Holo had started drinking her liquor, but surely not because she was full.
Piasky’s words had undoubtedly given her much to consider. Anyone who lived a life of travel, even Col, could understand what he was talking about.
“On that count, if you’re with the Ruvik Alliance, the compensation would be great indeed.”
“Exactly so. And the scale of my business has expanded as well.”
“I see. Though it doesn’t seem to have dulled your cooking skills a bit… ah, apologies. Your life as a traveler doesn’t match your great skill at cooking.”
“Ha-ha-ha. I hear that a lot. The truth is I still prepare meals for groups of people while traveling. As I’m doing right now, in fact.”
It was said that sightseers flocked to Brondel Abbey. But Piasky’s manner didn’t suggest that his side business of guiding visitors to the abbey was exactly flourishing. He had introduced himself as a messenger and courier in the employ of the Ruvik Alliance.
Which meant the remaining possibilities were few.
“Heh-heh. Every merchant worth his salt ends up asking me that question, Mr. Lawrence. And I always answer the same way.” He smiled cheerfully and then swept his gaze across Holo and Col before continuing theatrically, “My journey’s only just begun! I still have plenty of time to think.”
A merchant without curiosity was like a clergyman without faith, so such a statement, despite its triviality, was guaranteed to fan Lawrence’s interest.
At the very least, thinking it over would be a good way to kill time while on the back of a horse in the freezing silence.
“Incidentally, it’s not as though I’m always going to Brondel Abbey.”
No doubt these mealtime guessing games were part of Piasky’s appeal on the long, boring journeys. His expression made it look as though he was proudly showing off a piece of merchandise, and the audience was certainly taking the bait.
Holo pretended to continue eating as though having no interest in such frivolity, but in actuality the meat on her plate was not decreasing at all, while the more honest Col gripped his spoon and stared intently at the grain of the table’s wood.
No doubt this all made Piasky the entertainer very happy.
In contrast to that, it seemed only Lawrence was troubled.
If only an experienced merchant would look at Piasky and ask the same questions Lawrence had, then it would take the same kind of person to be able to answer those questions.
And even if the answer was something that would incite a smile, Piasky would not know what part of it would do so. So for Lawrence, the answer was a bit troubling.
“Well, I can’t have you up all night trying to work out the answer. I’ll be happy to give it to you whenever you like.”
Piasky’s insistence was more than enough to deepen the furrows on the brows of Lawrence’s two companions.
If Lawrence didn’t say something, then there was no telling how long the two of them would be agonizing over it.
“Besides, thinking it over will only empty your stomach, and finding the answer won’t fill it back up again.”
The prospect of a hungry journey worked quite well to snap them out of their reverie, and the two resumed eating.
Lawrence met Piasky’s eyes and smiled slightly. After all, a pleasant meal was always welcome.
“Would that Brondel Abbey were at the edge of the world.”
“Even I don’t have that many riddles.”
That evening, they laughed, ate, and drank into the night.
The next day saw large puffs of snowflakes falling.
Mercifully there was no wind, but with heavy snowfall of flakes as big as a thumbnail, visibility was extremely poor.
With their hoods pulled down nearly over their eyes, their white breath fogged up what little was left of their fields of view.
And yet it was far from rare to find a crusty old merchant with failing eyes who nonetheless had a perfect grasp of the complicated web of trade routes he used. So it was with their packhorse driver, a man who had been plying these roads for forty years, and for whom the current poor visibility was barely worthy of mention. The taciturn horseman led the cart horse out of the way station and out across the white plains, his gait sure.
As even a brief stop would result in them becoming quickly covered by snow, there was no rest in the march.
But the white scenery was so ceaselessly monotonous that after taking a brief lunch atop the horse, Col dozed off.
A horse’s back was still a good distance from the ground. If Col fell, he risked serious injury, so Lawrence took out some hemp rope he had prepared just in case and started to loop it around Holo and Col both when he noticed something.
Holo, who he had assumed was long since asleep, was actually awake and holding Col securely in her arms.
“Oh, you’re awake.”
The snow deadened sound as well as hurting visibility. Despite the silence, Lawrence could barely hear his own voice. Their conversation would be inaudible to Piasky, who was behind them on another horse.
“I am not,” came the hazy reply, which Lawrence very nearly laughed at in spite of himself.
But he knew perfectly well that her answer came from her irritation at Piasky’s riddle the previous evening.
It was not something one could simply reason their way through, and even a merchant might not have been able to guess it, depending on the circumstances.
Col had quickly given up and gone to bed, but Holo the Wisewolf seemed to feel obligated to think about it longer.
Yet it was ridiculous to spend all night agonizing over even a great riddle, to say nothing of such a trivial dinnertime puzzle. And not finding the answer was only more frustrating.
Holo’s childish irritation would usually drive her to steal meaningful glances in Lawrence’s direction, of which he was well aware.
“What? You don’t see the answer?” He would laugh, and a pouting Holo would hastily tell him what it was.
That was their usual routine.
But Lawrence had not done that.
He had hoped that Holo would forget about the question entirely. The riddle’s answer made him a bit anxious.
Even Lawrence thought he was worrying about it too much, but he ignored Holo’s first glance, and then her second. And the third and fourth. At which point Holo was obviously upset as she continued to mull it over. Having gotten to this point, even a solution with a hilarious twist would only serve to further anger her.
It was harder than ever to tell her the answer.
And so it had gone, right up until the present moment.
Lawrence should have told her the answer right away, but it was too late for such regrets.
“So that’s how it is.”
The second time Holo spoke that day, what came out of her mouth was a lengthy, irritated sigh of a long and rambling speech, which she wrapped up with these final words.
Col listened, his face blank with astonishment, as he busied himself by hanging their traveling clothes up to dry on a leather cord.
After dinner, just when they’d noticed that Holo had disappeared for a while, she returned to the room and immediately dove into her speech, so Col’s reaction was entirely understandable.
For Lawrence’s part, he was simply impressed that she’d managed to work it out.
“You’re exactly right.”
“You fool!”
Lawrence had no excuse to give and could only reply honestly, which earned him an equally honest curse from Holo.
And yet seeing Lawrence look so foolish seemed to take the wind out of Holo’s anger’s sails.
She sat and asked Col to bring her wine, rudely pulled the cork out with her teeth, and put the contents to her lips.
“Your strange manner made me want to know the answer that much more. And to think…”
“So you went and asked?” Not long ago, Col would have trembled in terror at Holo’s anger, but now he was bold enough to venture the ques
tion.
“Aye. I went and told him it had kept me up and got laughed at for my trouble. Me – Holo the Wisewolf!”
“I learned at school that there are things you can’t learn without asking. But what was the answer?”
Col continued to hang their clothes as he asked the question. Holo did not answer immediately, instead directing her gaze at Lawrence.
“It’s too much trouble to explain. You do it,” her gaze seemed to say.
Which was probably true.
With a bottle of strong wine in one hand, Holo bit into a piece of jerky.
“A man like Piasky, who’s used to traveling alone but also skilled at cooking meals for many people, is quite rare. He must be involved in establishing new towns or marketplaces. When he talked about guiding large groups of people, those people are probably on their way to start new lives in a new place.”
“Ooh…”
Despite listening to Lawrence with an impressed expression, Col adroitly finished attending to the drying and then checked in on the sunken hearth in the middle of the room.
There was no fireplace, nor did the room have good circulation, so managing the fire was quite difficult.
“Essentially, the people he’s guiding aren’t used to traveling. So without the ability to fully equip them all, as well as quickly solve whatever problems arise, he wouldn’t be able to do his job.”
“In truth, I’ve led a pack myself, and he looks to be a fine, reliable male. He speaks his mind and speaks it cleverly.” Holo glared at Lawrence with half-lidded eyes.
Lawrence coughed. Col smiled nervously and continued.
“So he does a rather uncommon job, then. But then…”
Why was Mr. Lawrence trying to hide the answer to the riddle from Miss Holo?
The question in his eyes was obvious as he looked at Lawrence.
There was nothing so embarrassing as having to admit he had been too worried. But if he didn’t accept his punishment, it seemed unlikely that Holo would forgive him.
Of course, he begged forgiveness every single time Holo was angry at him. He could hardly call himself a proper merchant, but here in this room, where the fire had to be kept small lest it fill the space with smoke, the warmth of Holo’s tail would be very important during the night.
A merchant had to be able to weigh profit and loss.
“Piasky’s job is helping colonists. If he’s being helped by a king or the nobility, it’s to increase the land they control. If he’s backed by the Church, it’s to spread their faith. In any case, there are many reasons, but they all have one thing in common. If the colonists arrive at their new land and manage to become established there, it will become their new homeland.”
“Ah…”
“The work is difficult but profitable, and if successful will earn the gratitude of many people. I’ve even heard of such leaders becoming minor nobility themselves, at the request of the villagers or townspeople they aided. But many of those who set out for new lands have lost their homes to war, famine, or disease. So–”
Lawrence looked at Holo before continuing.
“–That’s why I was hoping you’d forget the matter.”
“Hmph.” Holo turned away in irritation, tossing a piece of skin she had torn free of the jerky into the fire. This sent a puff of ash up, which Col followed with his eyes as though witnessing something magical. “’Tis not our way to find a new homeland. Our home is our home. What’s important is not who’s there, but where the land itself is. And anyway, I’ll bet you were just worried I’d say something like this, aye?”
They had argued countless times.
She had seen right through Lawrence’s thinking.
“Could you please find a homeland for me, as well?” she finished, her eyes coquettishly upturned.
Surprised, Col watched the entire exchange.
Lawrence could tell she was angry.
But he also knew her anger was that of a cat who had been fussed over too much and was now holding out a threatening claw.
“Males are such fools!”
“… I cannot argue with that.”
“Honestly,” Holo spat and then drank her wine.
At a loss, Lawrence brushed his hair aside – this, too, was just as it always was.
Once Col laughed at them in amusement, the ritual was complete.
Holo’s tail swished to and fro. Tomorrow would be another early morning.
“I grow weary from anger. To bed with me.”
Her skill as a pack leader was impressive, indeed.
In the end, they arrived at Brondel Abbey around midday of the third day.
Perhaps by the grace of God, only the second day had seen heavy snowfall. They passed easily through the checkpoint into the merchants’ quarter, which was not necessarily something to be pleased about.
The high walls that enclosed the space were what one would expect of an abbey, but upon entering the gate, the atmosphere was that of a town inhabited only by merchants.
It was enough to make Holo quip, “You should drop a copper coin and see what happens,” from atop their horse.
No doubt it would immediately bring all eyes upon them, like a sneeze during the prayer in a church service.
“It’s quite possible there’s nothing that can’t be bought here,” said Piasky mischievously, riding his horse alongside them.
Lawrence smiled at that but wondered privately if it might not actually be true.
The center of the street had been somehow cleared of snow, but it was flanked on both sides by piles of the stuff, and unsurprisingly the air around them was as cold as an ice cave. There were even parts of the horse’s mane that had frozen.
Despite the cold, merchants were everywhere, arms crossed across their bodies as they each talked up their businesses. Somehow they seemed to be genuinely enjoying themselves, even stomping their feet to ward off the cold, unable to resist smiling like children.
“Now, then, if you’ll wait here, I’ll make arrangements for your room.”
“I shall leave it to you.”
Piasky tied Lawrence’s horse up at a public stable, then dismounted his own steed and trotted off.
Mounting and dismounting a horse took a certain amount of skill, and all the more so when one’s body was stiff from cold. Lawrence was the first to climb down, and then he took Holo and then Col in his arms as he helped them off.
Once everyone was on the ground, Lawrence thanked the driver for a safe journey.
The man remained as silent and taciturn as ever, but crossed his arms lightly over his chest and gave a bow in a polite gesture of parting, every bit the image of a devout northerner.
“Still, this place is rather large, is it not? From what you were saying, I thought ’twould be smaller and at more of a remove.”
“I only knew it by reputation. But I know it’s the place where it’s said enough wool to fill the straits of Winfiel is traded. Look there – they even have glass windows.”
There, under a lead-gray sky, from which a snowflake occasionally fell as though it had suddenly remembered to fall, were grand three-story buildings of stone with top-floor windows that reflected the sky’s color.
Not every building had windows of glass, but each of them seemed sturdy enough to shrug off a few flaming arrows at least. There were five in total on one side of the street or the other, each with wide paths leading from their entrances.
But they were not the only things at the site. There were large public stables, and across from them was a great barn exclusively for sheep. It seemed fully large enough, but Piasky had said there were many more like it.
“Mm. ’Tis quite a feat to build such things out here in the snow.” Holo grinned boldly and looked ahead.
There lay the merchant annex to the great abbey of Brondel. While it might well have been merely an annex situated a horse’s ride away from the abbey proper, it in no way hurt the majesty of the latter.
At the end of the road that led
from the annex’s entrance stood a building with a weighty majesty that was greater than any of the others nearby.
Hanging within a steeple so tall it seemed to reach to the heavens themselves was a great bell, larger than even ten horses could hope to move. This was a sanctuary that had been built to bring peace to the souls of merchants. And doubtless it did exactly that.
Although that did come with a sense of overwhelming pressure.
“There’s something that I learned in school.”
“Oh?”
“That clergy from the northlands are the best at questioning heretics.”
Lawrence understood Col all too well. Inquisitors had no mercy. A place like this was indeed well suited to the bearded servants of God, with their eyes as cold and pitiless as hawks’.
“Still, that was long ago, was it not?” Holo’s gaze was fixed upon a monk wrapped in more wool than the sheep, chatting happily with a group of merchants as he led them out of the building.
His face was ruddy and his cheeks plump – a far cry from the virtues of obedience, purity, and honorable poverty.
Holo looked at Lawrence and spoke. “Certainly – we live in a time when even you can come on pilgrimage.”
Holo smiled a bold, fearless smile that teetered right on the edge of outright laughter.
“… Still, I’m a bit worried,” Lawrence said as he looked at the breath that rose whitely as he exhaled, then cast his gaze across their surroundings.
A kick from Holo brought him back to himself, and looking at her angry eyes, he realized he had been misunderstood.
“Ah, sorry, I should’ve explained better. I wasn’t talking about you.” She continued to regard him with suspicion so Lawrence elaborated. “I’m a bit worried that there are too many people here.”
“Er, do you mean…” It was Col who spoke up.
Given the way he had been gazing curiously around at the scene, it was quite possible he had come to the same conclusion as Lawrence.
“There are too many people for grounds of this size. No matter how grand the buildings might be, a bunch of arrogant merchants and monks with no patience for cramped conditions will never be satisfied with such confined space.”
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