“So, tell me of these ‘other ways’ to eat them.”
“Hmm, well, you could bake them.”
Holo moved her face away from the apple he’d bitten into, and after scrutinizing it, she looked at Lawrence. “You’d best prepare for the consequences if you’re making sport of me.”
“Can’t your ears always tell lies from truth?”
At these words her ears twitched as if flicked, and she grumbled, “Baking apples… I’ve never heard of the like.”
“Ha-ha, I suppose not. It’s not as though one roasts them on a spit over an open flame. It’s more like bread baked in an oven.”
“Hmph.”
Evidently she had trouble understanding this, even once it was explained. She cocked her head as she chewed the apple.
“So you’ve never had apple pie, then?”
At this question, too, she shook her head.
“Hmm. I suppose it would be quickest to just show it to you. When you bake apples, they turn soft – it’s a bad example, but they’re almost as soft baked as they are when rotten.”
“Mmph.”
“But just as something on the verge of spoiling can be tasty, baked apples are amazing. You know how a raw apple is good for a parched throat? Baked apples are so sweet you actually get thirsty.”
“I… see,” she said, feigning an even tone, but her tail was busily wagging to and fro.
While her clever mind and quick tongue were always making fun of Lawrence, when it came to food, Holo had a distinct weakness.
And no matter what her mouth said, her ears and tail always showed her true feelings.
“Anyway, they’re good apples to begin with, so they’ll be good no matter how you prepare them. Though you’ll tire of sweetness, too, won’t you?”
Holo’s tail suddenly stopped.
“Salted meat or salted fish – which do you prefer?”
Her answer came instantly. “Meat!”
“So, for dinner–” Lawrence started but was cut off when his eyes met Holo’s as she jumped off the bed and cheerfully threw on her robe. “What, you intend to go right now?”
“Aren’t we?”
Giving up on trying to figure out where inside that small body of hers all those apples were fitting, he did recall that her true form was a wolf big enough to eat him in one bite.
He didn’t want to think about it, but perhaps her stomach stayed as big as it was when she was a wolf.
“… So I’ll ask you again, do you think you can eat all those apples?”
“After hearing you, I’ve made up my mind to do it. You needn’t worry.” Quickly fixing her robe about her with a sash, she spun about and was ready in a flash.
Not much time had passed since midday, but Lawrence quietly gave up.
Persuading her otherwise would be impossible, he was quite sure.
“I suppose I have business, so why not? Let’s go.”
“Right!” Holo nodded, smiling, every bit as carefree as the young girl she looked like.
Lawrence had been a traveling merchant for seven years, since his eighteenth birthday, and still could not find any words to argue with her when she smiled at him like that.
Such thoughts occupied him he watched her impatiently flounce out the door, leaving behind the echo of her smile, sweeter than any apple.
Still, if she found that out, she’d only use it to tease him.
Lawrence cleared his throat and prepared himself to go out, but as he went to follow Holo, his feet suddenly stopped short.
Holo looked happily at him through the open door.
“You should smile like that more; ’tis nice.”
They may well have been setting out to wash away the taste of apples, but she truly was malicious.
As he followed her out of the room, Lawrence spoke to the cheeky little wolf. “You’re really rather unpalatable, you know.”
Holo looked over one shoulder. “Am I to claim deliciousness, then?” she said, feigning irritation.
Lawrence’s shoulders went slack, signaling his defeat, at which Holo snickered audibly.
Situated on the Slaude River, the port town of Pazzio was always crowded.
Even without any festival or battle preparations, the streets were busy and filled with people going here and there.
Farmers leading livestock, traveling merchants hauling their wares, tidily dressed servant children running errands, and confused-looking monks on their first visit in ages to a bustling town – all were in evidence.
It was said that wherever three roads converged, a city would grow – and there were many, many streets in the town, outnumbered only by the kinds of people that trod them.
But none among them imagined that one of the visitors to the town was not a person at all.
“Far from it,” Lawrence said. “You look every bit the nun.”
“Mm?” Holo looked back at Lawrence talking to himself, her mouth full. Despite having eaten so many apples, one look at the raisin stand was all it took for her to start begging like a pauper.
“I was saying I don’t want to think about how much your food bill is running.”
“Humph. Is there some inconvenience with my looking like a nun?” Holo couldn’t hide her malicious pleasure at proving to Lawrence she’d heard exactly what he said.
“Far from it; it makes travel all the more convenient.”
“Hmm. To be able to so easily change so much by simply choosing clothes – the human world surely is a strange one.”
“I’m sure wolves would find something convenient in wearing sheepskins, if they could manage it.”
Holo thought for a moment, then grinned. “Aye, and if I wore a rabbit skin, you’d happily walk right into any trap.”
“So for you, I’ll bait my trap with apples.”
Lawrence had to laugh at the sight of Holo trying to sneer with her cheeks stuffed with raisins.
This was a pleasure no lone merchant could enjoy, whose conversation was either for business or to himself.
“Anyway, it’s not without inconveniences, especially in your case.”
Seeming to realize from his tone that he’d turned serious, Holo looked up again, this time without poking fun, as she walked beside him.
“There are all sorts of problems with a nun drinking wine in the middle of the day. Most taverns will overlook it, but you could stand to consider such things a bit more.”
“Mm. ’Tis like drinking on a rickety bridge that could fall at any moment.”
Lawrence found himself impressed that she’d come up with such an apt example so quickly.
“Also, different towns have different circumstances. Especially as we head north, there may be places where a nun would be a very bad disguise, indeed.”
“What shall I do then?”
“It would be safest to have a change of clothes that would make you look like a town girl.”
Holo nodded politely, then popped the rest of the raisins into her mouth. “In that case, can we not buy them before dinner? Anything that lessens our safety will make the food taste worse.”
“I’m glad you understand. There’s no time to waste convincing you.”
“What, did you think I would insist on food and wine first? I’m not so blinded by gluttony as that.”
Lawrence shrugged as if to say, “Aren’t you?” Holo licked her fingers, unamused.
“Humph. You’re trying to take care of me. I’ve got to take advantage of that, haven’t I?” said Holo quietly, looking at the street ahead instead of at Lawrence. She then smiled slightly and sighed. “That’s quite a grand excuse to buy new clothes. Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”
Lawrence put his hand to his mouth but not to stop an exclamation of surprise from slipping through – no, it was because he felt a bit embarrassed.
“Heh. Ah, well, if you’re buying me some new things, I’m happy to impose on you. The cold winter awaits, after all.”
“You could impose a bit less.”
Holo smiled like a child telling a joke, entwining her fingers around Lawrence’s right hand.
She was concerned about his coin purse in her own Holo-ish way. Though if it came down to this, having one’s purse pitied was humiliating in its own way for a man.
The wisewolf seemed to have long since understood the conflict within him.
He didn’t have near enough wisdom to outthink Holo.
“’Tis cold. My hand will freeze.”
Lawrence did not, of course, believe a word of that.
“Yes, it certainly is cold.”
“Aye.”
They each knew the other was lying, which was somehow more fun than simply telling the truth.
Walking down the crowded street, they were the only two who understood the meaning hidden there.
That was enough to make him feel even better than he had when he’d finished his big trade and had a purse full of coins with laurel-topped queens’ heads on them.
“Yeah.”
But as he thought about it, Lawrence realized something that brought him out of his reverie and back to the crowded reality of the street.
“What is the matter?”
“I’ve… no money.”
Holo looked blank for a moment, then gave him a look that went past irritation right on into pure disdain.
Whatever she might say, in this regard she was no different from a regular town girl.
If one didn’t buy a town girl what one had promised her, her tenacity would be deeper than any merchant’s.
That was one thing Lawrence had learned in his seven years of experience.
“However, for the sake of my honor, I must explain that when I say, ‘I have no money,’ I don’t mean what you think I mean.”
“Huh?”
“I mean I’ve got no small change.” As he spoke, Lawrence felt for his coin purse but realized he couldn’t use his left arm.
It was unfortunate, but he casually let go of Holo’s hand. “Yup, none,” he said upon examining the pouch’s contents.
“They say too big is better than too small. ’Tis not as though you’ve no money at all.”
“They also say not to kill a fly with a sledgehammer. Didn’t you say the same thing to me when buying bread?”
“Mph. So we’ll need change, then.”
“We’ll have to exchange it. If we gave gold coins to the tailor, there’s no telling what kind of a terrible face he’d make.”
“Mm… still–” said Holo as Lawrence closed his coin purse and replaced it at his waist. “Are gold coins really so very valuable?”
“Huh? They certainly are. The lumione coins in my purse now are trading for around thirty-five pieces of trenni silver. If you don’t stay at an inn and don’t drink any wine, you can live for a week on a single trenni. So think about thirty-five times that.”
“… That’s quite something, indeed. So why would a tailor be bothered to get one in payment?” Holo said. Lawrence looked at her and could guess what she was going to ask next. “Unlike apples, a gold coin might buy only one or two pieces of clothing. I was told these clothes cost two gold pieces.”
When noble houses were attacked by rioting commoners, Lawrence had heard that it was often a trivial statement that was the trigger. He grimaced, wondering if what Holo had just said was a good example of that kind of statement.
“If all clothing cost that much, the greater part of the townsfolk would be walking around totally naked.”
Writing an IOU for a robe that cost two gold pieces, there was no doubt that the clothier would be wondering whether he was actually going to get paid or not – so much so that it was strange that a contract hadn’t been signed in front of a public witness.
And it hadn’t just been two pieces of clothing – there’d been a silk sash, too.
But the clothier hadn’t thought it was some sort of childish prank, probably because Holo seemed like the private nun of some wealthy nobleman somewhere.
“Hmm… this was so costly, was it?” Holo looked down and fingered the robe she wore.
“That’s right. So from now on, let’s keep our purchases to the poorer stuff.”
At this Holo looked up, her lip twisted, looking like her fun had been spoiled. “I’m Holo, the Wisewolf of Yoitsu. ’Twill wound my reputation to wear poor clothes.”
Lawrence drew his chin in as his words stuck in his throat; his mind spun as he searched for a good response but could find none.
Holo struck his right arm like a child having a temper tantrum.
“Still, money changing…” He put thoughts of Holo aside and considered the matter with a sigh.
There would be a fee involved in changing gold coins to silver, and something about him was never too pleased with letting go of gold.
He’d been laughed at for this, told that merchants saved money because they were in love with gold, but for Lawrence’s part, he didn’t think of it as a joke.
But right now he had a bigger problem to face.
When exchanging coins in a town, it was his routine to go to a cambist he knew, because seeing a money changer for the first time, they’d always swindle him and take him for a loss. What was worse, this was viewed as a sort of tax, so he couldn’t even complain about it. “If you don’t like it, you better get to know us better,” was the standard line from cambists on the subject.
Of course, Lawrence had a preferred cambist and was not too worried about this.
He had a different problem.
Which was that his cambist was a notorious womanizer and had become instantly taken with Holo.
Worse, Holo seemed to enjoy this.
On top of that, she also seemed to enjoy how pathetic this made Lawrence feel.
If he could avoid it, he didn’t want to bring Holo along to see the money changer.
“Money changing, eh? That means… oh ho.” The clever Holo realized who they’d be seeing and grinned. “Well, then, you’d better make the arrangements. I want to be drinking wine sooner rather than later.”
Holo pulled on his hand, heading for the lively avenue.
Lawrence sighed the way he always did before any deal, cursing the mean-spiritedness of the owner of the soft hand that held his.
“For one lumione, today’s rate is thirty-four trenni.”
“And the fee?”
“Ten silver lute or thirty copper trie.”
“I’ll pay in lute.”
“Very good, then. Right here, then… Oh, please do take care. Anything you drop on the street becomes the property of he who picks it up,” said the money changer, politely placing the silver coins in Holo’s hand, then covering them with his, as though he’d given them to a child.
Lawrence offered a single lumione coin, but the cambist did not let go of her hand.
In fact, he wasn’t looking at Lawrence at all.
“Weiz.”
At the sound of his name, the man finally looked over. “What?”
“I’m your customer.”
Lawrence had been using Weiz as his cambist for a long time, owing to them both knowing his master. Weiz sighed dramatically and gestured to his table with his chin. “Just leave the gold there. I’m busy right now.”
“And what is it you’re busy with?”
“Can’t you tell? I’m right in the middle of making sure this lovely maiden doesn’t drop her silver.” Weiz smiled at Holo, having still not let go of her hand.
Holo, for her part, acted more bashful than Lawrence had realized she was capable of and now lowered her gaze, seemingly pleased.
Both Weiz and Holo were acting ridiculously, and as the only serious one, Lawrence was left entirely out of the play.
“But, sir–” said Holo finally, which Weiz’s face tensed at, and he straightened his posture like a knight. “There seems to be too much silver for my hands to hold.”
Weiz answered before Lawrence could get a word in. “My dear Miss Holo, that is why you have my hands as well.”
/> Holo looked surprised, then spoke as though very sad. “I could not possibly impose such a weight upon you.”
Weiz shook his head and continued. “If silver overflows from your hand, then I will gladly lend you mine. It would not trouble me in the slightest – because, my dear, I am sure that you, Miss Holo, will accept my feelings in turn, feelings so passionate I cannot hold them in both arms.”
Holo averted her eyes like the blushing daughter of some nobleman while Weiz gazed steadily at her face.
The exchange was so teeth-grittingly saccharine it made Lawrence want to slap them both.
The whole thing was a cliché, of course, but it was also so perfectly done that it made Lawrence wonder if they’d somehow arranged it ahead of time.
He found the whole thing deeply unamusing.
It was time to throw cold water on it.
“Silver coins for the coin purse, gold for the box, and plain copper in hand – or have you forgotten that proverb, Weiz?” It was the most basic principle of handling money, the first thing that any cambist’s apprentice learned from his master.
Weiz’s fun was thoroughly spoiled.
As Lawrence expected, he finally removed both of his hands from Holo’s and scratched his head noisily. “Bah. Keeping a lovely girl like this all to yourself is an insult to God. Haven’t you ever heard ‘Share thine bread with others’?”
“You want me to share?” asked Lawrence, opening his leather purse and filling it with the silver coins in Holo’s hand. She was smiling faintly but gave Lawrence an expressionless glance.
“There’s no lending at the cambist’s table. Only exchange or no exchange,” said Lawrence with a smile to the serious-faced Weiz, placing the last silver coin in his pouch. “She comes with the debt she owes me. Do you mind?”
“Hmph,” said Weiz, pulling his chin in.
He seemed a bit regretful now that talk of money had returned.
Still, Weiz was accustomed to that. He soon assumed a sad expression and looked at Holo. “I cannot possibly put a price upon you.”
A laugh escaped Holo, but she still switched into her performance before replying, “I’m afraid the scales within my heart are still swinging. But I’m sure they will not simply tilt under the weight of gold…”
“Oh, but of course.”
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