Spice and Wolf - Volume 5 - Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

It had been a week since the incidents in the village of Tereo, where they’d very nearly been executed as criminals.

Lawrence and Holo now made for Lenos, a town where tales of Holo’s exploits in the distant past were said to still exist.

Lenos was a largish town for the northlands known for its lumber and furs.

It received its share of visitors, so Lawrence and Holo passed many other merchants who came and went on the road to the town. Lawrence himself had visited it many times in the past, though this time he did not come for business.

He instead sought information about the ancient home of his companion.

Thus his wagon bed held none of the trade goods that usually filled it.

Lawrence had originally planned to sell some of the mountains of cookies the villagers of Tereo had given him as thanks, but they had all been eaten by the wolf who now slept next to him. If there was something tasty to eat, she would devour as much of it as was there, becoming angry when there was no more to be had.

She ate, drank, and slept a truly stunning amount.

Lawrence had to admit, though, that between the cold and the boredom, he would fall asleep, too, if he didn’t have to hold the reins. In any case, her ability to sleep all night after drowsing all day was impressive. More than once he wondered if she was waking in the wee hours to sneak off and howl at the moon.

They had journeyed thus uneventfully for a week before the rain came.

Holo somehow contrived to predict the bad weather’s arrival two days in advance, so perhaps it was that memory or perhaps it was the falling rain…Either way, she stirred beneath the blanket and gave Lawrence a wordless, resentful glare.

Lawrence turned away. No matter how accusatory her gaze, it was not as if he could do anything about the rain.

It had been falling steadily since midday—not in big drops but rather in thin, misty sheets—which was nice enough as far as that went, but given the cold, it was hardly different from being sprinkled with ice shavings.

Lawrence’s hands had immediately gone numb, and just as he was beginning to ponder the possibility of hiding himself beneath the wagon bed, some god evidently noticed his good behavior.

Holo, too, noticed and popped her head out from underneath the blanket.

She yawned hugely. “…At this rate, it looks like we’ll make it through without being frozen.”

“That’s easy for you to say bundled up in that blanket while I shiver away here, reins in hand.”

“Hmph. ’Tis my cold heart. It needs must be kept warm,” she said with a grin.

Lawrence found himself unable to be angry.

Ahead of them on the road stood their destination, a dark shadow that loomed in the otherwise pale white scenery.

“There ’tis. Like a piece of burnt rice floating in stew,” said Holo, her empty stomach making a ridiculous growling noise. Evidently, even this displeased wisewolf had not expected her stomach to growl at such an inopportune moment. After a stunned moment, she smiled sweetly, having forgotten her teasing entirely.

Lenos was a large port town built alongside the broad, slow Roam River, which meant that if they could see the town, the river should likewise be visible. At the moment, though, it was blurred from sight by the falling mist. Had it been clear, they would no doubt have seen the many boats that plied the river’s surface.

Upon entering the town, it was clear that there were many boats tied up at their moorings in addition to the constant traffic on the river. Holo’s beloved food stalls were abundant as was strong liquor.

If the coming winter’s snow was going to delay their progress, they would at least make certain to enjoy their time here.

Lawrence did have one worry, though.

“There’s something I should say, just to make sure you understand.”

“Mm?”

“I know you visited this place long ago, but you may have forgotten, so I’ll say it again: Lenos is a town of lumber and fur.”

“Quite.”

It was admittedly rather late to be bringing this up, but the treatment he could reasonably give her still depended on whether or not he’d made this point clear.

“Will you be angry if some of those furs are wolf pelts?”

Holo’s expression was maddeningly ambiguous as she pulled at her collar, unwrapping the fox fur muffler that she wore.

It was a gift from Amati, the youth who had courted her in the town of Kumersun.

There was nothing inherently wrong about her wearing it, and the muffler was admittedly very useful in the cold weather, so Lawrence had kept silent. Seeing it now, however, made him shift uncomfortably.

No doubt aware of this, Holo wore the muffler in an especially warm-looking fashion, but she now removed it and pointed the fox’s head at Lawrence. “I’ve eaten mice, me, and been eaten by wolves!” she squeaked, her voice changing in a mockery of what he supposed was a fox.

Lawrence sighed.

He was up against Holo the Wisewolf.

“Hmph,” Holo continued. “There is the hunter, and the hunted. And besides, you humans do far worse things. Do you not even buy and sell your fellow man?”

“This is true. The slave trade is both necessary and very profitable.”

“Just as you can accept that as the custom of your world, we can be calm toward those who are hunted. And besides, what if the position was switched?” Holo narrowed her red-brown eyes.

Lawrence thought back to the exchange he’d had with Holo not long after they’d met—when she’d said that a wolf’s cleverness came from devouring humans.

Even Lawrence felt that if a traveler strayed into wolf territory and failed to escape, the blame lay with the traveler. It was one thing to fear wolves, but actually hating them for this was a mistake, he felt.

This much was obvious to Lawrence.

“Still, I suppose seeing one’s fellows hunted before one’s very eyes is hardly an easy thing,” said Holo.

Lawrence nodded his understanding.

Holo continued. “And you were nice enough to get flustered when I was hunted by another man,” she said coyly, her mood now totally different from the state she had been in a few moments ago.

“Ah, yes, I certainly did,” said Lawrence perfunctorily, returning his gaze to the cart horse ahead of him.

“Whence this uncaring affect?”

“Well…,” began Lawrence, his eyes fixed steadily ahead. “It’s embarrassing.”

It is a wholly embarrassing admission, Lawrence thought to himself.

But to the wolf who sat beside him, such morsels were a delicacy, so it could hardly be helped.

Holo laughed hard enough that in the cold air, the white fog of her exhalations blurred her face. “Embarrassing, eh?”

“Entirely.”

Conversation tended to naturally die down in the cold monotony of the long journey. Though knowing each other’s dispositions as well as they did meant wordless exchanges could set Lawrence’s mind at ease, they were still no substitute for real conversation like this. The two laughed at each other. The cart horse flicked its tail, as if to say, “Enough!” which only triggered another wave of laughter from its passengers.

Holo rewrapped the fox fur muffler around her neck as she giggled while Lawrence turned his gaze back to the panorama of Lenos that now came into focus.

It might have been twice the size of the pagan town of Kumersun. Surrounded by walls constructed perhaps a century earlier, the houses within the walls had long since filled the enclosed area. With no more room to build outward, buildings instead became more concentrated—and taller, always taller.

The scene spread out now before Lawrence made it look for a moment as though the town had finally overflowed its own walls. Dozens of tents flanked the road on both sides as they made their way to Lenos through the misting rain.

“Is this what they call a gate-front town, then?” asked Holo.

“That sort of thing happens around churches, yes, especially when the church has been plopped in the middle of the wilderness somewhere. It would be strange, though, to be constantly setting up shop outside the town walls.”

For a town to prosper, it had to collect taxes, and to collect those taxes, it had to make people pass through its gates.

Of course, there were cramped towns that held their markets outside of the town, but even those were enclosed by temporary fences.

“Hmm. It hardly seems as though these people are engaging in trade.”

Just as Holo said this, they drew closer to the tents and could see that the people beneath them wore traveling clothes and were busy cooking or chatting. And though they all wore traveling garments, the styles were from far and wide. Some seemed to be from even farther north than here while others were from the west or the south. At quick count, there seemed to be around twenty tents, each sheltering perhaps three or four people.

The one commonality was that they all seemed to be merchants who specialized in this or that commodity. Roughly half of them seemed to be hauling large loads with a few wagons even carrying giant barrels.

All the merchants’ faces were tinged with dust and travel fatigue, and the occasional flash of irritation showed in their eyes.

Lawrence wondered if there’d been some kind of a coup in Lenos, but that didn’t make sense given that only some of the people gathered there seemed to be quartered in tents. There were also farmers with donkeys in tow and merchantlike people carrying loads on their backs, all hurrying toward Lenos to get out of the rain or setting out toward any number of other destinations.

As far as Lawrence could tell, the town seemed more or less as it always had.

“Some kind of trouble again, perhaps?” mused Holo, emphasizing the “again” and grinning beneath her hood.

Lawrence glanced at Holo out of the corner of his eye, as if to ask, “And precisely whose fault has that been?” but she simply shot the same look back at him.

“It may be true that since meeting me you’ve had a few scrapes, but one can hardly claim that they were directly my fault.”

“I—”

“I will grant the first one—well, part of that might have been owing to me, but its true cause was your avarice, which was wholly to blame for the next disaster. And our last problem was simple bad luck. Am I wrong?”

Holo was nothing if not precise.

Lawrence stroked his beard, which was longer of late, given his reluctance to shave without hot water, but still he did not give in and agree with her. “I suppose I understand what you’re saying…”

“Mm.”

“But I simply cannot agree. It’s true that you weren’t necessarily there to trigger our troubles, but…”

Lawrence couldn’t bring himself to agree with Holo’s assessment.

He wanted to tell her that it was her fault.

As his grumble trailed off, Holo gave him a look as if she couldn’t even believe they were having the conversation. “I can see all too clearly how you don’t want to agree with me, even though I am hardly the root cause of all these troubles.”

Lawrence knitted his brows, wondering what trickery she was up to. She noted this and giggled.

Holo continued. “’Tis because you always use me as the basis for your actions—hence you always feel I’m pulling you this way and that.”

Lawrence’s left eyebrow twitched involuntarily.

She was right.

But admitting it would mean the wolf had gotten the best of him.

In other words—

“Heh. Always stubborn,” said Holo, her voice as grating as the chill mist that fell from the sky.

Her smile was every bit as pure and fickle and cold as though she was about to run away forever.

He had to catch her.

In defiance of all reason, Holo’s smile made him want to shout out loud.

The next moment, her small body would be in his arms.

It felt like the most natural thing in the world.

“Mmph.”

The urge lasted no more than four of the cart horse’s steps.

Lawrence managed to keep his cool as he guided the wagon into the line for the checkpoint into town.

The reason for his restraint was simple.

There was a crowd of people around them.

As they plied their trade routes, traveling merchants loved to gossip, even about their own ilk. If Lawrence was seen openly flirting with his companion, no doubt the tale would spread.

Holo looked aside, seeming bored.

No doubt she was bored.

Despite the fact that Lawrence had always perceived all women’s smiles to be the same, he could now follow the slightest changes of expression on Holo’s face. In addition to her boredom, there was a flicker of unease.

He saw this and realized something. There were two basic motivations for his actions.

One was Holo.

The other was business.

Holo feared loneliness even more than Lawrence did. No doubt she was sometimes frightened by the prospect of being weighed against business. In the end, only the gods could know which way the balance would tip in the end—or how close it might be.

And the end of their journey was not far away.

Would she venture to cause trouble just when Lawrence had to put on his merchant face, just to test which way he would choose, forcing the issue of whether she was more important than his ledger’s balance?

Not that she was so insignificant as to warrant that kind of worry, Lawrence found himself thinking.

The wagon inched forward in the slow-moving line, and a great puff of white fog issued from beneath Holo’s hood as she looked at him irritably.

“Some stew would be nice,” she said.

No doubt she was talking about dinner. Evidently the time for affirmations had passed.

“Aye, with this cold. Depending on the price, I’d take a stew with a proper thick flour broth.”

“Ho, ho! Sometimes the sweet smell of milk surpasses that of the finest wine.”

Seeing her like this, face half-wrapped in the fox fur muffler as she nodded her delighted agreement, erased the past several days of irritated remarks he’d endured.

Sometimes it was good to order something full of tasty ingredients. “A stew made with the vegetables of the season would be especially good,” said Lawrence.

“Vegetables? Do you not understand the flavor of delicious stewed meat floating in the creamy broth?”

Despite having spent centuries in the wheat fields, Holo’s tastes were more aristocratic than any noble’s.

There before the walls of Lenos, Lawrence made one last counterattack. He regretted having indulged her.

“They say fine foods can be bad for the eye and bad for the tongue.”

“Oh? And how bad for my heart do you think it was to go so many centuries without so much as a taste?” Holo glared up at him sharply.

She was completely unmoved, her red-tinged chestnut eyes glinting like polished jewels.

In front of such shining gems, the only thing to do was fall to your knees.

But Lawrence was a merchant, not some jewel-crazed noblewoman. If the price wasn’t right, there was only one thing to say, even in the face of the most precious gem.

“Perhaps once I’ve consulted my coin purse.”

Holo looked away like a stubborn child.

Even after this exchange, Lawrence knew it was likely that they would wind up having a meat stew. No doubt Holo was confident of this as well.

And yet still they played at arguing.

Lawrence flicked the reins and eased the wagon forward.

As they passed through the checkpoint, Lawrence looked up at the stone wall, which was moss colored from the rain.

He looked down again shortly, though it was not to hide any of his goods from the import tax. No, he wanted only to hide the smile that spread under his beard.

Perhaps it was because of the cold winter rain that there were so few people in the town’s streets.

What few were there were mostly children, the mist of their exhalations trailing behind them as they ran here and there with hands clasped tight to their breasts—no doubt on errands for the town’s shopkeepers and craftsmen. The phantomlike forms with their bundles of rags were surely doing the same job.

The stalls that faced the street were largely unattended as the light mist gathered and dribbled from their eaves. Without any shopkeepers to chase them away, a few beggars gathered under a handful of the stalls. It was the very image of a rainy day.

But the fact that just outside the entrance to the town walls there were tents lined up with merchants cooking dinner beneath them meant something was afoot.

Lawrence held in his hand the wooden plaque he’d received at the checkpoint that was proof of his status as a foreign merchant, and listened vaguely as Holo voiced her displeasure.

“’Tis not as though I would place it at the very pinnacle of creation, but is that not an unreachable state, not some matter of relative merit? What say you?”

“Oh, indeed.”

“If we are to talk of that which falls short of being inherently superior and that which exceeds its humble origins to become great, I should think the latter more worthy of respect. Am I wrong?”

“…Not at all.”

Perhaps it was the fatigue of the long journey. Holo’s anger was not the complete rage it normally seemed to be. She expressed her displeasure as a lower, more constant grumble.

In his mind, Lawrence cursed the loudmouthed checkpoint guard whose careless words had brought this upon him—but then he realized that if his replies to Holo were too perfunctory, she’d turn her anger upon him.

“Yes, well, if the choice is between a nobleman with no fame, no charisma, no assets, naught but his lineage, and a canny commoner who’s amassed wealth and fame, then surely it’s the latter whom I’d respect,” agreed Lawrence.

Normally such obsequiousness would only worsen Holo’s mood, but at the moment it seemed to be good enough.

She gave an exaggerated, almost drunken nod, then sniffed like an angry bull.

At the checkpoint, they’d been subjected to an extremely thorough search, and the guard had discovered Holo’s tail.

Of course, Holo was nonchalant as always and easily passed it off as an underskirt, which the guard seemed to believe, but then he had said this:

“Oh, just a cheap wolf skin.”

Being a guard at a town that was a hub for lumber and fur, he’d known how to tell a wolf pelt from a dog or a fox.

And he was not wrong about the value. Wolf pelts were ranked below dog. No matter how fine the quality, no matter how much it made a fur trader drool, the simple fact was that it would never be worth as much as a good deerskin.

The problem arose when that wolf’s pride was not so cheap as its fur—and on that count, Holo was expensive indeed.

This explained her angry, childish muttering. Lawrence felt so bad for her that he wanted to stroke her head to comfort her.

Had they still been midjourney, he might have simply held the reins and exchanged snippy remarks with her, but now he only looked at her out of the corner of his eye. He scratched his chin with the corner of the foreign merchant plaque, wondering if some food would help her feel better.

In truth, Lawrence was more concerned with the significance of that plaque.

It appeared hastily made without any kind of official seal on it.

He’d been told that if he wanted to buy commodities in the village, no one would sell to him unless he displayed the plaque.

That was the only explanation he had received. He’d been quickly shooed through the checkpoint, through which a string of travelers passed like an eel wriggling through a trap.

It was a situation no merchant could abide.

This was the first time he’d encountered something like this—not just in Lenos, but in any town.

“So then,” said Holo.

“Oh, uh, yes?” A poke at his leg jerked Lawrence out of his reverie, and he met Holo’s sharp gaze.

For a moment he wondered if he’d missed her saying something, but before he could ask, Holo continued.

“Will we make the inn soon?”

No doubt she was cold and hungry and could not tolerate riding in the wagon any longer than she had to. “Just ahead around that corner,” Lawrence told her. She gave an irritated sigh at the fact that the inn was not immediately in front of her, sinking deeper into her hood.

He would have to be very careful about the amount of meat in tonight’s stew. Lawrence thought the matter over as he drove the wagon, and soon enough they arrived at their destination.

It was an ordinary four-story building that somehow fell short of striking one as elegant.

The first floor, which faced the street, had a Dutch door. The lower section could be opened and turned sideways, becoming a surface on which to display goods, and the upper section could function as an awning. Both were currently closed fast, doing their best to hold back the cold winter air.

Holo’s expression only darkened. Perhaps she expected to be taken to an inn with a properly maintained facade.

Lawrence avoided explaining to her that even should they spend more money, it did not guarantee a restful inn. He climbed down from the driver’s box to avoid her baleful gaze and trotted over to the inn’s front door, giving it a knock.

The inn did not have so much as a sign out front, so it was very unlikely to be full, but there was a real possibility that the owner could have closed up because of the cold weather.

So when Lawrence heard the shuffling of someone behind the door just before it opened a crack, he felt a certain amount of relief.

“You staying or selling goods?” a gruff, whitebearded old man brusquely demanded through the barely opened door.

“Staying. Two of us.”

The old man gave only a quick nod, then retreated back into the building.

The door was left open, so apparently there were vacancies.

Lawrence glanced back at the wagon. “Which do you want, a bright room or a warm room?” he asked.

The question was unexpected. A crease appeared on Holo’s brow. “What else is there but a warm room?”

“Right, I’ll take the horse around to the stables. You go on in and talk to the innkeeper—that older gentleman—and tell him that. He’ll show you to a room.”

“Mm.”

Lawrence climbed back into the driver’s box and took the reins, trading places with Holo, who got off. The horse, seeming to realize that he was finally about to get out of the driving winter wind and into a warm stable, shook his head as if to hurry them up. With a flick of the reins, Lawrence set the horse to walking, watching Holo enter the inn out of the corner of his eye.

He’d be able to pick her dusty, multilayered robe out of a crowd of a hundred people with no problem.

After all, no matter how many layers she wore, he’d recognize the movements of her swishing tail anywhere.

Smiling to himself, Lawrence guided the horse into the barn, wherein there were two beggars doing lookout duty. They gave Lawrence an appraising glance.

The lookouts never forgot a face, so naturally they remembered Lawrence, and with a gesture of their chins, pointed to where they wanted him to leave his horse. With no reason to refuse, Lawrence complied. In doing so, he noticed that next to his space was a wide-hooved mountain horse, which gave him a flinty glare from beneath its long, shaggy hair. No doubt it had hauled furs into town from the northlands.

“You two get along now,” said Lawrence, patting his own horse on its flank as he climbed down from the wagon, leaving the two beggars with two copper coins before gathering his belongings and heading into the inn.

This particular inn had once been the living quarters of a tannery. The first floor had been the leather strap makers’ workshop, and so it was mostly open with few walls and a stone floor. Now it was used to store things, and here and there were goods that various merchants had the inn keep under long-term storage.

Slipping past the jumbled piles of goods that were taller than he was, Lawrence arrived at the only orderly place on the first floor—the innkeeper’s room.

On a small table was an iron bowl held up in a three-legged iron brace. The innkeeper burned charcoal in the bowl and drank mulled wine all day, daydreaming of far-off lands. “Next year, I’m going south on pilgrimage,” he would frequently say.

The innkeeper noticed Lawrence, looking at him with keen blue eyes beneath bushy brows. “Third floor. Window side.”

“Right, third floor—wait, window side?”

Though inn patrons could either pay in advance or at the end of their stay, the stoic innkeeper’s mood was improved by pay in advance. Lawrence had thus placed a moderately generous fee on the table, but the innkeeper’s words came as a surprise, making him turn around.

“Window side,” said the innkeeper again in a low voice, closing his eyes.

The old man did not want to discuss the matter.

Lawrence nodded his head. Oh well, he thought to himself as he left the room.

Holding the handrails stained with age and use, he went up the stairs.

Just like the living quarters of any other workshop, on the second floor was a living room with a fireplace, a kitchen, and the master’s bedroom. This building was a bit different in that the fireplace was in the center of the living room, and the rooms on the third and fourth floors were built to get as much heat as possible from the chimney that led upwards through the inn.

In addition to the somewhat strange layout that this necessitated, the maintenance necessary to ensure that smoke didn’t leak from the chimney and into the rooms was often troublesome. The master of this building, however, had chosen the comfort of the apprentices that would live on the third and fourth floors.

The current innkeeper was a kind, if quiet man. His name was Arold Ecklund, and he had been the head craftsman of the tannery.

When night fell, the odd downstairs living room would be filled with friendly chatter as the guests each came bearing various wines. Now, though, all that could be heard was the quietly crackling fire.

There were four rooms on the third floor.

Back when the building had been a workshop, the fourth floor was used for new apprentices and as storage for odds and ends, so the third-floor rooms were larger.

But not all of those rooms received the benefit of the warmth from the chimney. Only one of the third-floor rooms faced the street, and in order to accommodate a window to let in light, it sacrificed access to the chimney.

In other words, having a window meant sacrificing heat.

Lawrence was sure that Holo had said she preferred a warm room. As he entered their quarters, he saw that she’d already taken off and scattered all her wet clothes everywhere and was huddled beneath the covers of her bed.

He wondered if she was crying from the indignity of it all, but looking at the way she lay curled up in the blanket, she seemed to have fallen asleep.

Staying angry for so long must have tired her out, Lawrence supposed.

He gathered up her discarded clothes, draping them temporarily over the back of a chair, and he removed his own traveling garb. This was the most relieving part of any journey—the moment when he could remove his wet things at an inn. They felt like damp clay as he peeled them off, set them aside, and changed into his normal clothes, which hadn’t yet been soaked with rain.

His standard outfit was admittedly cold, but it was still better than staying wet.

Without a fireplace, the room would be no warmer than a campsite once night fell.

A mere blanket wouldn’t be enough to stave off the chill. He realized this as he bundled up Holo’s heavy, rain-soaked clothing like a manservant.

Holo’s tail stuck out from underneath the blanket, which otherwise looked as if it had been thrown over a pile of bread, cheese, or bacon.

She really didn’t play fair, thought Lawrence.

It wasn’t quite the same thing as a nobleman’s daughter flashing her long, beautiful hair out the window of her chamber to catch the eye of a passing knight—but nonetheless, Lawrence felt compelled to respond.

“I think your tail is lovely; it’s warm with fine fur.”

A moment passed, and Holo pulled her tail in underneath the blanket.

Lawrence could only heave a sigh.

Holo was hardly the sort of sensitive girl whose wounded feelings could be soothed with a single compliment from him. Even at this very moment, she surely still harbored a smoldering grudge.

And yet she had gotten Lawrence to praise her tail.

Lawrence smiled ruefully to himself as he descended the stairs, sighing again. In her own way, Holo relied on him. That was all the reason he needed.

It could be one of her clever traps, but being caught in them wasn’t such a bad feeling.

He took advantage of the fact that a mind-reading wolf wasn’t planted next to him to mull over such thoughts as he entered the living room, which housed the fireplace.

There was no one there. His only company was the echoes of the crackling firewood.

Furniture was scarce. A single chair was illuminated by the flickering light of the fire. That chair alone wouldn’t be enough to dry the bundle of clothes Lawrence held in both arms, but he was unconcerned.

Here and there on the walls of the living room were nails that had been only half pounded in, their heads turned up to act as hooks. A leather strap dangled from one of them, long enough to be connected to a hook on the opposite wall. On rainy days, this was excellent for drying the clothes of sodden travelers, and on clear days, it worked well for drying vegetables and meat to serve as supplies for people resuming their journeys.

Lawrence quickly set up the line and hung the wet clothes across it.

The robes were larger than he’d reckoned, and he wound up having to use the entirety of the line.

“Just so long as no one else comes to dry their clothes,” Lawrence murmured to himself as he sat down on the single chair before the fireplace.

The next moment, he heard the creaking sound of the staircase.

“…”

Apparently the creak had actually come from the hallway.

Lawrence turned his gaze toward the sound and met the eyes of a figure who had climbed up the stairs and now peered into the living room.

His head was wrapped in a cowl, which also covered most of his face, obscuring whatever expression he might have had, but his gaze was keen and steady. He was not especially tall, but neither short—perhaps a bit taller than Holo.

His traveling clothes were heavy and squared his figure. The most outstanding feature of the fellow’s attire were his leather boots with thick, leather strap work that bound them to his calves. They were proof of a traveler who eschewed horseback in favor of his own two feet, and the tightness with which the straps were tied was evidence of the severity of the season.

The pale blue eyes that regarded Lawrence through the gap in those heavy layers of clothing were pure and keen—and unsympathetic.

After giving Lawrence a long, appraising look, the figure continued wordlessly up the stairs.

Despite carrying a heavy load, his footsteps were nearly silent.

The stranger also seemed to have secured a third-floor room. From above his head, Lawrence heard a door open, then close.

Arold mostly left his guests alone, which made his inn particularly prized among those who weren’t interested in being sociable. Even among merchants, not all of them were extroverts.

Lawrence used this inn when he was in Lenos because the price and facilities were good and because Arold had been a member of the Rowen Trade Guild. Once Arold had been a traveling fur merchant, but he’d married into the tannery and taken over as its master.

Since the town didn’t have a Rowen guild house, many guild members used this inn when passing through.

Arold’s tendency to leave his guests alone was especially convenient now with Holo along.

In reality, the foremost issue on Lawrence’s mind was securing the meat stew that would hopefully improve Holo’s mood. If it would make her feel better, a bowl or two of stew was nothing, but the total cost of staying in this town could skyrocket if he let his guard down.

The fatigue of his long journey crept up on him as he pondered the problem there before the fireplace, and soon he dozed off.

He woke once when Arold came to add fuel to the fire, but Arold of course said nothing and in fact was rather generous in his use of firewood, prompting Lawrence to decide to enjoy the old man’s courtesy.

Lawrence woke again after the sun had set, when but for the firelight, the darkness in the room was so thick it seemed one could easily ladle cupfuls of it.

Realizing he had overslept, Lawrence scrambled to his feet, but he could not turn back time. No doubt the selfish Holo had long since awoken and was nursing a fine temper back in their room, unable to leave until Lawrence returned with her clothes.

Lawrence sighed, and after checking to see that the clothes were in fact dry, he quickly collected them and returned to the third-floor room.

It went without saying that Holo was fit to be tied.

The stew Lawrence finally ordered at the tavern he chose at random was a luxuriously meaty one indeed.

The next morning, Lawrence awoke to sunny weather. Warm slivers of light found their way in through the cracks in the wooden window. Despite their room not receiving the benefit of the fireplace, the morning chill was not so bad as it might have been, thanks either to the sunlight or to the merchant having grown accustomed to freezing cold nights on the road.

Either way, given this warmth, Lawrence could understand why Holo had chosen the brighter room.

The morning sun certainly earned its adoration.

In a rare turn of events, Lawrence was awake before Holo, whose head protruded from the blanket under which she slept. Normally she slept curled up like a proper wolf, so to see her slumbering more like the maiden she appeared to be was novel.

The few previous occasions when Holo had overslept were all the results of hangovers, but her complexion looked healthy this morning.

Given the guileless expression on her exposed face, Lawrence supposed she was simply sleeping late.

“Well then,” he murmured.

It was all well and good to stare at Holo’s face for a while, but if the irritable wisewolf noticed him, he would hear no end of it.

What he needed to be doing was preparing to venture out into the town. He stroked his beard.

Naturally longer beards were commonplace in the north country, but his was still a bit too long, and a self-indulgently long beard was hardly attractive. As he retrieved a washcloth and blade from his things in preparation for borrowing some hot water from Arold, the keen-eared wolf on the bed stirred, seemingly wakened by the sound.

After hearing her utter a displeased groan, Lawrence became aware of her gaze upon his back.

“I’m off to tend to my pelt,” said Lawrence, putting the sheathed blade to his chin.

Holo yawned, then smiled wordlessly, narrowing her eyes. She seemed to be in a good temper.

“Have to make sure it’ll fetch a good price, after all,” Lawrence added.

Holo hid her mouth behind the blanket. “I’m sure ’tis worth a king’s ransom.”

Perhaps it was because she had just woken. Her eyes were gentle despite their drowsiness.

No doubt she was at least half teasing him, but he couldn’t help but be a little pleased at her honest, straightforward words. He shrugged to hide his embarrassment.

Holo continued. “Aye, a price so high none will buy it,” she said with a glitter of malice in her eyes now as she shifted from lying on her stomach to her back. “Has anyone so far?”

She certainly had a talent for luring people into premature happiness, Lawrence thought to himself.

He waggled the tip of the blade he held to signal his surrender, at which Holo giggled, snuggling back underneath the blanket and rolling over as if going back to sleep.

Lawrence sighed.

It was both frustrating and strangely amusing to be constantly toyed with like this.

He left the room and headed down the stairs, hand on the banister, as he smiled ruefully to himself.

But that smile vanished when he noticed someone else there before him.

“Good morning,” said Lawrence pleasantly to the fellow lodger who appeared at the bottom of the stairs.

It was the same hooded stranger he’d glimpsed briefly while drying his clothes the previous night.

The stranger wore the same cowl, but his robes were somewhat looser now, and his feet were shod in sandals. Having perhaps bought a pastry for breakfast, he held a faintly steaming package in his right hand.

“…Aye,” replied the stranger in a near whisper as they passed, glancing at Lawrence with blue eyes through the gap in his cowl.

The voice was hoarse, the voice of a traveler well suited to dry sand and rocky terrain.

Despite the stranger’s unsociability, Lawrence felt a certain kinship.

In any case, once he smelled the scent of the meat pie that issued up from the lodger’s package, he knew for a certainty that Holo would soon be demanding one for herself.

“What comes next, then?” asked Holo, a scrap of meat clinging to the corner of her mouth and a meat pie in one hand.

“Well, first we’ve got to collect whatever stories about you we can find.”

“Mm. Stories of me and of the whereabouts of Yoitsu.…”

Munch, munch, munch. Three bites were all it took to polish off the hand-sized remnants of the meat pie. They were swallowed and gone in a twinkling.

“Just like in Kumersun, we need to find a chronicler,” said Lawrence.

“I’ll just leave that to you. You know better than me how to accomplish the thing…What? What is it?”

Lawrence waved his hand lightly at Holo’s questioning look, smiling. “So if I know how to accomplish the thing, what do you know?” He returned her blank gaze. “There’s a saying that goes: ‘He who knows how to do something is the servant of he who knows why that thing must be done.’”

“Mm. I see. And I do know why it is that you work so gallantly.”

“The men of old spoke true,” said Lawrence, biting into his own pie.

Holo sat cross-legged on the bed and continued. “If I’m your master, then I suppose I should give you a reward.”

“A reward?”

“Aye. Such as, hmm…,” began Holo with a smile that felt to Lawrence as if fairly painted with something bewitching. “What is it you desire?”

The room was seductively dim, and Lawrence would have felt his heart skip a beat but for the scrap of meat that still clung to the corner of Holo’s mouth.

Lawrence finished his own meat pie, then pointed at the corner of his own mouth. “Nothing in particular,” he told Holo.

“Hmph,” said Holo, vaguely frustrated as she plucked the meat scrap from her mouth.

“It would be nice if you were a bit more pleasant,” added Lawrence.

Holo’s hand froze and her lip twitched. She flicked her finger, sending the scrap of food flying. “So now you treat me like a child?”

“Not at all. Children actually do as they’re told, for one.” Lawrence took hold of a jug of chilled water, taking a swig, then paused. “Anyway, first I suppose we’ll ask the innkeeper here. He may be old, but he’s still the master of an inn.”

Lawrence stood and put on his coat by way of preparation. For Holo’s part, she crawled off the bed.

“You’re coming along, right?” asked Lawrence.

“Aye, even if you slapped my wrist,” said Holo. As she bantered, she quickly put on her waistcloth, robe, and cape with such practiced ease that Lawrence looked on as though enchanted. The wolf twirled theatrically and spoke. “Should I clap my hands now, the spell I’ve cast upon you may well be broken!”

So that’s what she was doing.

Lawrence decided to play along.

“Huh? What am I doing here? Oh, that’s right—this is Lenos, city of lumber and fur. I should stock up on furs and head to the next town,” he said, using exaggerated gesticulations. He’d seen his share of traveling theatrical troupes.

Holo put her hands to her midriff and laughed as though watching a grand comedy.

After giggling for a moment, she scampered over to Lawrence, whose hand was on the room’s door, ready to open it. “Oh, la, are you a traveling merchant? I’ve a good eye, me, for judging the quality of furs,” she said.

Lawrence took her hand, then opened the door, answering, “Oh ho! You’ve a discerning eye, ’tis true. But can you judge the quality of a person?”

The stairs creaked in the morning quiet of the inn.

When they reached the second floor, Holo fixed Lawrence with her gaze. “I’ve an evil spell cast upon me.”

Lawrence flashed a quick smile, as if to ask what she was getting at. “I suppose I’d best not clap, so as to avoid breaking it,” he said.

“You’ve already clapped once.”

“So you’re saying the spell’s coming undone?”

There was no telling where the trap in this conversation was.

This was how Holo would extort him into buying her treats.

He pondered how to avoid that particular eventuality as they passed the second floor where he saw a pair of travelers who had evidently fallen asleep while chatting in front of the fireplace.

As they continued down to the first floor, a tug at Lawrence’s hand pulled him out of his reverie.

To be precise, Holo, who had been holding his hand the entire time, stopped descending the stairs.

She looked down at him, smiling softly from underneath her hood. “So then, will you cast another spell upon me so that I do not wake?”

It was a devilish play.

No doubt Holo would be satisfied if Lawrence was unable to answer.

But Lawrence wanted to get the best of her every once in a while, so he turned around and took her hand again in his.

In all the world, there was only one reason a man would take a woman’s hand in this way.

He cradled her pale hand gently, then lightly kissed it.

“Will this do, milady?” he asked, his pronunciation appropriately archaic.

If he wasn’t careful, blood would rush up to his face, ruining the effect.

But he kept his composure and looked up into Holo’s eyes, which were wide and round as saucers.

“Come, let’s go,” he said, a smile finally appearing on his lips—a smile both of recognition that he had done something ridiculous and of victory at having gotten the best of Holo.

He pulled lightly on her hand, and she came down the steps like a slack-stringed puppet.

Her face was downcast, and he could not clearly make out her expression, but she seemed to be irritated.

Lawrence chuckled inwardly. Restraining his embarrassment had been worth the trouble. He felt a swell of triumph, but then Holo stumbled forward as if having missed a step, and he hurried to catch her.

Just as he began to laugh, wondering if she was too frustrated to stand, she hugged him tightly and whispered in his ear, “That’s a spell too strong, foolish boy.”

The voice was peevish, irritated.

If Lawrence had been the person he was when they first met, either his mind would have gone blank or he would have simply returned her embrace.

As it was he did neither and simply smiled, which he thought would only be more frustrating for her.

Back in the village of Tereo, Lawrence had begun to open a box that contained an uncomfortable truth—the truth that these halcyon days with Holo might soon be coming to an end. But he did not want to open the box himself. Holo, too, had put her hand on it.

But at the time, neither of them wanted to confront its contents, so for now the box remained closed.

Yet there were some things he understood.

Holo did not want to confront the issue unless she had to.

Though he could now maintain his composure as she clung to him and whispered in his ear, he would never have imagined he could be of such help to her.

Her uncombed bangs against his cheek were still straight and smooth and smelled sweet though untouched by any perfume. They were so fine he didn’t even bother to start counting the strands.

Holo eventually realized that Lawrence had shown no reaction at all. She pulled away and looked up at him.

“Just when are you going to become properly flustered?” she asked.

“Mm, indeed. When you stop doing such things, I suppose.”

Holo was extremely quick.

She soon divined the meaning of his words and affected frustration. “You’ve become quite clever, you have.”

“Mm, perhaps,” said Lawrence, at which Holo let go of him entirely, gave a soft sigh through her nose, and began descending the stairs.

If she enjoyed seeing Lawrence flustered, then she would have to tease him, but if what truly flustered him was when she stopped doing so, then her only recourse was to behave herself.

Lawrence allowed himself a bit of self-satisfaction at his skillful turnaround as he followed Holo down the stairs, but when she reached the bottom, she spun around.

“Yes, you’ve certainly developed a way with words. Whoever has been teaching you, I wonder?”

What surprised Lawrence most was her smile. It was strangely good-natured and warm enough to thaw a chilled hand.

He’d thought for sure she was irritated with him, so this sudden change put him on his guard as he stood before her.

“No—it just came to me in the moment, that’s all.”

“In the moment?” Holo giggled. “That’s even better.” She seemed so pleased that if she had been a puppy, her tail would’ve been wagging rapidly.

Uncomprehending, Lawrence looked at Holo as she took his left hand, intertwining her fingers with his.

“When I stop doing such things, eh?” she murmured again, drawing flirtatiously close to him.

When she stops doing such things…?

A strange feeling came over Lawrence when he heard the words again.

The moment he realized the other meaning they held, he froze in his tracks.

Holo giggled. “Whatever is the matter?”

The melted-snow clarity of her high spirits clashed with the swamplike stickiness of her wit.

Lawrence could not bring himself to look at her.

It was when she didn’t toy with him that he became flustered.

What have I said, he wanted to cry out.

Why, it was tantamount to outrightly declaring that he wanted her attention above all else!

“What’s this? Your circulation seems to have improved,” said Holo.

Indeed, Lawrence could not stop the flush that rose to his face.

He covered his eyes with his free hand, wanting to at least show some shame that he’d not realized the true implications of what he was saying.

Holo, however, had no intention of letting him do so. “Goodness, there’s no need to be ashamed of such sweet, childish words.”

Swish, swish came the sound of her tail.

Getting the best of a wisewolf in a duel of words was truly an impossible dream.

Holo chuckled. “You surely are adorable, you are.”

Through the spaces between his fingers, Lawrence caught sight of Holo’s face—cupped in her hands, sporting an infinitely malicious grin.

Arold had evidently been busy with something in the stables, so fortunately he hadn’t overheard Lawrence’s foolish exchange with Holo.

There was no question that Holo had been aware of this as she’d toyed with Lawrence.

“A chronicler, you say?” asked Arold.

“Aye. Or someone else who would know the old tales of the town.”

Arold sat in his usual chair and poured some mulled wine into a cup fashioned from a sheet of thin, beaten metal. He raised his left eyebrow in curiosity. It was clear he never expected to hear this kind of question from a guest.

But where other innkeepers would certainly begin inquiring about a guest’s background, Arold did no such thing. He merely stroked his snow-white beard for a moment before answering.

“There’s a man named Rigolo who does such things…but unfortunately he’s at the Council of Fifty right now. I surely doubt he’ll take visitors.”

“The Council of Fifty?” asked Lawrence.

Arold poured mulled wine into two small earthenware cups, offering them to Lawrence and Holo.

Just as the name suggested, the Council of Fifty was a council of fifty members—representatives of the town’s tradesmen, merchants, and noblemen. Each of them represented their own clan or trade guild and advocated that organization’s interests in vigorous debates. The outcome of those debates decided the fate of the town, so each representative carried a heavy burden of responsibility.

Once there had been significant political jockeying around seats on the council, but a great plague some years previous had evidently left many seats empty.

“Did you not see the state of things outside the town…?” asked Arold.

“We saw. The merchant encampment, yes? If that’s connected with the Council of Fifty, then is there some trouble within the town?”

Holo put the proffered wine to her lips but froze shortly thereafter.

No doubt her tail was puffing up at the same instant. There was no telling the quality of a drink from a new region, after all.

“It’s the furs, you see,” said Arold.

“The furs?” Lawrence asked, suddenly excited. A chill ran down his spine at the mention of the word. It wasn’t because he was concerned about Holo—far from it. The word was so familiar to him that he felt a visceral reaction at the sudden remembrance of what he’d spent so much time pursuing—profit.

But Arold continued as if he hadn’t heard the question. “Rigolo’s the secretary of the council,” he said. Apparently he didn’t want to discuss the council meeting, and Arold wasn’t a particularly loquacious person to begin with. “And you’re looking for people who know old tales, then,” he finished.

“Er, yes. That would be fine. Do you know of any?” He couldn’t let the anticipation show on his face.

Lawrence’s self-discipline seemed to have worked. Arold’s blue eyes, nearly buried in the wrinkles of his face, squinted off into the distance. “Bolta the tanner’s grandmother was a wise old woman…but she died in the plague four years gone.”

“And there are no others?”

“Others? Mm…the old man of the Latton Company, but no, the heat of the summer last year did him in…” Arold set his cup down with an audible thunk.

Lawrence noticed Holo look over at Arold, probably at the sound he had just made.

“I suppose the town’s old wisdom only exists as written word now,” said Arold, aghast at the realization as he continued to gaze somewhere far away, stroking his beard.

Lawrence could tell that, beneath her robes, Holo’s body twitched in surprise.

There was no one who had direct knowledge of her. Holo herself was that forgotten wisdom.

Lawrence immediately forgot the thrill he had felt only a moment ago and wordlessly put his hand on Holo’s back. “So that means we’ve no course but to go to Mr. Rigolo and have him show us the chronicles?”

“I suppose so…The months and years weather even stone buildings, to say nothing of the writings of men. ’Tis a dreadful thing…” Arold shook his head, closing his eyes and falling silent.

The old man had been a recluse when Lawrence had first met him, and it seemed that tendency had only deepened with time.

Lawrence couldn’t help but wonder whether it was the ever-clearer sound of death’s approach that drove this.

Deciding that further conversation would only bring trouble, Lawrence finished his remaining wine in a single draught, and inviting Holo to go ahead of him, he went outside.

In a sudden turnabout from the previous day, the street was busy, and the sun that shone down from Lawrence’s left was bright enough to make him briefly dizzy.

He stood there on the still slick cobblestone street and looked at Holo.

She seemed dejected.

“Shall we find something to eat?” Even Lawrence thought that was roughly the worst thing he could have said, but things were so difficult at the moment that everything was turned inside out.

Beneath her hood, Holo gave a long-suffering sigh, then smiled. “You ought to build your vocabulary,” she said, pulling on Lawrence’s hand.

Apparently it was premature to worry that she was going to start something here in the crowds.

Just as Lawrence was pulled away, the door to the inn opened once again.

“…”

It was the stranger from before that emerged.

The man was the very image of a busy traveler, but when he looked at Lawrence and Holo, he froze, visibly surprised.

“…Pardon” was all he said in a high, hoarse voice after a moment and then immediately melted into the crowd.

Lawrence looked at Holo just to be sure that her ears and tail weren’t visible. She cocked her head slightly.

“Seemed a bit surprised to see me,” said Holo.

“Surely he doesn’t suspect you’re not human.”

“I did not get that sense from her. Perhaps she was merely taken aback by my comeliness.”

“Surely not,” replied a smiling Lawrence to Holo, whose chest was thrust out with exaggerated pride. “Wait,” he added. “She?”

“Hmm?”

“That was a woman?”

The well-traveled look and hoarse voice of the stranger had made him assume otherwise, but Holo could hardly be wrong about such things.

Lawrence looked in the direction in which she had disappeared and wondered what a female traveling merchant could possibly be trading in when he felt another tug at his hand.

“What exactly makes you think it is acceptable to be standing beside me and staring thus at another female?”

“Must you be so direct? A more roundabout complaint would be far more charming.”

“You’re such a dunce you’d never catch on unless I spoke plainly,” Holo shot back without flinching, scorn in her voice.

Given their earlier conversation, it was sad indeed that Lawrence was unable to refute her.

“So, what shall we do next?” Lawrence asked, putting an end to the foolish exchange. They needed to plan their day.

“Will it be difficult to meet that man—whatever was his name?”

“Rigolo or some such. If he’s the secretary of the council, it may well be difficult, though that may depend on exactly what the council is doing…,” said Lawrence, scratching his just-tidied beard.

Holo took a step forward. “’Tis clear enough from your face that you’re desperate to know what that meeting is about.”

“Is it?” asked Lawrence, stroking his beard. Holo’s expression as she looked over her shoulder at him was mean-spirited indeed.

“So we’ll instead loaf about town until the meeting is adjourned, I expect?”

Lawrence smiled. “The wisewolf’s powers of observation are keen indeed. I’m dying to know what’s going on with this town. Not just that, I—”

“You want to turn it into profit.”

Lawrence slumped. Holo cocked her head at him and smiled.

“Whatever it is, it’s serious enough that they’re passing out these wooden plaques. Something interesting must be happening,” said Lawrence, taking the foreign merchant registration plaque out of his back pocket.

“Still, though, a warning—,” said Holo.

“Hmm?”

“Try to restrain yourself.”

Holo’s words were hard to laugh off ruefully since so far they had been through kidnappings, chased through sewers, faced bankruptcy, and most recently, caught up in a giant feud.

“I will,” he answered, whereupon the wisewolf that had been so lovely up until a few moments ago turned suddenly angry.

“I wonder about that,” she said.

In the face of her sudden suspicion, Lawrence had but one recourse.

He took her hand and used every ounce of his bargaining charm. “Shall we see the sights of the town, then?”

The effect of his kissing her hand on the stairs a moment earlier seemed to be wearing thin. Either that or it had just reversed itself.

Still, Holo seemed to give him a passing mark. Sniffing, she stood next to Lawrence. “I suppose so.”

“Understood, milady.”

Lawrence reflected that if his self from half a year earlier could see him now, he would be terrified.

“So what sights are there to see? It’s changed so much that in truth I hardly remember ever coming here.”

“Let’s go to the docks. I hear it’s only recently that ships have become so important. It won’t be as large as seaside docks, but I daresay, it’s still a highlight.”

He held Holo’s hand tighter and began to walk.

Who was it that said walking with another was slow and bothersome? As he walked in step with Holo next to him, Lawrence thought about this and smiled.