Spice and Wolf - Volume 14 - Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

Col’s clothes were in a terrible state, too.

His coat was full of seams and patches, and its edges frayed. His trousers were too short, leaving his ankles bared, and his sandals were thinner than a slice of meat carved by a stingy butcher.

He was underfed, too, and looked light enough that a stiff breeze could blow him away.

There was a difference, though, between simply having no money and the honorable poverty of the Church.

Elsa was tired, and her cheeks slightly sunken, and her clothes were of no great quality. Yet as she sat, she nonetheless emanated a noble sort of power, surely from the light she held within herself.

Even when told to sit on the bed, Elsa would hear none of it; somehow, they managed to get her to sit in a chair, and instead of wine, they gave her a nourishing drink made of ginger, honey, and hot sheep’s milk.

She did not hesitate to accept it, but likewise did not hesitate in thanksgiving.

While not at all threatening, she did nevertheless have a certain unmistakable dignity about her.

She put the drink to her lips, drank, then sighed in relief. Lawrence saw this and echoed her sentiment.

“The reason I left the village?” When it came to Elsa, she could not be bribed with food, but it was clear that her nerves had been much calmed.

“Yes. To be honest, I just can’t figure it out.” Lawrence made his simple curiosity clear as he poured wine into a cup, a gesture done to keep Elsa company as she drank.

“I’m looking for someone,” came Elsa’s unexpected answer.

“Looking…for someone?”

“Not a specific person, though.” She put her cup to her lips and, after sipping quietly from it, closed her eyes. A deep sigh departed from her.

Having gotten used to Holo and Col’s heartier eating and drinking, watching Elsa was like watching a noble lady.

“I’m looking for someone who can enter the holy service of the Church.”

“But—” said Lawrence, just as Elsa opened her eyes and smiled a thin smile.

“Thanks to you, the flame of faith has been kindled in Tereo. Moreover, your incredible power destroyed Enberch’s schemes. Now there are even people from Enberch who come all the way to our village to buy sweets.”

As she spoke the words “incredible power,” Elsa glanced at Holo. There were thanks in her gaze, which Holo surely noticed, even though she was gazing out the window. She was gnawing on a piece of jerky, as though none of this had anything to do with her.

Holo was intractable as always, but her wolf’s ears flicked by way of reply.

Elsa knew Holo’s true form, so there was no need for her to wear her uncomfortable hood currently.

“The people of Enberch do not know the details of our village. They would surely be surprised to learn I alone tend the church. Of course, the Enberch bishop’s lips have been well sealed, but he will not behave himself forever.”

The church was a near-total patriarchy. While some famous abbeys had female abbesses at their head, those were abbeys—not churches.

Elsa sipped from her cup as though swallowing that very unfairness, then coughed lightly. She had probably swallowed a chunk of ginger.

“Ahem…excuse me. So I’ve come in search of someone who can take on this holy duty in our village. For such a task, I can hardly send mere letters out, hither and yon.”

“You need to find someone who’ll measure up to you, then?” Lawrence said with a bit of mischief in his voice, at which Elsa chuckled.

He suspected that Elsa enjoyed putting on her stiff-shouldered performance. “Of course. My father, Father Franz, left the church in my care. I must find an individual worthy of that.”

The man who had raised Elsa, Father Franz, had also compiled a book on the pagan deity worshipped in Tereo. Not only had he easily deflected the accusations of heresy that came as a result, but he had also established ties with powerful people in many places, building an independent church within the village—an accomplished man, to be sure.

Of course, there was certain jest in Elsa’s tone. She was perfectly aware of the distance between her ideals and the likely reality.

“That’s the primary reason for my travels, but…,” said Elsa, looking to Holo.

Holo looked over her shoulder with a question on her face, at which Elsa smiled such a kind smile that it took Lawrence by surprise—so she could make such expressions.

“I’ve become aware of how truly ignorant of the world I am. I was hoping this journey would give me a chance to see more of the world.”

“Mm,” said Holo through her nose, as though approving of such resolve. Holo herself had been removed from the flow of the world, having spent all those centuries in the wheat fields. She was a bit ahead of Elsa in that area, so perhaps Elsa thought of her as something of a mentor.

Lawrence smiled a defeated smile, then turned back to Elsa. “That must have been a difficult decision to make, surely.”

As a traveling merchant, he had had occasion to see just how it was that small villages often regarded the larger world. There were even those who were quite certain that aside from their town or village, the entire rest of the world had quite literally fallen to ruin. Regardless how strong her faith in God was, it was quite extraordinary for a woman to venture out the way Elsa had.

At Lawrence’s implied question, Elsa regarded him, saying nothing. At her chest hung a hand-carved symbol of the Church, quite unlike when Lawrence had first seen her in Tereo.

It would have been foolish to ask who had made it.

When Lawrence had left Tereo, beside Elsa had stood a certain brave—if uncertain—boy.

“Of course, I thought to give up on it many times, but I’ve had God’s guidance all the way.”

Holo had come to hate being treated as a god after so many centuries of it, but that did not mean she much enjoyed people talking about other gods around her. She flicked one of her perfectly triangular wolf ears sideways and listened.

“That bookseller, you mean?” said Lawrence, and Elsa nodded slowly.

“That’s right.”

“You seem to encounter the strangest people,” Lawrence found himself saying without thinking. He suddenly realized his blunder, but Elsa merely laughed.

She then covered her mouth with her hand. “Apologies,” she said. “But I can see why you would think so,” she added. “I had only met him once before, but I knew he was a longtime acquaintance of Father Franz. And in Father’s letters, it was written that this was a man I could trust in times of hardship. If Father trusted him, then I ought to trust him, too. No matter how silly or greedy he might appear to be.”

Lawrence could not imagine Elsa simply falling for the act of such a canny merchant. His guess seemed not to have been wrong, but he still felt as though his assumptions were being criticized in a roundabout sort of way.

Lawrence scratched his head, and Elsa took a deep breath, then began to speak as though delivering a sermon.

“I would be lying if I said I hadn’t had my own worries, but he’s a very sincere man. Of course, there’s no mistaking his avarice—but you might say that avarice is where his sincerity comes from.”

She had a good eye for people.

At this, Lawrence finally saw what sort of person the bookseller was.

“So what you mean is that he’s after Father Franz’s library, then,” Lawrence said flatly, at which Elsa gave him a pleasant smile.

“There’s no one like him in the village, you see. At first I was quite bewildered, but…then I realized there’s no great difference between being faithful to your own avarice and being faithful to the teachings of God. He’s tried everything he can think of to get me to tell him where Father Franz’s library is—but always amicably.”

Lawrence, too, had wanted to get to the library, in order to learn about the location of Holo’s homeland. But the method he had used to do so was hardly praiseworthy. He had used Elsa’s piety against her, and there in the church’s sanctuary had cornered her into helping them.

When he thought about it now, it again occurred to him what a sinful thing he had done.

He looked, and Elsa’s smile was gone. She looked at him intently.

He averted his gaze, ever the weak traveling merchant, and looked to Holo—but despite her complicity, she seemed to think none of this had anything to do with her.

“So that is his aim, and when I told him I was of a mind to travel to this town, he was only too happy to agree. The journey was difficult…if it had gone on much longer, I might have finally told him the library’s location.”

Her first journey would have been one long series of new experiences. If she had someone reliable at her side, she might well come to trust in them unconditionally, like a newly hatched chick regarding the first thing it saw as its parent.

But even so, Le Roi might well be a person worthy of such trust, as a truly experienced merchant would be.

“All the great saints left their homes and journeyed, secluding themselves away in remote forests or deserts, and I finally understand why. Going out into the world for the first time, I have truly understood how weak humans are.”

It was an observation worthy of the clergy, and Lawrence nodded with a faint smile. No doubt Col, who could understand her position even better than Lawrence could, was nodding with his serious little face.

“Which is why I’ve finally been able to answer a question that’s plagued me ever since you and your companions left my village.”

These words piqued Holo’s interest as well as Lawrence’s. She removed her gaze from the window and over to Elsa.

“A question?”

“Yes. The question of why, when you have such power, you would choose even now to travel with a simple horse-drawn wagon.”

It was something Lawrence had considered many times himself. If he borrowed Holo’s power, he could become incredibly wealthy in no time at all. There were any number of ways it might be done…

But he had not done so, and even when his very life had been in danger, he had searched for ways to escape that did not involve relying on Holo’s power—even when Holo herself was ready to act.

Partially, this was because he wanted to preserve some semblance of pride in front of Holo. But there was another thought at the root of it all.

“I’ve become painfully aware of just how powerless I am. Borrowing the power of my companion will not make that weakness disappear. So I try to rely on my own abilities. Or…” He paused to look over at Holo, if only to disguise his own embarrassment. “…Or to ask for her help in addition to my strengths. Don’t try to fill a small bowl with a large amount—every merchant knows this,” concluded Lawrence. “Whenever I’ve embarrassed myself, it’s because I broke this rule.”

Holo cackled.

“They say the world is vast, and it’s true.” Elsa looked down at the contents of the cup in her hand and quietly closed her eyes. Elsa, ever as sharp as a drawn blade, seemed now deeper than she had before.

People do not stay as they were when one met them, Holo had cried, in this very city. And it was true—people changed.

And even as such change was unavoidable, it was also not always for the worse. Lawrence’s path since meeting Holo had, if anything, been a more optimistic one than before. But did Holo feel the same way? As she looked out the window, her ears fell the same way they did whenever she was trying to endure embarrassment.

She might well be angry at him later.

“I give thanks to God that we have been able to meet again.”

At Elsa’s simple, unadorned statement, Lawrence nodded heartily.

Travel brought with it many encounters, and likewise many discoveries. Some were reminders of the world’s vastness, while others illustrated one’s own smallness. Just as one might be struck by a breathtaking vista, one might also feel pain at seeing the aftermath of a terrible battle.

Or—one might simply experience the shock of the fragrance of another culture.

Elsa’s expression as she regarded what seemed for all the world to be a cut of red meat before her was the very image of this shock, no matter how clearly it was said that it was in fact a fish tail.

The prohibition against the consumption of red meat by members of the clergy came as naturally to them as not breathing underwater did to someone who did not want to drown. But to think that there was such an obvious way around that rule…

Sitting next to Lawrence, Holo seemed to greatly relish Elsa’s expression.

“Miss, if you’re having trouble believing it, would you like to see the many letters of permission from successive bishops we’ve had?” asked the cheerful barmaid, again mindful of the tavern that day, as she carried cups of ale to another table of patrons.

Most taverns fell silent the moment a true clergy member entered the establishment, but this place was special. No one paid Elsa any special mind as they caroused the day’s fatigue away.

“No…that’s all right. The world is a large place,” said Elsa, dropping her eyes to the food before her. She clumsily pierced it with her knife, then took a massive bite, as though swallowing it down along with the reality of all the world’s disappointments.

If Holo was surprised by this, Col was even more so, and the only one smiling was the barmaid.

“Mm…Mmph…” Elsa chewed and swallowed and, with her eyes tightly shut, felt about on the table for her cup. Col took pity on her and handed it to her, and she mumbled her thanks before drinking the watered fruit juice.

She drank like she was trying to wash everything away—as though she had eaten something terribly impure.

Just as Lawrence was wondering if he had taken his teasing too far, Elsa put her empty cup down. “S-so spicy…,” she said in a strangled voice.

Though she had drunk no wine, her cheeks were red. Her eyes, too, were red—for Elsa, whose ascetic life was a matter of course, this strongly spiced food and its strange need for wine was almost like a drug.

“Hah, that’s because it’s meant to go with wine. Here, try this.”

The Church had no prohibition against wine, so long as it was taken in moderation. There were more famously hard-drinking priests and preachers than one could count. And since wine always called out for food, they tended to be large men, too. There was one famous Church doctor nicknamed “The Angel Physician,” whose belly was so round and stuck out so far that his place at the table had a special cutout just so that he could fit.

“What’s this…?”

“Clams fried in butter. They’re from the port town downriver, hauled up still in the shell. You can even eat them raw.”

It was rare to eat raw food, except in the far north, or if one was a pagan. Such a custom existed in Lenos because of its close trade association with Kerube.

Naturally, Elsa reacted to the barmaid’s jest with eyes round in surprise.

Holo watched this delightedly and was about to call out to the barmaid, but Lawrence politely moved Holo’s gaze back to the table.

“If the tail’s too strongly spiced for you, you might find it’s just right for putting on a bit of bread. The cooking here is excellent, but the bread is, unfortunately, a tad—” Lawrence was interrupted by a plate with even more food on it hitting the table.

He looked and saw the barmaid looking down at him with a smile.

“The bread is unfortunately a tad…expensive,” Lawrence amended, at which the barmaid nodded, satisfied, and strode back into the kitchen. Holo snickered and heaped boiled beans atop a piece of bread.

“The larger world does have all sorts of food,” said Elsa wondrously.

On the table was meat, vegetables, and shellfish, some roasted, some steamed, some boiled. Some were strongly flavored, others subtly, and even the bread was different from what Elsa was used to, cut as it was into thin slices, making it convenient to top with other things.

Not even the nearby town of Enberch, to say nothing of the tiny village of Tereo itself, conducted much in the way of trade with the outside world, so it was not well-informed about food in other places.

Lawrence had, in fact, used that ill-informedness to save Tereo.

“But the surprises are only so frequent when you’re just starting out. Every day dizzied me when I’d first set out from my home village, but after a month of journeying, I had the face of a seasoned traveler.”

Truly, it was amid such monotonous days that he had had the incredible fortune to encounter Holo—one never knew what the world would bring.

Still, Elsa smiled as though thankful for Lawrence’s consideration of her.

“Mmph…Mm…” Holo wiped a bean crumb from the corner of her mouth with her finger, then opened her mouth between chews to lick it up. She swallowed it down hurriedly with a drink, then proceeded to her second bite. Artless in eating, drinking, and sleep: That was Holo.

“Mm?” As she opened her mouth wide to take another bite, Holo finally noticed Elsa’s gaze and, for a moment, seemed to hesitate, as though unsure what to do. Finally, though, she took the bite anyway.

Lawrence frantically searched for some sort of excuse to make on her behalf. But as he looked down like he was trying to convince himself of something, Elsa reached for another slice of bread. She was about to bite directly into it, but then seemed to remember Lawrence’s words from a moment earlier. Holding her sleeve back with her other hand, Elsa hesitantly reached out to the fish tail dish and dipped the piece of bread in it.

But what stopped her hand was not the memory of how spicy the dish had been. Rather, she had spotted Col, who likewise was dipping chunks of bread into the dish, but he was letting the sauce drip everywhere, utterly carefree.

“…”

Unlike the arrogant Holo, Col took heed of the gazes of others. As soon as he noticed Elsa’s stunned, wide-eyed gaze, he immediately knew he had done something wrong and began to cast about for what it might be—except that his mouth was full of bread, so it was all he could do to chew busily away at it.

Holo had often compared Col’s way of eating to a squirrel’s. That might have been why she shared her food with him: It was like feeding a squirrel.

In truth, while Col’s table habits could hardly be called refined, they did have a certain charm to them.

“Such terrible manners,” said Elsa, finally unable to contain herself.

Col had just taken a second bite when she spoke. He froze and closed his eyes, then timidly held out the bread to return it to Elsa.

Holo watched this, grinning, then made ready to pop the remaining bread into her mouth as though none of it was any of her concern.

“The same goes for you,” said Elsa.

Holo had her own reasons. While she did pause just before eating the bread, it was only to raise her chin and look Elsa in the eyes before devouring the bread anyway.

Elsa sighed and directed her criticism at Lawrence. “In my village, in times like these, we remind people that they oughtn’t eat like thieves.”

In other words, without any serenity and uncaring of what others might think.

Lawrence nodded politely, but it was Holo who spoke in an unruffled tone. “This is normal for travelers.”

Elsa shrunk back at this statement, perhaps realizing just how ignorant she was of the wider world’s ways and just how different they might be from her own common sense.

However, Holo’s words were unfairly aimed right at Elsa’s ignorance and credulity. It did not in fact follow that all travelers abandoned their manners entirely.

Lawrence saw Elsa flinch and smacked the nastily grinning Holo’s head in retaliation. “Apologies,” he offered. “We have a tendency toward unrefined mealtimes, I’m afraid.”

“It—it’s all right.”

Elsa regained her composure and straightened herself, then looked up at the ceiling, as though something had occurred to her.

Lawrence followed her gaze, but Elsa then looked back down and slowly lowered her eyelids. She then cleared her throat quietly and spoke.

“I give my thanks for this incredible meal. I wish that I could offer something in return, but as you can see, I am a traveler from an impoverished village. Yet I do have something.” She opened her eyes and seemed almost happy. “I could teach you better table manners.”

Sitting next to her, Col looked at Elsa uncertainly, and then gave Lawrence the same look from across the table. It was likely he had never in his whole life been told he had poor manners.

Of course, considering Col’s position, it might well be a good thing for him to learn at least the basics while he had the chance. At the moment, it was generous to compare his manners to a beast’s.

Discerning Lawrence’s conclusion from his expression, Elsa then regarded Col with a kind smile. “Do not worry. There were people in my village who were quite terrible at learning things, but even they got the knack of it.”

Lawrence remembered Evan and how his scattering of bread crumbs had so infuriated Elsa. Holo cackled, seemingly remembering the same thing, but Elsa merely sighed and repeated what she had said before. “The same goes for you.”

“Wha…just who do you think I—”

“It’s the same for everyone. And with that attitude, you ought to be able to behave properly. There’s simply no excuse.”

Holo had a great ability to play the part, but it was also one of her nastier aspects. Elsa had seen right through this, and Holo turned away in irritation.

“These dishes are so splendid, after all. If you eat them properly, they’ll be even more delicious.” Elsa smiled gently, as befit one dressed in a nun’s habit.

When her face was stern and her tone harsh, she seemed very much like Fran, but when she was like this, she was entirely different.

Fran had lived through her bloody life with nothing but her scriptures and her comrades to see her through it. On that count, Elsa had a somewhat unreliable but still committed partner.

The same flower might bloom with different colors, depending on the soil and environment.

“Ah…er…,” stammered Col, looking to Lawrence.

While Holo once called the forest of Yoitsu her home, that was not true of Col. If he truly aimed to study Church law and attain a high rank within the clergy, his manners would be important.

Lawrence nodded, whereupon Col made a face like a passenger who had just missed his wagon. But one could tell the value of a person by whether they gave up at such a predicament or began walking on foot.

Col was very much the latter sort of person.

He nodded uncertainly, chin down, looking very noble indeed.

“I-if you please, then.”

“Very well,” said Elsa with a smile. Beside her, Holo took a strangled gulp of wine.

Elsa’s instructions were not so very unreasonable.

Do not rush your eating. Take one bite at a time. Do not spill. Chew quietly. Don’t lean over your food, but bring it to your mouth. And so on and so forth. And yet it seemed that Col was hearing each of these for the very first time.

After all, if he did not eat quickly, his food might be taken. He had never had enough for spillage to be a problem. There was never pleasant conversation such that noisy eating mattered. He had never even gotten used to washing and drying his hands.

He had only very recently been able to take his time eating—since meeting Lawrence and Holo.

Once Col finished his meal after minding all these new rules, he stood and addressed Lawrence with a seriousness. “When I eat that slowly, it seems like the hot food gets cold before I can finish…”

He said this not out of childish obstinance or rebellion, but rather because Col the wandering scholar had so rarely been given hot food to eat. It was pathetic to hear.

Lawrence put his hand on Col’s back, and his back in turn felt small. “But in exchange, you get friends to eat with. Even if it’s a little cooler, it’s still just as tasty.” He would never have spoken such words when he was just starting out as a merchant, but now they came with an ease that surprised even himself, without so much as a hint of pretension or embarrassment.

After all, once he had met Holo, mealtimes became more than an excuse to take in nourishment and became a time of happiness. Even when the food was cold and distasteful, eating it with a friend, with whom you could complain about the cold or the bad taste, was its own sort of pleasure.

Col seemed to have understood this. He nodded deeply, as though a rich and beautiful truth had been revealed to him.

“Anyway, just consider that there’s nothing to lose in learning such things. After all, it was free,” Lawrence said cheerfully, giving Col a sly smile.

“Right!” proclaimed Col. He trotted out of the tavern, following Elsa.

Col loved to study, so no doubt he was off to review what he had just learned. By contrast there was Holo, so deeply unamused by the proceedings that she remained at the table as Lawrence paid for the meal.

“You ought to teach him a thing or two yourself,” said Lawrence. The copper coins he had received as change had a rabbit seal on them, perhaps deliberately, given that they were used as payment for trivial jobs and could only command light fare.

As Lawrence tossed a coin playfully in the air, Holo snatched it away. “Hardly. I’m a mere beast, after all.”

Lawrence was about to laugh this off as yet another jest, but then he noticed that beneath her hood her face was surprisingly dour. He shut his mouth.

“So long as he enjoys himself, I thought,” said Holo. If she had been the type to force her ways onto others, not only would the village where she had maintained the wheat harvest for all those centuries never forgotten her, she most certainly would not have been driven away from it.

To live joyfully, freely—that was what was important to Holo. At a glance, it might seem as though she was willful and always wanted her own way, but at her core, she had an easygoing nature. Lawrence had no trouble imagining her napping among the swaying wheat stalks all day long. It would have been so very Holo-like, so delightfully peaceful.

But such was not the way of all things in the world.

“Col’s at that age, you know. Learning itself is fun for him.” Lawrence felt quite proud of himself for putting it so well, but Holo seemed to find the statement an unfair one. She sneered and smacked Lawrence’s shoulder.

Once the pair exited the shop, they met up with the waiting Col and Elsa, who began to walk.

Their conversation wandered from one topic to the next, and even from behind, it was clear that they were having a lovely time.

“You look as though you’ve had your favorite toy taken from you,” said Lawrence teasingly, at which Holo gave a childish nod. At her unexpected honestly, Lawrence grimaced and added, “If this is how you are with Col, I dare not imagine what would happen if I were taken, too.”

It was a practically suicidal joke. Holo could choose any number of ways to come back at it. Eventually, she looked up and smiled a small, exasperated smile.

“I’m a wisewolf, you fool.”

It seemed to Lawrence that she would be a bit more charming if she acted more like she was in this moment. He took her hand. It was warmer than usual.

The next morning, Lawrence awoke to the sound of a closing door.

He had been drifting back to consciousness up until that moment, so when he sat up he was not surprised to find there was no one else in the room.

If his slightly foggy memory could be trusted, Holo and the rest had again gone off to morning prayers.

Lawrence yawned and, for a moment, seriously considered going back to sleep. Despite the comparatively easy journey, they had of course camped on the way from Kerube to Lenos. Moreover, compared with the snowbound country of Winfiel or that snowy shack up in the mountains, this inn was the very lap of luxury.

Elsa seemed to share that opinion. Because it had been rather suddenly decided that she would stay with them, they had hastily arranged for a straw mattress to be brought in, but as far as Elsa was concerned, it was a grand indulgence.

“Not even the village elder sleeps on a bed so fine!” she had said with a sheepish smile. And the rapidity with which she had fallen asleep after lying down exceeded even the notoriously sound sleeper Holo, which proved the truth of Elsa’s claim rather thoroughly. Elsa’s soft snoring arose so quickly that Holo had sat up in annoyance, just to prove that it was not her.

Though she was strict with others and with herself, because such human aspects of Elsa remained made her very easy to become fond of, barring other conflicts of interest. The way she interacted with Col, too, was very different from Holo’s puppylike indulgence of him and similarly different from Fran’s danger appeal.

So Holo had probably gone along with them to the morning prayers simply to protect her territory. She might claim that she did not care to whom Col became attached, but from her stiff facial expressions, it was easy to imagine.

The more she acted like the wisewolf she was, the more amusing she became.

Considering all that, Lawrence felt a little pleased and proud of himself since she had revealed her true feelings to him alone. If she caught on that he had realized this, she would tease him mercilessly as backlash, but fortunately, he was the only one in the room. Lawrence smiled and yawned, cracked his neck, and got out of bed.

Although they had received most necessities from Hugues back in Kerube, there were a few things that needed to be prepared. He needed to go to the stable and check on the state of his other companion there, and there were food and fuel provisions that needed to be bought for the next leg of the journey.

If the shops were selling freely there would be no problems, but if he was unlucky and there had been a rush of customers, there was the possibility of waiting days for his orders to be filled.

Given that the inns were all filled, that unlucky prospect bore consideration. If it came to that, his quickness as a traveling merchant would be a virtue. He finished his preparations, informed the innkeeper of his plans, then went out into the town.

Lawrence realized it had been some time since he had ventured out early on his own to lay in supplies. Perhaps thanks to the fine weather, his body felt light and his heart excited.

But he knew that even as the sun rose, it would also set. It was nice to be alone, but only when one was not truly alone.

Lawrence set out onto the streets. The breath fog from people walking merrily along rose as he went, illuminated by the morning sun.

When Lawrence came to the marketplace, it was crowded even before he entered it.

There were mules loaded heavily with green, frost-resistant vegetables, and men carrying barrels full of vinegar so strong it made the eyes water. There was a cart filled with rock salt that was accompanied by armed guards and which bore the seal and standard of some nobleman. Lawrence did not know if it was meant for this marketplace or on its way somewhere else, but it was amusing to watch sharp-eyed youngsters be chased off by the guards like so many flies. Perhaps they were trying to pick up any bits of salt that fell to the ground and turn them into a bit of spending money.

If such a heavy guard was necessary, then the profit from sneaking salt as false stone statues must have been sizable. Lawrence thought of Eve, who had sneaked right out of town one night and was now surely doing business somewhere in the south. He found himself less envious than simply astonished.

Such thoughts occupied his mind as he wandered the marketplace, inhaling the myriad scents that wafted from the stalls as he walked by each one. If there was this much in the market, buying what he needed ought nary be a trouble.

He passed barrels filled with carp, which splashed water up as they swam vigorously about, and arrived at a cheese monger’s shop, with cheeses lined up for display. Cheese did not spoil quickly, and it was filling. And there was another way to eat it, he had learned long ago, that he would remember until the end of his days.

The cheese was put to the flame, melted as though one was boiling water. Then bread or anything else could be dipped generously in it and eaten.

It was originally a dish from the south, but the colder the weather the more magnificent it became. Lawrence got excited just thinking about how enthusiastic he imagined Holo and Col would be to try it.

As he imagined the scene, Lawrence became aware of the shopkeeper’s appraising eye on him. The man was placing a large, square-carved stone on one side of a great set of scales.

Lawrence rubbed his face as though blaming the cold, then erased the smile from his face and raised his voice. “I’d like a wheel of cheese! How much?”

Given the number of foreign travelers, the shop did not bother with anything that indicated prices. Moreover, at Lawrence’s question, the thin shopkeeper—who looked more like a shepherd than a cheese monger—only continued to look at Lawrence curiously.

“That one, for example,” said Lawrence, indicating the large wheel about to be weighed. The shopkeeper’s apprentice also awaited the master’s orders, his face red from effort as he manhandled said wheel.

“Ah…I suppose you arrived yesterday or today, eh?” replied the shopkeeper finally, like an old man who was hard of hearing. He then gave his apprentice the signal to put the cheese on the scale.

A baker’s scale was big enough, but the balance beam on this one was even thicker. The chains, too, were free of any ornamentation at all—it was a very utilitarian device, and it clanked loudly when the cheese was loaded onto it.

“I arrived the day before last. Heading even farther north.” Lawrence swallowed back anything else he might have said after that, as the shopkeeper suddenly looked over his shoulder and reached for an iron rod. At the end of the rod was a small plaque, with writing carved into it. Standing on tiptoe and looking farther into the shop, he could see the box into which the plaque end of the iron rod had been thrust.

Within the box smoldered charcoal, which heated the brand such that it could mark the cheese.

“I see. Bad luck, then.” There was a hissing sound, and soon the fragrant smell of charring cheese hit Lawrence’s nose. “It’s not neglect that there are no prices out. These have all sold.” Lawrence barely had time to make a sound of surprise before the man continued, “That one, this one, and this one here, too, are all being taken away today. It’s good to have the rush in business, but it’s dizzying, too. And I’ve got to endure the sad faces of all the unlucky travelers, too.”

Lawrence did not put his hand to his face, instead managing a chagrined smile that was still probably rather pathetic. “Well, it’s nice that business is good.” Even a few weeks before, the trouble with the furs, the aftermath of the cancellation of the northern campaign, and the heavy taxes would have all but stagnated the marketplace.

“Aye…the business came back all of a sudden, truly. I suppose it’s something like the weather. When it’s nice out, people come and shop. Don’t you think?”

A merchant who dealt in something that kept so well as cheese did could surely live a well-kept, easy life. The fact that he seemed a bit musty was due in part to Lawrence’s own youth.

“I quite agree. Incidentally, is tomorrow’s cheese also spoken for? Or the day after’s?” Lawrence asked, at which the shopkeeper nodded heavily. The queue was apparently very long indeed.

Lawrence scratched his head in consternation, and the shopkeeper pretended to ignore his predicament. “Our cheese goes well with wine, though. The taverns keep quite a stock on hand.”

“Huh?” Lawrence looked back at the shopkeeper in surprise, but the shopkeep was already pretending Lawrence was not there, instead busily giving orders to his apprentice.

Though he could not say so openly, the shopkeeper had essentially told Lawrence that if he went to a tavern, they might spare him some cheese there.

A town separated its specialties, such that the cheese monger sold cheese and the tavern sold wine. The cheese monger could not operate as a drinking establishment, nor was the tavern allowed to sell cheese in quantity.

But there were always exceptions to the rules.

Apparently this shopkeeper was of an accommodating disposition.

“My thanks to you. I’ll give that a try this evening, then,” said Lawrence.

“Aye, you do that. Oh, and—!” The shopkeeper called to Lawrence as the latter began to walk away. “It’s going to be much the same for anything else you want to buy. Don’t bother looking at the shops—it’s the storehouses you’ll want to peek in.”

Lawrence found himself briefly lost in thought at these words, and he was soon carried off by the flow of people. The cheese monger was soon out of sight.

“It’s the storehouses you’ll want to peek in”—that was another thing that ought not to have been said out loud.

And just as the shopkeeper had said, Lawrence soon discovered that of all the goods he had hoped to find in the market, he could get none at all, or not enough, or else the only thing left were the scraps none of the other customers would buy.

And yet the prices were not so very high. What kept running through Lawrence’s head was the earlier trouble in Lenos, with the furs.

The market was so busy it made a merchant like Lawrence almost angry to be in it, so he left, making straight for a less-crowded street.

His destination was somewhere no proper merchant would be at this hour: the Beast and Fish Tail.

Before the Beast and Fish Tail’s back door there stood a wagon, loaded with various crates and barrels—and counting them with visible irritation was none other than that same barmaid.

Despite her brusqueness, the boy minding the wagon was only too happy to answer her every question as she demanded this or that piece of information from him.

She was a marvelous witch of a girl. But could she hear the voice in his mind that said so?

Lawrence waited for her to finish purchasing what goods she needed, then picked a likely moment to approach. When the barmaid looked over her shoulder and noticed him, she was utterly unmoved. “Goodness, you’re early today,” she said, as though their exchange the prior day had never happened.

Or else she had given up on pushing and was going to try a pull instead.

“Quite. Haste can be a virtue, after all.”

The girl scratched something into a wax-covered board, then looked up at him as though she were counting money given to her by a drunkard. Then she sighed. “So, what profit is it you’re chasing this time, eh?”

It was obvious he was interrupting her work, but Lawrence kept his affable smile up and answered proudly. “Nothing like that. I was hoping you’d let me buy a little from you.”

The barmaid’s expression was the very epitome of a suspicious face. She raised one eyebrow, and the Huh? she was thinking to herself was entirely obvious. “If taverns start selling goods, the town would be in chaos. Why not go to the marketplace? I’m a little busy here.”

Having finished her count, the girl tucked the board under her arm and poked her head through the back door, shouting something into the tavern. She certainly was not going to bring all these goods inside herself, so perhaps she was calling for the master of the shop.

“I’m sure you are, if you’re planning to use all of this in your cooking.”

She kept her head impudently in the doorway, with her nicely shaped rear facing the street. If she had had a rabbit tail, it would surely have been twitching.

The barmaid finally turned to regard him, a look of frustration on her face. “These are extra supplies, in case of hardship.”

“I’ll bet they are,” said Lawrence with a smile. The barmaid averted her gaze and scratched her head. She was obviously unsure what to do. “I’ll pay in cash. Gold coin, if you like. Or”—he offered the choice he would give in any normal business transaction—“would smaller coins be better?”

The girl finally sighed. “I see,” she said. “I see how it is. As soon as you figured things out, you came straight here. Where’d you get that idea, I wonder?” She looked up at the sky as though she had dropped her coin purse somewhere, hands on her hips, eyes closed.

Every one of her exaggerated gestures was deeply amusing. If she quit her job at the tavern, she could surely find work as a dancing girl.

“The value of coin is rising, isn’t it?”

The girl nodded at Lawrence’s words. “But these truly are emergency supplies.”

Lawrence briefly greeted the shopkeeper, whose head had just emerged from the doorway. “I’m sure they are,” he said.

Only very recently, the town had been in chaos.

Regardless of how accustomed the residents were becoming to such conditions, its effects were unmistakably lingering—especially when it came to trade.

Just yesterday, Lawrence had been reminded of when he and Holo had first come to this town and been swept up in the fallen noblewoman and brilliant merchant Eve’s fur-trading schemes.

The city had then decided that, in exchange for selling furs to foreign traders, they would accept only cash.

Furs were much more profitable to sell after being processed and turned into clothing, rather than as a raw commodity. Thus, the craftsmen who made their living by the processing of fur had absolutely no desire to sell their furs to outside traders.

But it would have been difficult for the city to outright ban the sale of furs to foreign merchants. In the worst case, there could be violent rebellion on the part of those merchants. So using the Church, they required that all business be conducted in cash. Since no one traveled long distances carrying large amounts of coin, this seemed like a splendid plan. There was no ban on sales, but there was simply nothing to purchase with.

It was thought that this would settle everything, but the Church that handed down this decision added another condition that made things complicated.

The Church had its own coffers, which were always full of money. And in order to solidify their power base, they sought someone through whom they could lend money to the outside. And thus did they loan a large amount of money to the foreign merchants.

The furs were bought up by the foreign merchants, and the enraged craftsmen rioted.

That was about the end of the story, but such disturbances always leave their claw marks behind.

The consequences here were that, since the merchants had bought up the furs and fled, the town’s money was now concentrated in the hands of a very few.

And whenever there was such concentration, instability came with it.

In this case, the value of the currency shot up.

“Since the riot, it’s like the money’s dried up from the town. There’s no money anywhere you go. It vanished like smoke. Even if you allow that many trades happen on credit, you still need small coins. We’re in real trouble,” said the barmaid, as they talked in the tavern’s cellar.

Its walls were lined with all the things Lawrence had been unable to buy in the marketplace.

“They say anything scarce becomes dear,” said Lawrence.

“There’s too much cash in the hands of the fur dealers. But because coin shortage is a problem for any town, it’s not as though we can import some coppers. And now, even a dull copper is starting to look as brilliant as any gold.”

During times of cash-only business, the clever ones would bet that the value of currency would eventually fall to its former levels, but while it was high, they would buy as many goods as they could.

And that was why the marketplace’s condition was as strange as it was.

“And as a tavern, you can easily avoid any accusations that you’re speculating. Very clever.”

Lawrence wrote his prices on a wooden slate and handed it over. The barmaid wrinkled her nose and rewrote all the figures.

“Too high,” said Lawrence.

“Feel free to try your luck in the marketplace.” Constantly dealing as she did with so many drunken patrons, the girl was tougher than any grizzled merchant. Her position was strong—they had no need to sell Lawrence anything.

“Understood. But I’ll be expecting quality.”

“Heh. That’s a compromise I can make.”

Given the satisfied way she looked at the slate, it was all too clear how cheaply the tavern had originally obtained the goods. There was no winning against an opponent with cunning, capital, and nerve.

“Still, I’m a bit surprised,” said the girl.

“Oh?”

“That you’d come alone.”

“I’ve come alone more times than not.”

The girl put her index finger to her chin. “I suppose that’s true,” she murmured.

“My companion told me not to think that a jewel can shine alone, though.”

Hearing these words, the barmaid’s smile was as bright as any gem. “So, will the next few days be all right?”

“Yes, if you please.”

“And it would be best if you could take delivery in the morning, although not too early. We’re a tavern, after all.”

The girl seemed like the sort who rose with the dawn and immediately got to work, but there was a certain charm to the idea of her lolling lazily about in bed for a while, too.

“Understood. Not too late, not too early.”

“Timing is of the essence, after all.”

Lawrence mused that he had heard those words an awful lot recently, and then realized there was one more thing he had meant to ask.

“Has the letter come yet?”

“Speaking of timing, no, not yet. If it’s urgent, I’ll have it sent to your inn once it arrives.”

“If you please,” said Lawrence and took his leave of the girl.

She deliberately betrayed no particular regret at parting, not even looking at Lawrence. Instead, she vaguely waved the slate in his general direction.

Though traveling merchants made their living amid hellos and good-byes, they could not hold a candle to those who worked in taverns. The world was a big place, and there was always a bigger fish.

“Well, then,” murmured Lawrence to himself. This had all taken longer than he had expected. He considered going to the stables, but then Holo’s hungry, displeased face flashed across his mind. He sighed and decided to hurry back to the inn.

He got his bearings and headed down an alley in order to avoid the crowded streets. He wound up having to press himself against a wall in order to let by some women carrying full baskets on their heads. In place of offering thanks, they gave him large smiles.

Perhaps the barmaid at the Beast and Fish Tail was not so bewitching after all—perhaps it was just the custom in Lenos. He thought about it as he made his way down the narrow alley, when he suddenly emerged onto a slightly broader street.

Directly in front of him was a very familiar building.

“So he really is out of business, eh?” It was old Arold’s inn, at which Lawrence and Holo had stayed the last time they were in Lenos. Currently, its master headed south on a pilgrimage.

Originally it had been a busy tannery, but circumstances had forced it closed, and it had become an inn. The dormitories for the many apprentices had become rooms for travelers to stay in.

The permission to run the inn had been transferred to the Delink Company, who had held Holo as collateral, but Lawrence could hardly imagine them opening an inn. Once they sold the permit to someone else, they would probably sell the building itself.

The building must have seen many faces within its walls, but now it was silent, expressionless, like some cast-off shell.

Perhaps that was why.

Lawrence put on an obstinate expression and grinned wryly at no one. He was imagining himself opening up some small shop there. Nothing as big as Philon’s general store, but perhaps a business serving road-weary travelers for whom the journey itself was home.

And taking care of the quietly thriving little shop would be him and one other.

“…How absurd.”

Lawrence chuckled in self-reproach, then sighed a long-suffering sigh. It would surely be a mistake to imagine that he would be the only one who would be sentimental about the approaching end of their journey. Holo was thinking many of the same things, no doubt, but showing them less obviously in her manner and words.

Even so, if he continued his idling much longer, he would certainly risk her ire. And given that her nose was keener than any hound’s, he would need to put a tight lid on anything that stank of sentimentality. Lawrence let his weakness go as though kicking the dust from his feet and resolved to put this inn behind him.

What stopped him in his tracks was the emergence of someone from the inn, which he had assumed to be deserted.

“Huh?” said the figure who stepped out of the inn, looking at Lawrence.

—which was probably Lawrence’s imagination, but the figure did indeed make a face of surprise, although his mouth moved just slightly.

Lawrence himself was just as shocked. The man who had stepped out of the inn was one of the four masters of the Delink Company. If Lawrence recalled correctly, his name was Luz Eringin.

“So will that all be quite all right?”

From across the way, Lawrence could hear that same slithering, serpentine voice, but it was not directed at him.

Eringin looked over his shoulder and addressed the others who were following him out of the building.

“Yes, yes. Though the remaining goods will need to be inspected.”

“I was told by the former owner that they could be disposed of.”

“No, that won’t do at all. They were probably used for smuggling. We’ll consider disposal after they’ve been inspected.”

Given the contents of the conversation, they were probably town officials, perhaps conducting the many verifications that were involved in the transfer of a permit.

“Will sir come by the trading company later? If you’ve time, I’ve just taken delivery of a fine vintage…,” came the invitation from one of the officials.

Everyone wanted to earn the gratitude of a town official, but those officials only cared about the gratitude of men like Eringin.

It spoke of Eringin’s position of strength in this town that he declined the invitation with a slight wave. “No, I really must return to my own company. I’ve got an engagement to attend to, so if you’ll excuse me.”

These last words were delivered while Eringin looked at Lawrence.

The official noticed this, of course, and also looked in Lawrence’s direction, but expressed little interest in him. “Well, then,” he said with a bow and walked off.

Eringin only spoke again once the official had rounded a distant corner and gone out of sight. “Well, Mr. Kraft Lawrence! I thought it’d be quite a while before I saw you again.”

“And here I was sad to think the day would never come at all.”

Eve might one day make a triumphant return, attended by underlings who, like Eringin, were accomplished in their own right. But given his own disposition, Lawrence knew he himself would never be such a one.

“Heh. Not every successful man is an ambitious one.”

“I’d welcome such good fortune.”

At Lawrence’s words, Eringin briefly flashed the smile of a kindly old man, then cocked his head. “Well, men such as us must treasure our connections. If you’ve time, do come visit the company. We’ve got a fine vintage on hand.” They were the same words the official earlier had used. His smile turned ferocious, eyes angular and glittering as though set in polished gold. “Well, I’ll be off, then,” he said and began to walk away.

He was dressed in the finest clothing: a long-sleeved coat, a warm-looking fur muffler, and even lightweight leather boots.

It was strange to see a man dressed as he was walking around without any attendants, but considering Eringin’s business, that lonely-yet-opulent bearing suited him perfectly.

“I could never manage it.”

There was not time enough in the world to count all the stories of brave, unyielding men who nonetheless could not defeat their loneliness.

Even Holo was no exception to that rule.

Those who attained the highest levels of achievement were the only ones who defeated it. In that sense, Lawrence had to afford Eringin a certain amount of respect as he watched the man walk away.

“Now, then,” said Lawrence, as he began to walk—only to suddenly look over his shoulder.

He had the feeling that someone had suddenly ducked out of sight in the corner of his vision.

Lawrence took a long look at the mostly deserted street, but saw no one spying on him. He decided it was his imagination and walked back to the inn.

Upon returning, he found that it had not been his imagination and that Holo was most displeased.

Lunch was cheese over rye bread, with a small amount of boiled beans atop it.

It was simple fare that seemed likely to accompany a book on religious travel, but given that it brought an end to several straight days of Holo being able to eat her fill, she found it unacceptable.

Evidently, Elsa had taken the lead and ordered it when the innkeeper had come to check on them.

“Such food isn’t nearly enough!” Holo’s angry shout was, fortunately, covered up by the noisy clatter of a passing wagon, but that did nothing to erase her anger.

Her hood was sharply pointed thanks to her pricked ears, and her overcoat billowed around her like a noblewoman’s skirts.

“I’m not sure eating luxurious food every day is such a good thing,” said Lawrence, earning himself an immediate and sharp glare from Holo.

“Oh, so you’re going to lecture me on this point as well, eh?”

“…I get it, I get it. Don’t be so angry.”

Holo seemed to have more to say on the matter but simply harrumphed and turned around.

Fran had been a mercenary chaplain who had taught of God with the scriptures in her hand, but her goal had not been to save anyone’s soul; rather, it was to deliver last rites. Chaplains, who borrowed God’s name to do their work, were often called by another name: reapers. Her teachings were meant very specifically for the battlefield.

Meanwhile, Elsa lived a thoroughly pure life by God’s teachings.

For Col, whose goal was to learn Church law but whose studies had come to a halt because of a lack of funds, it had been an opportunity he would never have dared wish for. Lawrence felt it was altogether a good and proper thing for Col to learn as much as he could from her.

And then there was Holo, who herself was well aware of that fact. While she had made every effort to hand down a bit of her wisewolf’s dignity to Col, even if she had not, she still would have had no desire to trample on his thirst for knowledge in this situation.

The result was that she could do nothing but watch, and ever since morning prayers had ended, she had simply followed along with Col as Elsa delivered her lessons.

While she could bare her fangs and give the barmaid at the Beast and Fish Tail a good challenge, it was hard to do the same toward someone like Elsa. Elsa had no particular designs on Col, and no matter how Holo might snarl, she was the only one trying to compete.

For the proud wisewolf, it was an unbearably foolish position to suffer. And so she vented her frustration upon Lawrence.

“She just loves to flaunt all her so-called knowledge, lecturing Col on this and that all the way to the church and all the way back. And who was it that saved that village, hmm? It was me!” Holo grumbled, going on and on about every little thing that irritated her as it happened to come to mind.

Lawrence gave vague, noncommittal replies as he gazed out onto the town.

“And that’s not the only part of my territory she’s ruined! This is all because you said you’d put her up in our room! Are you even listening to me?” She stood on her toes, her face so close and so angry that Lawrence wondered if she were going to bite his nose.

Lawrence flinched away as he answered. “I’m listening,” he said and was about to continue, but found himself at a loss for words and so gave up.

No matter what angle he might try to take, he was well aware that it would only serve to rile her up further. For once, Holo was genuinely furious beyond the means of logic or sense to assuage.

Her darling Col was being instructed by another woman. And whatever had been bothering him ever since Kerube, he had not confided in Holo about it. The previous morning he had begged Holo to let him go to morning prayers, and for some reason, on the way back his worries seemed to have lifted.

Holo, of course, had been honestly pleased that this was so. She herself seemed to feel that the approach of the journey’s end was cause for happiness, but in point of fact was rather jealous of Col’s attention.

So while he certainly understood her irrational anger at the intrusion of Elsa, looking at Holo, Lawrence could not help but smile.

“Is something amusing to you?” she demanded with fangs flashing keenly; depending on his answer, he would be spared no mercy.

Until just recently—and certainly when they had first met—Lawrence would have erased his smile and immediately betrayed his fear of her. But nowadays, he was able to meet even this mannerism with utter calm.

“Oh yes, quite amusing,” said Lawrence, taking Holo’s hand and pulling her out of the way of a wagon she was about to bump into. “I never thought I would see a wisewolf rage like this.”

Holo tried to snatch her hand away from Lawrence’s grasp, but Lawrence strengthened his grip slightly, so she was unsuccessful.

“Come now, don’t be so angry.”

His words were like oil on a fire, and Holo only pulled away harder, acting like a child throwing a tantrum.

Just as she was about to actually bite his hand, Lawrence let go and placed his now-empty hand on her head. “I wasn’t making fun of you.”

Holo brushed his hand away and glared at him, but Lawrence only repeated himself.

“I wasn’t making fun of you.”

The street finally arrived at the port district of the town, and the field of view was suddenly much broader.

The sailors and dockworkers seemed to be taking a post-meal break as they sat around the piles of unloaded goods and chattered good-naturedly.

“So what, then?” Holo’s displeasure now seemed forced, as though she had lost track of what exactly it was she was so angry about. Either that, or she had never really known in the first place.

There was, of course, the anger she had over feeling that Col was being taken from her. But previously, such a thing would never have made her so angry, as though she had had a favorite apple snatched out of her grasp. If Col’s attention had been stolen from her, she would first have accepted that reality, then taken logical, appropriate action given the entirety of the situation. And if, after all her efforts, Col did not come back to her, she would allow for that outcome and give up.

That would have been worthy of the name Wisewolf and be the sort of action one who had perfected the noble way of the traveler would take.

This was not baseless speculation, either. The very reason Lawrence was able to travel with Holo was regardless of how clumsy or foolish it made him look, he had always reached his hand out to her.

In her relationships with others, Holo always drew away first. She did it because she mistook it for the smart, noble thing to do, and because she insisted that it had served her well thus far—even though she hated being alone.

In her interactions with Lawrence, though, Holo had stopped wearing that mask.

“I just thought it might be nice for you not to act the wisewolf,” said Lawrence, gazing out at the port. Holo looked wordlessly up at him.

But her silence was not because she did not understand what he was saying—rather, it was a look of shock that her secret had somehow been exposed.

“Though it is a bit silly of you to be so worked up over worries that your dear Col might be taken from you,” Lawrence added.

At this, Holo seemed to find a solid reason to be angry, and she turned away, pouting. Yet as ever, her ears and tail were more eloquent than her tongue.

Lawrence said exactly what he was thinking. “The truth is, you want to be even more selfish, don’t you?”

Holo was proud. And being proud, she was very stubborn about her position, her role. While she had hated being revered as a god, if she received no praise at all, the truth might well have been that her loneliness would crush her. Whatever she might say, Holo was a kind and serious wolf, who wished to live up to the expectations of others.

That was why, even after being faced by open hostility from the villagers she had aided through the centuries, she never once bared her fangs at them.

She was kind and responsible. And she hated being lonely.

Though she was pathetically trapped in a cage of her own construction, there was no personality that could have suited her better.

“No one would think less of you for being envious or for showing that childish attachment. This isn’t your wheat fields. Nobody here is worshipping you.” Lawrence paused for a moment before continuing. “You don’t need to force yourself to simply endure things anymore. At the very least, I’m not thinking of you as some kind of god.”

It was late to say so, given how many times by now he had seen her pathetic, awkward sides.

But even saying so, he knew that her habits and ideals would not change easily after so much time. Still, after so many misadventures with Lawrence, she had finally opened up to him, at least.

There was little he could do for her. But at the very least, Lawrence wanted to give her the push she needed to take that first step.

“So why don’t you stop taking out on me the frustration of enduring all that alone, and just be a little more honest? I feel like that’s more of what a wisewolf would do—”

He had originally meant it as a bit of a joke, but the moment he looked over at Holo, his mouth stopped moving.

Holo had pulled her hood down over her eyes. Her head was downcast, her shoulders drawn in.

“Ah…”

Holo was stubborn and proud, but for all that, her heart was quite soft and fragile. Everything Lawrence had just said, she had surely thought to herself hundreds of times. What if she had just wanted to vent her frustration at Lawrence?

His logic would have had the precise opposite of its intended effect. He would have hurt her instead of helped her.

Lawrence’s mouth opened and closed, but no words came.

Holo’s feet suddenly stopped in their tracks, and a cold sweat dripped down Lawrence’s back.

People around them were watching.

Holding in his arms his great bundle of regrets, Lawrence dared come around in front of Holo and look under her hood—past the chestnut brown hair in its shadow.

Holo was drawn inward and her shoulders trembled, and beneath her hood, she seemed to be waiting for Lawrence uneasily.

“After all that talk, this is all it takes to fluster you? You’re rather full of yourself,” said Holo.

Even if he could endure her anger, her tears were hard to bear. He knew he had that in common with many of the men of the world, and when Holo was unhappy with something, she was merciless in her exploitation of it.

“Hmph,” she said, pushing Lawrence aside and starting to walk. The careless, foolish traveling merchant had no choice but to follow after her. “I hardly need you to tell me such things. I’m perfectly aware of them.”

Lawrence swallowed the retort that came immediately to mind, but could not quite help from saying something. “…If so—”

“If so?” Holo stopped again and turned to face him. When Lawrence’s words stuck in his throat, Holo continued, closing in on him. “If so, I ought to just act as I wish, you say? Just throw all my pride and wisdom as a wisewolf aside?”

Her tone from under her hood was a challenging one, and the irises of her eyes were as red as the reddest, thickest wine.

“I have my own things to consider, in my own way. But I’m not so clever as that. You want me to be honest here, polite there, but I simply cannot. And anyway,” she said, clasping her hands together behind her and looking off, “you’re only asking what would be most convenient for you.”

“—!”

Anger shot down Lawrence’s throat, as though he had swallowed something hot.

He had had no intention of speaking out of turn or saying too much. If Holo’s attempts to act as a wisewolf should act were causing her suffering or making her angry, then she ought to discard the role. That was what he truly thought, and it had nothing to do with what was convenient for him.

“You know that’s not true,” he said.

Holo looked over her shoulder at him, those red-tinged amber eyes of hers taking a good, long look. They were not joking, nor teasing—but neither conceding defeat, nor full of suspicion. “Truly?”

So her words were his confirmation.

“Truly,” Lawrence answered, and Holo looked at him as though she were staring right into his heart.

Holo closed the lids over her large eyes and made an innocent expression that looked almost sleepy.

Evidently to close your opponent’s mouth, you needed only to close your own eyes. The moment that truth came to Lawrence, Holo’s eyes opened and she suddenly smiled. “You are quite daring, though,” she said.

“Huh?”

“Telling me to be more honest. Here and now, of all places.” Holo looked smoothly ahead and smiled a genuinely amused smile. “You may as well have just set me upon them like a dog.” Her eyes glittered maliciously.

“Ah—” It was all too easy for Lawrence to imagine Holo cutting in between the seriously lecturing Elsa and the passionately studying Col. “N-no, that’s not what I—”

“So what did you mean?”

Lawrence was at a loss for words. He rubbed his forehead with his hand.

He wanted Holo to be honest. He wanted her to stop forcing herself to wear a mask. But the idea of her acting without any restraint at all made his stomach hurt. He could hardly blame her for taking his words to mean he wanted her to act however was most convenient for him.

But why had he even bothered trying to tell her not to force herself to do things? Lawrence thought about it and finally settled on an answer.

“…If I must choose between you doing whatever you wish or forcing yourself to simply endure, then…” He took a breath. “I’d rather the former.”

Immediately, Holo’s nails dug into the palm of Lawrence’s hand. “You’re being tricky with your words again.”

She never overlooked such things.

Lawrence furrowed his brow, then soon gave up. If he did not say it, she would never forgive him. He looked down at her, exhausted. “I think you’re much more charming when you’re honest and free to do as you like.”

Holo grinned. She was obviously enjoying his embarrassed face much more than his actual words.

“I think you’re much more charming when you’re forcing yourself.” Her nose crinkled.

“I suppose I can’t beat an honorable wisewolf.”

“Heh.” Holo smiled and faced forward. Her footsteps were light. “You’re the one at fault for this, you know,” she murmured.

“Huh?”

Holo’s red-amber eyes flashed at Lawrence, and she looked at him as though relishing her own mischief. “No matter what happens after this, I’ll be to blame for none of it.”

Lawrence tried to reply, but a chill ran down his spine. “Wait…”

Holo giggled. “’Twas a jest, you fool!” She began to stride delightedly away. After Lawrence stumbled in his hurry to follow her, she continued. “Still, ’tis well for once, in such a long life, not to be thinking on past and future.”

She flashed her fangs in a charming grin.