“When you’re done reading, give it back.” He held the letter out to Holo, who snatched it away. The holy relic that Brondel Abbey was said to have purchased was a bone from a great wolf, one far from ordinary – a god. In fact, it was a fake, and the letter described the details of its purchase.
Holo had thought the bone might have belonged to one of her pack.
The relief that came when such worries were dispelled was brief. Since at Brondel Abbey, Lawrence had heard another fell rumor surrounding the wolf bone. The letter offered a clue regarding exactly that.
“Still, to think such a great abbey might be swindled so!” said the third member of their party, Col, as he tended the fire.
He looked younger even than Holo appeared, owing partially to the scrawniness brought on by hard, hungry travel. Either that or it was thanks to his humility, which kept him ever humble despite his clever mind.
Lawrence faced the fire. “Who do you suppose would buy a rusty sword?” This was the sort of thing his master had often done when Lawrence was an apprentice – judging the ability of others by asking them an absurd question.
“Er… someone without any… money?”
“Yes. But who else?”
“Someone with too much money – ’tis it not so?” said Holo before Col could answer. Evidently she had finished reading the letter.
She sat down between Col and Lawrence and handed the letter to Col. The young, wandering scholar was himself from a pagan town in the north and believed in the gods’ existence and so was seeking the truth of the wolf bone for himself.
“Indeed. Those with too much money would buy a rusty sword. Even if it’s entirely lost its edge. Such a sword’s value is determined in other ways.”
“So you’re saying that the abbey didn’t care whether the bone was real or not?”
The reward for his excellent answer was a pat on the head from Holo. He seemed entirely happy, without so much as a trace of embarrassment. So happy, in fact, that even the giver of his reward seemed pleased.
“What’s more important than who was deceived by whom is whether or not the abbey was able to give the bone sufficient value. And it seems they were.”
At Lawrence’s words, Col looked down at the letter he had been handed. There was written the only faint possibility of salvation that remained for the abbey.
“It says they were approached by an overseas merchant company with an offer to buy… that’s that company, right?”
Col was speaking of the commotion that surrounded the narwhal back in the port town of Kerube. The Jean Company had been at the center of things and had secretly set aside funds to buy the wolf bone.
“They wanted to sell the bone to the Jean Company for a fortune, then whether or not it was real, feign ignorance. But it didn’t work.”
“And none of that has anything to do with us,” said Holo as she roasted a bit of cheese over the fire on a small stick. She popped the bubbling stuff into her mouth, and beneath her hood, her ears pricked up.
“Quite so. Our attention is elsewhere.”
At Lawrence’s words, Col returned his gaze to the letter. Had it contained anything truly important, it would not be in its conveyance of the facts. Baseless impressions could be very valuable from time to time.
When it came to information that was truly valuable for trading, it would not be had in the letter’s contents. What was valuable was that which no one knew, and such secrets came from wild conjecture, not hard proof.
“‘It seems such trades have been made all over in recent years. I suspect those at their center have a very different information network than we possess. It seems to be the north has become unstable. God’s protection be upon us all. Piasky.’”
Holo finished chewing her cheese and tossed the stick into the fire. “That agrees with what we heard from old Huskins, does it not?”
Holo generally avoided using people’s names, but the name she deigned to utter was that of the true identity of the legendary golden sheep of Brondel Abbey. But it was not simply because Huskins was a similar being to her that she spoke his name. She was an obstinate wisewolf, and if she did not respect someone, she would not spare them more than a this or a that.
“The Jean Company that approached the abbey to purchase the bone was originally a branch of the Debau Company, Mr. Huskins told me. He said that the situation in the north was going to change dramatically based on the interference of the company that owns mines in the region – and that’s none other than the Debau Company, a group that has a web of influence quite separate from the Ruvik Alliance.”
Huskins had secretly created a home for himself and his kind on the lands of Brondel Abbey in the kingdom of Winfiel. His comrades wandered the land, occasionally returning to exchange tales of what they had heard and seen. Huskins had given Lawrence some of that information – including something regarding their destination, Holo’s homelands of Yoitsu, reportedly destroyed centuries earlier.
“So the real bone is already in the hands of the Debau Company?”
“That is a possibility. If it’s already on the market, it’s even likelier.”
Lawrence took the letter back from Col and then tore it up slowly and deliberately.
“Ah–”
Ignoring Col’s exclamation and look of shock, Lawrence finished tearing the letter into small pieces and then tossed them into the fire.
“A single paper letter is easily destroyed in water or fire. You use parchment if you want to avoid that, but then disposing of it becomes difficult. Easily destroyed paper is used when writing something secret.”
The paper quickly became ash, borne up on the air warmed by the campfire.
“So, what shall we do then, eh?” asked Holo. Both she and Col watched the ash rise into the air, but only Col’s gaze was truly on the ash. Holo’s amber eyes were gazing at something else.
“Mr. Piasky’s letter reinforces what Mr. Huskins told us of the north. Two separate information sources have brought us a similar story. We can safely assume it to be mostly true.”
“So this so-and-so company is really driving people from their homes in order to dig up the mountains?”
Col’s gaze snapped down from the flying ash.
“Hence the possibility that they’re frantically gathering up holy relics without much concern for their authenticity, Mr. Huskins said. Their goal is clear – if you’re going to rely upon force of arms, there’s no stronger ally than the Church. The Debau Company will certainly try to get the Church on its side. It will let them talk about their annexing the land containing the mines in much more favorable terms.”
The campfire crackled quietly.
“A holy war, then. To take back God’s land from pagan hands.” Holy relics belonged to the religious world. So the wolf bone that Lawrence and company were chasing, too, would probably be used in Church propaganda, Lawrence thought. If it was from a pagan god, then they would deliberately desecrate it, and when divine punishment failed to arrive, call it proof of the Church’s superiority. Holo had said that no matter how strong her kind might be, they couldn’t bite once they’d become bones.
In regions where the breath of the pagan gods still clearly lingered, the reaction would be profound. And if the Debau Company was ready to instigate violence in service of their mining plans, their plans had nothing to do with religious faith and everything to do with profit.
Just as Huskins had so aptly said, whenever the old gods were driven from their forests and mountains, merchants were always behind it. They were not even bothering to hide themselves this time.
“This is probably because so many were put in a bind with the cancellation of the northern campaign. No one wants war where they live, but if it’s a far-off land, it’s a welcome event. Foodstuffs and supplies fly off the shelves, and the mercenaries that plague fields and villages are all occupied far away. If things go well, nobles that went off to war return rich with plunder, which may then be shared.”
&nb
sp; “And so much the better if the land attacked is a pagan one, eh?” said Holo.
Holo’s homeland of Yoitsu had been destroyed centuries earlier, so the story went. But the forests and rivers she knew should still be there, along with a sunny hilltop somewhere where she could nap. In that sense, her homelands should still exist.
But the search for gold, silver, or other metals would literally change the landscape. Trees would be felled, rivers dammed. In but a moment, it would become a place she had never seen before.
“Er–” Col politely raised his hand, seemingly on the verge of tears. He was another of the few who were taking action to protect their homes from the Church’s oppression. “Do we know where, um, the attack will happen?”
“We do not. However,” said Lawrence, giving the boy a comforting smile, “we can prepare. The larger the operation, the more impossible it becomes to hide. Even if we can’t stop things entirely, we can turn the spearpoint away from the places we want to protect.”
Col nodded, a pained look on his face. He bit his lower lip.
Twenty years hence, it was possible that Col would have sufficient influence within the Church to turn that spearpoint himself. But that was still merely hypothetical.
Holo reached out to stroke Col’s cheek and then gave it a pinch. When she spoke, it was to Lawrence. “What will we need?”
“First, an accurate map of the northlands. Having learned a place-name, it’ll do us no good if we don’t know where that place actually is, and we won’t know where war is spreading, either. And while it’s not exactly a minor detail, we may find more news of the wolf bone in the process.”
Holo nodded and took a deep breath.
“That’s why I had Mr. Huskins give me the name of someone who could give us news of the north and draw us a proper map. And since he knows the truth about the wolf among us, I expect the introduction will be a good one,” said Lawrence jokingly.
Holo only sniffed, unamused, while the guileless Col nodded. This was what Lawrence had told Holo when they’d greeted the morning at the abbey.
He could gather information and take her back to her homelands, as he had first promised, but any heroics that might follow – such as ruining the Debau Company’s plans – were beyond his ability to guarantee.
Their opponent was a great trading company that controlled the mines of the north. It was a world that would take more than mere money to navigate. Getting Brondel Abbey to sell a holy relic to the Jean Company was only one small part of the Debau Company’s goal.
When he had learned this from Huskins, before feelings of resentment set in, Lawrence had been simply amazed at the ridiculous breadth of the world.
His own influence had its limits, and traveling merchants were generally a powerless lot. But Holo did not blame him for that, so Lawrence felt no shame.
He would do what he could. And what he could do, he would do to the absolute best of his ability.
“In any case, we’ll return to Kerube. There we’ll meet with a certain merchant.”
Kerube had been consumed with the narwhal disturbance. Holo put the question to him with a look of distaste. “Not to that runt that caused you so much fuss surely?”
“You mean Kieman? No. A merchant who’s one of Huskins’s friends.”
At Lawrence’s answer, Holo’s expression turned still sourer. “We’re relying on the power of sheep yet again…?”
“It’s not a shepherd this time. That’s got to be some sort of improvement.”
Holo was not a high-handed noblewoman. It was true she did possess a certain measure of pride, but it was a childlike vanity and stubbornness that she often employed, which she herself would readily admit.
Lawrence did not expect a reply to his statement, but he got one.
“If not a shepherd, what then?”
Lawrence’s answer was simple. “An art seller.”
Just as rivers divide one nation from another, the climates on opposite sides of even a narrow sea channel can be very different. Different enough that letters exchanged across it often give rise to jokes that summer and winter come at opposite times.
While the port town of Kerube was still cold, it was not icily so. But if one crossed the river that flowed through the town and headed north, the scenery would soon turn a pure white that was not so very different from Winfiel. The world was a strange place.
“So will we disembark on the north side? Or the south?” asked Holo with tired eyes from underneath the blanket as they rode within the ship. She had started drinking wine not long before, insisting that it was too cold not to.
Lawrence put his hand on Holo’s head and idly brushed her bangs aside before answering. “The south. The livelier side.”
The town of Kerube was divided down the middle by a river. On the north side lived the original inhabitants of the town, while the south was full of more recently arrived merchants. The livelier half was the south, where the merchants were.
“Mmm. I suppose… I’ll be able to look forward to a tasty dinner, then,” Holo said, yawning as she spoke, then smacking her lips. Lawrence wondered what sort of feast she saw at the end of her gaze.
Thinking of the contents of his coin purse, he replied with a bit of a jab, “Joking aside, how many sheep might we have had?”
Huskins was employed as a shepherd at Brondel Abbey, and he had offered over and over to quietly give them several head of fine sheep.
“Mm… ’twould have been no small trouble to bring them with us.”
“I never would have thought you’d play the realist.”
Sheep were costly, and those chosen by the golden sheep Huskins himself would surely leave nothing to be desired. But they had not accepted his offer for exactly the reason Holo had just stated.
When Lawrence turned Huskins down, Holo had clearly been displeased, but even then she had understood.
“I can manage that much, at least,” said Holo. “After all, our pack is already…” Using their belongings for a pillow, Holo lay under a blanket. Lawrence’s hand was on her head, and from underneath it she looked up at him mischievously. She did not finish her sentence, though, either out of kindness or having decided it was more trouble than it was worth.
“How about you sleep quietly, like Col?”
Col was afraid of traveling by ship, and after a swallow of wine had slept soundly by Lawrence’s other side.
At Lawrence’s words, Holo slowly closed her eyes and answered, “I don’t fear ships, but wine. If I could but sleep I could escape the fear, but to do that I fear I need to drink more.”
An old joke, one often directed at the clergy, who were prohibited from drinking. What made Holo so frightening was not that she knew the joke, but that she was able to seem like she truly meant it.
“I fear the cost of food, so I’ve nothing to drink but my tears,” said Lawrence.
There was no reply from the perhaps unamused Holo.
Some time later, the ship arrived as planned in Kerube.
By the time Lawrence woke Col, and grumbling, Holo got to her feet, Lawrence and company were the only ones left in the ship’s hold.
“Ngh… whew. ’Tis been but a few days, but this feels strangely nostalgic,” said Holo once they left the ship and found themselves standing in the south side of the town. Having been swept up in the chaos that threatened to divide the town in two, perhaps it had left a deeper-than-usual impression on them.
“Could be because the snowy scenery of Winfiel is so different from things here. But you’re right.” Lawrence divided their luggage between himself and Col and then held the hem of Holo’s cloak down to keep her tail from showing as she stretched. “This is the first time we’ve returned to a town we’ve already visited.”
“Mm? Oh, aye. Now that you mention it, ’tis so.”
After the sad state of Winfiel, it was even easier to appreciate the constant hustle and bustle of Kerube. For all those who made their lives by trade, a lively marketplace was best.
“Indeed, it does feel as though we’ve been traveling together for a terribly long time.”
“Hmm?”
Holo narrowed her eyes and looked around, then clasped her hands behind her and started to walk forward. “And every time we enter a new town, something worth laughing about for fifty years seems to happen.”
Something about her form seemed terribly lonely, and Lawrence was sure it was not just his imagination. If Holo was to laugh at these memories fifty years from now, he would not be by her side to join her.
“…”
When Lawrence failed to muster any response, Holo turned around to face him. “So then, shall we add another happy memory to our travels?”
Lawrence looked past Holo, where beneath the eaves of a shop, eels were being fried in oil.
Having left their things at a trading house, Lawrence went to Kieman, who had written him an introduction letter, to tell him in an innocuous way about recent events there.
Kieman, amused, listened all the while and, in lieu of a reply, held out a letter sent to the trading company some days earlier from a town farther south that was famous for its furs.
The letter contained but a single sentence: “We profited.” Lawrence was sure that if he put his nose to the paper, he would catch the scent of a wolf – but that wolf was not Holo.
He did not need to ask who the letter was from.
“An art seller? Oh, perhaps you mean the Hugues Company.”
“Yes, I’d like to meet with Hafner Hugues.”
“If you simply head out the front entrance of the trading house and down the street, it will be on your right. They’ve a signboard with a picture of a ram’s horn hanging from the eaves, so they’re hard to miss.”
Lawrence smiled wryly at that detail – it was a bold sign to have, given that Hugues was one of Huskins’s kind.
“Still, it’s unusual that you would have business with the Hugues Company.”
Art was the purview of the wealthy and powerful, so it was rare for a traveling merchant like Lawrence to walk into an art seller’s company. As someone concerned with the reputation of the Rowen Trade Guild, Kieman was undoubtedly worried that Lawrence was again involved in something strange.
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