Spice and Wolf - Volume 6 - Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Ahoy there, you fool! Pull in that prow! I’m carrying silver from Imidra!”

“What’s that? We were here first! You pull in your prow!”

Angry shouts echoed constantly across the water as hulls collided and sent sprays of water into the air.

Lenos’s harbor buzzed like an angry beehive. Lawrence heard a shout that might have been a war cry or might have been a death howl, followed by the sound of something splashing into the water.

The normally calm surface of the water was constantly disturbed by waves.

And there amid the angry cries of horses and men, ships fought to leave the harbor ahead of one another, each no doubt loaded heavy with furs. Any boat that could normally take a single rower was being hired out as a special express.

It was easy to understand, though—in any business, the biggest profits were always realized by the first to arrive.

But Lawrence regarded their struggles with cold eyes.

The first to arrive would be a certain fallen noblewoman bearing thousands of silver pieces’ worth of furs.

“Come, do not stand there gawping—we must find a ship!”

“I suppose it’s a bit late to ask, but are you quite all right aboard a ship?”

Given the situation, it would take some luck to find a vessel that was willing to take on a couple of casual passengers. The line of ships waiting to exit the harbor was like an ant trail.

“You were the one who said the wagon would take too much time and be too much trouble.”

“Well, yes, but…”

Lawrence couldn’t see anything, but loud voices seemed to be coming from the place where the harbor exited to the river.

It seemed likely that those who wanted to stop the flow of furs from the town were trying to seal off the port.

“…”

“What?” Lawrence asked.

“You’re in no hurry to board.”

“No, that’s not it.”

Even a child could tell he was lying. Holo raised one eyebrow as she glared at him. “Well, then let us find a vessel.”

Since it had been quickly apparent that finding a craft that could take a horse downriver would be difficult, Lawrence had left his horse at a vacant stable whose beasts had all been rented out. The wagon he rented out at the docks through a connection of the stable master’s.

Like it or not, they would no longer be traveling by wagon.

And as the port town of Kerube would be crawling with merchants passing the winter there, he might well be able to do some business there.

Oh well, Lawrence murmured inwardly. “Fine, fine. I’ll go find a boat. You go pick up some food from that stall over there. Three days’ worth should be enough. And wine—the stronger the better.”

He handed Holo two glimmering silver pieces from his coin purse.

“And what of wheat bread?”

Holo had a good grasp of the market and knew that the amount she’d been given wouldn’t buy wheat bread.

“Bread needs yeast to make it rise. So, too, does money to buy that bread.”

“…”

Wheat bread had been out of the question after the conversation in the inn.

Though Holo gave a frustrated nod, her frustration was not especially deep.

She quickly looked up again. “Why then the strong liquor?”

Evidently she had figured out that Lawrence generally preferred wine that was easy to drink. It made him happy that she was remembering his likes and dislikes and not only at the tailors’ and cobblers’ shops.

His reply, though, was brief; he did not let his pleasure show. “You’ll understand soon enough.”

Holo stared at him blankly for a moment, then seemed pleased as she smacked his arm. Surely she had misunderstood. “I’ll haggle them down and be sure to load up on the good stuff, then, eh?”

“We don’t need it in volume.”

“Aye. Shall we meet back up somewhere around there?”

“Yes…ouch—!” Lawrence nodded, but the movement caused the swelling where Eve had struck him to suddenly throb with pain.

He was just agonizing over whether he should have a medicine or salve mixed for it when he noticed Holo’s expression and thought better of it.

She was worried about him—perhaps it was better that way.

“…Your thoughts are quite obvious,” Holo said.

“I was taught as a child that honesty is a virtue.”

“And do you really think so?” Holo gave him a bright, guileless smile and cocked her head.

“I suppose my master also taught me that honesty is a fool’s errand.”

Holo chuckled through her nose, then teased, “So much so that I can’t help making fun of you.” She spun about with a dancer’s grace, then walked off into the crowd.

Lawrence slumped and sighed, scratching his head.

A smile rose to his lips; these tête-à-têtes were a joy, it was true.

And yet, he thought, will I never regain the upper hand, I wonder?

He was confident he could at least get back the deed that had been swindled away, but that seemed like sour grapes.

I love you.

It had been only a short while ago, yet already the moment when he’d faced Holo and spoken those words seemed like the distant past. Thinking back on it, Lawrence was tormented by some nameless feeling.

The strange emotion made his face twitch and his breathing labored.

And yet—it was not a bad feeling.

The elusive thing had a definite sense of calmness, of peace about it.

It was only a bit—no, a good bit—embarrassing; the bit of regret he felt probably came from having lost the contest.

“What contest?” he asked himself with a derisive smile, looking in the direction in which Holo had disappeared.

He shrugged and sighed, then walked in the direction of the pier.

Lawrence soon found a ship, which was possibly fortunate and certainly unexpected.

Though the port was jammed with people desperate to send out a vessel, when Lawrence calmed himself and looked more closely, he saw that there were many ships loading up cargo per the usual routine, and when he called out to one, he received a ready reply. With every ship being so busy, Lawrence expected the fares to be exorbitant, but they were actually quite reasonable.

Lawrence pretended not to notice the tension melt away from the aged captain’s face when he mentioned his female companion.

He understood why Eve went to such efforts to hide her face and her sex when doing business.

“Still, what business could you have in Kerube? No respectable boat will be headed there in this season.”

The captain had the unfamiliar name of Ibn Ragusa and explained that he was from a poor, chilly village at the northern end of the western coastline.

By repute, people from the far north were lean and snow tanned, taciturn and keen eyed, but Ragusa was round and effusive with a complexion more ruddy than tan.

“Unsurprisingly, it has to do with the fur trade.”

“Oh?” Ragusa looked Lawrence up and down skeptically, cocking his head, his neck imperceptible between beefy shoulders. “You don’t look like you have any cargo.”

“My onetime business partner made off with it.” Lawrence pointed to the still-swollen part of his face. Ragusa laughed with gusto, his face looking for all the world like a puffer fish.

He slapped Lawrence’s shoulder as if to say such things happen, then asked, “So, where is this companion of yours?”

“Ah, she’s off buying rations—,” Lawrence began, turning in the direction of the row of venders—but then he felt a presence at his side.

There was Holo, standing as though she had been there for years.

“—And here she is.”

“Oh ho! Such a fine cargo!” boomed Ragusa with a clap of his hands, so loudly that Holo’s shoulders flinched.

Sailors, as a rule, were a loud-voiced lot.

Too loud, no doubt, for Holo, whose hearing was so keen she could hear the sound of someone furrowing his brow.

“By the by, what’s her name?”

Perhaps thinking they were a married couple, Ragusa asked Lawrence rather than inquiring of Holo directly.

In any case, he was nothing like the moneychanger that had once tried to seduce Holo immediately upon meeting her.

A bag holding bread or the like hung from Holo’s shoulder, and under an arm, she carried a small cask. Looking every inch the apprentice nun returning from an errand, she looked up at Lawrence.

That she was keeping up appearances in front of other people was one of the reasons, Lawrence mused, that even if she teased him, he would be unable to be angry with her.

“It’s Holo.”

“Ho! A fine name! Pleased to meet you. I’m Ragusa, master of the Roam River!”

Any man would be eager to boast in front of such a comely maiden.

Ragusa spoke as though it was the most obvious thing in the world for such a girl to be traveling with Lawrence, and he extended his meaty, calloused hand out in greeting. “But this means we’ll be sure to make the passage downriver safely, too!”

“Meaning…?”

Ragusa grinned and guffawed, patting Holo’s slender shoulder. “The market’s declared that it should be a beautiful maiden that’s fitted to a ship’s prow to pray for her safety!”

It was true that the prows of long-distance trading ships were generally decorated with a carving of a female figure.

Sometimes they represented a pagan goddess; other times, they were of a sainted woman from the Church’s history. (Lawrence did have the sense that it was always a woman that watched over a ship, and ships were often given female names as well.)

Still, he felt like Holo was a bit out of her depth in this capacity—she was a wolf, better suited to hearing prayers for safe overland travel than any sort of waterborne voyage.

The image of Holo dog-paddling through the water came to mind; Lawrence couldn’t help but smile slightly to himself.

“So, are you ready? We’re not scheming to move fur like everybody else is, but we do have some cargo that needs to be hurried,” said Ragusa.

“Ah, er, yes. Were you able to procure food?” Lawrence asked of Holo, who nodded.

Given that she was a wolf, Holo was awfully good at playing the innocent little lamb.

“Then go ahead and sit anywhere that’s free. You’ll pay up when we get there.”

The custom of paying upon arrival was only tenable for water vessels—being surrounded by water made riding for free difficult.

“Just pretend you’re riding on a great ship,” finished Ragusa with a great laugh, every inch the sailor.

Among the vessels that plied the river, carrying cargo up and down it, Ragusa’s was a bit on the small side.

It had no sails, and the bottom was flat—but despite that, the boat was rather slender and long. Had it been any narrower, it would have been easy for an inexperienced captain to accidentally capsize it.

Directly in the middle of the boat was a waist-high pile of burlap sacks, each of which was easily big enough to fit Holo inside. From their overflowing mouths, Lawrence could tell they were filled with wheat and legumes.

Directly astern of that pile were several wooden crates.

Since Lawrence could hardly open them up and peek inside, he couldn’t say for sure what their contents were, but given the seals or crests that had been branded upon the crates—which were all of a similar size—he assumed they were relatively valuable. This was certainly the cargo that needed to be hurried. Like any merchant, Lawrence found himself curious about what they contained.

If the crates had been brought from farther upriver, they could contain ore out of a silver or copper mine or perhaps small-value coins minted near an iron mine and destined for export. Tin or iron wouldn’t have been so carefully crated, and it would be equally strange to transport gemstones without so much as a single guard.

Owing to the low level of the river, the amount of cargo aboard the vessel was quite small relative to its capacity.

There was little rainfall during this season, and thanks to heavy snowfall in the mountains, the river’s headwaters were frozen over. This caused the water level to drop and made it easier for a heavily laden boat to run aground. Just as a wagon’s wheels could be easily mired in a muddy road on a rainy day, a boat running aground was a fact of life. In the worst of such cases, cargo would have to be thrown overboard, and worst of all, it was an obstruction to other shipping traffic, which could damage the reputation of the ship-master responsible.

It was said that the very best of those who spent their lives plying the river could man the tiller with their eyes closed, no matter what the river’s state.

So what of Ragusa?

Lawrence thought it over as he took a seat in an open space near the boat’s prow, setting down the blankets and supplies he carried.

The surface of the water in the harbor sloshed drunkenly, and the boat’s rocking was slight but constant. Lawrence hadn’t felt the sensation in some time, and it made him nostalgic; he smiled ruefully. The first time he had ridden in a boat, he had been so afraid that it would flip that he had held tight to the vessel’s edge.

Now it seemed as though he had not been exceptionally nervous.

He had to smile when he saw Holo edge ever so carefully up beside him to sit. She set down the cask of wine under her arm, unslung the bag of delicious-smelling food from her shoulder, then finally noticed Lawrence’s gaze. She glared back at him.

“What’s so funny?” she asked. Her low voice was no act.

“I was just thinking I used to be as nervous as you are.”

“Mmph…I’ve no particular fear of water, but ’tis unsettling indeed when the craft rocks.”

It was strange for her to so readily admit to being afraid.

She curled her lip, irritated at his obvious surprise. “It is because I trust you that I would admit weakness.”

“I can see your teeth behind that sneer.”

Once Lawrence had pointed it out, Holo quickly stifled her sneer, then smiled unpleasantly. It was certainly true that she had been scared, but admitting to that fear was pure calculation.

Lawrence didn’t know if she was actually being agreeable or not.

The next instant, Holo straightened suddenly. “This won’t do. I cannot start getting along with you now,” she said, turning her head aside sadly. She had said before that no matter how enjoyable her time with Lawrence was, she was afraid of eventually tiring of it. Lawrence felt a shock, as though he had touched something very hot.

He soon corrected himself—Holo was not being so serious at this moment.

Even without bothering to ask, he knew what it was that they had to avoid. Knowing there were traps ahead but not knowing exactly where would make it hard to walk—but if one knew where the cliff’s edge was, skirting along it was easy enough.

Venturing to say as much was neither cause for Holo to admonish herself, nor was it reason for Lawrence to be on guard.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

They would end their travels with a smile. Having promised each other that much, there was nothing to be afraid of.

Lawrence calmed himself and answered, “That sounds like a line out of a stage play.”

He didn’t say the rest of what he was thinking, which was that it sounded like a line out of a stage play about forbidden love.

In response, Holo—perhaps irritated at Lawrence’s failure to be properly flustered—looked his way quickly. “Could you not just play along?”

“Not so long as your face is so malicious.”

Holo’s upturned eyes had given her face a desolate cast, but then she sniggered and clicked her tongue.

Lawrence smiled, at a loss—this wolf’s expression could change awfully quickly.

Not a moment later, Ragusa came running down the pier, his footsteps banging loudly as he shouted in his characteristically booming voice, “Well then, let us be off!”

He quickly untied the boat from its mooring, then tossed the rope aboard, following it himself with a leap like a boy jumping into a river—no mean feat. Ragusa could hardly be called thin, even as rank flattery, and the boat heaved beneath the sudden weight, listing so far to one side that it seemed like it might capsize.

Even Lawrence was alarmed—to say nothing of Holo, whose body stiffened as her face turned serious.

Her hands gripped Lawrence’s clothes tightly, and this was surely no joke.

“Watch the finest ship handling in three kingdoms!” said Ragusa mightily, thrusting a long pole into the water and heaving down on it, his ruddy face turning even redder.

At first the boat seemed not to respond to Ragusa’s cry, but soon its stern slowly drew away from the wharf. Ragusa lightly raised the pole and, adjusting its direction, pushed down again.

The craft, loaded with enough goods that it would take fully four horses to haul them all, was moving under the power of one man.

Sailors were famous for their boasting, but Lawrence felt like he understood where it came from now.

Ragusa was moving the entire boat by himself, after all.

Having pulled away from the boat’s mooring, Ragusa now poled the craft along the route that led to the river.

Despite the constant flow of waterborne traffic, they didn’t collide with a single other vessel as they glided easily over the rippling water.

Ragusa seemed to know most of the vessels they passed and gave most of them friendly greetings—though he occasionally exchanged angry shouts and raised poles with some.

They gradually gained speed, which the long craft grew more stable with, and soon they approached the port’s exit to the river.

At the wooden tower, which served as a checkpoint at the border of the port, was a group of men who were trying to stop the flow of furs, and having forced their way past the town guard, they hurled curses at the boats that had managed to break through this last line of defense.

The vicissitudes of fortune were ever thus.

Men wearing chain mail and iron helms came to the entrance of the tower. They were probably mercenaries and knights who had been specially retained for the occasion.

The boat carrying Lawrence and Holo rounded the tower, and as it entered the river proper, one man yelling curses from the very top of the tower was restrained by the mercenaries. Lawrence wasn’t feeling especially sympathetic, but at the same time, he hoped there would be no fatalities.

As he watched, the things that had happened to him in the town came floating vaguely to his mind.

Just as the men in the tower were now in real trouble, Lawrence himself had only just faced his own problems.

He had been shocked by Holo’s suggestion that they end their travels together and shocked again by her reasoning.

In the end, the feeling had pierced Lawrence’s selfishness, but he decided that was what Holo had wanted.

Thinking back on the scene, it made him want to show Holo—who was far from comfortable in the unfamiliar boat—a little kindness.

But such kindness was always for naught.

Somewhere along the line, Holo seemed to have recovered, and though she still held fast to Lawrence’s clothing, she now looked intently past the vessel’s prow and along the river.

Her profile was inarguably intrepid.

“Hmm?” She seemed to notice Lawrence’s gaze and looked up at him questioningly.

She always knew precisely how she appeared to others.

Lawrence wearily looked the other way, gazing at the town of Lenos as they left it behind.

He heard a giggle.

“Your kindness is so very frightful,” said Holo, chuckling, letting go of Lawrence’s clothing.

Her head ducked, Holo’s breath escaped from her mouth and flowed whitely past her as they moved. This couldn’t be helped, not even if he wanted to pluck the fur from the little devil’s tail.

Still, it was cold upon the river. She couldn’t very well afford to lose her tail.

Lawrence replied slowly, “For my part, I’m afraid of your smile.”

“Fool.” Holo’s smile shined from underneath her hood.

As it flows gently past the town of Lenos from east to west through the grasslands, the Roam River is a perfectly normal river.

In the spring and early summer when the water level is higher, they say the shipments of lumber that are floated down the river are an amazing sight, looking like some great water serpent, but at the moment, all they could see both fore and aft was the orderly line of boats.

There were also sheep drinking at the river and travelers walking alongside it and the clouds floating gently overhead.

If Holo was motivated by curiosity, she was also quick to lose interest. She rested her chin on the edge of the ship’s hull, her face a mask of understandable boredom, occasionally dangling her fingertips in the water and sighing.

“There’s nothing to do,” she muttered, at which a dozing Lawrence, curled up in the same blanket as she was, woke, yawned, and stretched.

“Mmph. I’m just happy not to have to be holding the reins.”

It was nice not to have to concentrate on avoiding the countless holes in the road, and there was no need to be on a constant lookout for the hawks that might set their eyes on his cargo.

Above all, there was no need to rub his eyes constantly to stay awake even when exhausted, listening to his companion snore while he became more irritated by the moment.

It was enough to make him want to travel by boat all the time, but Holo seemed to already be too bored to stand it. She withdrew her hand that had disturbed the water’s glassy surface and flicked droplets toward Lawrence.

The winter water was very cold.

Lawrence made a face, and Holo turned away and leaned against the side of the boat, removing her tail, which covered his feet, and pulling it back to her hands.

As Ragusa napped on the other side of the loaded cargo, there was no need for concern.

“Why don’t you try counting sheep? I’m sure you’d go to sleep eventually.”

“I was counting until a moment ago. I gave up around seventy-two.” Holo brushed her hands quickly through her tail, combing out bits of debris and matted fur.

With each brush, flea-like things popped out of her fur, but even if she’d been worried about them, there was nothing to be done.

It was enough to make Lawrence believe the talk of being kept awake by the sound of jumping fleas and lice during warm summer nights.

“Anyway,” Holo continued, “counting sheep will only make me hungry.”

“That won’t do. You’d best stop.”

Holo flicked a captured flea at Lawrence.

It was a meaningless gesture as they were sharing the same blanket.

“Still,” she said, bringing her tail up to her face and burying it in the thick fur, putting the tail in order with her mouth. “Once we’ve made it down the river and taken the vixen to task, what then?”

She skillfully groomed herself as she talked, but when she finished speaking and opened her mouth, it was covered in fur. She probably needed to prepare for the shedding of her coat once spring arrived.

The thought occurred to Lawrence as he lent a hand to remove some of the fur that was clinging to Holo’s mouth despite her efforts to brush it free. “Here, hold still…What then, you ask?”

“Aye. After.”

Holo narrowed her eyes as the fur was plucked from her; her somewhat solicitous tone was surely meant more to distract Lawrence’s attention from the tightrope he walked rather than strictly to tease him.

The best course of action that Holo and Lawrence could take, as well as the things they could and couldn’t do, had been decided in Lenos.

But that decision did not include any real notion of what would happen after.

“Food and amusements are plentiful where we’re going, so we could easily wait until the snow melts in the mountains. Or if we’re in a hurry, we could arrange for horses back to Lenos, then head north.”

“Into the Roef Mountains, you mean.”

It was the direction from which Holo had come.

If they hurried, the trip would take less than a month. If they moved in earnest, their travels together could end in mere days.

Holo grasped her tail in an especially maidenly fashion.

Lawrence studied her.

She was begging him to lie to her.

“Still, the mountains change when people get into them. If we head up the Roef River, we might well lose our way.” Lawrence mused upon what a high-maintenance wolf he had for a companion as he plucked another bit of brown fur from her mouth and continued. “If we got as far as Nyohhira, you’d know the way, correct? My guess is it would take ten days from Lenos to Nyohhira. If we can’t wait for spring, it will be closer to twenty days—we’ll need to take a path that runs through as many towns and villages as possible.” He counted off on his fingers, unsure of whether that was long or short.

Keep your stays short and your travels long.

The principle was always in his mind as he traveled for business, and even this proposal was leisurely enough to inspire a nagging guilt. When doing business, half of his sales went to paying tariffs and taxes; a further 30 percent went to travel and lodging costs, leaving 20 percent as profit—so a slower, more expensive route hardly sat well with Lawrence.

Yet still, the trip was short enough that when it was over, he knew he would regret it.

He counted on his fingers, then stopped, staring at the next digit, wondering if there was some way he could count it.

“Ten days for a leisurely soak in the hot springs of Nyohhira,” said Holo, reaching out and counting off Lawrence’s last finger.

With their hands overlapping like that, they looked like a married couple trying to keep each other warm.

And indeed, Lawrence smiled broadly, his heart warmed.

Holo looked up and beamed.

It was a terrifying smile.

Ten days’ stay in Nyohhira. If ever a thing was to bring a smile to his face and warmth to his heart, that would be it.

There was no telling how much ten nights’ lodging in a hot springs town would cost. The inn bills could be high, taking advantage of travelers, and the food unpleasant yet expensive. Fresh water was priced unbelievably, and the liquor was thin and poor. There was a fee to enter the baths, and the strongest mineral springs required two daily checkups by a physicker in order to use them. It was quite literally money down the drain.

And yet, given the timing of Holo’s request, he could not very well refuse.

The wisewolf was endlessly cunning.

If he had to be less than honest about his feelings, he might as well smile and feel good about it.

“You are making your money-counting face,” Holo said, pulling Lawrence’s hand to her cheek and nuzzling it, her expression malicious.

Her tail swished about suggestively.

Lawrence considered taking and nuzzling that tail instead.

“There were people there when I passed through, and even I would take human form and use the hot springs sometimes, so I understand the system. But I am Holo, the Wisewolf of Yoitsu. If there’s no one there, you need only add a little bit to your expenses.”

That was certainly the case, but hot springs were places where those who would do anything to extend their lives even a second longer would gather, and even if killed, they did not die.

Such places took on the sense of a pilgrimage, and the harder it was to reach a spring, the more potent its water was said to be, so the most remote locations gained a sort of fame.

Though it was highly doubtful that Holo could find a hot spring that hadn’t already been discovered, one thing was certain.

The “little bit” that Lawrence would have to add to his usual food and lodging expenses would be anything but little.

“Every time you make me spend a bit more on food, my own dreams get that much further away.” If Lawrence didn’t warn Holo off, there was no telling what she would ask of him next.

Holo immediately gave him a nasty look, but Lawrence couldn’t back down.

Not even as outmaneuvered as he was now, having told Holo that he loved her to her face.

“I have a variety of ways to tease you, but first,” said Holo with a cough and a flick of her tail, “are you not the one who kicked aside his dream of owning a store and instead came for me?”

She looked up at him, testing him.

Her red-brown eyes glittered through the whitish breath that escaped from between her thin lips.

“For one thing, I may have kicked it aside, but I didn’t give up on it.”

Holo sighed deeply, as though asking whether he expected that excuse to work.

And in truth, some part of it was a lie.

Holo could easily see through such lies and had quite probably already done so, but before it was pointed out to him, Lawrence decided to come clean.

“Though I suppose I did kick it aside in earnest, more or less.”

“’Tis the nature of merchants to use vague words to leave themselves loopholes, I suppose,” said Holo, exasperated.

Lawrence revised his statement. “No, I truly kicked it aside.”

“I’ll wait to suggest wasting some money until after I hear your reason for doing so.”

Lawrence agonized for a moment; he wanted to say, “Thank you ever so kindly,” but instead shrugged and answered this way: “If I opened a shop, I expect I’d take about half as much pleasure in actually doing business.”

“…Huh?”

“When the moment that I’d been waiting for was finally upon me, I suddenly realized it—that once I had a shop, my days of adventuring would be over.”

It wasn’t as though he was no longer enticed by the smell of profit.

But privileging that goal over all others, unmoved by whatever storms might come, focusing solely on material gain—he no longer wanted that.

If he got the shop now, it would be wasted on him, precisely because he had been chasing it for so long and with such single-minded focus.

Holo swept aside her joking expression, murmuring “hmm” to herself.

Surely Holo understood this, as she herself feared today’s joy eventually turning to sorrow.

“Still, you should take into consideration that I feel this way because it was my dream for so long. If I were to get a shop, it wouldn’t be an unhappy thing.”

Holo nodded slowly, but her face was confused as she replied, “Aye, I suppose…there was some misfortune.”

“Yes…wait, what? Misfortune?” asked Lawrence at the word he failed to understand, whereupon Holo made a face as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Yes, was there not? You had a dream but cast it aside and came for me instead. It’s enough to make even the person who first said the words ‘he who chases two rabbits will catch neither’ throw their hands up in dismay.”

Even as Lawrence realized his mouth was hanging open, he couldn’t manage to close it as he rotated his head toward her.

No matter how many times he reconsidered it, Holo’s words pointed to but one fact.

He had abandoned one rabbit in order to chase another but had failed to catch it.

An unpleasant emotion boiled up in Lawrence’s mind, as though he’d dropped his coin purse.

If this is a joke, I wish she would stop, he thought to himself, turning away. He then looked back at Holo and saw on her face an expression of sad concern, as though she was worried for Lawrence’s health.

“Are you quite all right? Come now, take heart. After all, you haven’t gained a thing, have you?”

Was it anger or sadness or something else entirely?

The same instant Lawrence wondered if Holo was speaking another language, she curled the corners of her mouth up maliciously, her tongue peeking out between her lips.

“Heh. In truth, have you even reached out to me? What a strange notion, to gain something without first reaching for it.”

Lawrence had never wanted to dunk Holo underwater as much as he did that moment, mostly because she was looking at the face he least wanted others to see.

Holo chuckled. “Though I suppose ’tis not as though such territory is marked with visible ropes. How you consider that is up to you,” she said, drawing nearer to Lawrence, nestling close to him as one wolf does to another.

Her white breath puffed against the nape of his neck.

He knew if he looked at her, he would be defeated.

And by the time he realized that, he was defeated.

“In the end, ’tis my wish that you not abandon your dream. And if you find owning a shop satisfying, you might next take an apprentice, might you not? ’Tis a rather profound thing, and you’ll never have a day of rest,” said Holo, snickering and pulling her face away.

Lawrence wondered if this was how a fish felt after being stripped to the bone.

No matter how he struggled, his situation could hardly improve.

So as not to expose anything more unseemly than he already had, he took a deep breath, then exhaled.

Holo laughed quietly as though enjoying the lingering moment.

“Wait, have you ever taken an apprentice?” Lawrence’s voice was still slightly tense, but Holo overlooked it.

“Hmm? Oh yes. I am Holo the Wisewolf, after all. Many wished to learn from me.”

“Huh.”

Forgetting about the conversation thus far, Lawrence found himself genuinely impressed.

Whereupon Holo, possibly not expecting that, turned suddenly bashful.

She may well have been exaggerating in a deliberate attempt to make up for her too-keen teasing. “Well, I do not know if you could quite properly call them ‘apprentices,’ though I’m sure they styled themselves as such. In any case, I was the greatest. If you wanted to receive my teachings, hmm. You’d have had to wait behind a hundred certainly.”

Holo now spoke proudly in a complete about-face—but Lawrence found himself unable to laugh at her the way he usually would.

When he thought about it, Holo was certainly worthy of such respect.

But what made him feel such unease at the dignity she surely possessed were the many memories of her that came rising to his mind.

He couldn’t reconcile this supposedly majestic being with the Holo he knew—who laughed, cried, and sulked.

Holo’s expression shifted to a soft smile, and she took Lawrence’s hand. “Of course, you do not just seek my teachings; you would try to take my reins—a rare fool, indeed. You can’t hope to succeed, but there’s no mistaking that you wish to look into my eyes as an equal. I’ve been alone on the mountaintop for a long time. I’ve had quite enough of looking down on others.”

It was a lonely thing being worshipped as a god.

He remembered when they first met, and Holo had said that she had gone traveling to find a friend.

Holo’s smile remained, though it was a bit lonely now. “Come now, you did come after me, did you not?”

The words themselves were teasing, but paired with her lonely smile, he could hardly imagine they were meant that way.

Lawrence couldn’t help the bitter smile that rose to his lips, which Holo made a sullen face at.

When he put his arm around her shoulder and drew her near, he felt her sigh.

He wondered if the note of satisfaction he detected in that sigh was just his imagination.

“But now, I…,” she began, again turning her body so that her eyes looked directly up into his. “I truly, truly enjoy looking up at you thus.”

There beside him, she looked for all the world like a fetching maiden with gaze upturned.

Though he might become accustomed to their exchanges, this was one thing he could never get used to.

“No doubt because the face you’re looking up to is a fool’s face indeed,” answered Lawrence with a wince, and the wolf girl clung to him in delight.

Holo’s tail wagged, sending fleas jumping free, as though they couldn’t be expected to stay on such an appendage. It stands to reason, Lawrence thought to himself, a warmth rising in his chest. Holo smiled, her face pressed against him.

Lawrence returned the smile. It was true—their exchanges were so foolish that if they were seen this way, even the most faithful apprentice would have a hard time calling him master.

Lawrence murmured an excuse to himself—that if it was what Holo wanted, there was nothing else to be done.

Suddenly there were signs of someone moving on the other side of the pile of cargo, and sure enough, there was Ragusa, strange lines pressed into his face, as though he’d used his arm as a pillow, and stretching hugely.

He first looked at Lawrence, then cast his gaze at Holo, who leaned against Lawrence, sleeping. Ragusa grinned and yawned.

When Lawrence looked ahead of the boat to where Ragusa pointed, he saw docks built up on both sides of the river. It was a tariff station, just like the ones that were unavoidable when crossing mountains and plains by wagon.

There was still some distance to go before they reached it, but apparently Ragusa could doze off and still know from experience when to wake. It was said that sailors could orient themselves at sea not by using landmarks, but simply from the smell of the ocean. Perhaps Ragusa was like this as well. Ragusa thrust a pole into the river and cried out, causing the pleasantly sleeping Holo to twitch awake.

“This is a checkpoint of the Diejin dukedom, which recently had a change of leadership. We’ll include the head count tax in your fare—apparently he’s mad about deer hunting, so taxes are high, my friend!”

Lawrence replied that he didn’t see the connection between deer hunting and high taxes, and Ragusa laughed and answered, “The duke’s never seen the field of battle, yet he proclaims himself the finest shot in the world with a bow. In other words, he thinks he can’t but loose an arrow without hitting a deer.”

While the hardships of retainers who had to hunt with the duke would be hidden, it would mean good work for the hunters in the region who hunted and killed the duke’s prey ahead of time.

Lawrence couldn’t help but chuckle at what sprang to mind—a round-faced, ringlet-haired lord oblivious to the ways of the world and the laughingstock of the town.

“Ah,” said Lawrence. “It must be quite a burden on his household.”

“On top of that, he’s dead set on capturing the heart of his chosen princess. Of course, there’s the rumor that he’s started realizing the truth about his own abilities.”

For some reason, the most beloved lords were often the ones most ill spoken of—an ignorant, haughty ruler might be hated, but as soon as he said some absurd thing, his charm would increase. The lording business was a difficult one since lending a careful ear to one’s subjects and being serious and severe—these things did not guarantee success.

Ragusa, too, made fun of the duke, but when it came time to pay the toll, he had it ready and was by no means reluctant to hand it over.

Should war come to the land, it would be much easier for the laughingstock Duke Diejin to rally support than it would be for other lords. It was better by far to have the people feel it was their duty to join, rather than to be ordered to do so from on high.

Lawrence suddenly realized that the notion had relevance to his own situation and looked at Holo, who was right beside him.

“Have you something you wish to say?” she asked.

“No, nothing.”

Ragusa gradually slowed the craft, drawing close to another boat that was nearing the checkpoint’s dock.

It didn’t take an experienced river hand like Ragusa to be able to tell that something was awry upon the docks.

Someone was there, arguing with a soldier who was armed with a pike.

It wasn’t clear what was being said, but it was obvious enough that both parties were shouting.

The handler of the boat that was ahead of Ragusa’s also watched the situation, craning his neck to see.

“Strange to see such quarreling,” said Ragusa mildly, shading his eyes with his hand.

“Do you think there’s a complaint about the high toll?”

“Doubtful. It’s only the ones coming from the sea that complain about the taxes. They have to pay for horses to pull their craft upstream, then pay cargo taxes on top of that.”

Holo yawned, showing her fangs as she gazed at the scene, then Lawrence realized something strange.

“But isn’t that true for both seagoing and river-going ships?” he asked, patting Holo’s head as she wiped the corners of her eyes on Lawrence’s clothes.

Ragusa pulled the pole up and smiled broadly. “For those like us, who live by the river, the river is home. It’s only natural to pay rent for one’s home. But for the sailors of the ocean, it’s merely a road. It’s no wonder they’re angry—anyone would be angry if they had to pay simply to walk down the road.”

Lawrence nodded his understanding, impressed at the different ways of thinking.

And then, as they continued to move, the full scene came into view.

It seemed that the people quarreling at the dock were a soldier carrying a long pike and a young boy.

It was the boy who was shouting.

He was breathing hard, and the breath came out of his mouth in great white puffs. “But the seal of the duke is right here!”

His boyish voice might or might not have deepened yet.

For that to even be in question, he was young, indeed.

He looked to be perhaps twelve or thirteen. His unkempt grayish hair topped a face grimy with something—mud, perhaps—but filthy in any case. He was skinny enough that if he were to bump into the delicate Holo, it would be hard to know who’d fall over, and the tattered clothes he wore looked likely to fall apart the next time he sneezed.

His ankles were thin, and he was shod in chilly sandals whose extreme wear was obvious at a glance. If it had been a bearded old man looking like this, the boy would have looked like the sort of hermit that collected the admiring gazes of pious types.

The boy held a sheet of old paper in his right hand, glaring at the guard as he gasped for breath.

“What is the matter?” asked Holo, annoyed that her midday nap had been disturbed.

“I don’t know. Wait—shouldn’t you have been able to hear what they were shouting about?”

Holo yawned. “Not even I can hear such things while napping.”

“True enough. You can’t even hear your own snoring.”

Holo immediately stomped mercilessly on Lawrence’s foot.

His objection was cut off by the soldier, who had been quiet until now, shouting back at the boy. “It’s a fake, I tell you! If you don’t get yourself hence, we’ve got other ideas!”

The soldier shifted the pike he held.

Ragusa’s boat slowed still further, coming to a stop alongside the vessel that had been ahead of them, which had itself stopped just short of the dock.

Said boat’s master appeared to know Ragusa, and after exchanging friendly greetings, they seemed to bow their heads a bit and have a discreet conversation.

“Who’s that? The Lennon master’s apprentice?”

Ragusa gestured with his chin to the master of a vessel that was already moored. The boatman’s hair was graying, and he seemed older than Ragusa and his friend.

“If he were, he wouldn’t be aboard ship with such a worried face.”

“Mm, true. Oh, could it be…?”

As the two boatmen made light conversation, the boy on the dock trembled out of rage or cold and looked at the piece of paper he held.

He then looked back up, as if unwilling to give up, but bit his lip at the spear tip that was pointed at him.

He took a step back, then another, finally coming up to the edge of the dock.

“Mind yourself, lad,” said the guard. “Now then, moving on to the toll…”

At the guard’s words, the boatmen that had been watching the scene now each tended to their business.

To a man, they were unimpressed, as if this sort of thing happened all the time.

When Lawrence saw the red seal that had been impressed upon the paper the boy held, he understood what had happened.

The boy had been cheated by a dishonest merchant.

“He’s been swindled.”

“Hmm?”

The gray-haired boatman took his craft out, and another boat entered in its place, with Ragusa moving his own craft neatly alongside it.

Lawrence matched the swaying of the boat as he spoke into Holo’s ear. “It happens sometimes. Forged tax exemption documents or fake demands of payment from a local lord. On a larger scale, tax collection authorization documents for this river have probably been caught.”

“Hmm.”

In most cases, such documents were probably sold at an amount far removed for how much they purported to bring in, but nonetheless, many buyers seemed to think they were real.

“I feel a bit sorry for him,” said Holo.

On the river, a line of boats was forming, all heading for the checkpoint.

The guards at the checkpoint were busily scrambling to catch up with their duties after having been interrupted; behind them, the boy was now entirely forgotten.

Just as Holo said, his figure invited sympathy, but while Lawrence could understand the boy’s position when he stopped to think about it, this was what happened when one let one’s self be cheated.

“He’ll learn something from this,” said Lawrence.

Holo’s gaze moved from the boy to Lawrence accusingly.

“You think me unfeeling, do you?” he asked.

“As I recall, when your own avarice caused you to stumble, you walked all over the city, desperate for aid.”

Lawrence couldn’t help but be vexed by the comment, yet his merchant ethics were completely opposed to giving the boy so much as a single copper piece. “Perhaps, but I was still the one doing the walking.”

“Honestly.”

“I’m not so cold as to turn away someone asking for help. But trying to save someone who isn’t trying to save himself, well—it’s no way to be a merchant. If you’re going to do that, you may as well change into priests’ robes and head for the nearest church.”

Holo seemed to be thinking something over, as in spite of Lawrence’s words, she seemed to think the boy was still quite pitiful.

Having worked thanklessly for centuries to ensure a village’s good harvest, Holo possessed a strong sense of duty in spite of herself.

It was probably in her nature to want to help those who needed aid.

But it was also a reality that once one started doing so much, there would be no end to it. The world was overflowing with people and their sorrows, but gods were too few.

Lawrence adjusted the blanket around them. “So if he’ll stand up on his own, or else…”

Holo may have been kindhearted, but she was not ignorant of the ways of the world.

Feeling a reluctant sympathy for the boy, Lawrence looked in his direction, and in that moment found himself disbelieving not his eyes, but his ears.

“Master!” echoed a high voice.

The people in the area were all well used to hearing the loud conversations of the marketplace, and as a result, they could easily tell at whom the voice was directed.

The boy got to his feet and dashed straight across the dock, heedless of the guard’s orders.

He was heading, of course, in the same direction that his voice was directed.

To Lawrence.

“Master! It’s me! It’s me!” came the words from the boy’s mouth.

“Wh…wha—?”

“Oh, I’m so glad to see you! I had nothing to eat and was in a real jam! I must thank the gods for this good fortune!”

There was not a speck of happiness in the boy’s face; his features were desperate.

Lawrence looked back at him, stunned, frantically searching his supposedly keen merchant’s memory for the boy’s face.

But all he could conclude was that he’d never known a boy that called him master, unless he was one of the children he had taught to earn their bread while on his travels.

That’s when the realization hit him.

This was a desperate gamble by the boy to save his own life.

Lawrence had figured it out, but the guard figured it out a moment sooner and sent the boy tumbling down with the butt of his pike, forcing him to the ground as though planning to sew him to it. “You runt!”

The checkpoint was the symbol of whoever held power.

Any successful fraud there would undo that authority.

If things went poorly, the boy could easily be thrown into the river to drown.

Yet those light blue eyes were fixed evenly on Lawrence.

Lawrence found himself momentarily transfixed by the imploring gaze—“If I fail here I’ll surely die,” the boy seemed to say—when he was jolted from his reverie by a sharp elbow to the ribs from Holo. Holo was looking neither at Lawrence nor at the boy but rather off in a random direction. However, her profile spoke very clearly: “Don’t forget what you just said.”

The boy had stood up on his own and called for help.

“You’ve got some nerve, sullying the name of Duke Diejin!” yelled the guard.

The line of boats waiting to get through this checkpoint and on to the next one grew longer.

As the guards were the ones who had to take the blame for any hindrances in traffic, their store of patience with the boy—who was doing nothing but causing trouble for them—had surely reached its end.

Holding the boy against the ground with his pike, the guard pulled back his foot as if to aim a kick to the boy’s rib cage, but in that moment—

“Wait, please!” cried Lawrence, just as the foot came up.

The impact could not be stopped. “Ungh,” croaked the boy, froglike.

“It’s true—I do know the boy!”

The guard looked up at Lawrence and hastily moved his foot away from the boy but soon seemed to grasp Lawrence’s true motive. Annoyed, he looked back and forth from Lawrence to the boy, then eventually sighed and withdrew his pike handle from the boy’s back.

It was obvious that the boy had been acting.

“Quite softhearted of you,” said the guard’s silent look.

The boy’s eyes bulged, as though he couldn’t believe his desperate gamble had actually worked, but as soon as he was able to grasp the situation, he got to his feet and awkwardly scrambled into Ragusa’s boat.

Ragusa was retying his coin purse closed after having paid the toll but had momentarily stopped as he watched the proceedings on the dock. When the boy jumped aboard, he came back to himself.

Yet it wasn’t until he met Lawrence’s gaze that Ragusa managed to close his gaping mouth.

“Hey, you’re holding up the line! Move your boat out!”

The guard may have only wanted to rid himself of a nuisance, but ships were in fact lining up behind them.

Ragusa turned to Lawrence and gave a little shrug, then boarded the boat himself and took his pole in hand. So long as Lawrence paid the fare, he had no cause for complaint.

Once the boy reached the boat’s bow where Lawrence and Holo were, he collapsed, either out of exhaustion or sheer shock.

Holo finally looked at Lawrence.

Her face still evidenced some irritation.

“We’ve come this far, so I guess it can’t be helped,” said Lawrence, at which Holo smiled faintly, putting her hand to the boy who had collapsed at her feet, which stuck out from underneath the blanket.

While she normally appeared fond of teasing and ridiculing others, seeing her kneel and speak quietly to the lad made Holo look every bit the kindhearted nun that her clothes marked her as.

It may very well have looked nice, but Lawrence did not find it the least bit amusing.

It wasn’t that he had no confidence in his own code of conduct, but now compared with Holo, he appeared quite heartless.

Having determined that the boy was uninjured, Holo helped him sit up and brought him to the edge of the boat.

Lawrence took some water out and handed it over.

The boy was in Holo’s shadow, and Lawrence could see that his hand still held tight to the certificate.

Lawrence had to admire his spirit.

“Here, water,” said Holo, passing it to the boy with a nudge at his shoulder.

The boy’s eyes had been closed, as though he was unconscious, but they slowly opened, and his gaze flicked back and forth between Holo directly in front of him and Lawrence, who was behind her.

The moment he saw the boy’s sheepish smile, Lawrence looked aside in spite of himself, remembering how a moment ago he’d been ready to abandon the boy.

“Thank…you.”

It was unclear whether the boy was giving thanks for the water or for their kindness in having played along with his desperate act.

Either way, Lawrence felt a bit self-conscious, unaccustomed as he was to being thanked in a situation free from cold profit and loss calculations.

The boy must have been thirsty, for he gulped the water down rapidly despite the chilly weather, then cleared his throat and sighed, apparently satisfied.

From the look of him, it didn’t seem like he’d come from Lenos. There were any number of roads with paths across the river, so the boy was probably from a town north or south along one such road.

What sort of travel had brought him here?

From the tattered sandals the boy had on, one thing was clear—it had not been an easy journey.

“When you’ve calmed yourself, you should sleep. Will this blanket be enough, I wonder?” asked Holo.

Aside from the blanket she and Lawrence used, they had one extra.

Holo handed it over, and the boy’s eyes widened in pleasure at this unanticipated kindness. He nodded. “The blessings of God be upon both of…you…”

The boy wrapped himself in the blanket and fell asleep so rapidly one could nearly hear the thud.

Given his clothing, it would have been impossible for him to make camp and sleep outside. If things went badly, he could very well have frozen to death.

Holo watched him worriedly for a while but seemed to relax upon hearing the boy’s slow, regular breathing. Her face was gentle as Lawrence had never seen it, and she softly brushed the boy’s hair from his face before standing.

“Should I now do the same for you?” she asked, half-teasing, half-embarrassed.

“It’s the privilege of children to be cared for so,” answered Lawrence with a shrug.

Holo smiled. “From where I stand, you’re still a child.”

As she spoke, the boat, which until a moment ago had been picking up speed as it floated down the river, slowed. They had largely caught up with the boats ahead of them, and Ragusa had taken an interest in their new passenger. He put his pole down and called out from across the cargo.

“Quite a handful! Is he all right at least?” Ragusa asked about the boy.

Holo nodded, and Ragusa stroked his chin thoughtfully, exhaling white breath.

“I wonder who cheated him. It didn’t happen this year, but come the cold season, a great number of people come from the south, and among them are swindlers aplenty. The year before last, there was a forger so skilled that not just children, but even sharp merchants were being taken in by him. Maybe people became wise to it, because since then, you hardly ever see them. The boy must have run into one of the very last ones.”

Lawrence carefully removed the document from the boy’s hand, which stuck out from underneath the blanket, then unrolled and read it.

It was a declaration of right to collect taxes from vessels on the Roam River, issued by Duke Herman Di Diejin.

In a perfunctorily flowing script that was mostly just hard to read were written directives to that effect, but anyone who had seen the genuine article would know this was a fake.

And of course, there was the matter of the duke’s signature and seal.

“Mr. Ragusa, how do you spell Duke Diejin’s name?”

“Mm, like so…”

Comparing Ragusa’s answer to the signature, Lawrence found that one of the silent lowercase letters was mistaken.

“Also the seal is a fake,” added Ragusa. “Copying the true seal is punishable by hanging.”

Now that was interesting.

Copying the real seal meant death, but making a similar seal was no crime.

Ragusa shrugged wearily, and Lawrence carefully refolded the document and slipped it back underneath the blanket.

“You’ll be paying the extra fare, though, don’t forget,” said Ragusa.

“Ah, er…yes. Of course.”

Holo might not like it, but in the end, it was money that shaped the world.