Spice and Wolf - Volume 19 - Chapter 1

A PETAL’S FRAGRANCE AND WOLF

No matter how much he cleaned, dust gathered in the corners of rooms, so of course the neglected shed grew messier throughout the years. He’d come searching for the hand mill he suddenly needed for a village event, but it was impossible to find.

“That’s strange…I don’t think I threw it away, and since Hanna doesn’t use it, it should be here…”

Lawrence stood up, scratching his head, and exited the dusty shed for the moment.

“Can you not find it?”

Holo sat on a tree stump in front of the small structure, a knitted, woolen shawl draped over her shoulders. Had she sat quietly, she would have been the very image of a young, new bride, what with her loosely braided flaxen hair, the long skirt she wore, and that hint of childishness still in her face.

However, Holo was not as young as she appeared, and a wolf’s tail, the same color as her hair, peeked out from under her clothes. It was not fur she carried to keep her warm but her actual tail, and its owner was the avatar of a wolf who had lived for several hundred years.

Over ten years earlier, she had met Lawrence, a traveling merchant at the time, and at the end of their journey, they had arrived at the northern hot springs of Nyohhira as husband and wife.

“I can’t ask you to sniff out the smell of stone, huh?”

As the incarnation of a wolf, Holo had big, triangular animal ears on her head, and her sense of smell rivaled that of any hound. She could even sniff out something lost in the mountains, but a small millstone would likely be quite a feat.

“Had you slept with it in your arms every night, I may have.”

“I’d probably suffer horribly if I cheated on you.”

He could easily imagine Holo glaring at his pained self over a drink.

“Fool. I would tear you to shreds for such adultery.”

She leaned forward and rested her chin on her palm, showing her fangs in a toothy grin.

Despite what she said, Lawrence thought that if anything like that did happen, she would be more sad than angry—and about how bringing tears to her eyes would be much more agonizing than being ripped apart.

“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.”

“As long as you make sure it stays in your puny mind.”

Holo stood and hopped to the entrance of the shed, peeking inside.

“’Tis full of things.”

“It’s been ten years since we started the bathhouse. It’s quite a collection now.”

“Mm. ’Tis true, seeing this and that brings back memories.”

The shed held things they typically used such as axes, saws, and hammers, as well as things that guests had forgotten or left in their care, all on top of spare parts for fixing broken chairs and the like. They all gave meaning to these past ten years.

“This netting as well…Had we not used this as a cradle for Myuri?”

Holo brushed a dust-covered netting that hung from the ceiling with her finger as she smiled with her eyes.

It had not exactly been intended as a replacement for a cradle but something they put their daughter in when it was impossible to divert any attention from their work, mostly because they never knew what sort of trouble the overly energetic Myuri would get into if they left her alone.

Their daughter had inherited Holo’s magnificent blood, sprouting her own wolf ears and tail. At the time, her fluffy tail had been as big as she was, so when they put her in the net, Myuri looked exactly like a trapped wolf pup.

The months and days since then had flown by in a flash.

“She fit so well in such a small thing.”

“Yeah, she’s grown up fast.” Lawrence sighed as he spoke, because once her height had doubled, her energy seemingly quadrupled. “Hmm, oh, right.”

“Mm?”

“Myuri used to mess around in here sometimes. She might’ve just taken it to use in one of her pranks.”

Holo looked at him in puzzlement at first, then chuckled.

“’Tis quite possible. I recall she was interested in making ointments at one time.”

Their daughter had delighted in collecting grasses and mushrooms for her pet project, grinding the ingredients with rocks and rolling the paste into balls. For some reason, all the village children had been obsessed.

“She may have considered it too much work to put it away and buried it someplace on the mountain.”

“…I’ll ask her.”

Lawrence’s sigh was clear this time as he placed a hand on the door.

“Hey, I’m closing up now.”

Holo had been staring curiously around the shed and turned toward him when he spoke.

Then, as she was about to exit as requested, her gaze suddenly fixed on a corner of the room.

“What’s wrong?”

“Mmm…I feel as though I may recall something…”

Holo reached toward an assortment of small objects sitting on a wooden shelf. Coated as the items were in grime and mold, it was hard to distinguish them by shape alone. She took one from the shelf, brushed off some dust, and rubbed it against the hem of her clothes, revealing a small glass vial.

“Ahh, aye.”

As she looked at the vial, the hint of a smile appeared on her face.

“This…It may be next to impossible to find the mill.”

“Huh?”

Just as he was about to ask what she meant, Lawrence finally realized.

The corners of his mouth drew upward on their own. It was, of course, a wry smile.

“That’s right, I remember now.”

“You obtained this vial on our journey so long ago, yes? Did Myuri not find it here and press questions upon us with her usual curiosity?”

Holo placed her hand on the cork of the vial as she spoke.

And then she removed the lid on Lawrence’s memories.

He had come across that vial during his second spring with Holo.

Traveling merchants were much like migratory birds. From the snowy, northern countries to the warm climes and blue seas of the south, their year was spent traveling in all directions. Unlike town-based traders, they were not tied to land or people, so it was rather easy to move freely. The one difficulty was the inability to make close friends, the unchanging fact that no matter where they went, they would forever be an outsider. Even after death, they simply rotted away in the village they happened to be passing through or by the roadside, unbeknownst to anyone. Though their destinations welcomed merchants, along with the cargo and business they brought, this did not mean friendship.

It was hard to tell comfort and loneliness apart.

That was why logic dictated he should find someone to sit beside him in the driver’s perch to bury the nighttime loneliness. He would simply have to endure losing part of his comfort.

“Why do we head east?”

He heard a voice from behind. She had happily sat beside him in the driver’s perch up until three days before, when her mood took a turn for the worse.

He knew the reason.

“Didn’t I tell you?”

Lawrence spoke, still gripping the reins, not bothering to look back.

It was spring, and though the wind was still chilly, the sun grew stronger and stronger with each day. The two were passing through endless fields of tall grass. Lawrence sensed that Holo was sulking in the wagon. Her tail was likely puffed out wide in anger. He sighed, but not because he had grown irritated with her selfishness.

“I wish we could go west, too. We’ve been living on the road for three weeks now. I want to splurge on a room with a wool-stuffed bed and drink wine to my heart’s content. I want to wake up late, eat lunch with the windows open, and lazily gaze out on lively town streets.”

And yet, at the fork in the road, Lawrence had turned the cart to the east.

That was because Lawrence was a traveling merchant, and he had a client to meet.

“And you have tossed such important things aside all for a chance to make money!”

“That’s right. I love gold. Oh, beautiful lumione!”

Lawrence’s voice was loud and exaggerated, and he could hear Holo’s groan behind him.

Holo also understood that there was nothing to be done about the situation, but it had probably been unwise for her to assume they would stop for a break in a town.

“But the abbot at a monastery who I have known for many years through peddling has asked me a favor, so I have no choice but to go. And he’s asked me to check on an unlucky lamb who was suddenly called home to serve as a lord, even though it was his family who decided to place him in the monastery at a young age. Not only will we be able to get close to this new young lord, who’s probably facing great hardship from his ignorance about earthly matters and totally unable to tell his left from his right, but we might even have a chance to help him! Any merchant would go, and those who wouldn’t…are definitely not merchants.”

After a number of adventures, he had promised Holo he would no longer accept big jobs that would put them in danger, but not only did he believe this did not fall into that category, it was also novel work with promising profits.

The only thing they needed to offer in compensation was to slightly delay their rest, but in return, they would make the acquaintance of a feudal lord, and that was profit enough.

Holo was reluctant, and though she should have understood by now, still she argued.

“You…”

That deep voice was proof of her displeasure. If Lawrence continued in this manner and truly angered Holo, she would most certainly not allow him to have her warm tail under the blanket while he slept that night.

Though it was spring, it was still cold sleeping outside.

“I know, I know. Know that I’ll make it up to you.”

“…”

There was no response, so he sighed before continuing.

“Though the place where we’re heading is small, it’s still the house of a lord. Look forward to the hospitality…”

He spoke only up to that point before tapering off because he suddenly felt a lukewarm breath on the nape of his neck.

Holo could discern people’s lies with those wolf ears of hers.

It was child’s play for her to gauge the substance of his words.

Before she had a chance to nip the back of his neck, he gave up and turned around.

“I get it. I promise. If we get to the lord’s house and they give this traveling merchant the cold shoulder, then we’ll go to a nearby town. We’ll spend our money there.”

Even if it was not a wool and silk bed, they could no doubt secure a room with a roof and a bed stuffed with straw in any town around the area. Then dinner would likely consist of fresh pork or chicken or, at the very least, a hodgepodge of seasonal vegetables and mushrooms. They had almost come far enough south to reach lands where grapes were harvested, so wine would also be available in great quantities.

“I wish to bid farewell to cold porridge and spoiled ale.”

Holo glared at him with accusatory eyes and kept her gaze trained on him for a while.

Then, she finally sighed deeply and audibly exhaled through her nose.

“And you absolutely must bathe.”

“Huh?”

Surprised, Lawrence unwittingly sniffed his own clothes. He thought for a moment that he was still perfectly fine, but he suddenly reached a conclusion. Perhaps the reason why Holo wished to stop and rest at a town was for this very reason.

“If you wish to use my tail for warmth in the cold evenings, then you must clean yourself a tad more. I shall not tolerate any mites or lice!”

Holo was devoted to caring for her tail. Much like how a mercenary reveled in maintaining a polished blade and steeled muscles, her tail was her pride.

So despite Holo doing all she could to put up with her traveling companion, who seemed as though bugs wafted from him even at that very moment, it was apparent that she was at her limit.

“…I don’t smell that bad…”

Lawrence tentatively fought back. He never minded when he was traveling by himself, but since he started traveling with Holo, he had given some effort to keep clean.

Holo, however, would be the judge of that.

“I always smell of sweet, fragrant flowers, but you simply never notice.”

Her retort was issued while holding her hand to her nose. She certainly did smell faintly sweet all the time, but even Lawrence knew that trick.

“That’s thanks to the oil you use on your tail. It was expensive, after all.”

Holo glared hard at him.

“You fool. I have always smelled this way!”

“…If you say so.”

There was no point in arguing, so he faced forward and gripped the reins again. Even if it was simply the oil she used, a soft, sweet scent borne by the breeze that tickled his nose, Lawrence did not mind so much.

Did her oil smell like this, though?

As he pondered, Holo sniffed a bit and looked around.

“Mm. Quite suddenly, I smell something sweet. Perhaps someone is baking?”

“No, this…”

He had started speaking when the road in the field took a sharp turn, and when he saw the land ahead, he understood.

“Aha.”

Holo sounded surprised as she spoke her next words, and her reaction was wholly appropriate.

“How marvelous!”

Suddenly, as though a line had been drawn in the ground, the greenery changed into a purple carpet spreading out endlessly before them.

“There is, however…too much of a good thing…”

Though it did not bother Lawrence much, Holo, with her keen sense of smell, found it necessary to hold her nose as they traveled along the road that ran through the field of flowers.

There were also quite a number of bees, which must have been drawn to the heady scent.

After cautiously exiting the field of flowers and continuing beyond a creek where a dingy and tattered water mill spun creakily, Lawrence could finally see his destination. According to the information he had received ahead of time, the village they would soon reach was called Hadish.

He could tell immediately it was a small hamlet by the size of the lines that connected house to house. He was unsure whether it was true or not, but Lawrence had once heard that the paths in a village were made just wide enough to carry a coffin after someone has died. In places where no one would stand along the roadside to send off the deceased, the paths were so small that a wagon bed would stick out on either side.

What most drew his attention was the distance between houses.

“Perhaps the villagers here do not get on?”

Before meeting Lawrence, Holo had spent decades—even centuries—hiding in the wheat fields of a town called Pasloe, so she had a rather keen sense for figuring out the state of things in human settlements.

The homes in Hadish were so far apart that it would be impossible to see the face of a person standing in the doorway at the nearest house.

“But the roads are very clean, considering that. The grass is cut, and the dirt is hardened. There are also lots of chickens.”

If the villagers did not get along, then there was no way chickens would be left to roam about as it would have led to quarrels regarding stealing or finding stolen livestock.

As he gazed at the village, a sweet scent riding on the breeze, the only word he could think of was peaceful.

“There must be a reason. It’s odd that there’s such a wide-open field, but they haven’t cultivated much of it.”

All cities surrounded with walls were overcrowded, and there were many who would carry a plow out to fertile land immediately if they had a chance.

“Perhaps the king here is wicked, and everyone has run off? Perhaps we should flee, too?”

Holo was still saying such things even after they had come this far.

“I don’t think that’s impossible, but according to the abbot, the person who took up the seat of the new lord is someone truly worthy of faith. I don’t think he’d do anything cruel.”

“…Hmph.”

That being said, when Holo heard he was of good faith, she frowned.

“I see now. They are the sort to subsist every day of their lives on nothing but roasted beans and water, aye? Even at the table they act as though someone has died—so silent, so gloomy…”

A good monk was one who aimed to eat simple foods and adhered to the commandment of silence.

Of course, it was completely incompatible with Holo’s morally lax lifestyle.

That was likely one reason she had been fussy for the past few days.

“If that is where we must go, then look, why not that house? There are onions and dried trout hanging from the eaves. There are chickens and pigs in the garden, and the soil in the vegetable plot is an earthy black.”

Holo pointed to a building that gave the impression it would stay the same for a thousand years, topped by a short and stout straw-thatched roof that looked like a dog had rolled in it. Though they would likely receive scratchy straw beds to sleep on, it was certain that the food would be good. And since the locals could gather the ingredients straight from the fields, there was likely lots of drink as well.

“But not every monk who lives at an abbey is so straitlaced. Not to mention the kind of monastery that the houses of fine lords would visit, even the ones in poor, remote villages. I don’t think they’d welcome nobles with roasted beans and onions.”

And there was significance in staying at the house of a lord. That was because once permission to stay had been given, those guests would be allowed to stay again. That was how trust was built.

Lawrence explained as much, though Holo made a face that looked like she had swallowed a bug.

“And we’re dealing with a young lord who has suddenly been cast out into the mortal world and is deeply troubled. If we manage this well, then I’m sure we’ll get some help when we open a store.”

He was aware that he sounded like he was merely considering loss and profits, but of course, he had no intention of letting this young lord deal with any losses.

If there were even one suspicious merchant hoping to take advantage of a new lord who was ignorant of market prices in the hope of making a quick coin, everyone would be sent away.

“You…! I have had enough!”

Holo finally became fed up and said one last thing before curling up in the wagon bed.

Though Lawrence thought her mood had cheered up considerably, she was still rather irritable from the fatigue of travel.

However, he felt like she had not been this way until they stopped over at the monastery. There was something odd about it—had she wanted to visit the towns in the west that badly?

As he wondered why, a large number of people appeared from the house Holo had pointed out.

At the front stood a short, bald old man, and there was a group of men who seemed to be the villagers. They all wore displeased expressions and were huddled near one another, talking. Among them were those who looked up to the heavens in exaggeration or those who shook their heads strongly.

Then, they all looked inside the house.

“Holo.”

Quietly, Lawrence called her name over his shoulder. Though she was balled up in the back of the wagon, her ears would be able to hear what they were saying. Even Holo knew that if there were quarrels happening in the place they were headed, then it would be best to have a grasp of them.

“Hmph.”

However, the only response she gave was a huff from her nose. Surprised that Holo was in such a foul mood, Lawrence turned around, but at the same moment, the people waiting outside the house finally noticed they were there.

Feeling their eyes on him, he faced forward again, and they were indeed staring at him.

“Hello.”

Lawrence greeted them after stopping the wagon an appropriate distance away.

“I see everyone’s gathered together. Talks about the spring festival, perhaps?”

He spoke with a smile, as though signaling he was an idiot who had not grasped a single hint of the tension hanging in the air.

The villagers exchanged glances in hesitation, and the small old man finally looked his way.

“A traveling merchant, I see. Our village’s festival is in the summer.”

He showed him a cheerful, insincere smile. It seemed this old man was the village head.

Lawrence stepped down from the driver’s perch, and several of the villagers looked hard at his horse, and he heard the murmurs of “Good horse.” As Holo was curled up in the bed of the wagon, no one noticed her.

“Yes, I typically make my rounds on merchant routes more north of here, but I’ve been asked a favor.”

“A favor?”

“I’ve heard the ruling lord here is new and has recently taken over. An old acquaintance has asked me to give respects in his stead.”

The moment he mentioned the lord, the people behind the village head exchanged meaningful glances.

It seemed that though they should be busy farming during this time of year, they were gathered during the day because of the lord.

“Oh ho. So you mean the abbey our lord is from?”

“Yes. By orders of the abbot there.”

He did not know for what reason the villagers were standing up against the landlord, but for now, he pretended that he did not notice. He supported his story that he had simply come to fulfill his favor with a clueless smile.

“And so, would you be able to tell me where the lord’s manor is?”

Unlike city nobles who lived within walls, it was difficult for outsiders to tell where country lords resided. Either way, after Lawrence asked with the intention of learning the way there, the village head glanced back over his shoulder at the people behind him.

“Well, you have perfect timing,” he said, and the villagers loitering outside the house quickly parted for the entrance. “The landlord just happens to be here in this house on business. I shall mention you.”

Passing between the villagers, the village head entered the house.

He returned before long with a person following behind him.

“This is the merchant.”

The village head motioned with his hand to the person standing behind him—a large man of towering height, wide shoulders, and deep chest. With power reminiscent of a wild ram, his puffed beard reached all the way down to his chest, and it almost looked as though his upper arms had legs growing out of them. Though his clothes were hemmed with fur as a display of authority, he looked like nothing so much as a bandit leader.

Of course, there were a number of sturdy monks, and there were many who had old-looking features.

However, no matter how Lawrence looked at it, the man before him seemed over fifty, and the thickness of his fingers and the shape of his fingernails clearly showed years of labor.

Was this the lost little lamb who was suddenly called home from the monastery and placed in the seat of landlord that the abbot talked about?

The man’s eyes moved with a vigor that almost seemed to make a sound, and he peered at Lawrence from above.

As Lawrence stood, shocked, at a loss for words, the man suddenly turned around and moved to the side.

“Huh?”

Then, appearing from behind him was a lady with a neat face, her red hair tied back in a low bun.

“Are you the messenger from Ivan Abbey?”

There was almost no embroidery on her long robe, and though it was simple, he could tell it was beautifully woven linen. The pendant hanging from her neck was a tear-shaped piece of amber.

More importantly, the large man beside her bowed to her stiffly.

And so, though the answer was obvious, it was all so sudden that the words inside Lawrence’s head did not quite string together.

“Is something the matter?”

Her question snapped him back to reality. This person was the landlord.

Typically, it was the eldest son who inherited the family estate, but if there was no one else, then such situations were possible. And then Lawrence finally remembered—as it was a monastery he had been dealing with for a long time, it had completely slipped his mind. As earthly persons could not enter the building proper, he and the abbot always held their conversations outside, so he never quite registered it in his mind, but the proper name for the place was:

The Saint Isiodorus Brotherhood Ivan Girls Abbey.

A family sending off their daughter to a monastery was a means of keeping their inheritance rights from leaving their control and a way for noble families who could not prepare dowries to rid themselves of a nuisance.

Since the lady had suddenly been brought home, it would be normal for the abbot to be worried sick that not only did she not know what was what, but also that she might be in some sort of deep trouble.

And then Lawrence finally understood why Holo had been in such a bad mood since leaving the monastery.

“Oh no, my apologies.”

Lawrence stood up straight and retrieved the abbot’s letter from his chest pocket.

“This is from the abbot.”

The lady—perhaps it was even possible to call her a girl—moved to accept the paper. It was clear that she did not know how to act as a lady as she moved to take it directly from his hands.

Her slender fingers, which looked as though they would redden from simply peeling kidney beans from their pods, extended toward the letter, but thick hands that could probably break rocks obstructed her. The girl seemed surprised, but Lawrence was not. Those of high status did not take things directly from strangers of humble birth.

“Th-thank…you.”

She took the letter from the big man, who would more appropriately be called an attendant than a manservant in all likelihood. Then she donned a vague expression of thanks that made it unclear whether she intended it for Lawrence or the towering figure.

However, since she had been in an abbey, there was no hesitation in her hands as she opened the letter, and she read quickly. The abbot must have written something nice as a smile slowly spread across her face with an innocence that gave him the impression of reading the scripture in a sunny garden.

The abbot was a man who had been so stingy with his prices that most town merchants had given up doing business with him. It got to the point where he had to trust the delivery of the abbey’s goods to a traveling merchant who would work for the slightest of profits. But even so, he was still the kind to be worried and concerned.

Lawrence looked at the neat features and brown eyes of this young lady and quietly held his breath.

Holo had been angry about this the entire time.

Since it was a women’s abbey, he should have noticed right away that it was a young girl who returned home. If anything, it would have been odd if she were not angry when she saw how motivated he was to come see her.

He had sat and trampled on her tail without even noticing.

He glanced back at Holo, who was pretending to be cargo on the wagon bed, and when he thought about what they were going to do afterward, his heart sank.

“Mr.…Lawrence?”

The sound of his name suddenly returned him to reality.

“Yes.”

It seemed the young landlady had found his name in the letter.

“I am Kraft Lawrence. I am a traveling merchant. I have known the abbot for a long time.”

“Which means you are the one to thank for such delicious bread at the abbey.”

She spoke kindly and a soft smile appeared on her face. The large man beside her did not even blink, and Lawrence was painfully aware of how he stared, the sharp gaze overpowering him.

The girl, however, was an innocent youth who had come straight from an abbey.

“What makes bread delicious are the hands of a baker and the blessings of God.”

He responded modestly, and the young lady chuckled.

“That may be true, but the letter says that you have a traveling companion.”

He could see her young eyes looking nervously at the cart, and he almost wanted to laugh.

“Please forgive her rudeness, but she is lying down in the back of the wagon. It seems the long journey has taken its toll.”

“Oh, well then.”

Her eyes widened in surprise, and she began quickly folding the letter.

“Now, please come to the house.”

Her expression was so serious it almost made him regret telling that lie.

“But it seemed you were in the middle of something important, my lady.”

After Lawrence spoke, the redheaded girl hurriedly looked around her, but her expression suddenly changed to show a sad smile.

“No…We’re done for now.”

When she said that, out of the corner of his eye, he could see several villagers drop their shoulders in defeat. The young ruler handed the folded letter to the large man, excused herself, and stood before the village head, who was watching over the exchange.

“Let us continue discussing this at a later date.”

“As you wish.”

The village head respectfully bowed his head, but the gesture felt cold.

It was uncertain if the landlady had noticed, but she prompted Lawrence to follow her and walked off. It seemed she would be returning to the house on foot. Perhaps she had never learned how to ride horses. Lawrence jumped onto the driver’s perch, gripped the reins, and followed the large man, who walked perfectly behind her and slightly to the side. Lawrence turned around, and he saw that the villagers seemed thoroughly defeated as they reentered the village head’s house. The village head saw Lawrence and the others off for a while before finally going inside himself.

What could they have possibly been arguing about?

As he wondered what was going on, he faced forward again, only to see the girl had turned around to stare at him while she walked ahead.

“Do you want to know?” she asked with a troubled smile.

Lawrence hesitated for a moment but then decided to go with it.

“The abbot instructed me to help you, my lady.”

The same should have been written in the letter.

The girl he called “my lady” stopped walking, the troubled smile still on her face.

“Please don’t call me that.”

“Then what am I to call you?”

With a short cry of surprise, the girl placed her hand over her mouth.

“I’m sorry. I haven’t introduced myself yet.”

She cleared her throat, placed her hand on her chest, and spoke.

“I am Amalie Draustem-Hadish, the seventh lord of this land.” And in a quiet, embarrassed voice, she added, “I still can’t believe it, though.”

Since Amalie had been put into the abbey, which meant the previous lord had had a proper male heir to inherit, there must have been some sort of accident that had resulted in the simultaneous loss of both the previous lord and his son.

It was not because Amalie was a resilient girl that she seemed unfazed by their loss. It was likely the truth that she had been left in the abbey for as long as she could remember.

“Then, Lady Draustem?”

“They called me Amalie at the abbey.”

It seemed she was not fond of her grandiose family name.

But when he glanced at the large man, just to make sure if it was all right to call a landlady by her first name, the response was a look of resignation. It seemed there had already been an argument between this taciturn vassal and Amalie.

“Then, Lady Amalie.”

“Lady is too formal…”

“Lady Amalie.”

The large man spoke for the first time since Lawrence had arrived, drawing Amalie’s gaze toward him. Apparently this was the point of compromise between them. She nodded reluctantly.

“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“No, the pleasure is all mine.”

Lawrence dipped his head reverently.

“So the abbot has instructed me to be your pen in this world, Lady Amalie.”

Her sword was that large man.

Amalie began walking again and gave a clear sigh.

“Ha…Well, it’s quite the regrettable story.”

She broached the subject, and as they made their way to the house, she told Lawrence about the dispute, which was roundabout, and though it had not quite yet reached a conclusion, it ended up being rather simple.

The Draustem family estate was less of a manor and more of a luxurious farmhouse.

Lord was not much more than a title for those who only governed poor villages, since they, too, had to work diligently in the fields for a living. The Draustem family had a stable and a sheepfold, and they kept some fish in a small pond, while chickens and pigs nibbled at grass in the courtyard. The large man was likely the one taking care of all this.

As simple as it was, the estate was very well taken care of and it appeared a comfortable place to live.

Had this been a fort or small castle built on a hill, then the landlord, his family, and their servants would have been crammed together into very tight quarters. The number of people who could live comfortably as lords was overwhelmingly small.

When they arrived at the house, the large man named Yergin, who was Amalie’s vassal, prepared the guest room.

It also seemed that he and Amalie had not eaten anything for lunch yet, so while they were preparing that, they offered Lawrence and Holo a chance to take a rest.

They were led to a room common for the countryside, with a dirt floor and exposed roof beams, but it was clean, and the straw in the bed was fresh. For Lawrence’s body, which was used to the hard wagon bed, it was enough to feel luxurious.

“Hmm. Now we can relax a bit.”

When they arrived at the house, Holo finally emerged from the wagon bed, and Amalie was happy to see her dressed as a nun but disappointed when she learned the outfit was only a means to an end for their journey.

It seemed this landlady was still thinking about the abbey.

On the other hand, due to the morals she had cultivated at the abbey, Amalie was a bit apprehensive about placing Lawrence and Holo in the same room. So he told her that once he was finished working as a traveling merchant, they were planning on opening a store and getting married.

It was not a lie, but it felt like one since it did not seem real for some reason, and perhaps he was expecting Holo’s mood to improve once he said this.

After they had been led into the room (but before Lawrence could set down any luggage), Holo collapsed onto the bed.

Then she finally talked to him.

“You fool.”

Lawrence packed their things into the long chest in the room and turned back to her.

“You will go anywhere to aid helpless females, will you not?”

The nuance in her words was less “softhearted” and more “cheater.”

“No, actually…”

Lawrence was about to make an excuse when Holo buried her face into the pillow and heaved a long sigh before glancing sideways at him.

“Silence.”

He had no choice but to do what he was told.

Lawrence obediently closed his mouth, and Holo took a deep breath and rustled her tail under her robe. Her expression was more exasperated than angry.

“Sigh…I was displeased by what an inattentive idiot you are, but to think that you were actually a fool who did not notice the ruler of this land was female in the first place!”

It seemed she had completely noticed his surprise when he saw that the girl who appeared from the village head’s house was the landlord.

“You are an extraordinary idiot.”

“I assumed the landlord would be a man.”

Lawrence gave his response, and Holo turned the opposite way in a huff.

However, that was not rejection but something else entirely.

Unwilling to give up, he sighed, then sat down on a corner of the bed that Holo was lying on.

“I had no idea that was why you were in such a bad mood.”

“…”

Holo did not look at him, but the wolf ears on her exposed head were facing him. The triangular ears of the wisewolf could hear the ring of any lie being told.

After moving her ears this way and that for a bit, she slowly turned to face him again.

“Hmph. Why would I be in a bad mood? You are not bold enough to cheat on me, not to mention, you are not handsome enough to attract other females.”

They were meant to be harsh words, but Lawrence desperately held back a laugh.

Holo had been jealous over Lawrence’s apparent eagerness to head toward Hadish in aid of an ignorant girl who had been suddenly called home from a girls’ abbey. Though there was likely nothing between them, he must have seemed oddly worried about this female ruler.

On the other hand, the very same Lawrence had not even considered the possibility that the landlord would be a lady.

Her verbal barb had been the result of experiencing such unnecessary anxiety.

Of course, it was cute.

Lawrence reached out to Holo’s head and ran his fingers through her soft, flaxen-colored hair.

“That may be true.”

The only one who would spend this much time with him was the bighearted wisewolf.

Even if he saw through her facade, no matter how much of an act she put on, that appearance was what counted.

“But you might like watching me gallantly saving troubled girls, huh?”

Her ears twitched as he stroked her head, and she smiled with her eyes closed.

“…Fool.”

Though she was not entirely happy with this detour, she did not stubbornly oppose it, likely for this reason.

Lawrence believed that he and Holo were very similar when it came to their good nature and that she would be proud of him if he helped somebody.

More confidently, he also thought that Holo would find him more attractive.

If he said that out loud, she would laugh at him and drag him through the dirt, but then in the end, she would look at him with eyes filled with expectation. And if he did well, she would praise him.

Her rustling tail had finally fallen silent.

It was quiet for a few moments.

Lawrence leaned over to kiss Holo on the cheek, but her hands suddenly flew up and landed on both sides of his face, holding him there.

“Bathe first.”

She then thrust him aside.

“…Is it really that bad?”

Lawrence sniffed his clothes, but he really could not tell.

But if the princess said so, then he had to obey.

“And you have work to do. It all seemed rather troublesome. Will you be all right? I shall not allow you to endanger yourself around me, aye?”

Despite sulking in the wagon bed, she had clearly heard everything.

But if he mentioned it, she would definitely get mad and refuse to let him hug her tail during the night.

“Your powers could solve this instantly.”

Holo snorted at his declaration, hugging the pillow.

“I am not a dog.”

Lawrence shrugged and stood up.

“Finding a hand mill itself isn’t hard.”

The argument with the villagers that Amalie had explained on the way was essentially about money, starting with the repairs of the water mill.

The structure had been neglected for a long time, and after they called on a repairman, it turned out the work would require quite a lot of money. Though it never really functioned well, it fell apart completely after being neglected in the confusion of the sudden succession. In reality, the mill belonged to the ones who owned the land, but the Draustem family did not have enough funds to repair it on their own. And since it was operated by the fees the villagers paid when they used it, Amalie took Yergin’s advice and came to a very logical solution: collect installation costs from the villagers.

Of course, many villagers objected. Not all of them relied on the water mill to the same extent. The ones who would gain from the installation of the water mill would be the families who owned extensive fields and those with lots of sheep.

Or perhaps, it would be easier for households without young workers to use the water mill by paying money. Even the Draustem family themselves needed the water mill, as they collected wheat as taxes and land usage fees.

On the other hand, what was left over from the fees to use the water mill would not be added to the Draustem family coffers, but instead go toward mending bridges and fixing roads. So until recently, it was a rule that the villagers used the water mill when grinding their wheat into flour.

However, from the perspective of the villagers, whose precious coin would be collected, they wanted to avoid using the mill if they could.

And so, since the time of the previous landlord, the villagers secretly produced hand mills so that they would not have to use the water mill.

Amalie went into direct negotiations to resolve the situation.

“If those hand mills or whatnot are the reason why they refrain from using the water mill, then ’tis logical to retrieve them, but…Hmm, how shall I say this?”

“Precisely. You’re earnest.”

“Unlike you.”

He looked at Holo, and he found a smile beaming on her tilted head.

“You are soft—’tis a compliment.”

Her teasing was proof that she was in a better mood, so he simply left it at that with a shrug.

“So do you plan to help this little girl?”

“I do. The reason why is Miss Amalie. But…”

“But?”

“You heard, too, didn’t you? The water mill catches fire almost every year.”

It was the biggest factor in why Amalie’s explanation was somewhat hard to understand and a key reason the villagers were so opposed to her plan.

“I cannot believe it so readily.”

The water mill was built on a river, and water flowed through the river. And as long as there were no candles around it at night, there was almost no danger of accidental fires.

But when Lawrence had spotted the building from far away, it certainly seemed a bit dark. That had not been mold but the traces of fire.

It seemed that was the reason why the village houses were built so far from one another as well.

“To think that flower field catches fire every summer and becomes a sea of flames…’Tis unthinkable in the land we lived in.”

It was something that happened occasionally to oily flowering plants, and it had the worrying characteristic of blooming in spring and bearing fruit in the summer, when the sunlight would cause it to burst into flames, spreading its seeds to sprout again in the burned fields. Of course, other plants and flowers naturally burned to ash in the fire, so once those flowers began taking root in an area, they soon dominated as the only things left standing.

Misfortune befell the village when these flowers took root one day by chance and flourished.

According to Amalie, they were not around during her grandfather’s time, and out of the entire region, it was only in the vicinity of Hadish where this plant grew.

“So the fire finally dies down around the river, but the nearby flames scorch the water mill, and it keeps falling apart. In the past, the houses would burn whenever there was a brush fire, and since they needed lots of lumber, all the surrounding forests became fields.”

“’Tis quite wise they spaced their houses out to prevent them from all being killed at once.”

The area had few inhabitants because they sacrificed the forests to harvest materials to build their homes, and half the space had been taken over by those purple flowers.

“To make sure the reconstructed water mill stays around a long time, they would need to cut down as many of those flowers as possible before summer comes, but it’s the busy season and the villagers don’t want to help.”

“No water mill means they would not have to go through the trouble, perhaps.”

But if they are unable to grind the wheat into flour, then they could not make bread, and it took too much time to grind by hand. It signaled that, in the bigger picture, the villagers’ productivity would drop—and consequently their tax revenue—and the village’s economy would wither. With the water mill, they could save that time, giving them a chance to cultivate more fields. They could sell the surplus goods in towns and gain the ability to buy many things. From a top-down perspective, it was clearly for the villagers’ sake.

It was apparently Yergin who explained this to Amalie, and Yergin himself learned that from the previous landlord, who seemed to have been a wise ruler.

That being said, others did not always accept sound arguments, which led to the current situation.

“Mr. Yergin said he could confiscate the hand mills by force, but they want to avoid that if possible. It would only cause problems later. So Miss Amalie went to them herself and was hoping the villagers would hand over the mills on their own.”

“Hmm. But would it not be the same if you found and confiscated the mills in secret?”

Holo said this without particularly thinking.

Lawrence smiled ironically and answered.

“No. Mr. Yergin and Miss Amalie live here. But I’m a traveling merchant. It’s the travelers who bring misfortune to villages. If we make it so that I was the one who put an idea into Miss Amalie’s head, then I’ll be the target of the villagers’ resentment. And so when I leave, then the person who everyone hates simply disappears. I don’t think Miss Amalie has thought of this, but it seems like Mr. Yergin is already well aware of how to best use me. That’s probably why they’ve given us such a nice room.”

Traveling merchants, who never settled in one place, derived their value from the very characteristic Lawrence had just described. They brought things the villages needed, then took away what they did not need. Even Holo, who was once called a god who governed the harvests of wheat, had experienced this treatment.

A god could never be a member of a village, and though they were worshipped during farming seasons, they were blamed for bad harvests, and the fault of every other sort of misfortune the god had no control over was still laid at their feet. People could not vent their anger on their fellow villagers, but if they blamed outsiders, all was well that ends well. In the end, once they no longer needed their god, they stopped worshipping it completely.

And so Holo had snuck into Lawrence’s wagon.

When he thought about it, he noticed that the way they met was much like how similar tools were stored away in the same place since there was no other place to put them.

But Lawrence did not consider his job an unhappy one.

Because it was thanks to his work that he had met Holo.

“Don’t make that face.”

Lawrence’s smile was a bit forced. Seeing Holo’s hurt expression, he moved to pinch her small nose.

“Now that I have someone to share my burden with me on the driver’s perch, what else do I need?”

“…Fool.”

She knocked his hand away and spoke grumpily. Only her tail was restless.

“Would you truly be able to find the mills, however? Should the time call for it, I may be able to find them by the scent of the wheat.”

Holo spoke up, but this time, Lawrence showed her a boastful smile.

“If this is a contest of cunning, I won’t lose, you know!”

He puffed out his chest, and after Holo gave him a blank stare, she chuckled.

“Perhaps you have mistaken it for shallow wit.”

“You judge harshly.”

Lawrence shrugged, and Holo intertwined her index finger with his, which she had just been gripping. She was more of a lady than he thought.

So Lawrence, who acknowledged himself as a gentleman, laid out his words tentatively.

“Well, it probably won’t be very fun, so you don’t have to come collect the mills if you don’t want.”

Holo, still smiling, brought Lawrence’s hand up to her mouth and bared her fangs.

“I am quite fond of seeing your face blubbering with tears.”

“Oh, I see we’ll get along, then.”

Holo’s ears and tail twitched happily.

“Fool.”

Holo smiled, leaned her head against him, and kissed his hand.

Then she let go.

“Then I shall be watching how you work.”

Before long, there was a knock on the door and Yergin came to call on them.

The bread they were given was far from fresh, but it was good white bread made from wheat. Moreover, the soup was not simply seasoned with salt and vinegar but had been thickened with bread crumbs, and it contained large chunks of lamb.

But most surprising was the liquor bottle on the table.

“What a gorgeous bottle. It’s a lovely shade of green.”

Once Amalie finished the long, long prayer she had learned from the abbey, the meal finally began in earnest, and Lawrence broached the subject with his curious comment.

“It was my father’s hobby, it seems. There are many things fashioned from glass in the basement of the manor…There are truly so many I thought maybe I could keep some and sell the rest and use that to cover the costs of the water mill, but…”

Amalie spoke apprehensively, and Yergin, sitting uncomfortably at a corner of the table, glanced at Lawrence. His awkwardness stemmed from his large stature but was also likely due to an outlook of his that probably said master and servant did not sit at the same table.

Between the two of them, it seemed there was a great difference in their ways of thinking, and that apparently applied to the glass collection as well.

Amalie, with an impartial spirit, most certainly thought of selling the glass, but for Yergin, there was no doubt that even thinking of such a thing was outrageous. Heirlooms that belonged to the previous landlord were the same as family treasures.

“If you forbade the use of the hand mills, however, you might solve the water mill problem for the time being.” Lawrence offered his suggestion as he broke off a piece of bread and dipped it into his soup. “I’ve seen a similar thing happen somewhere else in the past. I am sure I can help you.”

Then, Yergin sat up straight again. It was as though he realized that Lawrence also understood.

“You can?”

“Yes. Even in wide-open farming villages, there really aren’t that many places to hide things.”

When she heard the word hide, her twinkling expression quickly deflated.

She was most certainly hoping that the villagers would help her of their own free will.

Lawrence took a sip of wine, then spoke like a cruel, money-mad man.

“There’s no need to worry. It is even worse to avoid paying taxes.”

He smiled as though that were simply the course of things.

Amalie grimaced, but she did not look to Yergin because she knew that he was not on her side.

“The installation of the water mill is for the sake of the village, after all. Oh, and of course, I will not do anything that would trouble you, Lady Amalie. I can collect the hand mills.”

“Oh, but you—”

“Of course, it would be difficult to carry the hand mills, so I wish to ask Mr. Yergin’s assistance.”

Amalie was a smart girl. She immediately realized that she needed to distance herself from the dirty work that would take place. But she also had a kind heart that felt confusion and guilt about doing such a thing.

And then there was Yergin, who responded in a hard tone of voice.

“Any time.”

Amalie looked between Lawrence and Yergin with a dejected expression and stared toward her feet. The seat of authority was not as comfortable as some assumed, and it was not meant for everyone.

But Lawrence considered Amalie once more. For better or worse, people could grow used to power.

Some poets called this a worn-down heart, but for whatever reason, the world was not kind to people.

“And it is an unanticipated delight for a traveling merchant to help the lord of a land.”

He said this hinting at his expectation of additional perks.

At that, the taciturn Yergin opened his mouth to speak.

“The Draustem family will reward you for your services.”

He concluded that the wicked one was the merchant who came from the outside for money, and he was the obstinate vassal.

As she watched this exchange, Holo shot a bit of a sympathetic look toward Amalie, but of course, she did not interject. Holo knew better than anyone of the world’s mercilessness.

“Well then, let us go quickly after our meal.”

“Lady Amalie?”

Yergin checked with her, and Amalie raised her head and seemed as though she would say something, but she ended up staring downward again.

Her shoulders shook as she gripped the hemp cloth she had so daintily placed on her lap.

“…Yes, all right…”

Lawrence’s expression suddenly relaxed and not because it had gone exactly as he imagined.

Amalie was softhearted, but she did have the courage to stand up to destiny.

And so all he had to do was cooperate the best he could.

They decided to use Lawrence’s wagon to transport the hand mills. As he was unloading his cargo from the bed, Yergin suddenly spoke.

“Pardon.”

Lawrence did not stop working, but since his eyes met Holo’s, he smiled at him.

“We will be asking a fee for using the wagon.”

Of course, he knew that Yergin was not talking about the wagon.

“And the abbot from Ivan Abbey is relying on me. He’s stingy and thinks of nothing but his abbey and is the kind who has never appropriately rewarded me for my troubles, for carrying his goods. But he said that Lady Amalie is likely in trouble and I should help her.”

That was a merchant’s roundabout way of expressing she was a wonderful person to warrant such a response from the abbot.

Yergin, with the muscles on his shoulders like those of a raging bull, picked up some cargo and gently placed it on the ground.

Though he looked a bit like a bandit, it did not mean he was unrefined.

“I’m sure Lady Amalie will make a great landlord.”

With a smile, Lawrence removed the last of the cargo from the bed.

“It means it will be worth my while to help her.”

Then, once again, Lawrence made his way to the village head’s place. Holo wondered for a moment if she should stay behind with Amalie and comfort her, but Lawrence stopped her. They would soon be leaving the village. That was Yergin’s job. Besides, Yergin would pass away before Amalie would. It was never too early for her to learn while his wisdom was still available to her.

Lawrence headed to the village, pulling the rattling, empty wagon behind him. When he arrived, he found the village head and the others completely unguarded, as they were in the middle of a humble feast.

The furniture had been put away and straw strewn over the hard dirt floor, where the villagers sat around in a circle. Right in the middle was a copper distilling pot. It was likely the village head’s specially brewed ale.

“This—this is…”

Though the village head seemed to be the cleverest of all the villagers, he of course could not hide his confusion.

“Oh, I don’t mind if you stay where you are. I have received the right to collect taxes in the landlady’s stead, so I have come to give notice.”

“The right to collect taxes…Wait, but that is—”

“During the reign of the previous lord, there was a declaration that forbade the use of hand mills, yes? And so by that declaration, I have come to confiscate them.”

He could almost hear the villagers’ hair stand on the back of their necks.

But the village head quickly signaled them with his eyes. It seemed like he gave them a faint nod, perhaps to calm them down.

“Is that so…? But as you can see, we are not sitting around a pile of hand mills. There are no places to hide them in a shack such as this.”

That meant the others were already hidden.

Lawrence did not change the smile on his face and nodded.

“Indeed. Unlike town houses, the beams supporting the roofs are exposed, and so you cannot hide them in the ceiling. The floor is not made of boards but of packed earth. It would be obvious if you buried them in the ground, and of course, it would be difficult to dig them back up.”

The villagers were bewildered by his sudden statements.

“So what about the fields? It would be easy to search them. One simply needs to poke the ground with a stick. And all the crops have already been planted for this season. There should be no large holes.”

One or two villagers gulped. Yergin would pick out those who did.

“I’m sure there are plenty of spaces to hide them in the backyards of the houses and on the roads to the fields, but one would be able to tell from far away by how the weeds grew if they were dug up. I’m sure it’s possible to hide them in the field on the other side of the river, but I doubt anyone would be willing to carry a hand mill that far. Which means?”

Lawrence looked around and peered into the kitchen one room over, no door separating the continuous stretch of dirt floor.

“Inside the stove…which would mean the hand mills would be rather big. And the shaft would burn, too.”

Then where would they hide them? A good part about being a traveling merchant was that he had visited many lands and he had learned that no matter the place, everyone thought the same way.

“Something that would always be included when building a house and difficult to tell if it has been turned over and somewhere that no one thinks to bother with.”

Lawrence turned on his heel and stood before Holo, who rested in the doorway, watching. She stared blankly up at him, and when he respectfully motioned for her to move, beneath her was a stone slab.

“People are constantly passing through here, so the earth quickly hollows out.”

So it would be easy to dig a hole and then place the stone above it. And as the tax collector searched the house, the owner would typically stand around the doorway anxiously, so it was the biggest blind spot.

When Yergin took the metal stick to be used as a lever in his hands, the village head sadly gritted his teeth and looked down.

“Even if we use the water mill, it will only burn in the wildfire…”

They would need to either cut away the whole lot of those ridiculous purple flowers or at least prune the area around the mill. Such worthless plants, during such a busy season.

“I can assure you as a merchant…,” Lawrence said, “that having a water mill would be for the benefit of all the village.”

Yergin pried away the stone slab, and beneath it was a hand mill.

Though there were several houses they could not find hand mills in, those families likely did not have one. He did casually glance at Holo to make sure, but had the villagers been lying, she would have signaled to him.

In the end, they collected seventeen hand mills.

The cart horse snorted unhappily as it pulled the heavily laden wagon along.

“We managed it without force.”

Yergin suddenly spoke, unclear if he was talking to himself or saying it as thanks.

“Craftiness is a merchant’s strength.”

Lawrence made his remark as he gripped the reins.

“The problem is Lady Amalie, correct?”

He thought for a moment that Yergin would hit him, but he only groaned.

“She seems to be a bit too kind to be a landlord.”

“…It is unthinkable that the people would be happy to pay taxes. Even if it is for their benefit.”

“That hits a little close to home.”

Traveling merchants cheated on customs tariffs and plotted in order to avoid every sort of taxes towns imposed on their people. Even if they knew the tax would expand infrastructure in the town, making it safer, gathering people from all around, and expanding trade.

“Worse, she might run out of money to repair the water mill again. When that happens, she might have to resort to even harsher methods.”

There would not be any more hand mills to collect next time.

“Is there any other way?”

When Yergin asked this, Holo glanced at Lawrence. She was trying to discourage him from getting too deeply involved, so he patted her head to reassure her.

“I’ve done trade in many different towns, and I’ve seen taxes of every kind. I can think of quite a few.”

“…So that really is our only choice.”

“Well, there is the option of finding something that would make the villagers rich.”

Without a means to make or gain money, there was no way they could pay.

“…We are not merchants.”

“Of course.”

Lawrence answered simply, but he imagined that every time Amalie levied a new tax, the soft parts of her heart would chip away.

“With my knowledge of trade, I might be able…”

But before he could finish his thought…

“Lady Amalie?”

They could see Amalie jogging her way toward the manor, coming from a different direction. She held something heavy looking in her arms, and her steps were unsteady.

Then, she disappeared into the back garden.

It seemed that she had gone out somewhere while they were collecting the hand mills.

“What is she doing?”

“Mm…”

It seemed Yergin did not know, either. Thinking Holo might know, Lawrence looked to her, and she seemed surprised at first but then smiled somewhat happily.

He learned why as they reached the manor.

“Y…young miss?”

They found Amalie sitting at the table where they had lunch, and Yergin, without thinking, called her that.

“I thought you promised me you would not call me that anymore.”

Amalie’s response was sharp.

She had her sleeves rolled up while she fiddled with what she had spread out on the table.

It was the purple flowers that had brought disaster to the village.

“These are the culprits, after all,” Amalie continued to explain. “If there was a use for these flowers, then the villagers would be happy to cut them down, and we would be able to protect the water mill.”

This was not the girl who had been thrown about by fate, too helpless to do anything but shed tears.

“And you are a traveling merchant, Mr. Lawrence. If a distant land has need for these flowers, then you will be able to go and sell them for us.”

Holo shot him a teasing glance, as though asking You will?

But he had no other choice but to give one answer.

“Of course. If there are profits to be had.”

That was the one point he refused to negotiate on.

“For now, why don’t we try using it in cooking? I learned how to use fragrant grasses at the abbey. This flower has a nice scent, you know.”

This pioneer had already come up with some ideas.

Suggestions were easy to come up with, but it was more important to have the resolve to follow through.

“If we place it on a thick beef shoulder steak, it may impart a nice flavor.”

“What else?”

“Maybe submerging it in low-quality wine?”

Amalie nodded, placed her hand on her chin, then made another suggestion.

“Perhaps we may be able to eat it as is?”

Yergin cleared his throat.

“That is the one thing I wish not to try again. Whether boiled or fried.”

It seemed he had already thoroughly tried it, and his conclusion was that eating the flowers straight was not bearable.

“And it must be too fragrant, because none of the sheep, cows, or pigs will eat it.”

If it could serve as fodder for the livestock, then the villagers would be happy to turn their animals loose in the flower fields. It was clear to see why no one did.

“It wouldn’t be enough if we just sold them as decorations or fragrances for cooking.”

The flowers came from a practically endless field.

“Then why don’t we place the flower into a scented sachet? We did that often with the herbs we grew at the abbey.”

Young girls to old madams gathered at the all-women abbey, and it must have been an elegant, calming sight to watch them sew the sachets, needle in hand.

“Scented sachets are a thing, and this flower does have a strong, sweet scent. But it certainly isn’t something that sells a lot. I can’t foresee anything like that could sell so much that it would make a difference.”

The question was, would people be more likely to buy a nice-smelling petal or nice-smelling bread?

Not to mention that once someone bought a scented bag, they would not need to buy another one for a while.

“Even if we sell a little bit in one town, then why not sell in many towns?”

“It’s possible the goods might get caught in the rain on the way, and dried-out petals would be light but a burden. The wagon bed is not that big. Selling just one tankard full at one town does not quite make for a lucrative business, and I can’t imagine such a small amount will reduce the field.”

Amalie bit her nails in frustration, but it did not seem to mean she had given up.

“Then…all right. If they burn well, then why not use them as daily fuel?”

“There must be a reason why the villagers aren’t already doing that.”

Lawrence countered her suggestion, and Yergin continued for him.

“We would find ourselves in trouble if those flowers crossed the river and took root on this side as well. They are also a symbol of fire. To store those in our houses would prevent anyone from having a good night’s sleep.”

This was not a problem that could be solved in a hurry. Though they were villagers, these people were not foolish, and their previous landlord was a wise ruler.

But Amalie did not seem discouraged. Lawrence could tell that she was fully aware of her ignorance about the world. She had already prepared herself.

“I will think of something.”

It was a confident declaration.

“If anything, I did a lot of thinking at the abbey.”

“Young miss…”

The large Yergin murmured, his eyes bleary.

“I thought I told you to stop calling me that,” Amalie quipped again, smiling bitterly. “I am now the head of this family.”

Lawrence gave Holo a little poke on her back and took a flower in his hand.

“Then let us brainstorm.”

Though they spoke so enthusiastically, reality was not as sweet as the flower’s scent. They thought about this and that until the evening, and once they ran out of ideas, the candle finally burned out, signaling a stop for the night.

Another tallow candle was lit for them, and Yergin offered them some ale to help them sleep—it must have been his way of giving thanks. They happily accepted.

Once Lawrence returned to their room, he found Holo, who had returned a bit earlier than him, sitting by the open window grooming her tail by the light of the moon.

“This feels like a dream.”

Lawrence spoke as he closed the door, and Holo, as she bit the strands of hair on her tail that had gone crooked, did not seem particularly happy.

“No good thing ever happens when you compliment me.”

“You caught me.”

He poured the ale he had received from Yergin into a wooden mug and handed it to Holo.

She took the mug and quickly went to drink it, and her hands stopped.

“When they brew it, either the flowers are used as fuel or the scent simply hangs heavy in the village air.”

They noticed that aroma plenty in the dining room, and it smelled so much like flowers that it nearly drove them crazy. Holo was typically happy to try unconventional ale, but she was predictably fed up with it.

“Hmm…Well, the wheat is not bad.”

She gulped it down and finished with a cough.

“But how useless it is.”

“The purple flowers, you mean?”

Lawrence poured more ale into her mug, which had gone empty in an instant.

She looked at him uncertainly and deliberately puffed out her fluffy tail.

“What else could be so good for nothing?”

“Well…There’s the traveling merchant’s cunning.”

Lawrence smiled, and Holo chugged the ale again, then skillfully fell backward onto the bed.

“You’re going to spill that someday.”

“’Tis a dream of mine to fall asleep soaked in liquor.”

“That’s silly. Come on.”

He reached out for the mug of ale sitting on her stomach, and she obediently handed it to him.

It seemed the gears in her head were still churning behind her closed eyelids.

“To think that I, once called the Wisewolf of Yoitsu, would ever fret so much over what to do with a flower…”

“If you could concoct amazing ideas for trading goods one after the other, I would have become the president of a company a long time ago.”

“Fool. I would be saving the money, so ’twould all be mine.”

She rolled over onto her stomach, rested her chin on her arms, and wagged her tail back and forth.

Perhaps she was imagining a hoard of riches the height of mountains and a luxurious life filled with drink and meat.

“But flowers…”

Lawrence groaned, then Holo came to sit beside him. Her tail smacked him gently on the back.

“If only they were roses.”

“Oh?”

“Townspeople use roses a lot in festivals and such, so you can sell them in bunches. People cover the roads with them when royalty and nobility come visit as well. And even farther south, businesses use them in expensive food and candies; they’re really popular.”

“Ohhh?”

She drew closer to him, as if very interested in hearing more. Lawrence quickly gave a disclaimer, saying he only had some secondhand information before continuing.

“Apparently almond milk, rose water, and sugar are all necessities for noble banquets. And especially, when they mix them all together, it makes a thick and sweet soup that smells of flowers. Then you boil that with rice and drink it with raspberry cider after the meal. Or you can add ginger to make it refreshing and then boil with quail or duck. Those weakened by illness get better almost immediately after drinking this, I’ve heard.”

Holo had completely forgotten to blink, and she gulped.

Though they had already taken their meal while they were brainstorming in the dining room, it seemed she could still eat more. While he found himself exasperated, he also thought it was funny to see this silly side of Holo, strung along by her appetite, and he continued.

“What’s even more amazing is the candy from the countries with deep-blue seas, where more than half the year could be counted as summer.”

Holo grasped the clothes around his waist, her tail whipping back and forth.

“Even in hot countries, where they harvest dates, there are amazingly tall mountains that have ice hidden on their peaks all year round. In the boiling heat, the nobles send their servants up the mountainsides and have them cut out some ice. Then, they shave it with blades to make fluffy snow, mix it with sugar, then finally cover it in rose water, the skin of a tart fruit they call lemon boiled with honey, and honey itself.”

He piled snow into an imaginary bowl and pretended to pour honey over it, and Holo’s eyes followed his hands in fascination.

“Then, when it’s all cold, they eat it with a silver spoon. It makes a crunch inside their mouths, and the cold, tart honey rolls down their throat…Ow, ouch…Holo!”

She was gripping his thigh, her nails digging into his flesh.

“…We must…go south after this…”

“No. We are not.”

He regretted getting so carried away.

“It’s more expensive than honeyed peaches anyway, so we can’t afford it in the first place.”

“Ohhh…”

Holo suddenly seemed like she would cry and then bit into his leg.

“Ouch, that hurts!”

As she dug her fangs into his legs, as though wanting him to suffer with her, Holo suddenly raised her head.

“Sheesh, my clothes might rip…”

“But wait.”

“What is it now?”

“There is ice in the north, as well as honey. Lemon, well…we must use another sort of fruit instead, and one may find sugar in port towns, aye?”

Holo had been learning unnecessary things on her merchant’s journey.

“If there were, then who would pay that much for it?”

Her tail smacked him on his back.

“And rose water? It exists, yes? Is it also expensive?”

“What?”

Lawrence questioned her while Holo mumbled something to herself with a distant look. She must have been using all the knowledge she had gained thus far and was thinking about how she might be able to make ice candy.

Then suddenly, when consciousness returned to her eyes, they wavered with angry flames and turned on Lawrence.

“Which do you think is more valuable: the price of that rose water or whatnot or the warmth from my tail on cold nights, hmm?”

Even the highest-quality wolf fur was inferior to deer fur, and deer fur was not as good as rabbit fur, and rabbit fur was no match for fox fur, but even fox fur was nothing compared to that of the ermine. Ermine fur could be traded as is for silver trenni coins, and if one wanted to buy rose water they would have to trade the same weight in gold. This fact would deeply hurt her pride as a wolf.

However, Lawrence was not worried she would rip him to shreds because she had made some sort of misunderstanding.

“All the wolf fur lined up in a market might not be able to buy a single drop of rose water.”

Holo’s eyes widened. She was speechless.

Before long her hands began to tremble, then her shoulders, then her ears, then her tail.

As she lifted her upper lip, showing the two sharp canines beneath, Lawrence spoke.

“But do you know what it is you put on your tail?”

“…Huh?”

The tail that she constantly combed and caressed day in and day out without rest was puffed out so large in just the slightest bit of anger, and the ends of the hairs glinted like thin bundles of glass.

What was it that gave it that sheen and a sweet scent that tickled his nose?

Holo gazed at her own tail, then turned toward Lawrence.

“The warmth of your tail is much more expensive than any rose water. So, so much more.”

Lawrence dropped his shoulders with a sigh.

“You can’t find the oil you use at an oil merchant’s. It was from an apothecary. And it would be absolutely absurd to use it in cooking. But since you picked it out only by scent and bought it without looking at the price, and well, that simply shows how good your nose is. You managed to pick out the most expensive thing from the apothecary without a second thought.”

Holo pestered him for expensive things whenever he made a foolish blunder of equal worth, so Lawrence could never protest with much strength. And so he would loosen the string around his coin purse as he was told, and Holo bought what she wanted without much hesitation. But this was typically something that the women of nobility used and not something a merchant would give as a present to his daughter.

Plenty of which had been rubbed into the tail of one blank-eyed Holo.

“That is collected from the clear top layer that appears when rose water is made, and then it’s diluted in different oil. Of course, there are tales of a tyrant of a large empire from long ago who gave it as gift to a princess, but it didn’t compare to undiluted, refined oil pressed from even a single rose petal. According to legend, after using as many flower petals that equaled the weight of ten fat horses, the tyrant finally managed to fill a small vial the size of the tip of his pinkie. But even the perfumed oil that you use would need a wagonful of…”

Lawrence got that far in his story when his words caught.

“Full of…”

“…Hello?”

Holo wore a nervous expression on her face and peered up at him from below.

Then Lawrence suddenly whipped around.

He looked not at Holo’s worried face but to her fluffy, wagging tail.

“A wagonful?”

“Fwa?!”

Holo let out an odd cry and tried to stand up.

Lawrence did not even notice as he gripped her tail and stared hard at it.

“O-oh, my tail…You’re so violent—”

Holo’s face had gone red, and in an attempt to escape, she wriggled her tail like a fish. But Lawrence’s grip was firm, and he would not let go. He was not even really examining her tail. He was too busy piecing together all the things he had seen in the village in intense concentration.

They had fuel. They had tools. They had materials. Everything needed was already on hand. Not only that, it was the sort of thing where the result was guaranteed before they even started. On top of all this, the product was not the bulky kind.

“This is it! This is the answer!”

Lawrence finally raised his head from his sea of ideas and showed Holo a smile.

Then, when he finally realized that her face was red and there were tears brimming at the edges of her eyes, it was much too late.

“You…fool!”

She puffed out her cheeks as far as she could.

But even if she fell from the bed at that very moment, Lawrence could not stop smiling.

“This could be something amazing!”

He leaped up hand in hand with Holo, who was still sadly checking to see if he had left an odd mark on her tail from gripping it so tightly.

She recoiled at his outburst, slightly frightened.

“And it’ll be useful for the maintenance of your tail!”

Holo, whose tail had just been treated horribly, was about to say something, but Lawrence gave her hand a tug and she almost tumbled from the bed.

“W-wait, wait, you!”

“Come on—what are you doing? Let’s go!”

He grasped the tallow candle on the candlestand on the wall and opened the door.

“We can help these people and make a fortune, too!”

Holo sighed in irritation, but she did not shake off Lawrence’s hand.

Here we go again crossed her face for a moment, but a small smile of amusement appeared afterward.

The flowers, full of oil that could catch fire by just the light of the summer sun, as well as possessing an effusive aroma, bloomed endlessly before them.

In the very center of that flower field, they prepared a copper distilling pot with a narrowed opening in the shape of a flattened jar, clay, and the glass vials that Amalie’s father had so passionately collected.

Once the fuel was lit, they could gather as much as they needed from the field afterward.

With everything they had readied, they would be able to turn the purple flower field that only brought disaster into a product that could be traded for gold.

“Something like this?”

The landlady Amalie had her sleeves rolled up and was stuffing clay into the mouth of the distilling pot. It was filled to the brim with flower petals and water she had drawn from the river.

“And then, into this glass bottle…”

Skillfully combining it with the clay, Lawrence attached the thin mouth of the glass bottle diagonally. In reality, they would ask a specialist glassmaker to create a pipe or prepare a copper tube, but this was just a makeshift version.

They first had to be certain if it was possible.

“And now I will light it.”

The one that spoke uneasily was the representative of the villagers, the village head. The villagers all looked very unsettled, wondering what on earth they would do with boiled flowers in a distilling pot, as they watched from a distance.

They should have all the tools and procedures they needed.

Lawrence watched as he lit the fire, the stems and leaves plucked from the flowers also catching, and the smoke rose into the air.

“And…so?”

Amalie, who stood beside him, asked as though giving a prayer.

When he told her his idea the night before, she had been just as excited—if not even more so—than he was and nearly went straight into the field with sickle in hand, but Yergin managed somehow to hold her back. It seemed, however, that she had not been able to get any sleep due to her excitement, and the circles under her eyes were as dark as ash.

Yergin lamented that she should have maintained her dignity as a landlord, but despite how tired she looked, she behaved quite lively.

Though she looked meek, perhaps that did not mean she preferred being absorbed in meditation.

“Once it starts boiling, the steam will seep into the glass bottle. Then, we chill it with water.”

The villagers, who were neglecting their farmwork to answer the call to gather here, were all holding wooden buckets and standing at attention, however reluctantly.

“It won’t be long now…Look.”

The inside of the bottle clouded. Lawrence signaled to the villagers, and they all shuffled their feet while retrieving water and began pouring it onto the bottle.

“This is how the steam will cool and become water.”

The sound of bubbling, boiling water came from inside the distilling pot, and steam silently steeped into the glass bottle. Though it was spring, the mountains upstream were still in a snowy season, so the waters from the river were cold. Whenever they poured water onto the glass, it cooled, and they could see the inside.

“There is more and more water…”

Amalie raised her voice in surprise.

“Is that…oil…on the water surface?”

“It looks like it’s a success.”

Gathering near the mouth of the leaning glass bottle was a film of oil.

It already smelled strongly of flowers around them, and under the hood that covered her eyes, Holo pressed her hand against her mouth.

After watching them repeat the same activity for a while, Lawrence reached out to remove the glass bottle.

But Yergin interrupted him.

“It will be my job to endlessly carry on this work now.”

Or perhaps it was his way of making sure a guest did not get burned.

Lawrence smiled and gave his spot to Yergin.

His thick palms gently grasped the glass bottle and released it from the clay, making sure the contents did not spill.

“Whoa.”

“What a smell!”

The scent that wafted from it was so tremendous that the surrounding villagers unwittingly cried out.

And when held up to the sun, there was a clear divide between water and oil in the bottle.

Yergin pointed the opening of the bottle toward his mistress, Amalie.

Then she dipped her finger into the oil slightly and wiped it onto the cloth she had prepared.

“…Incredible.”

That was all she could manage, shocked as she was.

“It will take a lot of flowers to make perfumed oil, but that’s not a problem here. And an apothecary will dilute such a strong perfume with oil before quickly selling it off. A traveling merchant like myself only needs a bit of the original oil in a small vial. It would be fine in the rain and wouldn’t put too much pressure on my wagon.”

He did not know how much they would be able to sell, but at least they would have a lot, and it smelled wonderful.

It seemed Lawrence could safely expect the villagers to cut more than enough flowers.

“The only problem is…”

When Lawrence spoke up again, Amalie, who had been engrossed in sniffing the oil she rubbed on the cloth, as well as Yergin, Holo, and the village head, looked at him.

“…once you finish working on this, whatever you eat that night will smell sweet.”

Everyone laughed, and Yergin even clapped.

“This wise traveler has shared splendid wisdom with us. Now, we must overcome this challenge that God has given us and make this field of flowers our boon!”

There was a veritable mountain of flowers to be cut, and then the villagers had to pluck the stems before drying them, all so they would burn better.

Not only that, they had to carry on with their normal farmwork, and once the season changed, the flowers would fall.

There was no time to stand around.

The place suddenly burst into a hive of activity, and Lawrence, in a very traveler-like manner, took one, then two quiet steps away.

Then a hand landed on his shoulder with a thud.

“Oh.”

He turned around, and it was Holo.

“How about it? Aren’t you impressed with my cunning?”

She would allow him to puff out his chest in pride a little.

When he spoke, and as soon as she showed him an exasperated smile under the hood she had pulled down to her nose, she twisted her body and drove her fist straight into his stomach.

“Guh?!”

“’Tis the grudge for my tail, you fool.”

“Augh…”

It did not hurt that much, but his body buckled in surprise.

Then Holo peered at Lawrence’s face when it grew closer, and there was quite a scary smile on her face that he could see even with the intervening cloth, and then she spoke.

“I shall never, ever forget that you mussed up my tail.”

“N-no, wait—”

“And so…”

Holo drew closer.

“…from now on, you must maintain my tail as finely as you possibly can. You have now earned the goodwill of this land’s ruler and stand to make quite the fortune, aye?”

“Wha—? No, we don’t even know if it’ll sell…”

“Oh, do you not wish to continue sleeping in warmth at night?”

Her reddish-amber eyes glinted like boiled fruit.

Though he had come here for the tantalizing promise of making a quick profit, it did not seem like his wallet would be getting any fatter in the end.

“…Okay.”

He replied obediently, and Holo grinned like an innocent girl.

Then, she spoke.

“I must clean out your wallet regularly, after all.”

“…”

He looked at her, and she happily clung to his arm.

The villagers were busily working while Yergin and Amalie were in the middle of a heated conversation.

They suddenly noticed the two of them and came over with attractive, beaming smiles.

“Mr. Lawrence, there is no doubt that you are a gift from God!”

When she said that, Lawrence responded with a troubled smile, lightly raising his hand.

His other arm was in the grip of a greedy wolf, making sure he would not be taken away.

“I’m nothing of the sort. If anything, I’m more like a sacrifice for someone who was once called a god…,” he murmured quietly to himself.

“’Tis the pleasure of the merchant-sort to help others.”

Holo’s tail wagged underneath her robe as she made the remark.

Lawrence gazed up at the beautiful blue sky. Winter had ended, and it was nearly spring.

That was the story of a field of flowers that filled his entire body with sweetness whenever the wind blew.

Standing before the dusty shed, Lawrence finally awoke from the memories that wafted from the small vial.

It seemed that its potency had not faded over the years.

“Now I remember. Myuri wasn’t at all interested in this little vial.”

“While it may smell nice, and while it is sweet, it cannot be eaten, after all.”

Myuri was too much of a child to be content with simply enjoying the scent of flowers.

“That fool was much more interested in hiding the hand mill. ’Tis why it may be hiding in a place that does not occur to us.”

Their only daughter, Myuri, loved pranks more than anything and was obsessed with treasure hunting as well as adventure stories.

“That reminds me of a certain someone…”

“Yes, of you, how you are obsessed with treasure and how you try stuff as much as you can in that purse of yours.”

“No, I’m thinking of someone who will pick out the best piece of jerky from a bag of rations and hide it for later.”

“No, you fool.”

“Oh ho. It seems there are things even the wisewolf doesn’t know.”

“I surely know much more than you!”

The two continued this back-and-forth as they knocked shoulders, exiting the shed together and walking back to the main house. Though they bickered, their hands were clasped together tightly.

Wafting behind them as they walked was a sweet scent.

It was not that of a flower, however, but something entirely different.

Perhaps it was the fragrance of happiness.