you the greater part yet again. How would you like your payment?” he asked jokingly, his heart dancing at the thought of the next day’s negotiations. The village had great potential for further development, and if the abbey was completed, it might even become a true town.

“Mm…I can have anything?”

“‘Anything’ is a frightening promise to make, but let’s say a hundred silver pieces. That would certainly get you another set of fine clothes like what you’re wearing now.”

Holo looked over her clothes carefully, then closed her eyes. What was she dreaming of? Apples? Honeyed peach preserves?

Holo’s tail wagged, and then she seemed to hit upon something. But her face was hesitant, so whatever she was thinking of had to be something of significant value.

“If it’s impossible, I’ll give up on it, but…”

“That’s surprisingly magnanimous of you,” teased Lawrence, at which she smiled, then pointed at him.

“The work you were just now doing.”

“Work? You mean this?”

“Yes, that writing work. You said if they’d asked someone in a town to do it, it would’ve cost a goodly amount.”

Reading and writing were considered specialized skills in their own right. Writing a letter was itself a service, but creating an official document carried a commensurate price.

“Oh, you want me to write something for you?”

“Hmm? Er…well, aye…”

“If that’s all, that’s a small favor indeed. You want nothing else—no apples, no honeyed peach preserves?”

It was unusual for Holo to prize anything above food. After all the talk of record keeping, did she wish to record tales of her own homeland?

“Such things are surely tempting, but food once eaten is gone. You said it yourself—the written word does not change and endures for ages,” she said, and her bashfulness as she did so made Lawrence realize he’d guessed correctly.

Lawrence nodded. “I can’t write you a thick volume, though.”

“Nay, ’twill not be such a long thing to write.” Holo stood from the bed and lightly sat down on the table.

If it wouldn’t be lengthy, did she want him to write it right now, this instant?

“So, what shall I write?” Lawrence asked.

Holo gazed into the distance and did not answer immediately.

Whatever it was, Lawrence realized it was very important, so he waited for her to answer.

Seemingly coming to a conclusion after long thought, Holo finally took a deep breath, a sound like a quiet wind.

“The title is this: the Wisewolf Holo’s…” Lawrence hastily reached for his pen and spread an unused sheet of parchment out in front of him. Meanwhile, Holo continued speaking. “…Homecoming Guide Contract.”

Lawrence’s hand stopped, and his eyes fixed upon Holo, followed by his face as he slowly turned his head toward her.

“Human memories are unreliable, after all. I cannot have you forgetting your promise.”

Holo’s face was serious, and if anything it was her gaze that accused him.

Lawrence had no words. In his mind he saw a rapid succession of all the moments Holo had been displeased since their arrival in the village. She said she was being reluctant because she’d had nothing to do—but that was nothing more than a convenient excuse.

This was the truth.

His promise to take Holo back to her homelands was a mere verbal contract.

And yet here he was, busily doing work for the village and all the while talking about how fallible human memory was.

“N-no, that…but…,” Lawrence finally said.

He could not put it easily into words, but Lawrence was confident that he prized his travels with Holo above any business he might do, and he had been certain that Holo knew that.

So while he could admit he had been insensitive, he found it hard to accept that that was why Holo was angry.

“But?” Holo shot back coldly.

Lawrence had to admit that Holo’s side was the reasonable one and that he’d been inconsiderate. He was just about to apologize when Holo continued. “Hmph. So many times you’ve shocked me thus! For my part, I’ll not soon forget our contract.”

Holo suddenly smiled and chuckled. “But you seem penitent enough, so I’ll forgive you.”

Truth be told, he could have refuted her if he’d wanted to—and Holo surely knew that as well.

But instead he said this, just as she wanted him to: “…I’m sorry.”

“Mm.” Holo’s ears twitched in satisfaction. “Still,” she continued, her expression hardening again as she looked down at him.

Lawrence straightened and wondered what was coming next, and Holo leaned over him, her face drawing near to his.

“If a contract is no longer needed, then I can ask for some other reward for my services, can I not?”

Leaning away slightly, Lawrence nodded. That was only fair, he reasoned—but then he realized what Holo was thinking and raised his voice in spite of himself. “No, wait, you’re not—”

“I wonder what one could buy with the fee to have such a travel contract written. Can I even eat that much…?” She grinned, delighted, her wagging tail nearly sweeping off everything on the desk.

There was no telling how long she might be waiting with one of her traps. Lawrence was utterly cornered by all the promises he’d made. There was no getting out of them now.

“Heh. You look just like poor Clorri did not long ago,” Holo said, poking his nose. He didn’t even have the strength to deflect her.

Holo hopped off the table, spun around, then leaned on Lawrence from behind the chair in which he sat.

“Will you now start to cry, eh?”

He had to smile. Lawrence stood up out of the chair and spoke. “That might not be such a bad idea. At least I’ve got someone who’ll let me bawl at them.”

Holo grinned.

Lawrence prepared himself for the consequences of what he was about to say next. “Assuming that small chest of yours can stand up to—”

A fine sound rang out.

Holo smiled as she shook out her stinging palm. Lawrence took her outstretched hand and straightened his reeling body.

All the while, Holo smiled—it was an obviously false smile, but Lawrence knew the magic that would turn it real. Her continuing smile was her way of urging him to cast the spell.

Slowly and deliberately, he began to chant the magic words.

“Now I’ll never forget your smile.”

Holo’s tail puffed up, and she gripped his hand a bit more tightly.

After centuries in her old village, Holo had only her name left and was forgotten. No written words would suffice to record her smiling face. Outside, preparations for the feast continued. Surely the night would be a drunken one.

Holo nodded and smiled a faint, shy smile.

End.