Spice and Wolf - Volume 3 - Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

The town of Kumersun rose early.

Lawrence crossed the broad north-south avenue and headed west toward the trading company. Here and there on the way, he spotted many people erecting what looked like signposts.

Lawrence glanced at them as he ran with Mark’s apprentice. They seemed to indeed be signposts of some kind, but he could not tell what was written on them. It was a script he had never seen before, and the signs were decorated with flowers, turnips, or bundles of hay.

Undoubtedly they were used in the Laddora festival, which began today, but Lawrence had no time to investigate.

The boy was fleet of foot and showed no signs of tiring, perhaps from being worked so hard day in and day out by Mark. Lawrence had a fair amount of confidence in his own stamina but was hard-pressed to keep up. It was just as he was running short of breath that they arrived at the trading company.

The normally forbidding, tightly closed doors of the company were thrown open. A handful of merchants stood at the entrance, wine cups already in hand despite the early hour.

Their attention had been directed into the building, but upon noticing Lawrence’s arrival, they beckoned him in with gusto.

“Hey! It’s the man himself! Haschmidt the Knight has arrived!”

Hearing the name Haschmidt, Lawrence now knew for a certainty that Mark’s apprentice had been neither jesting nor lying.

There was a romantic tale from the country of Eleas, a passionate nation of seas and vineyards.

The protagonist was Hendt La Haschmidt, a knight of the royal court.

However, Lawrence was far from happy to be called a knight.

Haschmidt the Knight fought bravely for Ilesa, the princess he loved. He challenged Prince Philip the Third to a duel for the right to her hand and died a tragic death.

Lawrence ascended the stone steps, pushing through the jeering merchants into the trading company.

Their gazes pierced him, spearlike, as though he was a criminal about to be crucified.

There at the back of the room, at the counter behind which sat the master of the firm, was his Prince Philip the Third.

“I say again!” cried a reedy, boyish voice that echoed through the lobby.

It was Amati—not wearing the standard oiled-leather coat of the fishmonger, but rather an aristocratic formal robe. He looked every inch the young son of a nobleman.

He leveled his gaze directly at Lawrence as the entire assemblage of merchants held their breath.

Right then and there, Amati held up a dagger and a sheet of parchment and made his declaration.

“I will pay the debt that now weighs upon the slender shoulders of this traveling nun—and when this goddess of loveliness does regain her freedom, I swear by Saint Lambardos, who watches over this Rowen Trade Guild, that Holo the nun will have my undying love!”

A commotion arose in the hall, laughter mixing with cries of admiration to create a strangely feverish atmosphere.

Amati ignored the noise. He lowered his hands and spun the dagger around, gripping it by the blade and holding the hilt out to Lawrence.

“Miss Holo has told me of her misfortune and ill treatment. I thus propose to use my fortune and position as a free man to regain for her the feathers of freedom, and furthermore to wed her.”

Lawrence instantly recalled Mark’s words the previous day.

Men his age will do anything to gain the object of their obsession.

He regarded the hilt thrust at him with a bitter gaze and then looked at the parchment.

Amati was just far enough away that Lawrence could not make the writing out, but it surely reiterated what the boy had just said in more concrete terms. The red seal at the bottom left of the sheet was probably not wax, but blood.

In regions without a public witness, or when one needed a contract with far more weight than a public witness could provide, there was contract law. The party who put their blood seal upon the contract would give the knife they used to the opposite party and swear an oath in God’s name.

If the first party failed to fulfill the contract, they would be bound to kill the opposing party with that knife or else turn it to their own throat.

As soon as Lawrence took the knife offered to him by Amati, the contract would be sealed.

Lawrence did not move. He’d had not the slightest inkling that Amati’s infatuation would come to this.

“Mr. Lawrence.” The words were as piercing as Amati’s gaze.

Neither flimsy excuses nor disregard would sway the boy, Lawrence guessed.

Desperate to buy himself some time, he said, “It is true that Holo is indebted to me and that she prays for me as we travel to repay that debt, but she will not necessarily abandon our journeying once that debt is lifted.”

“True. But I am confident she will for my sake.”

A murmur ran through the crowd, which was impressed at Amati’s audacity.

He didn’t seem drunk, but he was the very image of Philip the Third.

“Also, while she may not be perfectly devout, Holo is a nun, which makes marriage—”

“If you are worried that I do not fully understand the situation, then your concern, sir, is misplaced. I am aware that Holo is unattached to any convent.”

Lawrence snapped his mouth shut to avoid the expletive that came to mind.

There were two types of so-called traveling nuns. The first type were women in a church-sanctioned mendicant order that nonetheless lacked a fixed base of operations. The second type were totally self-styled, unattached to any Church organization.

Such self-proclaimed itinerant nuns made up the greater part of the group, and they referred to themselves as such simply for the convenience it afforded them while traveling. Since they were not officially attached to any Church organization, they were not disallowed from marriage the way true nuns are.

Amati knew Holo was a self-styled nun, so it was too late to arrange any sort of pretense with a convent now.

Amati continued speaking, his voice smooth and confident. “It is in truth not my desire to propose a contract to you thus, Mr. Lawrence. No doubt everyone here thinks me like Philip the Third from the tale of Haschmidt the Knight. However, according to Kumersun law, when a woman is indebted, her creditor is considered to be her guardian. Of course—”

Amati paused, clearing his throat, then continued, “If you will unconditionally assent to my proposal of marriage, there is no need for this contract.”

This sort of rare competition over a woman made for the best drinking stories.

The assembled merchants spoke in low tones as they watched the developing drama.

Most experienced merchants would not take Lawrence and Holo’s relationship at face value. It would have been the height of naiveté to think that an indebted nun was really paying off her obligation by praying for her creditor as they traveled. It was much more likely that she didn’t want to be sold off by whoever held her debt or that she was traveling with him simply because she wanted to.

Amati certainly realized this and undoubtedly thought it was the former.

Freeing the poor, beautiful maiden from the bonds of debt was a moral imperative that justified this ridiculous display of gallantry, Amati must have felt.

And even if he didn’t think this, Lawrence still came away looking like the villain.

“Mr. Lawrence, will you accept this contract dagger?”

The merchants looked on, grinning silently.

The traveling merchant was about to lose his fetching companion to the young fishmonger out of sheer inattentiveness.

It made for rare entertainment—and there was no acceptable way for Lawrence to escape.

His only option was to best Amati by being the nobler man.

In any case, he didn’t believe that if Holo’s debt were paid she would stop traveling with him just because Amati told her to.

“I am not so careless to agree to a contract I have not read,” Lawrence said.

Amati nodded, withdrawing the knife and extending the contract to Lawrence.

Lawrence walked toward Amati, watched by everyone in the room, and took the parchment, scanning its contents quickly.

As he expected, what was written there was a more tortuously worded version of the declaration Amati had just made.

What Lawrence was most interested in was the amount that Amati proposed to pay.

What had Holo claimed her debt to be?

For Amati to be so brimming with confidence, it had to be a relatively small amount.

Finally, he found the amount in one of the lines of the contract.

For a moment, he doubted his eyes.

One thousand pieces of trenni silver.

Relief washed over him, bodily.

“I assume this contract is to your satisfaction?”

Lawrence checked again, making sure there were no obvious traps hidden in the contract’s language. He also looked for any points he might turn to his own advantage.

But the contract language was stiff enough to leave no such room to trip up the first party.

Lawrence had no choice but to return Amati’s contract.

“Understood,” he said, handing the contract back to the boy and looking him in the eye.

Lawrence reached out to grasp the knife, and the contract was sealed.

Every merchant in the hall—and more importantly, the patron saint of the trade guild, Saint Lambardos—was witness to the dagger contract.

The merchants raised their voices in a cry, clinking their cups together, bringing an end to the entertainment.

Amid the din, the two men looked at each other and left the contract parchment and dagger with the firm’s master.

“The terms of the contract extend until the end of the festival—sundown tomorrow, in other words. Will that do?”

Lawrence nodded. “Bring the thousand trenni in cash. I will not accept a partial payment or anything less than that.”

Even if Amati was the sort of merchant that routinely hauled three wagonloads of fresh fish, there was no way he would be able to simply produce one thousand trenni. If he were that successful, Lawrence would know about it.

Of course, if it was stock whose worth amounted to a thousand trenni, that could easily be produced.

To put it in the ugliest manner possible, this agreement amounted to Amati buying Holo for a thousand pieces of silver. Assuming Amati had no intention of trying to resell her somewhere else, it was as though a thousand pieces of silver were simply moving from Amati’s pocket to Lawrence’s.

If that was the case, Amati would surely have problems paying for his next day’s stock of fish. Even if by some wild chance Holo did accept his proposal of marriage, what awaited them was a difficult future. The minstrels might claim that coin could not buy love, but the opposite was also true.

“In that case, Mr. Lawrence, we’ll meet again here tomorrow.”

His face still betraying his heightened emotion, Amati strode out of the guild hall. No one said a word to him, and soon all eyes were on Lawrence.

If he did not say something here, all would think him a mere rube taken for a ride by the cleverer Amati.

Lawrence straightened his collar. “I don’t expect my companion will follow him simply because her debt has been lifted.”

A grand huzzah arose from the gathered merchants, immediately followed by cries of “Double for Lawrence, four times for Amati—who’s betting?”

It was a salt merchant of Lawrence’s acquaintance who offered his services as a bookmaker—he caught Lawrence’s eye and grinned.

The fact that the odds for Lawrence were lower meant that the merchants in this hall thought Amati’s chances of winning were worse. The sense of relief he’d felt at seeing the sum of one thousand trenni in the contract was not wild-eyed optimism. Common sense dictated that Amati had overextended himself.

The bets rolled in, the majority of them on Lawrence. The more money that was placed on his odds for victory, the more his confidence grew.

Though his blood had run cold momentarily when Amati had made his proposal of marriage, the odds of it happening in reality were low.

Not only were the numbers against Amati—Lawrence took solace in knowing there was another barrier he would have to surmount.

Amati could never marry Holo unless she gave her assent.

On this point, Lawrence had absolute confidence.

There was no way Amati could know that Holo was traveling with Lawrence to the northlands.

He had told Holo already that knowledge was a merchant’s best friend and that an ignorant trader was like a soldier walking blindfolded onto a battlefield.

Amati’s situation was a perfect example. Even if he did manage to run all over town and scrape together a thousand trenni, in all likelihood Holo would remain with Lawrence as they traveled north.

He mulled the subject over as he apologized to the master for the unavoidable commotion and then put the guild hall behind him.

It seemed prudent to leave before the merchants finished placing their bets and the attention returned to him. He did not want to be the appetizer for their drinking.

Once Lawrence made his way through the considerable crowd and out of the hall, he recognized a familiar face.

It was Batos, who had introduced him to Diana the chronicler.

“It seems you’ve gotten wrapped up in quite a to-do.”

Lawrence grinned, embarrassed, at which Batos smiled sympathetically.

Batos then continued ominously, “However, I think the young Mr. Amati has hit on a way to raise the capital.”

Lawrence’s smile disappeared at Batos’s unexpected statement. “Surely not.”

“I can’t say it’s the most admirable method, of course.”

He couldn’t be doing anything like Lawrence did in Ruvinheigen.

Kumersun lacked the steep import tariffs of Ruvinheigen, and with no tariffs, there was no point in smuggling.

“It won’t be long before the news is all over town, so I can’t say too much. If I show too much support for you, it wouldn’t be fair to poor Amati—after all, he screwed up his courage and made that impressive declaration. But I wanted to give you some warning.”

“Why?”

Batos grinned boyishly. “Whatever the circumstances, it is a good thing to have a traveling companion. It’s hard to watch one be taken from a fellow wandering merchant.”

Lawrence felt the sincerity in the man’s smile.

“You might do well to return to your inn and formulate a counterplan.”

Lawrence bowed to Batos as though Batos was a business partner who had just agreed to very favorable terms on a very large deal, and then he hurried back to the inn.

Amati had found a way to secure the funds.

Lawrence had miscalculated, but there were still things between him and Holo that Batos knew nothing about.

He turned the situation over in his mind as he walked down the broad avenue, whose traffic was limited owing to the festival.

He was confident that there was no way Holo would be swayed by Amati.

When Lawrence had returned to the inn and explained the situation to Holo, her reaction was unexpectedly vague.

She had been surprised enough upon hearing the message that Mark’s apprentice delivered, but now she seemed to find the grooming of her tail to be the weightier matter. She sat cross-legged, her tail curling around her lap as she tended to it.

“So did you accept this contract?”

“I did.”

“Mm…,” she said vaguely, looking back down at her tail. Holo was unimpressed; Lawrence felt sorry for Amati.

He looked out the wooden window, telling himself there was nothing to be worried about, when Holo spoke abruptly.

“Listen, you.”

“What?”

“What will you do if the boy actually gives you the money?”

He knew if he answered by saying “What do you mean, what will I do?” she would be unamused.

When she asked him questions like this, Holo wanted to know the first thing that came to his mind.

Lawrence pretended to think about it for a moment and then purposely gave a less-than-ideal answer. “After I’d calculated the amount you’ve used, I’d give it to you.”

Holo’s ears moved up slowly and she narrowed her eyes. “Do not test me.”

“It’s a bit unfair that I’m the only one who’s tested, eh?”

“Hmph.” Holo sniffed, unamused, then looked back down at the tail she tended to.

Lawrence had purposefully avoided saying the first thing that came to mind.

He wanted to test whether she had noticed that fact.

“If Amati should fulfill his part of the contract, I will certainly fulfill mine,” he said.

“Oh ho.” Holo didn’t look up, but Lawrence could tell she wasn’t really looking at her tail, either.

“Of course, you’ve been free all along. You may act as you wish.”

“Brimming with confidence, aren’t you?” Holo straightened her legs and dangled them off the edge of the bed.

It looked as if she was getting ready to spring upon him like she so often did, and Lawrence flinched but regained his composure and answered.

“It’s not confidence. I merely trust you.”

That was one way to put it.

There were any number of ways to indicate the same idea, but this one seemed the most gallant.

Holo was speechless for a moment, but her quick wits divined this soon enough.

She smiled and then stood up suddenly.

“In truth, you’re much more charming when you’re nervous.”

“Even I can tell how much I’ve matured.”

“So it’s more adult to simply pretend composure?”

“Isn’t it?”

“Having room to boast because you’ve seen a gamble that’s to your advantage just means you’re a bit clever. It does not an adult make.”

Hearing the sage words of the centuries-old wisewolf, Lawrence made a suspicious expression, as though he were the subject of a shady sales pitch.

“For example, when Amati proposed the contract to you, would it not have been more admirable to refuse it?”

Far from it, Lawrence was about to say, but Holo cut him off. “But you looked around and judged whether or not you would be embarrassed.”

“Uh—”

“Consider if our positions had been reversed. For example, thus—”

Holo cleared her throat, put her right hand to her breast, and began to recite:

“I cannot consider entering into such a contract. I wish to stay always with Lawrence. It may be a bond of debt that binds us, but it is still a bond. No matter how many different threads may entwine us, I cannot bear to cut even a one. Even if it shames me, I cannot accept your contract—or some such statement. What do you think?”

It was like a scene from a stage play.

Holo’s expression had been absolutely serious, and her words echoed in Lawrence’s heart.

“If someone said something like that about me, I would be beside myself with joy, I daresay,” said Holo.

That was undoubtedly a joke, but she had a point.

Lawrence was not willing to simply admit her correctness—doing so was tantamount to admitting he was a coward who had only accepted the contract in order to avoid embarrassment. And in any case, being so frank and open in front of so many people was all well and good, but it would have had consequences.

“Well, that might have been the manly thing to do, but whether or not it’s the adult thing to do is another issue.”

Holo folded her arms, looking aside and nodding minutely. “True. It might be both the action of a good male and a reckless, youthful thing to do. One might be happy to hear it, but it is still rather rich.”

“You see?”

“Mm. Now that I think on it, the actions that make a good male and those that make a good adult may be mutually exclusive. A good male is like a child. A good adult has a measure of cowardice.”

It was easy to imagine a stalwart knight drawing his sword in anger at Holo’s light dismissal of the male sex.

Lawrence naturally felt obligated to strike back. “Well then, how would Holo the Wisewolf, who is both a good woman and a good adult, respond to such a proposal?”

Holo’s smile remained.

Her arms still folded, she replied, “Why, I would smile and accept it, of course.”

Her light, effortless smile as she so easily claimed to agree to the contract made Lawrence realize just how profound her confidence and ease was.

He would have had no such ideas.

It truly was Holo the Wisewolf that stood before him.

“Of course, upon accepting the contract, I would return to the inn and, saying nothing, draw near to you like so—,” she continued, unfolding her arms and walking toward Lawrence, backing him up against the windowsill. She reached out to him. “Then I would look down…” Her ears and tail drooped, her shoulders slumped, and she looked positively miserable. If this was a trap, it would be impossible to see through.

Holo’s snicker that came soon after was genuinely frightening.

“Still,” she said lightly, “you’re a good enough merchant. You entered the contract because you think you can win. No doubt you’ll do some under-the-table deals just to make sure.”

Holo looked back up, her tail and ears flicking playfully. She spun around and arrived smoothly at Lawrence’s side.

He soon understood what she was getting at.

“‘Take me to the festival,’ is it?”

“Surely a fine merchant like yourself isn’t shy of bribery to fulfill a contract, right?”

Lawrence’s contract with Amati did not directly involve Holo, but the true issue was whether or not Amati’s marriage proposal would succeed. To put it bluntly, one thousand pieces of silver might or might not find their way into Lawrence’s pocket depending entirely on Holo’s mood.

For his part, Lawrence could hardly afford not to bribe Holo, on whose judgment this all depended.

“Well, I’ve got to go gather information on Amati either way. I may as well bring you along.”

“What you mean is you’ll take me to the festival and gather information on the way.”

“Fine, fine,” Lawrence replied, sighing as Holo jabbed him in the ribs.

The first thing that needed to be investigated was Amati’s assets.

Batos had said the boy was going to use some not altogether admirable methods to get the cash, which Lawrence guessed was probably true. He couldn’t imagine that Amati could produce a thousand trenni out of nowhere.

But it would be trouble if Amati actually pulled it off, so Lawrence headed to Mark’s stall to ask his cooperation.

As Mark kept his stall open for the duration of the fair, he had missed the commotion at the guild hall and so readily agreed to help. With rumors spreading like wildfire but so few merchants having actually seen Holo’s face, Lawrence’s bringing her along to the stall was quite effective.

If it meant Mark would get to see the developments from a front-row seat, Lawrence thought it was a small price to pay for whatever favors were required.

“And anyway, it won’t be me that’s running about the town,” Mark added.

Lawrence felt bad for Mark’s young apprentice, but his was a path every merchant had to travel—it was a complicated emotion.

“Still, is it all right to be running around with the beautiful maiden of the hour?”

“She wants to see the Laddora festival. And besides, if I locked her up in the inn, it really would look like I was keeping her bound by debt.”

“So Sir Lawrence says, but what is the truth of it?” Mark asked Holo, smiling. Holo was dressed in her usual town-girl clothes with the fox skin muffler Amati had given her wrapped around her neck. She seemed to understand what Mark was getting at. “The truth is just that. I am bound by heavy chains of debt. Through them I can see no tomorrow, and from them I cannot escape. If you were to free me from them, I would happily coat myself in wheat flour working for you.”

Mark’s face immediately split as he erupted with raucous laughter. “Bwa-ha-ha! Oh, that poor Amati lad. Lawrence is the one bound by you, aye!”

Lawrence looked away, not deigning to respond. He could see clearly enough that going up against both Mark and Holo would lead only to frustration.

Perhaps as a reward for his daily good conduct, Lawrence’s savior appeared. Mark’s apprentice arrived, pushing his way through the crowds.

“I’ve checked it out,” he said to Mark.

“Oh? Well done. What do you have?”

The apprentice greeted Lawrence and Holo as he delivered his report to Mark.

There was no question that what he wanted was not a reward from Lawrence or Mark, but a smile from Holo.

Understanding this, she graced him with her loveliest, most demure smile. Holo’s undeniable mischief caused the poor boy to turn red all the way to his ears.

“So what have you learned?” Mark grinned at his apprentice, who flailed for a moment before answering. Knowing Mark, Lawrence was sure the poor lad had been teased for some time.

“Ah, yes. Er, according to the taxation records, he was taxed on two hundred irehd.”

“Two hundred irehd, eh? So that’d make it…what, about eight hundred trenni that Amati has on hand that the city council is aware of.”

With a few exceptions, every merchant with a certain amount of assets was subject to taxation. The amount was recorded in the tax ledger, and anyone with a reason to do so could examine the records. Mark had gone through his acquaintances to take a look at Amati’s tax records.

But there was no guarantee that a merchant would report his assets to the city council accurately, so it was better to assume he had some amount hidden away. In any case, as a merchant, most of his worth would exist in credit with other sources.

But Amati wouldn’t be able to easily produce a thousand silver pieces to buy Holo.

Which meant that if he truly planned to fulfill the contract, he would have to resort to either borrowing, gambling, or some other method of realizing short-term gains.

“Where’s the town gambling hall?”

“Hey, just because we keep the Church in check doesn’t mean it’s a free-for-all. It’s pretty much limited to cards, dice games, and rabbit chasing. There’s also an upper limit on how much you can bet. He’s not going to raise the money gambling.”

Given the precision and detail with which he had answered the short question, it seemed Mark, too, was trying to work out how Amati could possibly raise the funds.

After all, Amati was essentially proposing to spend a thousand silver pieces on something he would never be able to resell, so any merchant would be curious as to the source of such wealth.

Lawrence was deep in thought, trying to decide what to investigate next, when Mark suddenly spoke.

“Oh, that’s right. Apparently there’s another bet on—about what’s going to happen after the contract.”

“After the contract?”

“Yes, if Amati wins the contract, who will be the victor after that.”

Mark grinned provocatively; Lawrence turned away, his face betraying his irritation.

Holo had evidently taken an interest in the grain and flour laid up in Mark’s shop, and she wandered about, listening to the apprentice’s grand explanations.

She seemed to hear Mark and Lawrence and looked their way.

“But you’ve got the advantage as far as the odds go.”

“Maybe I should demand the bookmaker give me a cut.”

“Ha-ha-ha. So what are you actually going to do?”

Mark was obviously trying to get some information that would allow him to make some money on the wager, but he also seemed genuinely curious.

Lawrence only shrugged, not giving a proper answer to the question, but then Holo (who had evidently approached the two at some point during their conversation) spoke.

“Even if a question has a proper answer, sometimes one cannot simply give it away. For example, the mixing of your flour there.”

“Erk—” Flustered, Mark shot his apprentice a sharp look, but the boy merely shook his head, as if to say, “I didn’t tell her anything!” The mixing of the flour surely referred to its purity. Mixing in cheaper grades of flour with wheat flour to increase its volume was a standard merchant trick.

Even a merchant that dealt with flour day in and day out would probably have a hard time noticing small fluctuations in purity, but for Holo, whose very spirit resided within the wheat, it was simplicity itself.

She continued, “You want to ask what I’ll do if he truly pays my debt, do you not?”

She gave the unfriendly smile that was her specialty.

Mark now shook his head frantically, much like his apprentice, as they looked to Lawrence with beseeching eyes.

“At this point, all we can do is observe our opponent’s actions,” said Lawrence.

“How treacherous.”

Holo’s sharp appraisal pierced Lawrence’s heart.

“I’d be happier if you called it a hidden contest. He’ll certainly have someone watching our moves as well, you know,” Lawrence said.

Mark recovered his composure enough to differ. “I wonder about that. Amati ran away from home and came alone all the way to this town, achieving all his success independently. And there’s his youth to consider. He’s very self-confident. Not only does he not give much thought to the connections between merchants, he would probably consider tricks like that beneath him. He trusts only in his eye for good fish and his ability to sell them. That and the protection of the gods.”

Amati sounded more like a knight than a merchant to Lawrence, who found himself envying the boy’s ability to achieve such success on his own.

“That’d explain why he’d fall so hard for a charming girl who’d just arrived in town,” Mark continued. “The townswomen are even more closely connected than the merchants. They seem to care only about reputation and are always watching each other. If one starts to stick out a little more, the others beat her down. I’m sure he finds it distasteful. Of course, not all women are like that, as I found out when I married my Adele.”

As a traveling merchant, Lawrence well understood Mark’s explanation. The town could certainly look that way from the outside.

Lawrence glanced sideways at Holo. He felt that yes, if he was in similar circumstances and saw a girl like Holo, he might well fall for her instantly—all the more so if he thought she was just an ordinary girl.

“Amati may well be as you say, but I will not hesitate to use any connection I need to. Treachery may be forbidden when knights duel, but there’s no crying in a contest of merchants.”

“I surely agree,” said Mark. He looked at Holo.

Lawrence likewise looked at her again. Holo put her hands to her cheeks in a gesture of embarrassment, as though she had been waiting for the moment, and spoke.

“I wish just once someone would attack me from the front.”

No doubt Mark was finally realizing, Lawrence mused, that there was no winning against Holo.

In the end, Lawrence decided to use Mark’s connections to get more information on Amati. He made sure to mention to Mark the peddler Batos’s hint regarding Amati’s potential reserves of capital.

Lawrence trusted Holo, but there was no telling what she would do if he rested on his laurels in this contest. And there was always the possibility of being able to make some money in Amati’s wake.

Holo and Lawrence couldn’t very well hang around Mark’s shop all day long, so after Lawrence asked Mark to help him with information, they put the stall behind them.

The town was becoming livelier and livelier, and the crowds did not diminish at all as they passed from the market to the plaza.

Midday approached, and people lined up in front of every stall alongside the road. Holo was not shy about lining up herself, clutching the money she’d relieved Lawrence of.

Lawrence watched her from afar, thinking it was just about time for the midday bell to ring, when he heard a low, lazy tone sound.

“A horn?”

The horn’s sound made him think of shepherds, and for a moment, he remembered Norah and the danger they had faced together in Ruvinheigen. If the keen-eyed Holo saw through him, though, it would be trouble.

Lawrence chased the thought from his mind and tried to see where the sound came from just as Holo returned, bearing the fried bread she’d managed to successfully buy.

“Did I not just hear a shepherd’s horn?” she asked.

“You did. I wasn’t sure, but if you call it a shepherd’s horn, then it must be so.”

“It fairly overflows with the scent of food here. I cannot tell if there are sheep or not.”

“There would be sheep aplenty in the marketplace, but there’s no need to blow a horn in town.”

“And no comely shepherdesses.”

Lawrence had been expecting the jab, so he was relatively unaffected.

“Hmph,” said Holo. “When you fail to react, it does rather feel like I am trying to win your affection.”

“I’m just terribly delighted. Scarily so.”

Holo happily bit into her bread with an audible crunch. Lawrence chuckled and looked out over the plaza again, realizing that the crowd seemed to be flowing in a particular direction. People were heading for the center of the city. Perhaps the horn had been the signal for the opening of the festival.

“Sounds like the festival has begun. Shall we go see?”

“’Twould be boring to do naught but eat.”

Lawrence’s smile was a bit forced as he started walking; Holo took his hand and followed.

They moved with the crowds, bearing north along the marketplace’s edge, until eventually they began to hear cheers amid the sounds of drum and horn.

All manner of people were gathering—town girls dressed much like Holo, apprentice craftsmen (their faces black with soot after having snuck away from their work), itinerant priests with the customary three feathers pinned to their robes, and even lightly armored men who might have been knights or mercenaries.

The noise seemed to come from the intersection of the two main streets that quartered the town, but the crowds made it impossible to see. Holo craned her neck to try and catch a glimpse ahead, but even Lawrence couldn’t see past the crowds, and he was much taller than Holo.

Lawrence remembered something, and taking Holo’s hand, he ducked into an alleyway.

Once they were a few steps into the alley, things were much quieter, unlike the clamorous street. Here and there were beggars clothed in rags, dozing away as though to proclaim their disinterest in the festival, along with craftsmen who busily prepared the wares they would sell in their stalls, their workshops open to the alley.

Holo soon seemed to understand where they were heading and silently followed.

If the festival was being held in the main streets, they would be able to see the sights perfectly well from their room at the inn.

Holo and Lawrence walked easily down the uncrowded back alleys, entering the inn from its rear door and climbing to the second floor.

It seemed that someone else had the same idea and was making a business out of it. As they arrived on the second floor, they noticed several of the doors along the hallway leading to their room had been left open and a bored-looking merchant sat on a chair in front of them, idly playing with a coin.

“We’ll have to be thankful to Amati on this count anyway.”

Upon entering their room and opening the window, they immediately had front-row seats.

To see everything that was happening at the large intersection, Holo and Lawrence had but to lean a bit out the window, and even without leaning, they had a perfectly acceptable view.

The musicians playing pipes and drums in the intersection were clad head to toe in ominous black robes that obscured even their sex.

Behind the group in black walked another strangely dressed troupe.

Some of the costumes consisted of sewn-together pieces of clothing large enough to cover any number of people. Such a costume had several people hidden underneath it and was topped with a mask where the head would be. Other performers wore robes that concealed what must have been one person riding on another’s shoulders, their head popping out of the top of the garment. Some carried great swords made from thin pieces of wood; others had bows taller than they were. They brandished the weapons wildly to great cries from the crowd.

But just as Lawrence thought that was all there would be, there was a noticeably louder shout from the crowd, and a new set of instruments could be heard.

Holo gave a small cry of surprise, and Lawrence leaned his head out the window so as not to block her view.

The inn sat at the southeast corner of the intersection, and it seemed another group in strange costumes was emerging from the east.

Leading the group were people clad in black, but behind them followed another group whose dress was wholly different from those who currently occupied the intersection.

Some people had paint-blackened faces and wore cow horns upon their heads; others carried bird wings on their backs. Many were covered in animal skins of some sort, and it seemed likely that if Holo was to walk among them with her ears and tail exposed, no one would bat an eye. After that column passed, there arose a riotous cry and with it appeared a giant straw figure far bigger than a human. It was vaguely lupine in shape, four legged, and larger even than Holo’s wolf form. The figure was supported on a wooden rack, which was carried by ten men or so.

Lawrence was about to say something about it to Holo, but he abandoned the notion when he saw the intense focus with which she watched the festival.

Animal costume after animal costume appeared in the intersection-cum-stage as the column continued along.

The black-painted marchers at the head of the procession now pointed at the signposts that had been erected here and there in the intersection, milling about as they did so.

Seeing this, Lawrence guessed that this was no mere costume parade. He thought there was some kind of tale being told—unfortunately, he was not sure. He was just thinking he would ask Mark about this later when he saw another procession arrive from the north.

These were normal folk, though some were dressed in tatters, some in noble robes, and some as knights and soldiers. The single commonality was the spoon that each one of them carried. Lawrence wondered why spoons, of all things, when the three groups collided in the intersection and began crying out in a language he had never heard. A slight ripple of nervousness ran through the assembled spectators as they watched the exchange; Lawrence, too, felt some trepidation.

Just as he was wondering what would happen next, the black-clad group all pointed in the same direction as one.

It was southwest that they pointed, and everyone’s gaze soon turned that way.

Carts loaded with large barrels had evidently been prepared beforehand. Their stewards laughed loudly (if somewhat forcedly) and pushed the carts into the intersection.

The black-clad people began to play the instruments they held, the people in costumes began to sing, and the barrel carriers opened the barrels and began to sprinkle their liquid contents about.

As if that were some kind of signal, the onlookers now flooded into the intersection and began to dance.

The ring of dancers expanded rapidly. Many of the strangely dressed revelers had jumped out of the intersection and danced along the sides of the streets.

The merriment spread, and in no time at all, the entire boulevard was a huge ballroom. In the middle of the intersection, the participants of the original procession linked arms and began to dance in a circle. The festival was well and truly under way now; the singing and dancing would continue into the night.

It seemed that the opening of this festival—this revel—was complete.

Holo pulled her body—which heretofore had leaned well out of the window—back into the room.

“I’m going to go dance,” she said, though it was not clear if she spoke to Lawrence or not.

Lawrence could count the number of times he’d danced like this on one hand. He tended to avoid festivals such as this one, and dancing alone was always a depressing affair.

Thus he hesitated for a moment, but he soon changed his mind after seeing Holo’s outstretched hand.

Everyone would be drunk anyway—no one would notice if his dancing was a little clumsy.

And Holo’s outstretched hand was worth ten thousand gold pieces.

“All right,” said Lawrence, taking Holo’s hand and preparing himself.

Holo laughed at his overserious resolve. “Just mind you don’t tread on my feet,” she said with a smile.

“…I will do my best.”

The two exited the inn and plunged into the reveling crowds.

How many years had it been since he’d celebrated so much?

Lawrence had danced, drunk, and laughed so much he could not help but wonder.

This was also certainly the first time he had basked thus in the post-revel afterglow.

Normally, once the fun had passed, it was followed by a rush of terrible loneliness.

But as he helped Holo, unsteady on her feet from a surfeit of merriment and wine, up the inn stairs, the heat of the moment faded to a pleasant warmth. As long as Holo was with him, he felt, the celebration would continue.

The inn room’s window had been left open, and the sounds of the continuing festival filtered through it. The night was young, and the merchants and craftsmen who had to work through the day were only now beginning to join in the festivities.

The festival seemed to have entered a new phase. As they returned to the inn, Lawrence had looked back at the intersection to see it filled with people busily coming and going.

If Holo had had any strength remaining, she surely would have wanted to see. Unfortunately, she was exhausted.

After putting her to bed and setting her things in order (continuing his manservant duties from the previous day), Lawrence sighed.

It was not, however, an unhappy sigh. It came out as he looked at Holo’s flushed cheeks as she lay sideways and innocent on the bed.

He felt a bit bad for Amati. He was no longer even remotely worried about having to fulfill the contract.

Far from it—in fact, he’d forgotten about it entirely until they had returned to the inn.

Once they came back, the innkeeper told Lawrence there was a message for him. It was from Mark; the message was “I’ve found how Amati plans to make the money—come to the shop as soon as you can.”

The first thought that crossed Lawrence’s mind was I’ll go tomorrow. Normally such procrastination would never have occurred to him, and when he thought on it, it illustrated just how low of a priority it was for him.

What concerned him more than Mark’s message was the letter that had come with it. It was sealed with a wax stamp and had “Diana” written in a lovely hand on the envelope. The letter had apparently been delivered by a stout man with a coffin-like build, which had to be Batos.

Lawrence had asked the chronicler to please let him know if she should happen to recall anything more about Yoitsu, which is what he expected the letter to be about. He considered opening it right then and there, but he decided that once he sat down and opened the envelope, he would be even less inclined to go visit Mark, so he decided against it.

Lawrence slipped the envelope back into his coat, and closing the window against the clamor still wafting in from the street, he headed out.

Just as he was about to open the door, he felt a gaze on his back, and looking behind him, he saw Holo forcing her sleep-heavy eyes open to look at him.

“I’m just going out for a bit.”

“…Quite, and with a letter from a female tucked near your breast?” Her irritation did not seem to come from her struggle to stay awake.

“Aye, and she’s a beauty, I might add. Does it bother you?”

“…Fool.”

“She’s a chronicler. Do you know what that is? She’s the one telling me about Yoitsu. She’s quite knowledgeable about the tales from the northlands. I haven’t read the letter yet, but just talking to her yesterday gained us some excellent information. I even heard a story about you.”

Holo rubbed her eyes like a cat washing its face, and then she sat up. “…A story? About me?”

“A town called Lenos has a story of you. Holoh of the Wheat Tail. That’s you, is it not?”

“…I’ve no idea. But what do you mean by ‘excellent information’?” With her homeland as the subject of conversation, Holo was now fully awake.

“Part of the tale included the direction from which you arrived in the town.”

“I-in…” Holo’s eyes widened and she froze, emotion writ large on her face. “In truth?”

“I’ve no reason to lie, do I? Evidently you arrived in Lenos from the forest east of it, so the mountains southwest of Nyohhira and east of Lenos are where we’ll find Yoitsu.”

Holo’s hands gripped the bedclothes tightly, and she looked down upon hearing the unexpected news. Her wolf ears trembled as though each hair were overflowing with joy.

Hers was the relief of a girl who’d long ago lost her way but had finally found a familiar path.

Slowly and carefully she took a deep breath, which she then exhaled forcefully.

It was only her wisewolf’s pride that kept her from bursting into tears right there on the spot.

“I’m surprised you didn’t cry.”

“…Fool.” Her sneer proved how close to tears she had actually come.

“Knowing only that it was to the southwest of Nyohhira would have made the search difficult, but now it will be much narrower. I haven’t opened the letter yet, but I’m sure it has additional information. It should be much easier to find our destination now.”

Holo nodded and looked aside; then still holding the bedclothes, she looked back to Lawrence searchingly.

Her red-tinged amber eyes sparkled with a mixture of anticipation and doubt.

The white tip of her tail flicked to and fro uncertainly, and she looked so much the frail maiden that Lawrence couldn’t help but smile weakly.

If he’d failed to understand what she was saying with that gaze, he would have no cause for complaint when she ripped his throat out.

Lawrence cleared his throat. “I daresay we’ll be able to find it within a half year.”

He could tell that the blood was once again flowing through her stone-still form.

“Mm!” said Holo happily with a nod.

“So the sender of this note is like a dove bearing good news. Go reflect on your misguided assumptions.”

Holo’s lips twisted in displeasure, but Lawrence could not fail to notice that it was an affectation.

“In any case, I’m now off to see Mark.”

“With a letter tinged with a female’s scent tucked near your breast?”

Lawrence couldn’t help but laugh at Holo repeating her pointed question.

No doubt she wanted him to leave the letter.

She could not come right out and say as much, though, because it was too embarrassing to admit she was so nervous that she wanted him to leave a letter she could not even read.

Amused at the normally opaque Holo’s transparent state of mind, Lawrence handed her the letter.

“You said the sender was a beauty?”

“Oh, indeed, and fairly wrapped in adulthood.”

Holo raised a single eyebrow. She took the letter and then looked back to Lawrence, her eyes narrowed. “You’re becoming a bit too adult and cunning.” She grinned, revealing her fangs.

“Also, apparently Amati’s found a way to raise the thousand silver pieces he needs. I’m off to ask about that.”

“Oh, aye? Well, do try to come up with some way to prevent me being purchased away, hmm?”

Given their exchange thus far, Lawrence did not take Holo’s words too seriously.

“If you want to read the letter, feel free to open it. If you can read, that is.”

Holo sniffed and flopped over on the bed, letter in hand, her tail waving as if to say, “Well, run along now.” She was like a dog carrying a bone back to its den.

He wouldn’t dare to say as much, though, so he smiled wordlessly and, opening the door, left the room.

Just before he closed the door behind him, Lawrence looked back at Holo one last time, whose tail waved as though she had expected him to take one last look.

He chuckled and closed the door slowly so as not to make a sound.

“I must say, for someone asking a favor, you don’t seem too worried.”

“Apologies.”

Lawrence had debated going straight to Mark’s home but decided the man was probably still at his marketplace stall, which turned out to be correct.

Among the stands scattered here and there in the marketplace, people toasted each other’s health in the moonlight, and even many of the guards responsible for watching over their masters’ goods had succumbed to their desires and were drinking.

“Though I suppose I’ve time to spare aplenty during the festival,” Mark admitted.

“Oh?”

“Oh, indeed. No one wants to lug heavy goods about while they take in the sights, do they? Especially something as bulky as wheat, which I sell before the festival begins and buy once it ends. Of course, the night festival is a different matter, though.”

The night festival was held after the two-day festival finished, and it amounted to a great feast, Lawrence had heard. It was not as though he didn’t understand the desire to use the festival as an excuse to drink and revel.

“And anyway, I’ve already turned a bit of a profit thanks to your information, so I suppose I’ll let you off the hook this time.” Mark’s smiling face was every inch the pleased merchant.

Evidently he’d taken advantage of whatever it was Amati was up to.

“So you’re on board, eh? What’s his trick?”

“You’re going to like this. I don’t mean the trick is just clever—I mean it’s like picking up gold off the street.”

“I’m all ears,” said Lawrence, sitting down in a conveniently close split-log chair.

Mark grinned at what this implied. “I hear tell the knight Haschmidt is quite a dancer. If he keeps making merry like this, he may have to take the thousand silver and lose the lovely maid.”

“You’re certainly welcome to bet your whole fortune on Amati—it makes not a whit of difference to me.”

Mark blocked Lawrence’s attack not with his shield, but his sword. “That Philip the Third has been saying some interesting things about you.”

“Oh?”

“That you keep the poor girl in debt simply so you can take her wherever you please, that you treat her cruelly and feed her nothing but cold porridge—and so on.”

Mark was obviously amused, as though it were a grand joke, but Lawrence could only listen and smile uncomfortably.

Amati was obviously spreading rumors about Lawrence as a way to justify his own actions. Lawrence’s cheek twitched, more from the annoyance of this mosquito buzzing around his face than from the damage done to his reputation.

A traveling merchant was no sword-wielding mercenary—he couldn’t simply foist debt off on any girl he wished, forcing her to travel with him. Even if a note of debt was written in a city where the merchant had some pull, it would be meaningless as soon as they were on the road.

Likewise, anyone used to long journeys would know there was nothing surprising about the meager food one ate during travel. Any merchant who’d tried to maximize profit knew that there were times one went without food.

So Amati’s slander of Lawrence would not be taken seriously. That was not the problem. What irked Lawrence was that Amati spread the notion that he and Lawrence were in the same ring, fighting over a woman.

Even if that didn’t have a direct effect on Lawrence’s business, it was hardly something to be happy about in regards to his standing as an independent trader.

Mark surely knew how irritating this would be, which explained his self-satisfied smirk. Lawrence sighed and waved his hand as if to end the discussion. “Anyway, what’s this talk of profit?”

“Ah, yes. Once I’d heard that old Batos had figured it out, I put the pieces together.”

So it was something to do with Batos’s business.

“Precious gems, then?”

“Close, but no. You can hardly call it ‘precious.’”

The commodities that ore merchants bought and sold as they traveled through mining country ran through his mind. Suddenly, Lawrence had it.

The mineral he’d talked about with Holo that looked like gold—

“Pyrite?”

“Oh, so you’ve already heard?”

Apparently that was the answer.

“No, I’d just thought it might make a good business myself. Because of the fortune-teller, right?”

“That’s what they say. Though that fortune-teller’s already left town.”

“I see.”

A sudden cheer grabbed Lawrence’s attention; he looked to see a group of men in traveling clothes joyfully greeting some town merchants, embracing one another heartily at their evidently happy reunion.

“Yeah, the public story is that his fortune-telling was too good, so he was attracting the eye of a Church inquisitor, but that sounds pretty suspicious.”

“Why suspicious?”

Mark took a sip of wine and removed a small burlap sack from the shelf behind him.

“First of all, if an inquisitor had actually come to town, it would be huge news. Secondly, there’s just a little too much pyrite in circulation right now. My guess is he bought up somewhere else and left as soon as he’d sold all his stock. Also…”

Mark dumped the contents of the bag out onto the table. Some of the pyrite pieces had that beautiful die shape; others were as misshapen as flattened bread.

“I think he was trying to exaggerate the rarity of pyrite. How much do you think this is worth right now?”

In his hand, Mark held a die-shaped piece, which was generally considered the most precious form of pyrite. Standard market value was perhaps ten irehd, or one-quarter of a trenni piece.

But Holo had said the pyrite piece Amati gave her had been bought at an auction, so Lawrence made a bolder guess.

“One hundred irehd.”

“Try two hundred seventy.”

“Im—”

—possible, he was about to say, but he swallowed the word, cursing himself for not buying up stock immediately after Holo told him of the pyrite.

“To men like us, that’d be a ridiculous price even for a precious gem. But when the market opens tomorrow, it’s going to rise even higher. Right now every woman in town is scheming to buy. Fortune-telling and secret beauty potions will always be in demand.”

“But still—two hundred seventy? For this?”

“It doesn’t even have to be die shaped. Other shapes have risen in value, too, thanks to the idea that each one serves a different purpose. The women come to the market and sweet-talk their fat-walleted merchant and farmer husbands into buying them the stuff. And if you want to talk about miracles, they’re even starting to compete among each other, these women, to see who’s been given the most pyrite. It’s gotten to where the price rises with every word of flattery a woman speaks.”

Lawrence had bought wine and trinkets for town girls before; this was difficult for him to hear.

But that difficulty paled in comparison to his regret at having let this opportunity get away.

“It’s not a question of what percentage of profit can be made on an investment now. It’s a question of how many times, how many tens of times you’ll multiply your money. Your Philip the Third has his eye on your princess, and he’s making tremendous amounts of money to get her.”

If Amati had come up with this plan as soon as he’d bought Holo her piece of pyrite, he might very well have made a fair amount of money already. It was entirely possible he would have the thousand pieces of silver on the morrow.

“I’ve just barely gotten my foot in the door, and I’ve already made three hundred irehd. That’s how much the price is going up. It’s not an opportunity to let go.”

“Who else knows?”

“Apparently, it was spreading around the market this morning. I was actually late to the game. Incidentally, the line in front of the ore merchant’s stall was going mad just about the time you were dancing with your princess.”

Despite being long-since sober, Lawrence’s face was redder than the still-drinking Mark’s.

It was not because Mark teased him about Holo, but rather because just when even the dullest of traders would have known to get in on the action, Lawrence had been right next to the marketplace, dancing the night away.

No amount of red-faced frustration could adequately express his feelings.

He was a failure as a merchant.

For the first time since the Ruvinheigen debacle, he wanted to hold his head in his hands and cry.

“If Amati were doing something complicated, there would probably be something we could do to block him. As it is, I don’t think we can. I’m sorry, friend, but you’re a fish in a barrel here.”

Mark was trying to say, All you can do is wait to be cooked, but that wasn’t what depressed Lawrence. He was simply upset with himself for putting fun with Holo before business.

“Ah, I should mention that the news has already spread through the market, so the number of merchants looking to buy up pyrite to sell has driven the price even higher. What I’m saying is that the wind is just now picking up. If you don’t hoist your sail, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

“True enough. I’ll not sit by and watch those ships sail away.”

“That’s the spirit! And hey, if worst comes to worst, you’ll need money to buy a new princess, eh?”

Lawrence smiled wryly at Mark. It would be a good opportunity to make up for his losses in Ruvinheigen at least.

“In that case, I’ll just use some of my credit with you from those nails to take that pyrite off your hands,” said Lawrence.

Mark immediately scowled as if he suddenly regretted mentioning anything.

Lawrence paid Mark thirty trenni for four pieces of pyrite and then made his way back to the inn through the crowds that sang and danced by the light of the bonfires.

The festival seemed to have entered its second stage, and he heard the sound of drums powerfully beaten.

The crowds were dense enough that it was difficult to see, but in contrast to the festivities of the day, the revelry seemed to have become wilder. Straw puppets collided with one another and sword dancers whirled.

It was a surprising development since people had already been dancing and drinking all day long.

But if he wanted to view the festival, it would be easy to do so from the front-row seat that was the inn room.

He hurried through the throng and made for the inn.

Lawrence had some thinking to do.

Amati’s chances of actually pulling together a thousand trenni had increased, but Lawrence still didn’t feel perturbed or worried about losing Holo.

What he worried about was how much he could make with the pyrite he had on hand and how cheaply he could convince Holo to sell him the piece she’d gotten from Amati.

Sometimes worthless items turned into gold.

Festivals were special times indeed.

Along the quieter alleys slightly removed from the clamor and lights of the festival, knights and mercenaries made passes at girls or draped their arms around the already-convinced.

The girls who leaned so easily into the arms of dark-eyed, dangerous, bandit-like knights did not seem to be women of the night, but rather ordinary town girls, who on any other night would only speak to men of more serious disposition and stature.

The strange aphrodisiac that was the passionate festival atmosphere clouded their eyes—and so long as it also did things like drive the price of pyrite upward, Lawrence had no complaints.

As he was mulling this over, Lawrence caught sight of a shop selling sweet melons to soothe throats burning from too much wine and bought two for Holo.

There was no telling how angry she might be should he return empty-handed. The melons were like the eggs of some huge bird; he smiled, resigned, carrying one under his arm and one in his hand.

The inn’s first-floor dining hall was just as lively as the streets, but Lawrence only glanced at it as he made his way up to the second story.

Upon reaching the second floor, Lawrence noticed that the noise from below seemed strangely unreal, as though he were watching a fire burn from the opposite shore.

The sound of the chatter brought to mind a babbling brook; he listened to it as he opened the door and entered the room.

For a moment, he wondered why it was so well lit, but then he saw that the window had been left open.

It had probably been too dark to read the letter otherwise.

Suddenly, Lawrence realized something was wrong with that notion.

The letter?

He met Holo’s eyes as she stood before the window with the letter in her hand.

Those frightened eyes.

No—not frightened.

The eyes of someone who had just come back to their senses after being utterly stunned.

“You…”

…can read? Lawrence was going to ask, but the words stuck in his throat.

Holo’s lips quivered, followed shortly by her shoulders. He saw her try to gather strength in her numb, slim fingers, but the letter slipped from them and fluttered to the floor.

Lawrence did not move. He was afraid she would shatter like an ice sculpture if he moved.

It was the letter from Diana that she’d held.

If reading that letter brought Holo to this state, there were not many possibilities Lawrence could imagine.

It had to be about Yoitsu.

“Whatever is the matter?” she asked.

Her voice sounded as it always did. Despite being visibly on the brink of collapse, she managed a thin smile; the contrast was unreal, dreamlike.

“Is there something s-stuck to my face?” Holo tried maintaining her smile, but her lips trembled and it was clearly difficult for her to speak.

Lawrence looked into her eyes, which were unfocused.

“There’s nothing on your face. You might be a bit drunk, though.”

He couldn’t bear standing silently before her like that, so he tried to choose the least offensive words he could.

What to say next? No, he had to figure out first how much she knew. Lawrence had gotten that far when Holo spoke again.

“Y-yes, quite. I-I must be drunk. Drunk i-indeed.”

Her teeth chattered as she smiled, and she stiffly walked over to the bed and sat.

Lawrence finally moved away from the door and very slowly, so as not to cause this frightened bird to fly, made his way to the desk.

He set the two melons down on the desk and casually glanced down at the letter Holo had dropped.

Diana’s lovely handwriting was clearly illuminated by the moonlight.

Regarding the matter we discussed yesterday of the town of Yoitsu, destroyed long ago…

Lawrence’s eyes flicked over the words. He couldn’t help closing his eyes.

Holo had claimed to be unable to read—probably she had planned to surprise or to tease him sometime in the future. No doubt she was surprised that the chance to do so had come so quickly, and she had read the letter immediately.

But it had backfired.

The letter had been about her home of Yoitsu—of course, she would want to read it.

The image of an excited Holo tearing into the envelope suddenly flickered into Lawrence’s mind.

And then she saw the words about Yoitsu’s destruction. He couldn’t even imagine how bad the shock must have been.

Holo sat on the bed, staring at the floor.

While Lawrence struggled to think of the right words, she looked up.

“What—what shall I do?” Her lips curled into a forced smile. “I’ve…I’ve nowhere to return to…”

She neither blinked nor cried, but a steady stream of tears rolled down her cheeks.

“What shall I do…,” she murmured again, like a child who had broken her favorite toy. Lawrence couldn’t bear to see her this way. Everyone was a child when they remembered their homelands.

Holo was a wisewolf of many centuries’ experience; she had certainly considered the possibility that Yoitsu had been buried within the flow of time.

But just as logic has no hold over a child, it was of no use in the face of such strong emotions.

“Holo.”

Holo flinched momentarily at the sound of her name before regaining some composure.

“It’s just an old story, a legend. There are many legends that are mistaken.”

Lawrence spoke almost admonishingly, in order to give his words as much weight as he could. As far as possibilities went, the chances of Yoitsu being intact were very low. The towns that survived unharmed for hundreds of years were typically large ones; that everyone knew.

But he could think of nothing else to say.

“Mis…mistaken?”

“That’s right. In places where a new king or faction takes over, they’ll spread all kinds of tales like this to stake a claim to the new territory.”

It wasn’t a lie. He had heard many such examples of this.

But Holo shook her head suddenly, her tears streaming left and right across her cheeks.

The stillness in her eyes was the calm before the storm.

“No, if that were true, why—why would you hide it from me?”

“I was looking for the right time to speak. It’s a delicate issue. So—”

“Heh,” Holo laughed, though it sounded like a cough.

It was as though a demon had possessed her somehow.

“I-It must have been terribly amusing, seeing me be so carefree.”

Lawrence’s mind went instantly blank. He could never feel anything of the sort. Anger surged up within him, seizing his throat, but he restrained it somehow.

He realized Holo just wanted to hurt something, anything.

“Holo, please, calm down.”

“I’m qu-quite calm. Am I not the very picture of lucidity? You must have known about Yoitsu all along.”

Lawrence was speechless; she had discerned the truth.

He realized that his ultimate mistake lay in hiding it from her.

“You did, did you not? Did you not? You knew as soon as you met me. That explains so much.”

Holo’s expression was now that of a cornered wolf.

“Hah. Y-you like sad, weak little lambs. So how was I, as I talked of returning to the homeland you knew was destroyed? Was I foolish enough? Charming enough? Was I sad and lovely enough? So much so that you’d forgive my selfishness and take pity on me?”

Lawrence tried to speak, but Holo continued.

“And then you told me to go back to Nyohhira alone because you’d grown tired of me, no?”

Her smile was a despairing one. Even Holo herself should know that what she said was a deliberate, malicious distortion.

He knew that if he was to lose his temper and strike her, she would only wag her tail happily.

“Is that really what you think?”

Lawrence’s words struck her; she stared through him with blazing red eyes. “Yes, it is!”

Holo stood up, her fists trembling and white.

Her sharp teeth clattered, and her tail puffed out like a bottlebrush.

Lawrence still did not flinch. He knew that Holo’s rage came from a place of deep sadness.

“Yes, I do think that! You are human! The only animal that raises other animals! It must have been so amusing for you as I foolishly took the bait that was Yoitsu and—”

“Holo.”

Holo had been gesticulating wildly; Lawrence quickly drew close to her and grabbed her arms with all his might.

She was as angry and frightened as a trapped stray dog, and she could put up no more resistance than that of the young girl she appeared to be.

With Lawrence holding on to her arms, the difference in their strength was clear.

“I-I’m all alone. Wh-what shall I-I do? No one awaits my return. There is no one for me. I’m…I’m alone…”

“You have me, don’t you?” he said, completely serious.

They were not words that could be said lightly.

But Holo merely scoffed and shot back, “What are you to me? Nay—what am I to you?”

Lawrence had no quick reply. He had to think.

It was a moment later that he realized he should have answered quickly, even if it had to be a lie.

“No! I do not want to be alone anymore! I can’t!” shouted Holo, then froze. “Come now…Would…would you lie with me?”

Lawrence was just about to loosen his grip on her arms.

But then he noticed that her smile was empty. She was mocking her own unhinged state.

“I am all alone, I am. But with a child, that would make two. Look, I have taken human form. It is not impossible that with you, I could…Come, please…”

“Don’t talk. I’m begging you.”

Lawrence understood the overflowing emotions that boiled up within her, which could only come out as sharp, poisonous words. He understood too well.

But he could not manage the trick of tying those emotions up and setting them aside to cool.

Telling her not to speak was all he could do.

Holo’s smile strengthened, and a new wave of tears poured from her eyes.

“Heh. Aha…ha-ha-ha-ha. ’Tis true. You’re too softhearted. I can expect nothing like that from you. But I care not. I’ve remembered, you see. There’s…Yes, there’s someone who loves me.”

She couldn’t overcome Lawrence’s grip with force, so in order to take advantage of any gap that might appear, Holo relaxed her fists and let the tension drain from her body. Lawrence let go of her wrists, and words now came from her like so many sickly butterflies.

“That is why such talk did not cause you worry, is it not? That if you could receive a thousand silver coins for me, it would not be so regrettable to let me go?”

Lawrence knew that anything he said would be meaningless, so he only listened silently.

The silence continued, as if Holo had burned up the last of her fuel.

At length, just when Lawrence reached out to her again, Holo spoke weakly.

“…I am sorry,” she said.

Lawrence felt he could hear the slam that came with those words as Holo closed the door to her heart.

He froze. It was all he could do to back away.

Holo sat down again, staring at the floor, unmoving.

Lawrence retreated, but he found himself unable to stand still, so he picked up the letter from Diana that Holo had dropped, reading it as if to escape.

In it, Diana said that there was a monk who lived in a town on the way to Lenos, specializing in the legends of the northlands, and that Lawrence would do well to visit him. On the back of the letter was written the name of the monk.

Lawrence closed his eyes, anguished.

If only he had looked at the letter first. If only.

He was filled with a sudden urge to tear it into pieces, but he knew such an outburst was pointless.

The letter was still an important clue to finding Yoitsu.

It felt like one of the few thin threads still connecting Holo to him; he folded the letter and slipped it beneath his coat.

He looked back at Holo, who still stared at the floor.

In his mind, he heard again the word she had spoken—“sorry”—when he reached out to her.

All he could do now was silently leave the room.

He took one step back. Two steps.

A loud cheer came through the window. Lawrence took this opportunity and left the room.

For just an instant, he thought that Holo had lifted her face to look at him, but he knew it was just hope’s illusion.

He reached behind himself to close the door, averting his eyes as if to make it clear he wished to see nothing.

But that would not undo all of this.

He would have to do something.

He would have to do something—but what and how?

Lawrence left the inn.

The streets were again overflowing with strangers.