Her exasperated smile had a strangely good humor to it.
Across the hearth, Fran seemed happy.
Lawrence did not really understand why, but it seemed best to leave things as they were. He nodded.
“Well, then,” murmured Fran, her dark eyes shining with intelligence. “Did you notice anything strange when we arrived in Taussig?”
“As a merchant?”
“Yes.”
Lawrence nodded. “They were grinding flour by hand… even though there’s such a high waterfall so close by.”
Fran gave Lawrence a long, hard look. He had been right.
Lawrence continued.
“In springtime when the thaw comes, there would be plenty of water for a waterwheel, and it’s not so very far from the village. So the only reason the landlord wouldn’t have built a mill is out of pity for the villagers, or…”
“Or if the villagers themselves resisted the idea. And the answer is indeed the latter.” As she spoke, Fran reached into her things and produced a dusty, old book.
It was more a stack of papers than a book so unmatched and disorganized were the parchments and letters that comprised it. Even a brief glance made it clear that it was very old. The pages rustled weakly as she flipped through them.
“The village originally used the legend of the angel as a reason not to build a water mill,” she said matter-of-factly.
“That’s…”
“If a mill were built, it would be for extracting more labor from the villagers – they would have been made to construct the very tool that would choke them. Meanwhile, the northern campaigns were reaching their peak, the landlord, wanting to borrow the Church’s might, took the profit of using the legend of the angel to flatter the Church over the profit of the increased output of a water mill.”
It was often the case that a landlord would lack sufficient military or financial power to protect his own holdings. Fran went on.
“But as times changed, the pagans grew stronger. I assume you know that the northern campaign has been canceled.”
Lawrence nodded. “In other words,” he said, “with the recent decline of Church power, things can turn bad if the landlord gets a whiff of their involvement.”
“Yes. In the past, money was made in providing the northern campaign with supplies, but… lacking shame or concern, and any sort of fear of God, the attitude has changed completely. As you might imagine, in an area like this with so many pagan landlords, it can be dangerous to appease the Church while its power is on the decline. So far their reaction has gone well.”
If you can’t beat them, join them. It was hardly a bad strategy for a long life. However, sometimes it would only make you look like a coward.
“After much worrying, the landlord hit upon an idea. Claim the devout nun who came all the way out here chasing the angel legend was a witch.”
Lawrence drew in breath, but he was the only one. Holo’s expression did not so much as twitch. She knew in her bones just how selfish humans could be.
“By claiming a witch had come and was causing trouble, he wouldn’t have to defy the Church, but could save face with the villagers. And for the villagers themselves it was awfully convenient; since they didn’t want to build a water mill, a witch in the forest gave them the perfect excuse not to enter it. A mill would mean increased taxation, which would instantly make their lives much harder.”
This also explained why they treated salt as such a precious substance. But there was still something Lawrence did not understand.
“Miss Fran… where did you learn all of this?”
In response to his question, Fran casually held up the book. On its opened pages, Lawrence could see writing in a neat, masculine hand.
“It’s all written right here. This is the diary of Katerina Lucci, the nun laid to rest in the next room.”
A single book had been missing from the shelf. This book.
“I expect one of the villagers had an attack of conscience and wanted to let the world know the truth. It’s a total coincidence that it should end up in my hands. An acquaintance of mine who handles such things just happened to mention it.”
She flipped through the pages, her eyes glancing over them. She was not reading the pages, instead perhaps trying to guess at the thoughts of the woman who had written them.
“But if that’s true… why would you tell us? I mean, to begin with…” Lawrence trailed off.
If she knew so much about the landlord, then Fran’s reason for bringing Lawrence along was not simply to help her learn about the angel legend.
Lawrence looked at Fran dubiously. She had been planning to set them up all along.
He felt like the corners of her eyes crinkled just a bit in a mischievous smile. “It won’t be long before the bells ring and the Church arrives.”
A powerful faction was like a big fish. When it moved, water rippled around it, splashing up onto the ground. And the world was one big pond.
“So it’s the Debau Company, eh?”
Fran’s eyes widened in surprise, and she nodded. “So you’re familiar. As you’ve guessed, if the Church comes again, the claim that there’s a witch in their domain won’t work. So this is an extremely dangerous place.”
That much was certainly true.
If the Church came into a volatile situation like this, it would be difficult for Fran to handle it alone, no matter how perversely stubborn she might be.
Fran regarded Lawrence. “The villagers and landlord alike are probably terrified that an investigation into the witch rumors would be a precursor to another round of Church attacks on the north,” she said.
“So what we need to do is act such that we calm those fears.”
Perhaps something about the way Lawrence spoke was amusing to her, for Fran displayed a quiet smile. But there was a disparity between her smile and the words she spoke next. “On our way back around the lakeside, there was someone observing this place.”
This was why Fran had been willing to compromise.
It was such an obvious reason that Lawrence wanted to sigh. But he swallowed it back; it did not often happen that he got what he wanted taking the easy path.
“Naturally I’m not asking you to stay here with me from here on. Just until the snow melts will be fine. I expect the legend of the angel only applies in wintertime.”
“And then you’ll draw us a map of the north?”
Fran nodded. “So you’ll help me, then?”
If they failed to pack their things and leave immediately, they would lose what little room to maneuver they had. But Fran had let them in on the secret, then asked for help.
It was a cunning move. Like a battlefield general.
He needed that map of the north, and there was Hugues to consider. Knowing the situation, Lawrence could not very well leave Fran on her own here.
Time-wise it would be a hardship to wait for spring, but depending on how circumstances changed, he might have another chance to negotiate. Holo did not move, so the answer was clear.
“Of course,” said Lawrence shortly.
Chapter Four
The next day of their stay, Fran again took Col with her and made for the lake.
Lawrence worried that if someone was watching them, it would be unsafe to leave the cottage, but Fran dismissed this, saying, “It’s no different than if we were in the cottage.” If anything, she said, it was safer, since it would reinforce the idea that they had come not to investigate the witch, but the angel legend.
Logically speaking, that was true enough, yet Lawrence was about to insist that it was still too dangerous – and oddly enough, it was Holo who restrained him. Moreover, she then suggested that Fran take Col with her.
Col readily agreed, of course, since he also felt that Fran should not go alone, which Lawrence found strange.
This was a complete change from Holo’s previous state of finding everything Fran said irritating. Had their conversation with Fran last night changed her view so
much?
What had become clear the previous night was that Fran had planned to take advantage of them all along when she brought them here, which ought to have worsened their impression of her – and certainly wouldn’t improve it.
When Lawrence came back from seeing Col and Fran off, he found Holo slowly and deliberately grooming her tail.
Lawrence watched her and decided to try a mildly probing statement.
“I imagine she was thinking only of the legend last night, eh?”
After finger combing the whole of her tail, she began to pluck individual pests off and toss them into the hearth. She gave Lawrence only a desultory ear’s worth of attention.
“Mm?”
“She said as much to Col, didn’t she? ‘Let’s not miss any hints of the legend,’ she said.”
“Ah, mm.”
Fran, too, seemed to have concluded that the angel had to have been some sort of natural phenomenon and had listed all sorts of possibilities to Col – from accumulated snow blowing off a tree branch to water from a hot spring flowing into the lake and causing steam to rise in a wing-shaped pattern.
And it was true that the angel wing phenomenon had to be caused either by something falling from a high place or rising from a low place.
If falling, then the top of the waterfall, with the great difference from top to bottom, seemed the likelier candidate. If rising, then either steam, mist, or billowing snow was not difficult to imagine.
His assistance requested, Col had listened intently to each possibility in turn, nodding as though promising not to miss a single detail as he headed out with Fran.
“It’s true that so long as she seems so serious, neither the villagers nor the landlord can very well come out and quibble with her,” said Lawrence.
He expected Holo to come back with a complaint about Fran being perfectly willing to order her around, but evidently she was not in the mood.
If anything, Holo seemed pleased as she spoke. “’Tis rather absurd for her to have such a reputation as a perverse, stubborn silversmith.”
“… Oh?”
Fran was entirely unlike what he had imagined when he first heard of her, but she was the very image of a serious artisan. She had probably been up thinking about her plans all night and had gone out immediately upon the arrival of morning, without any concern for the danger.
Lawrence said as much to Holo, but she only chewed at the roots of her tail fur, flashing a sharp smile when it was properly fluffy. “I expect she’s simply chasing after whoever it is she’s in love with. That strikes me as neither perverse nor particularly stubborn.”
Holo was talking about the person Fran had mentioned the previous night – the one who had first told her the legend of the angel. Whether or not it was true romance or simply unrequited love on Fran’s part, Holo and Lawrence seemed to be of a mind on the subject.
And to put it as flatly as Holo did, it was true that perversely stubborn was not, perhaps, the right term. In Fran’s position, girls the world over could more accurately be described as “single-minded.”
“’Tis rather charming, is it not?”
“I suppose.” Lawrence very much doubted that Fran had been lying the previous night. Given that, she started to seem to him like a maiden who goes on pilgrimage to pray for her love, who’s gone off to war.
And yet Lawrence still did not understand something. Why had her confession taken the form of an apology for her poor treatment of him at the trading company, and why had Holo’s disposition toward Fran improved so much despite the knowledge that she had set out to trap them from the beginning?
He idly poked at the fire in the hearth as he turned the matter over in his mind. It was then that Holo spoke up.
“And to use an apology to deliver such a story. Rather clever of her, was it not?” A large spark flew up into the air – mostly coincidentally – but it looked as though it had jumped in reaction to his own fluster, which was also true.
Lawrence directed his gaze from the hearth to Holo, who was grinning widely, though it was a stiff, unnatural smile.
“Of course, you do know why it was so clever, don’t you?”
Lawrence realized it was the height of presumption to think he had been able to hide his ignorance from her. If he had to confess, sooner was better. “… Sorry. I have no idea.”
“Fool!” Her face turned so fierce it seemed it would blow all the sparks in the hearth up at once. Her stiff smile vanished, replaced by a look of utter anger.
“Wh-why are you so–”
“Fool! So you’re saying you’ve no notion of why I found her so irritating, either?!”
If she had shouted at him with such force in her wolf form, she would have destroyed the cottage from the inside. Holo’s anger was enough to cause such irrelevant thoughts to cross his mind. He had never seen her tail as puffed up as it suddenly was.
“… Yes.”
He had gone too far, and this was the fall.
Holo’s lips trembled in outrage, and she finally slumped, as though defeated. It was as though she had burst a blood vessel out of sheer rage.
Lawrence hastily tried to say something, but she gave him such a sharp glare from underneath her bangs that he snapped his mouth shut almost as soon as he opened it.
“Well… I suppose that’s the sort of dunce you always were…” Holo sighed a long-suffering sigh and closed her eyes, whereupon the malice seemed to drain out of her. “I was the only one who was angry. She was the only one who was worried she’d gone too far. And you’re not so much generous as you are about as insensitive as a corpse.”
At this point, Lawrence could hardly help but feel irritated, despite still not knowing what this was all about. But before he could reply, Holo continued.
“You were utterly disgraced!”
Lawrence thought back to the trading company, but still did not understand and looked at Holo with eyes more pleading than Col would ever direct at her. Holo the Wisewolf bared her fangs in contempt and then turned away.
“And right in front of me, no less.”
“–Ah…” In that instant, everything connected in his mind.
“Yet still you flail around like some sort of simpleton…”
Holo slumped in utter frustration, seemingly about to collapse sideways at any moment. It was Lawrence, meanwhile, who wanted to stand, but Holo’s eyes stitched him in place, like a dog ordered to sit.
“If you dare speak now, I’ll show you my true ire.”
Lawrence’s mouth snapped shut as though nailed that way, but the words swirled around in his chest with such energy that his hands trembled of their own accord.
Holo was angry that he had been so easily outmaneuvered by Fran back at Hugues’s shop, yes – but what she was truly furious at was that he had done so in front of her very eyes. Given that, he started to see why she had agreed to Fran’s vague conditions. It was not out of amusement at Fran’s cleverness. Holo was planning to intervene.
This was why she had complained at Fran’s silence during the entire time Lawrence had so shrewdly gotten Vino to tell them the whole story and guide them all the way out here – because she was angry not only at Fran but also at the clueless Lawrence.
Aren’t you angry at being made such a fool of? she had been thinking. Aren’t you angry at being made the fool in front of none other than me?
And then had come the conversation last night.
Lawrence recalled every word Fran spoke, along with every one of Holo’s reactions. Immediately, he held his head in his hands, as though enduring a terrible headache, overwhelmed at his own stupidity.
Fran was chasing the legend of the angel because of someone she loved. That was why she had confessed that fact as an apology – because Lawrence was chasing a map of the northlands for the very same reason.
No wonder Holo’s mood had improved. And he could certainly understand why she felt the way she did now.
“… I’m sorry.” He had been the only on
e blind to his own foolishness. He could neither blame Holo for her anger nor her exasperation.
“You truly do seem to move from one foolish act to the next.”
He had nothing to say in his defense, but Holo seemed to have no further anger to express. It seemed his stupidity really had exhausted her rage.
Holo heaved a sigh and deliberately looked down at her tail. “That was surely more effective than any tiresome grooming.” Her anger had caused it to puff up such that it was much fluffier than usual.
Lawrence knew that if he laughed he was likely to get his throat torn out, so he simply listened.
“Still, I suppose this sort of thing is not so uncommon in life,” she said, arching her back in a stretch.
Lawrence was not so idiotic as to think they were still discussing the same topic, but he was idiotic enough not to know what she was actually talking about. “… I don’t follow you,” he said.
Holo looked at him and smiled a self-deprecating smile. “Oh, just that even the ones that get worshiped as gods had the same troubles, that’s all.”
“Huh?”
“It happened quite often. I didn’t much care one way or the other, but the village elders would scold the younger villagers if they bungled the festival preparations, striking them and saying they’d been rude to me, entirely unconcerned with how I might actually feel. I’d watch this all at a loss… and to think that I’d end up doing just the same thing.”
Lawrence knew such situations arose when each party valued the other. But what was he supposed to say? Should he apologize? Or thank her?
Either one seemed foolish.
Lawrence remained silent, and Holo smiled a dry, little smile, then stood. “Though I suppose ’tis better to carefully consider the other’s feelings and then act with the best of intentions. Though perhaps it will suffice to say that the person in question needn’t worry about that.”
She wore a malicious smile as she spoke, obviously still scolding Lawrence – though as punishment for making her look a fool, it was a cheap thing.
“The problem is,” continued Holo, glancing at the hanging skin partition, “what to do when they’re already a silent corpse.”
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