Spice and Wolf - Volume 6 - Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

The walk along the riverbank took its toll.

Having traveled for so long on a wagon, though he wasn’t exhausted, Lawrence found it difficult to keep pace with Col.

He wondered how his feet were supposed to keep up this speed.

It made him long for the days when he had been accustomed to traveling on foot and could travel twice as fast as the envious wagon-bound merchants if he was in a hurry.

“There’s no gain in hurrying so,” Lawrence finally said.

“Yes, sir,” the boy replied meekly, slowing his pace.

Ragusa’s suddenly lightened vessel had headed downriver with Holo aboard and was soon out of sight. The boats behind it were all larger, and because they were all being stopped at the checkpoint, the river was very quiet.

The calm river’s surface was slick looking and shiny, like the slime trail left behind a snail, and it was amusing to watch.

Lawrence almost wanted to say that it looked as though glass had been laid down on the earth, but that seemed a bit exaggerated.

Suddenly a fish splashed through the surface, ruining the glassy look.

“Um, Master—?” The little fish beside Lawrence took the opportunity to make its own splash.

“What is it?”

“About the eni…”

“Ah. You’re wondering if there’s any money to be made?” asked Lawrence sharply, perhaps out of habit from spending time with Holo. Col nodded, face sober.

The boy thought making money was shameful.

Lawrence faced ahead, inhaling the cold air through his nose and exhaling from his mouth. “I doubt it.”

“I…see.”

Col was wearing Holo’s robe; when he slumped in dejection, it looked like Holo slumping in dejection.

Lawrence shocked himself by reaching his hand out, but Col seemed only slightly surprised when his head was patted.

“Though I wouldn’t have guessed you’d be having trouble with money.” Lawrence pulled his hand back from Col’s head, opening and closing his fingers several times.

He had expected it to feel different from Holo’s, but apart from the lack of ears, it felt much the same.

Seen from behind, the only difference Col’s figure cut would be the lack of the bulge that Holo’s tail created.

“What do you mean?”

“Hmm? Just what I said. Even among wandering scholars, the really clever ones have more money than they can carry and drink wine every day.”

It was a bit of an exaggeration, but there were definitely students who earned enough to pay to hear a dozen lectures from a professor clear to the end.

Col had become involved in bookselling because he didn’t have enough for even a single lesson.

“Uh, er…I guess there are some like that, yes.”

“Have you ever wondered how they get their money?”

“…Surely they steal it from others, I should think.”

When looking at someone who’s achieved something beyond imagining, it’s easy to assume his dishonesty.

One simply concludes he’s using some fundamentally different method.

Col’s estimation this time was a bit low.

“I expect they’re earning money much the same way you do.”

“Huh?” Col looked at Lawrence with an expression of disbelief.

It was the same expression Holo used when Lawrence managed a truly excellent verbal comeback.

And because his opponent wasn’t Holo, he could afford a bit of pride—but when Lawrence realized what he was doing, he chuckled, chagrined, and scratched his cheek. “Mm. And the only difference between you and fellows like that is effort.”

“…Effort?”

“Yes. On your journey, did you sleep nights under borrowed roofs or beg your meals one at a time?”

“Yes.”

“So it looks like you think you put forth some effort yourself,” said Lawrence with a smile. Col’s face tensed, and he looked down.

He was sulking.

“What you put effort into was asking with all your heart if you could please take shelter from the wind or rain or if you could have some hot porridge to warm your cold body.”

Col’s eyes flicked right, then left, then he nodded.

“But that lot, they’re different. They’re always focused on getting the most, the biggest return. The stories I’ve heard are incredible. They put merchants to shame.”

There was no reaction for a while, but Lawrence wasn’t worried.

He knew Col was a smart lad.

“What…what do they do?”

Asking for instruction was no easy thing—and it was harder the cleverer one was. The more confidence one has in oneself, the more difficult it becomes to ask for help.

Of course, there are people who claim asking others is easier and start out that way.

But those people didn’t have eyes like Col’s.

Lawrence didn’t answer immediately, instead removing a small cask from the pack Col carried, uncorking it, and taking a drink.

It was wine, distilled to the point of being only palely tinted.

He jokingly offered the cask to Col, who shook his head hastily.

The boy’s eyes were tinged with fear. He had set out on his journey knowing nothing and had surely met with terrible misfortune.

“For example, say you knock on the door of a house somewhere, and you get a single smoked herring.”

Col nodded.

“And say it’s desperately meager, and when you remove the skin, there’s hardly any meat at all, just the stink of smoke and not much else. So what do you do next?”

“Um…”

Col had in all likelihood faced this situation before, so it was no mere hypothetical.

His answer came quickly. “I would…eat half, then save the other half.”

“And eat it on the next day.”

“Yes.”

Lawrence was impressed the boy had made it this far.

“So once you had a herring, you wouldn’t then go try to get some soup?”

“…Are you saying I should go around to lots of houses?” Col spoke not admiringly; his eyes seemed a bit dissatisfied.

For Lawrence, this conversation could hardly fail to be amusing.

“So there’s a good reason you don’t do that?”

Col nodded, displeased.

He wasn’t so stupid as to do something without a reason. “The reason I succeeded once…was because I was lucky.”

“That’s true. The world isn’t overflowing with good, kind people, after all.”

“…”

He had taken the bait this far.

Holo would have pretended to swallow it, then tied the fishing line to the bottom of the pond. The moment Lawrence pulled up on the rod, he would be dragged under.

Col would not do such things.

“In business, the more money you have, the more smoothly things go. It’s because you have more tools. But you go into battle unarmed every time. So you come out of it wounded.”

Col’s eyes wavered.

They wavered but soon regained their vitality.

This was what it meant to be clever.

“…So you mean I should use the herring?”

The hook was set now.

To think that there was such pleasure in the world.

“That’s right. You take the herring, and with it seek your next donation.”

“Wha—?” Col’s look of surprise was so profound it seemed it would never fade.

And why wouldn’t he be surprised?

How could someone who’s already received one fish use it to ask for another one?

But it could be done.

And easily.

“You take the herring. It’s better if you have a friend, and younger than you. You take him along and knock on a door. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ you say. ‘You live devoutly by the teachings of God. Look, sir—I have a single herring. But I cannot possibly eat it. Please look, sir—look at my companion. Today is his birthday. If you could spare us some kindness, and give me alms enough to make this herring into a pie for him to eat. Just enough for that, sir—please.’”

Solicitousness was the specialty of the merchant.

Lawrence made a good performance of it as Col gulped and watched.

“Listen to this speech. Who could refuse? The key is asking for just enough money for herring pie. Nobody is going to light their stove for you, but if it’s money, they’ll certainly spare some.”

“Ah, er, so you mean any amount—”

“Yes. You take one herring from house to house, and some of those people are going to tell you that one herring isn’t possibly enough, so you’ll get more. Then once you’ve made the rounds through town, whoosh.”

Col looked so dazed that one could have hung a sign that said DAZED on him and collected coins for the performance.

He seemed to be tasting the shock of having his entire world turned upside down.

There were amazing people in the world who could imagine truly inconceivable things.

“I won’t go so far as to say, ‘Hunger knows no law,’ but depending on how you think about it, there’s no harm in giving alms to a poor wandering scholar, and giving even a small amount of money makes the giver feel good about themselves, so nobody loses. If you have extra money or food, you can even give some to your accomplice. So what do you think? Did you learn anything?”

What made Holo’s sleeping face so attractive was that her normally guarded wisewolf mien was innocent, guileless.

However, that was usually irrelevant.

Col’s face was so naive in the face of the shock that, while he wasn’t as fetching as Holo, he definitely did have his own charm.

“Ignorance is a sin.” Lawrence patted the back of Col’s head, at which Col sighed and nodded.

“I’ve heard the saying ‘Know thyself.’”

“Well, that’s true, but the important thing is—,” began Lawrence but then looked behind him at the sound of hooves.

Perhaps there had been men on horses riding on the boat that had been held up at the checkpoint.

They were approaching at high speed—but whether they were horses or simply giant loads of fur, it was difficult to tell.

One horse. Two. Then three.

Seven in total.

How many men among them would be able to realize the profits they’d been anticipating?

Even if they knew something, it would be difficult to turn that into profit.

The important thing was—

“The important thing is to think of something nobody else is thinking of. ‘Ignorance is a sin’ is not about knowledge—it’s about wisdom.”

Col opened his eyes and gritted his teeth.

The hand that held the strap of the bag over his shoulder trembled a bit.

He looked up. “Thank you very much, master.”

Truly, only the gods profit in the end.

It was quite pleasant traveling with Col.

The boy kept silent, though, on the matter of what Holo had said to him earlier.

He was clad in Holo’s hooded cloak.

Holo had long since left her scent on the boy.

It would be difficult to reverse that.

“Hey, I can see it up ahead!”

“Hmm? …Oh, indeed. Looks like it’s turned into quite a mess.”

On the gently downward-sloping plain, the view ahead was free from obstacles.

There was still a good distance to walk, but nonetheless the main details were apparent.

True to Ragusa’s words, a large ship was diagonally blocking the river, and behind it was a tangle of vessels caught in the obstruction.

The boat that was stopped near the riverbank might have been Ragusa’s.

There were many men on horseback as well, the majority of whom were surely the messengers of noblemen, bearing urgent news.

Many other people milled around, but it was difficult to tell what they were doing.

“It seems kind of like a festival,” said Col, dazed, and Lawrence gave the boy’s profile a casual glance.

Maybe it was because the boy was looking far off into the distance, but somehow he seemed lonely, as though he were longing for his homeland.

Lawrence, too, had left his tiny home village and its stifling gray air but still sometimes thought fondly of it.

The boy’s eyes seemed moist, but the sun was fairly low in the sky, so it might simply have been from the color-tinged light that reflected in them.

“Where were you born?” Lawrence asked without thinking.

“Huh?”

“If you don’t want to answer, that’s fine, too.” Even Lawrence, when asked where he was from, would put on airs and name the town closest to the hamlet where he was born.

Of course, half of the reason he did so was because nobody would recognize the name of his village anyway.

“U-um, it’s a place called Pinu,” said Col nervously; Lawrence had indeed never heard of it.

“Sorry, I don’t know it. Where is it? The east?”

From Col’s accent, Lawrence guessed he might also be from the deep southeast.

It was a country of hot seas and limestone.

Of course, Lawrence had only heard stories of it.

“No, the north. Actually, it’s not so very far from here…”

“Oh?”

If he was from the north and wanted to study Church law, he might have been related to immigrants from the south.

There were many who had abandoned their households to seek new lands in the north.

But most of those had been unable to accustom themselves to the new place, and things had been difficult.

“Are you familiar with the Roef River that flows into the Roam?”

Lawrence nodded.

“It’s toward the headwaters there—up in the mountains. Winters are cold, I suppose. But when the snow falls, it’s very pretty.”

Lawrence was a bit surprised.

He remembered the story about Holo that was in the book he’d borrowed from Rigolo. It said that she’d come out of the mountains of Roef.

But when it came to people wandering about this region, ones from the south were surely rare.

The Roef River was quite long—the population of its basin was certainly the greater figure.

“If you’re moving slowly, it’s two weeks from here. If things really don’t work out, I was thinking I might go back home,” said Col, embarrassed. Lawrence, of course, did not smile.

It required an unbelievable amount of determination to leave one’s village.

Whether one shook off the village’s control and left or enjoyed its ardent support, one couldn’t very well just waltz back in without having achieved the goal.

Yet wanting to return home was an emotion that everyone felt at one point or another.

“So did you immigrate to Pinu, then?”

“Immigrate?”

“What I mean is, did you migrate there from the south?”

Col gaped for a moment, then shook his head. “N-no, but there’s story that the village’s original location sank into the bottom of a lake created in a landslide.”

“Oh no, I just mean that not many people from the northlands study Church law.”

Col’s eyes twinkled at the words, and he smiled with a touch of self-consciousness. “My master—er, I mean, Professor Rient—used to say such things, as well. ‘If only more people from the pagan lands would open their eyes to the Church’s teachings,’ he would say.”

Lawrence wondered why Col’s bashful smile seemed so self-conscious.

“No doubt. Did any missionaries come to your town?”

If they had been moderate missionaries, it would be by God’s grace. Most fought with sword in hand, engaging in plunder and murder under the auspices of “reform.”

But if that had been the case, Col would have learned to loathe the Church and would never have thought to study Church law.

“No missionaries came to Pinu,” he said, and again his gaze was fixed in the distance.

His profile was somehow terribly unsuited to his true age.

“They came to a village two mountains away—a place smaller than Pinu, with many hunters skilled in trapping owl and fox. One day men came there from out of the south and built a church.”

It seemed unlikely that Col would then explain that the villagers had thankfully listened to the missionaries’ sermons and opened their eyes to God.

The reason was obvious.

“But,” said Lawrence, “each village had its own god; those who rebelled against the Church were—”

Surprised, Col looked at Lawrence.

That was more than enough.

“I guess you’d have to say I’m an enemy of the Church now. Can you explain what happened?” asked Lawrence.

Still stunned, Col seemed to be on the verge of saying something, but unable to form the words, he closed his mouth.

He looked down, casting his gaze this way and that, before looking back up at Lawrence.

“Truly?”

It was obvious Col was unused to doubting other people.

If he stayed this softhearted, much suffering awaited him.

And yet for all that, it was part of the boy’s charm.

“Yes, in God’s name I swear.”

Col’s wincing face was so charming that Lawrence couldn’t help patting the boy’s head.

“…The headmen of all the villages in our region hadn’t assembled in 220 years, I heard,” began Col. “They met for many days, discussing whether to bow to the Church or to fight back. As I remember it, the mood wasn’t one of agreeing to hold a discussion with the Church, I don’t think. The news that reached us across the mountains every day was only about who had been executed. But eventually winter came, and the leader of the Church fell ill, and we were saved when he left the mountain, muttering that he didn’t want to die in a pagan land like this. Of course, if it had come to a fight, we knew the mountains and there were more of us, so we would have won.”

If that had been the real intent, they would have done so when the Church started taking violent action.

The reason they hadn’t was because they all understood what would happen if reinforcements arrived.

It wasn’t as though no information ever entered the mountain villages from the outside world.

“But after the Church leader became ill and had to simply withdraw, I began thinking.”

As soon as he said it, Lawrence understood.

Col was a bright lad.

Instead of thinking about his personal beliefs, he chose to take the most logical path to defend his village.

He realized the absurd power that came with wearing the robes of a high-ranking priest, the power to begin and end the exchange of human lives at will.

He would study Church law and eat into its power structures.

That was how Col intended to protect his village.

“And no one opposed your decision?”

Even Holo would become emotional, talking of her homeland.

Col wiped his tears with the edge of his hood, clasped in balled-up hands. “The headman…and the elder woman…supported me.”

“I see. They must have believed that you could do it.”

Col nodded, then stopped to wipe his tears on his shoulder before walking again. “They secretly lent me some money, too…so I have to find a way to get back in school.”

His greatest motivation was perhaps the need for money.

He who fought for the sake of something else was always stronger than he who fought for himself.

Lawrence was not, however, so prosperous that he could afford to become Col’s patron.

But he might be able to give the boy some small aid.

By teaching him how to make a bit of money and how to avoid traps, Lawrence might be able to bring a bit of color to the boy’s journey.

“I can’t really help you out with your money problems right now, but…”

Col sniffled. “Oh! N-no, that’s not—”

“But about that copper coin. If you can find enough of an answer to convince Ragusa, then there might be a reward in it for you.”

The reason Lawrence didn’t stipulate the answer was because there was no way of knowing what that was without asking the Jean Company. But while that was impossible, they might infer enough of the truth to convince Ragusa.

There’d be no sin in expecting a reward for such a thing.

One had to reward anyone who helped pluck a thorn from his finger.

“Of course, the most helpful effect it will have is taking away the nervousness of the journey,” said Lawrence with a smile, lightly patting Col’s head.

While by Holo’s standards, Lawrence was always being too serious, compared to this boy, he was practically mellow.

“Still, just a moment ago you said it looked like a festival—did you mean it looked like Pinu’s festivals? Are they like that?” asked Lawrence, pointing at the grounded vessel now that the details of the scene had come into view.

A small mountain of wreckage from the ships had been collected on the riverbank, and beside it, several men were lighting fires and drying their clothes.

But that was certainly not the main event—the main event was the rope that extended from underneath the grounded vessel and the men on the shore that were pulling on it.

They were a mix of ages and appearances, with their only commonality being that their journey downriver had been interrupted by this calamity.

A few of the greediest were shouldering their cargoes and heading downriver, but most set them aside and put their backs into pulling on the rope.

Even a long-mantled knight on horseback was joining in the effort, so spirits were high. A few men were on the ship’s deck with poles, keeping it from tipping over or being washed away—they raised their voices in chorus along with the rest.

Col watched the scene, entranced, then at length looked back at Lawrence. “This is more fun than that!”

Lawrence held back the words that came upon seeing Col’s expression.

It was hard to imagine a more suitable apprentice should he choose to take one—and not just because Holo had said so.

Once Lawrence’s journey with Holo came to an end, the cold, hard, lonely road of the traveling merchant still awaited him. And even if Col was no substitute for Holo, the lad could certainly sit in the driver’s box beside Lawrence.

But Col had his own goals and did not exist only for Lawrence’s convenience.

Which was why Lawrence forced himself not to ask, “Will you be my apprentice?” (though it took considerable effort).

Lawrence grumbled quietly to the gods that Col’s goal was not becoming a merchant.

“I suppose we’d best help them out, then. Pulling on that rope will warm us against the chill.”

“Yes, sir!”

Just as Lawrence and Col began to walk, Ragusa waved his pole with a smile and raised his voice, his boat slipping lightly down the river.

There was a huge difference between watching from afar and actually pulling on the rope.

The peaty ground sloshed around when stepped on, and without gloves, the rope and the cold air mercilessly wore away at the skin of the hands.

On top of that, because the rope was attached to a section of the ship that was below the waterline, the people pulling would heave back against the unyielding resistance, only to have it give way in sudden spurts.

Whereupon everyone would naturally fall over, and soon they were all covered in mud.

Lawrence and the other merchants and travelers started out enthusiastically, but as soon as the hardship became apparent, they began to visibly lose their vigor.

No matter how hard they pulled, the only things that surfaced were fragments of the ruined ship, so morale—like the vessel—was low.

And the boatmen, who had stripped naked in the freezing weather to dive underwater and attach the rope to the ship, were blue-lipped and white-faced with the cold.

After lighting a fire, a traveling actress and a seamstress—encouraged by Holo and Ragusa—jumped into the river, but the water was so cold that no amount of willpower could overcome it. When they dragged themselves back onto the bank, they looked terrible.

Finally, unable to watch any further, an older boatman called out. Perhaps boatmen were too stubborn themselves to admit that it was impossible. His distorted face was painful to see.

A wave of surrender was emanating from Lawrence and the rest. Merchants were quick to pull out of a game once they saw there was no profit in it.

The boatmen, who lived their lives on the river, seemed to have every intention of using sheer willpower to raise the ship, but as one and then another let go of the rope and doubled over in exhaustion, they seemed to understand that it was impossible. They held a conference around a middle-aged member of their profession and soon came to a decision.

Both Lenos and Kerube were distant, and the sun would soon be setting.

If the boatmen made their passengers wait any longer, they would unavoidably leave a bad impression.

Without further ado, the rope hauling was ended.

Lawrence did not neglect his own fitness, but he rarely had the need to do such labor. His body felt leaden, and the palms of his hands burned as though scorched. His swollen left cheek was cold enough that it no longer felt painful.

“Are you all right?” Lawrence asked.

Col had quickly pulled away from the tug-of-war. Perhaps because of the festive atmosphere around him, he’d done his best, carried away by the mood and putting all his strength into the task.

But his body was slender and he soon reached the end of his endurance, retreating apologetically from the task.

“Ah, yes…I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t be. Look at all these merchants. They wish they’d done what you did.” Lawrence motioned with his chin at the small clumps of merchants sitting here and there, who weren’t even trying to hide their irritation at the unfavorable outcome that the investment of their effort had produced.

Some of them were losing their temper—most likely the ones who were trying to move furs downriver.

“How do you plan to compensate us for this loss?” they cried.

If Lawrence had also been moving cargo this way, he would have felt much the same. Though he felt bad for the boatmen who were the target of such anger, he did nothing to intervene.

And the worst part of the entire situation were the people aboard the boats that had been hung up on the wreckage of the sunken ship—particularly a boat roughly triple the size of Ragusa’s that was literally heaped with furs. They were trying to get the furs ashore, and looking at the amount, Lawrence could understand why. Even if there hadn’t been a sunken ship blocking the middle of the river, a small disturbance would have been sufficient to capsize the overloaded vessel.

A quick search did not reveal whoever was to blame for the situation.

Lawrence imagined they were hiding in order to avoid criticism, but that hardly seemed cowardly.

It was no exaggeration to say that in trade, whoever was first to move their goods was the first to profit. That was especially true for seaport towns, where great ships would arrive carrying huge amounts of goods, and it was even said that for ships carrying the same goods, only the first two to arrive would turn any profit.

A ship sinking in the river was not a common occurrence, so it was a near certainty that it was Eve’s doing—it was the perfect way to guarantee her own profits and the perfect way to cause those following her no end of grief.

Several merchant-looking men weren’t even complaining, and instead sat dispirited, their heads in their hands, tormented by the uncertainty of whether they would be able to turn their furs into money.

There was no telling how many of them would be able to maintain their composure.

It would hardly be surprising if they simply exploded.

“So…what will happen next?” Col asked, producing a water skin and handing it to Lawrence.

Col was in no particular hurry to arrive in Kerube; he was simply taking in the scene and asking a question.

“The river has many owners along its way, and each is responsible for what happens on his section. Most likely the landlord of this section will dispatch horses and men first thing in the morning—with horses pulling, I’m sure they’ll be able to haul the wreck out.”

“I see…” Col looked hazily at the river’s surface, perhaps imagining the team of horses all attached to the rope.

Lawrence put the water skin to his lips as he gazed at the wreck, its prow pointing straight up out of the water as though it were about to jump into the air.

Suddenly he heard footsteps.

He turned, thinking it might be Holo, but there was Ragusa.

“Ho, friend! Sorry to make you walk,” said the man with a light wave, which allowed Lawrence to see the palm of his thick hand was swollen and red.

No doubt getting people and goods ashore with the river so jammed with boats had been a difficult task.

The effort of getting his boat so close to the shore had certainly taken more effort than his usual work did.

If even a little bit of the hull was touching the ground, moving the vessel required no ordinary amount of strength.

“Not at all—I don’t mind walking along the river.”

“Ha-ha-ha! I’ll take you at your word, then,” a chagrined Ragusa said with a laugh, scratching his face and looking out at the river with a sigh. “This really is the worst luck. I guess they’ll be able to do something about it by tomorrow morning.”

“Do you think the ship sinking has anything to do with the fur trade?” asked Lawrence. It was natural to think so.

Thus asked, Ragusa nodded, tousling Col’s hair as the boy stared vaguely out at the river, exhausted. “I reckon so. Still, this is madness. Must be some fool who holds money dearer than their life. They could be strapped to the breaking wheel for this, without so much as a by-your-leave. Terrifying.”

The breaking wheel was a gruesome form of execution, with victims being tied to a wagon wheel and broken, then left upon a hill to be eaten by the crows, still tied to the wheel.

Lawrence was confident that Eve would escape, though.

He even hoped she would safely claim her profits, bearing her no ill will for snatching his own.

“So what of you lot, then?” asked Ragusa.

“What do you mean?”

“If you keep walking down the road, there’s an inn attached to a checkpoint. Of course, it’s no place for a lady to stay the night,” said Ragusa, looking over at Holo.

Holo, for her part, was chattering happily with a tall woman who looked to be an actress or performer.

“Right now, the master of that wreck of a ship along with the cargo owner are headed upriver to negotiate with some peddlers. I daresay that food and drink will arrive around sundown, but if you wait for that, you’ll be camping, make no mistake.”

Lawrence now understood why the ship’s master had been nowhere to be seen.

“We never expect to have a roof over our heads while traveling. Quite the contrary—we’ll be thankful that it’s solid ground rather than a rocking boat,” answered Lawrence.

Ragusa winced as if looking at something very bright, then shrugged his muscled shoulders awkwardly.

He then sighed. “I’m just glad it’s only merchants on the boats. If we’d been carrying mercenaries, this would’ve gone very badly.”

“Still, some of them seem quite angry.”

Ragusa laughed. “I’ll take their shouting! Mercenaries will draw their swords first and ask questions later.”

Perhaps at the casualness with which Ragusa spoke, Col shrank back as though having swallowed a grape pip.

“Still, whoever sank that ship had best watch their step. I hope Count Bulgar catches them.”

While Lawrence was inwardly cheering for Eve, he certainly understood Ragusa’s anger.

But he felt that if he responded to that statement, he might give away his own feelings, so Lawrence changed the subject.

“Didn’t you have some urgent cargo, as well?”

The boat carried copper coin.

Since it was meant to be carried across the sea, its transport plan was stricter than normal cargo.

“Aye. The plan was to take delivery of the cargo in Lenos, but the merchant was late—so I’m already behind schedule. None of this is my fault, but when I think of what’ll happen once I make it to Kerube, it’s downright depressing.”

“I’ve carried cargo like that before. It’s nerve-racking,” agreed Lawrence.

To make a single suit of clothes, it was quiet common for the sourcing of the raw materials, the construction, the dyeing, the tailoring, and the final sale to all be in different towns.

As it traveled from one merchant to another, one shipper to another, a single hiccup in the process would disrupt the entire chain.

That sheep’s wool from some far-flung land could cross the ocean to become clothing in another was a miracle by itself—to be able to do it on schedule and at a profit was godlike achievement.

But it is the way of the world that the impossible is frequently demanded.

Ragusa’s hardships were hidden.

“And worse, it’s cargo with a strange history! Did you figure anything out about that?”

He undoubtedly meant that the number of copper coins headed to the Jean Company in Kerube did not add up.

If it turned out to be something interesting, Ragusa would probably feel some measure of satisfaction.

“Unfortunately not.”

“Well, nobody’s noticed so far. I guess it’s not a question so easily answered.”

That stood to reason.

“By the way—,” Ragusa began.

“Yes?”

The big man cracked his neck and turned back to Lawrence, continuing, “Did something happen with your lovely companion?”

“Wh—”

Lawrence’s inability to coolly ask “Why would you ask?” was proof enough that something had indeed happened.

Even the drowsy Col now looked up at Lawrence.

How did Ragusa know something had happened?

“Why, I just wondered why she hadn’t come back to you now that things have calmed down a bit—guess I was right,” said Ragusa, and though Col nodded, he seemed a bit shocked. “Come now,” Ragusa continued, “you can’t tell me you didn’t notice after how close you were before. She didn’t seem to want to leave your side for a moment! Am I right?” He directed these last words to Col, who nodded hesitantly.

Lawrence looked away and shaded his eyes with his hand.

“Ha-ha-ha!” laughed Ragusa. “Don’t grow up like this fellow, you hear?”

Lawrence groaned at this final blow, battered by Col’s timid, bewildered reply.

What would Holo say if she were here?

Come to think of it, she was probably eavesdropping with those keen ears of hers.

“So, come now—out with it.”

“…Huh?”

“What did you quarrel over? When the wine and food arrives from upstream, things will turn very festive indeed, you know. And this lot is going to have their share of anger to vent once they get some liquor in their bellies. They’ll be a pack of wolves.”

Ragusa grinned, baring teeth that while crooked were strong enough to chew through even the toughest grass.

Lawrence’s experiences on his journey had given him the means not to be too flustered by Ragusa’s jokes; however, that he would be unable to speak with Holo during the festivities was a great loss, indeed.

If nothing else, the fact that the end of the journey was now decided meant he couldn’t afford to waste even a single day with her.

How many chances remained to enjoy a festival with Holo?

Merchants were always considering profit and loss. Always.

And the fact remained that he still didn’t know why Holo was angry. Perhaps to Ragusa, who was a few years older than Lawrence, the solution was obvious.

The problem was, he had to speak up.

Despite having finally gotten some measure of confidence in his relationship with Holo, it was not so strong that he could expose that relationship to a stranger and still feel confident.

“Come, have some trust in me! Listen well, now—” Ragusa put his massive arm over Lawrence’s shoulders; it seemed strong enough to knock Lawrence out with a single wave.

It seemed as though he was trying to hide their conversation from Col, but Col stuck close to Ragusa and listened in.

“I’ve got some confidence when it comes to such troublesome matters. Know why?”

Lawrence shook his head, and Ragusa took his arm off Lawrence and thrust his chest out proudly. “I’ve been taking boats up and down the river for past twenty years. When it comes to water under the bridge, you just leave it to me!”

Behind Ragusa and some distance away, Holo had been talking to the actress when Lawrence saw her suddenly burst into laughter.

She had been listening in.

Holo did not seem displeased.

Which meant she, too, wanted this cleared up as soon as possible.

And while Lawrence couldn’t really count on Ragusa, he might as well talk to him, since Lawrence and Holo’s relationship was evidently easily understood from the outside.

“In that case…may I?”

“Count on me, friend.”

They put their heads together—not just Ragusa, either, but Col as well.

Though their ages and professions were different and though they had only met that same day, the three now looked like old friends.

Lawrence coolly considered that before he’d met Holo, this would never have happened.

He somehow felt that even if he had to leave her, he would be able to go on.

“Does anyone have any old rags or things they don’t need?”

The call went out, and soon an impressive pile had been collected.

It was piled up on the riverbank as preparations for the festivities continued.

There had been a peddler selling food at the checkpoint upriver, and the man’s entire mule load of food had been bought up and handed out without hesitation.

At first, several merchants had vented their spleens at the master of the sunken vessel and the fur shipper, as though the weight of their sins was equal to the weight of the furs they’d tried to move—but beating them wouldn’t make the river usable.

Of course, that didn’t mean that the other merchants would simply say nothing, but if anything, the loud exchanges were a kind of ceremony to shed the frustration that the clogged river had caused.

In the end there was no violence, and after a short pause, the food and drink the provisions shipper had bought was passed out, and smiles returned to everyone’s faces.

Since there was nothing else that could be done, not enjoying themselves would have been a waste.

Despite the mood of enemies joining hands in merriment, there was no one by Lawrence’s side.

Not even Ragusa or Col was there.

“Don’t grow up like this fellow, you hear?”

After Lawrence had explained the circumstances of Holo’s anger, the two had fallen silent.

At length, Ragusa had opened his mouth to speak, but not to Lawrence—to Col.

Col had very considerately not answered Ragusa’s first question, but when Ragusa looked to him and asked, “You’ve figured it out, too, haven’t you?” he had hesitantly nodded in the affirmative.

Which meant Lawrence was at fault—so Ragusa had put his heavy arm over Col’s shoulders and forcibly taken the boy away.

He had left Lawrence with but a single hint.

“The river does indeed flow. But—why does it flow?”

It was a complete riddle.

Col had cocked his head in confusion at the words as well, but when Ragusa whispered in the boy’s ear, his eyes had lit up with comprehension.

It seemed both of them had easily understood the reason for Holo’s anger.

What was worse, it was evidently something so obvious that they had half given up on him, leaving him alone to ponder his mistakes.

Lawrence felt like an apprentice who had been left to stand outside because he was unable to do as he was told.

As he saw Ragusa and Col talking with Holo, that feeling grew more and more pronounced.

No—that was it exactly, with Holo conspicuously avoiding looking in his direction, and Col and Ragusa occasionally sneaking furtive glances.

When they realized Lawrence was looking back at them, he could tell, even at that distance, that they shrugged and smiled.

Holo dragged Col out from under Ragusa’s arm, self-indulgently petting the boy’s head and hugging him.

Lawrence could tell Col was getting flustered, but as soon as Col glanced at Lawrence, the latter could do nothing but look away, frowning.

He was being made fun of.

But strangely, Lawrence didn’t feel bad—not even when being laughed at by Ragusa and Col as well as Holo.

Not long ago, right up until he had met Holo, he’d believed that once a merchant’s reputation was damaged, regaining it was no simple task.

So he’d stuck out his chest, put on airs, told lies, and trusted no one.

And he realized that that behavior was exactly the same as what came to mind when he looked at Col.

When Lawrence had proposed to buy Col’s sheaf of paper, Col had glared resentfully at him, as though refusing to be forced into selling it cheaply.

Such an action was worse than useless—it made Col look cheap and unsightly, yet Lawrence knew fully well that he himself had been captive to the same behavior until recently.

No wonder Holo teases me, he murmured inwardly, grabbing a handful of his own hair.

He started to question whether he was even a full-fledged merchant.

Holo clearly saw him as a conceited, self-absorbed youngster.

He couldn’t help but smile.

Though he had been so starved for company that he’d begun to wish his horse would talk, becoming close to others really was this simple.

Lawrence wondered if the people he’d met so far had looked at him with the same indulgent smile with which Holo and Ragusa looked at the stubborn Col.

And yet—

“All this said, this doesn’t tell me what the right answer is,” said Lawrence to himself, sighing.

Ragusa and Col left Holo to get some of the wine that was going around.

Col must have had a bad experience with liquor in the past, because even from a distance, it was obvious he didn’t like it, but Ragusa still hung drunkenly on to the boy.

Col had left the pack that he was carrying there by Lawrence; he took the distilled wine out of it.

Lawrence had chosen the strong distilled liquor in anticipation of the cold night aboard the boat, where it would be impossible to light a fire—but he expected Holo’s reasoning was a bit different.

She had probably been thinking of something strange when she happily smacked Lawrence—but what?

The riddles piled up one after another.

Lawrence’s confidence that he had a better-than-average mind steadily eroded, but such pathetic thoughts lasted only a moment.

A cry arose, and suddenly there on the twilit riverbank bloomed a large fireball.

No—not a fireball, Lawrence realized, but the bonfire made of discarded rags and broken barrels flared up so fast once lit that it was an easy mistake to make.

Someone had to have thrown oil on it.

The thick black smoke rose into the air like a skull, the yellow flames crackling.

On a winter journey, where there was a fire, the words friend and enemy had no meaning.

At no particular signal, everyone raised their cups.

Then suddenly, things developed.

The woman Holo had been speaking with seemed indeed to be an actress, and she and her troupe jumped forth, as if proclaiming the event their stage.

There was flute and drum, song and dance. Some cheerful people followed, skillfully avoiding spilling their wine as they danced.

Their dance was not the smooth, careful footwork of the imperial palace, but a leaping, prancing, mad thing.

The rest of the gathered people watched and laughed, raising their voices together or, like Ragusa, playing drinking games.

No one was near Lawrence.

A sad smile rose to his lips, but he stifled it when he sensed a presence in the darkness borne from the fire.

There was only one person who would bother with a foolish traveling merchant like him.

He looked, and it was Holo.

“Whew. Talking after a long silence—it makes one thirsty,” she said, as though talking to herself. She then swiped the cask away from Lawrence and took a drink.

This was no ale or thin wine.

Holo shut her eyes and clamped her mouth closed.

Then, after exhaling a great puff of breath, she sat down right on the spot.

She seemed to have given up on ignoring him, Lawrence thought, so he sat next to her.

“So, that actress…what were you talking ab—”

He didn’t finish the sentence, because as soon as he started speaking, Holo looked bluntly away.

What stunned him was not that she wouldn’t listen to him.

It was that he was happy about it.

“Ugh, ’tis a cold night,” said Holo, not replying to Lawrence in the slightest. She did not meet his eyes, but as she spoke, she drew near him, just as she would when they were in the driver’s box of the wagon.

At first, Lawrence wondered if she was being stubborn, but then he realized that he was the stubborn one.

He somehow got the feeling that if he apologized now, though it might be pathetic, she would forgive him.

It was earlier that she had been angry at him for failing to understand something obvious.

But now, it could be that since she had been able to make fun of and snicker at Lawrence, she would hear him out.

He was tempted to simply say, “I don’t know.”

Leaning against him there, she would probably look up, irritated at the noise.

Then she would hurl some irritated invective at him.

But she wouldn’t stand up, nor would she move away from him.

It was as if she was saying that the closer she was, the better she could hear him.

Lawrence did not doubt the idea. After all, doubting that would be tantamount to doubting everything that happened on his travels with her.

A faint, chagrined smile appeared on his face.

Holo seemed to notice this; her ears flicked beneath her hood. Her tail wagged in anticipation of the pathetic words she would soon hear.

Lawrence spoke, as if to answer that anticipation.

“Those traveling performers are excellent. That’s a lovely dance.”

“Wha—?” Holo flinched away as though her tail had been stepped on, looking up at Lawrence.

“Hmm?” he asked, but of course received no reply.

There was nothing Holo hated more than being surprised by having her expectations defied.

The quick switching of her tail made her anger very clear.

It was clear, yet her amusement was also undeniable.

“I-I may have caught cold. My nose is rather itchy.” The slight tremor in her voice might have been from the frustration at having been bested by Lawrence or from the effort of trying not to laugh.

Holo took a drink of the liquor, as though to swallow the feeling down, then burped.

Lawrence could tell that the ensuing silence came from each of them, groping for the next move, trying to best the other.

The sun gave a last glimmer before sinking beneath the horizon, and after a single breath, the stars flickered into existence. People crowded around the bonfire, merchant and boatman alike trying to turn the bad luck of the river delay into something special.

The journey of life was short, and one couldn’t waste a single day.

The flute was blown, the drum beaten, and the misfortune of the sunken ship turned into a funny tune by a minstrel.

There were alluring dancing girls with sashes aflutter as they danced, along with exhausted, clumsily dancing revelers, who seemed to constantly totter, on the verge of spilling the drinks they held.

Lawrence had been focused on getting Holo to say what was on her mind, but now he felt like he understood what it was that had settled into her thoughts.

Holo, who believed anything was better with drink, could hardly sit still in this environment. This was no time for her to be talking about her feelings with a hopelessly outclassed merchant.

Holo looked up at Lawrence doubtfully.

Since declaring that she would speak to him no more, perhaps she really planned to make good on that promise, but that said, he felt it would be a bad idea to stand up from this spot.

Perhaps that was it.

Lawrence ignored her gaze just as she’d ignored him, instead taking the wine cask from her hands. “With strong liquor, the cold won’t be so bad for a while.”

At those words, Holo seemed to smile at their shared stubbornness, her expression softening as she lightly touched Lawrence’s hand, then stood.

Lawrence wondered if she was going to go dance, but her clothing was a bit loose, and her ears and tail were peeking out, which was a bit worrisome.

Holo’s eyes shone.

No doubt her eyes had looked much like this during the festival they’d read about in Lenos.

And it was understandable, too, that in an atmosphere of fun like this, she might carelessly let slip her tail, and thus would come another name—the wheaten tail.

She might even become carried away and assume her wolf form, raising a great furor.

She surely wouldn’t do something like that here and now, but based on the way she was checking her robe and sash, she planned to do some serious dancing.

Looking at her, Lawrence couldn’t help voicing what came to mind. “You should just take your wolf form and pull that sunken ship right out—”

It was not because Holo’s happy expression suddenly vanished that Lawrence stopped talking; nor was it because he remembered that she wouldn’t answer him.

Holo assuming her wolf form and pulling the wreck out of the river. It wasn’t actually feasible, of course, but it was certainly within the realm of a forgivable joke.

It wasn’t an awkward thing to say, really.

It wasn’t that—it was that he really couldn’t imagine Holo assuming her wolf form for just anyone.

As to why that was, the answer came to Lawrence immediately.

And that answer led him to another conclusion with startling speed.

Holo’s once expressionless face now looked down on Lawrence with an exasperated smile; by contrast, Lawrence felt his own face grow sober. The reason Holo had been angry—he finally understood it.

“Honestly…,” said Holo, looking around briefly before coming down to him.

Her arms wrapped around his neck as she sat lightly upon him.

As a man, it was a pleasant sensation for Lawrence, but given that she was doing this, she must have been truly angry enough to want to ignore him.

“One can flatter a pig right up a tree, but flattering a male just makes him lose himself. Didn’t I say as much?” Holo half whispered into Lawrence’s ear, their cheeks close enough to touch—but Lawrence knew full well her eyes were narrowed and sharp.

And the fact that Holo had looked around before coming to him was not because she didn’t want anyone to see her like this. It was quite the opposite.

At the end of his gaze, Lawrence saw Ragusa covering Col’s eyes as the boy squirmed to get away, Ragusa laughing hugely.

His boatmen friends were watching too, of course, grinning as the sight made a pleasant side dish to go with their liquor.

It wasn’t so much embarrassing as it was simply awkward.

“If our positions were reversed, you would surely have been just as angry. Am I wrong?”

Her resentful tone made Lawrence fear she’d bite his ear clean off.

But that was not what he was truly afraid of.

Holo did not kill her prey quickly—she preferred to toy with it for a while before ending its life.

“Hmph.” She unwrapped her arms from around his neck, sat up, then looked down at Lawrence and spoke, baring her fangs. “Will you now show me how sincere you are?”

When she poked the tip of his nose with her finger, he did not resist.

Holo grinned, then stood up and spun about like a whirl of wind.

All that was left behind was the warmth of her body and her somehow sweet scent.

Her smile did not remain in his memory.

After all, as the one who held the coin purse, that was a very dangerous smile indeed.

“Sincerity?” Lawrence muttered to himself, taking a drink of liquor.

It had been when he was trying to get her to consider the copper coin puzzle with him.

Holo was very clever, and her abilities to jibe at Lawrence, laugh at him, and make him laugh were excellent. Her mind was so sharp it could fairly be described as “mysterious”; it had saved him more than once.

So he thought she would enjoy the challenge.

But that hadn’t been the case.

Ragusa had told Lawrence, “The river does indeed flow. But—why does it flow?”

Those words had once seemed a complete riddle to Lawrence, but now he understood their true meaning.

Boatmen rode upon the river’s currents as they plied their trade. And those currents never ceased. But the boatmen did not take that flow for granted. They were always grateful to the river, even tearful at the deep generosity of the river spirit.

When Holo got angry, what Lawrence was guilty of was not trusting her enough. But taking her dependability as a given suggested that it was becoming less important, and he would eventually come to overlook it.

Suppose one’s lover wrote him frequent love letters. If he asked her to write his reply for her, because she seemed to enjoy writing letters so much, he’d earn her wrath, and rightly so.

In other words, Holo had wanted to tell Lawrence that just because she put her wisdom to work solving his problems did not mean that she loved solving problems.

It was obvious if he thought about it.

While it was rather doubtful that Holo would bring her wisdom to bear for Lawrence’s sake alone, at the very least, she would be angry with him if he didn’t think so.

Lawrence fell back on the spot.

He had just been educated by Holo.

That was what made her smile so terrifying.

“Sincerity enough to balance this out…?” Lawrence sat back up and took another drink. “I haven’t got it on hand!”

He exhaled a liquor-reeking breath, then looked at Holo, who was dancing in front of the fire.

As she waved her arms about in the happy dance, she didn’t so much as glance at Lawrence.

He was already afraid of what she would make him buy her.

Holo joined hands with the dancing girl she had been talking to earlier on the riverbank, and the two danced with perfect footwork, as though they had practiced ahead of time. The sounds of flute playing and applause rewarded them.

As if conceding defeat to their display, the flaming pile of rags and wooden debris collapsed in on itself, blowing a shower of sparks into the air, like the sigh of a demon.

Lawrence could see a faint smile on Holo’s feverish, serious face, and her dance had a somehow unsettling quality to it. Part of it was that she was simply that attractive, but she also seemed as though she were trying to forget something.

Since long ago, festivals had been celebrated to mark the end of one year and the beginning of the next and to quiet the anger of gods and spirits. Lawrence wondered if Holo’s appearance was due to that feeling, but then as he was moving to take another drink, his hand froze.

He had realized earlier the reality that most of the things Holo did, she did for him.

Did that possibly apply to things outside of helping him think through puzzles and other such difficulties?

“Surely not—”

Holo danced with endless gaiety, seemingly unable to think about anything else—suddenly she seemed very small.

If Lawrence’s guess was correct, her anger was over a foolish thing indeed.

If he was so much slower than her that he couldn’t keep up, then it could also be said that she was running ahead on her own and meddling with things.

He drank, and the harsh liquor burned his throat.

Lawrence stood but not to join in the dancing circle.

To put it in his own stubborn words, he stood to collect information for Holo.

In Ragusa’s circle, Col had already collapsed and lay faceup.

Lawrence walked toward them, giving a light wave, which Ragusa acknowledged with a lift of his cup.

Holo was a fool.

He wanted to prove it.

“Ah-ha-ha-ha! The mountains of Roef?”

“Ho, it’s a lovely place. I bring fine lumber out of it every year! Wood that came down this very river went to a kingdom in the far south, to produce a…urp…grand table for the palace. What say you to that, my young traveling merchant?” said the boatman, heartily pouring wine from his own wineskin into the cask Lawrence held.

The cask wasn’t a barrel, so it was hardly possible to pour into it, and both the boatman holding the wineskin and Lawrence were rather unsteady of hand.

More and more of the wine spilled out of the cask, falling like a waterfall to the ground.

Lawrence was drunk enough that he didn’t care.

“Well, in that case, you should write this on the side of the lumber: ‘Your damn taxes are too high!’” said Lawrence loudly, bringing the cask to his mouth to take a drink when the boatman slapped him carelessly on the back, causing the wine to miss his mouth and go falling to the ground.

“Ah, yes! Right you are, m’boy.”

Somewhere in the back of Lawrence’s mind, he realized half-ruefully, half-proudly that not even Holo had ever gotten this drunk.

“So then, what of Roef?” Lawrence asked.

“Roef? I’ve taken fine lumber from the place…,” began the boatman, repeating himself—but then he collapsed on the spot.

“What a lightweight,” said one of his comrades, more disgusted than worried.

Lawrence grinned and looked around at the faces of the other men. “So, will you talk to me now?”

“Ha-ha-ha! I reckon we promised, so there’s nothing to be done about it now. We’ll let Zonal settle this one up,” said a heavy-drinking boatman, smiling as he poked the head of his fallen comrade.

The boatman named Zonal was already passed out.

“Truly, though, to think you’d be this strong from dealing with a girl like that—”

“Aye, aye! Still, we must…we must keep our promises!”

“Aye, ’tis sho…”

“So you wanted to know of Roef?”

The last one to speak was Ragusa, who was evidently able to hold his liquor—his face was barely red.

The rest of them were, like Lawrence, a bit unsteady on their feet.

Lawrence himself was not entirely confident in his ability to remain conscious.

“Ah…yes, either that or a place called Yoitsu…”

“I’ve not heard of this Yoitsu. But Roef’s hardly worth asking about—you just head back up this river. The Roef River joins up with it, and you just follow that all the way in.”

I’m not asking about such trifling details, Lawrence thought to himself, but when he tried to remember what he was asking about, he couldn’t remember.

He was drunk.

But Roef was the first clue he needed to follow.

“Can you not tell me something more…interesting?”

“Interesting, eh?” Ragusa rubbed his beard and looked over to his fellow boatmen, but to a man they seemed to be nodding off, succumbing to the alcohol. “Ah, I have it,” he said, twisting his beard, then walking over to his fallen boatman comrade and shaking the man’s shoulder violently.

“Hey you. Wake up! You said you took a strange job recently, didn’t you?”

“Mnngh…uuh…can’t hold any more…”

“Idiot! Hey! You brought it out of Lesko on the Roef headwaters, didn’t you?”

The boatman named Zonal had been deliberately drinking with Lawrence, and he’d apparently been caught in an affair and had his head soundly cracked by his wife in revenge.

Lawrence himself was not unworried about what might happen if he was to fool around with another girl and Holo discovered it.

“Lesko? Ah, yes, ’tis a good town. Time after time, I brought copper out of the mountains there…It flowed out like water. Oh, and the liquor there’s first-rate. How c’n I put it…? They’ve got dozens of machines there that bring the strongest liquor out of the thinnest wine. Oh, my copper-skinned bride! The blessings of fire and water be upon your shining skin!” called out Zonal before falling motionless again, his eyes closed. It was by no means clear whether he was awake or asleep.

Ragusa gave the man’s shoulder another rough shake, but Zonal was by now a jellyfish tossed upon the waves.

“Worthless!”

“‘Copper-skinned bride,’ he said…Did he mean a still?”

“Mm? Oh, aye! You’re quite knowledgeable. I’ve carried them as cargo a few times. The liquor you’re drinking was probably distilled in a Lesko still.”

Made from skillfully beaten sheets of copper, a still would certainly have an appealing red shine to it. And it was often said that those who shaped the curved copper pieces had the female form in mind when they did so, so Lawrence understood Zonal’s ramblings.

“Mm, this is no good. He won’t awaken ’til morning.”

“You said…something about a strange j-job?” Lawrence was quite drunk himself and was having difficulty speaking properly.

It occurred to him to wonder if Holo was all right, and when he looked around, a sight terrible enough to snap him out of his drunkenness in an instant greeted him at the end of his shaky vision.

“Yes, a strange job…hmm? Ha-ha-ha! She has a catlike quickness about her—it quite suits her, don’t you think?”

Ragusa’s laugh was directed at Holo, whose dancing figure had elicited a great cry of delight from the crowd.

She had shed her heavy robe, and her tail waved silkily about as she spun and danced, hands joined with the dancing girl.

On her head was the skin of what might have been a flying squirrel or some small animal, and at first glance, it looked as though she was flaunting both her ears and tail.

Lawrence was speechless at Holo’s recklessness, but nobody else seemed to be concerned.

When he looked more carefully, he saw that the dancing girl, too, had a fox fur wrapped around her as an improvised tail, as well as a squirrel skin tied about her head.

While Lawrence couldn’t help but marvel at Holo’s nerve, he also couldn’t rule out the possibility that his judgment had been dulled by the liquor.

Even as he worried about what would happen if she was found out, she seemed truly joyful as she danced.

And her long waves of hair and soft, fluffy tail caused something to stir within Lawrence’s chest, like some mysterious sorcery.

“So, yes, about that strange job.”

Lawrence snapped out of his dream at Ragusa’s words.

Somewhere along the line, the question Holo had asked of him in Lenos—“Which is more important, me or profit?”—was becoming less and less difficult to solve.

What did it mean that he tried to excuse that thought away by telling himself that it was just the liquor?

Either way, Lawrence lightly hit his fog-filled head and turned his attention to what Ragusa was saying.

“He’d been carrying money orders for the same company over and over. That’s the other reason I was interested in what you were talking about—I was afraid that old Zonal had gotten himself mixed up in some kind of strange dealings. And that company is the supplier for those copper coins. I don’t have courage enough for such things.”

Because places that imported and exported copper coins had to be close with the area’s political power, there weren’t many.

While a town might prosper thanks to a copper mine, in places where the whole of the town’s fortune depended on that mine, the merchants and rulers of the area would be forced to collude.

Ragusa’s voice was lowered; he wasn’t saying anything good about the very same merchants who gave him work.

He must have seen a good deal of corruption already.

Lawrence’s vision and speech were blurred, but on this topic, his mind was entirely clear.

“But…still, wouldn’t that be…the sort of letter you’d leave to the butcher?”

Butchers were often given letters to deliver, since they made their rounds among local farmers to buy pigs or sheep nearly every day.

Boatmen went up and down the Roam River.

It wasn’t strange that they would be given a coin order to deliver.

“Well, when he delivered a money order to the Jean Company in Kerube that he’d picked up in Lesko, he was apparently given a certificate of refusal.”

“A certificate of refusal?”

Instead of sending a sackful of jingling coins, there would be a piece of paper that said to please pay so-and-so a certain amount of money at a certain place. The paper and the system behind it was known as a money order, but a refusal certificate meant somebody didn’t want to turn the order into coin as requested.

But what was strange was the idea that anyone would send the same money order day after day when it was being rejected.

“Strange, isn’t it? He was given money orders time and again, only to have them rejected every time. Someone is definitely up to something.”

“…There…there may be some kind of circumstance…”

“Circumstance?”

“Er…It’s a money order; in other words, they’re transporting money. And money’s value is always changing. If the money’s value changed while the money order was in transit…so they might not want to honor the order, or…”

Ragusa’s eyes were serious.

As long as he had money, a traveling merchant could go where he wished and buy whatever goods he liked, then go and sell them anywhere else—from a certain perspective, such a man was free.

By contrast, the livelihoods of Ragusa and his cohorts were tied to a single river.

If they angered a shipper, even the deepest, widest river might as well have dried up entirely.

Their weak position meant they were taken advantage of, involved in strange schemes only to be sunk outright.

Trading that involved boats was more enjoyable, but a horse and wagon could go wherever its driver pleased.

“So there’s no need to…worry…” Lawrence’s head slumped, and he yawned hugely.

Ragusa regarded Lawrence dubiously, then gave a deep sigh. “Hmph. The world is filled with vexing things.”

“While it may be that ignorance is a sin…it’s impossible to know everything.”

Unable to bear the weight of his own eyelids, Lawrence’s eyes grew narrower and narrower.

All that he could see now was Ragusa’s cross-legged form, and Lawrence wondered if he would soon be at his limit.

“True enough. Hah. I watched the boy’s clumsiness with a smile, but now I see I’m not so different myself. Unlike us, he was deceived by a cheap stack of paper, but in the right place, he’d be wiser than either of us, would he not?” said Ragusa, ruffling the passed-out Col’s hair.

There was real regret in Ragusa’s eyes, as though if Col had truly been unable to pay the boat fare, Ragusa would have used that to keep him on board.

“Church…law, was it?”

“Eh? Oh, yes…so he said.”

“And what a vexing thing to study. If he’d work with me, he wouldn’t have to study that. Plus he’d get three…no, two meals a day.”

Lawrence found himself smiling at Ragusa’s honesty.

With physical labor, you only got three meals a day when you were full-fledged.

“He seems to have a goal,” said Lawrence, and Ragusa threw him a glance.

“Come now…did you try to steal a march on me, tempting him away while you were walking?”

His anger seemed genuine, which was proof of how highly Ragusa thought of Col.

It was hardly strange for a man of Ragusa’s age to be looking for an apprentice to train to inherit his vessel. If Lawrence himself had been a bit older, he would have happily stooped to dirty tricks to ensure Col stayed with him.

“I did no such thing. I did confirm the strength of his will, though.”

“Mmph.” Ragusa folded his arms and grunted through his nose.

“All we can do is…try…try to leave him with a small debt of gratitude, I expect,” said Lawrence through a hiccup, which the unyielding boatman laughed at grandly in the manner of his kind.

“Bwa-ha-ha! I reckon so. What shall I do? If the boy solves the copper coin puzzle, his ticket will be worth something.”

“That’s what he intended.”

“How about it, won’t you toss out a clue?” Ragusa leaned forward, speaking conspiratorially, but Lawrence only slumped over.

“Unfortunately I can’t. And even if I could…he’ll owe me, too, so that will settle everything.”

For his part, Lawrence was compelled by the temptation to keep Col on hand, if he could.

But while he’d genuinely felt that way walking down the road with Col earlier, now he wasn’t quite so sure.

It was yet early for him to be taking an apprentice, and now was not the time.

Just because he had been forced into making the preparations didn’t mean he could simply hold out his hands in welcome.

Lawrence smiled ruefully to himself.

“True enough. Three chests of copper is a big difference. The only way to move a load that heavy is over water. And if it goes that way, there’s no way I won’t hear of it. Either that, or what’s written on that paper is just wrong.”

Ragusa’s voice was becoming more and more slurred.

Even his huge body was beginning to succumb to drunkenness.

“That’s true…I suppose. There’s a story of one letter’s mistake turning eel to gold coin and causing a huge uproar.”

“Hmph. Might well be that way. Oh, about that, there was one interesting thing. They were searching for it for years, I heard.”

“Huh…?” Lawrence was at his limit, and it felt as though his body and consciousness were farther and farther apart.

He thought he was looking toward Ragusa, but his vision was black.

He heard words as though from a great distance.

Roef. Headwaters. Lesko.

And then he thought he heard something about the bones of a hellhound.

That couldn’t be right.

If he was entertaining such notions, it had to be in a dream, he thought.

Or some kind of fairy tale.

But then, the thought that a fairy tale–like thing had indeed become very familiar rose up and enveloped him within the darkness of deep sleep.