His journey with Holo had truly had many ups and downs. It was oddly linked to people that lived in this world that Lawrence would prefer never having to meet again for the rest of his life. A major slave trader had, like a Grim Reaper, told Lawrence to invite him to celebrate the opening of his new establishment. Furthermore, he had said he would be happy to lend Lawrence money anytime he might be in distress. Even in Nyohhira, a place of many people with checkered pasts, there surely were not many people who would accept a letter from that source.
At the Debau Company, not only Hilde, but also Debau himself had met him a number of times to thank him.
They had told him that they would take care of him anytime he wanted to open an establishment, lending as much as he might need. He was truly grateful, but he simply could not leave everything to the Debau Company; he politely declined and borrowed funds from the Rowen Trade Guild via Huskins the great ram. Though Kieman’s personal company trading ship had been shipwrecked, making Lawrence think he might bow his head before even the Debau Company to hide his embarrassment, he somehow came through. He apparently viewed owing a favor to the irresistible force that was the Debau Company as a last resort.
Besides, Lawrence himself had assets accumulated in the course of his travels and business dealings.
He was mindful that his coin purse was not as full as it might have been in the past.
As most of it was borrowed money, it did not even seem real.
Under such circumstances, even if the money weighed upon him a bit, he did not really need to be stingy; in particular, since people naturally flocked to the baths for long periods in anticipation of the festival.
Just as Holo had said, if he drew people to the merits of his establishment here, some among the bathers would surely consider his bathhouse the next time they visited.
That was why he had ordered first-rate food and drink, but unfortunately Lawrence possessed little passion for dining himself. No matter how well-informed he was about the price of food, he was ill versed in whether a dish was good or not.
“That being the case, if there’s something you want to eat, please say it.”
So Lawrence went to Holo to inquire after jotting down basic banquet dishes.
Today, too, she and Hanna were cracking and eating walnuts they had gotten from God only knew where.
“Anything is fine.”
She had a serious look in her eyes he had not seen in several days.
In response to Holo’s words, Lawrence hardened his resolve and nodded.
“Truly?”
Hanna shifted her gaze to him as he prompted for confirmation. She always said, “It’s better to be very certain before you leap.”
Usually she was standing in the kitchen; sometimes she ate with Holo, sometimes she was absent, always striving to be frugal – that was Hanna for you. No matter what kind of remote place she was in, Holo always seemed to know how to get good food to eat.
Furthermore, Holo’s knowledge of food had prospered ridiculously well while traveling with Lawrence.
It was his own fault Holo was able to cajole him into loosening his purse strings, but Lawrence made a single deep breath, nodding.
“Right. Could you write what you want on this?”
And Lawrence brought forth not a tablet, but paper.
If she was to write down the likes of honey-pickled peaches on this, she would have to take back the earlier words she had so carelessly tossed out.
Showing that she would do nothing so underhanded would be, for her, a profound display of resolve.
As if noticing that very thing, Holo looked at the paper and pen Lawrence offered her. She looked up at Lawrence himself with what felt like a bit of a strained smile.
“I am not so much of a fool as that.”
Holo spoke as she took the pen and paper from Lawrence’s hand.
“After all, if you bite down on your prey till it perishes, you cannot play with it later.”
Though that made her a cat toying with a mouse, speaking the joke surely meant she would grant him mercy.
Lawrence was optimistic, but Hanna made a sigh as she spoke.
“Will you still be able to pay my salary, I wonder?”
Her line came as Holo held the paper before her, her tail merrily swishing around.
Though Lawrence thought inside his head that he would regret this, he shook the notion off with a shake of his head.
Hanna looked at Lawrence and made an exasperated-looking smile.
“If things turn desperate, I shall claim my salary in food.”
“Sounds like a fine plan.”
As Lawrence spoke, Holo shouted, “Ink!” and Hanna rose from her chair to go and get some.
The list contained wine, beer, apple wine, mead, the drink called Kvass made from boiling rye, wine distilled into “fire water,” distilled wheat-based liquor called “the water of life,” and besides that, even kumis made with fermented mare’s milk; God only knew where she had learned of it. There were people and goods that came in from a far eastern nation of steppes and grasslands to Nyohhira via the northlands; she had probably heard of it that way.
The meat was even more incredible. Mutton, lamb, beef, bullock, hare, pork, chicken, domesticated goose, wild goose, and after those entries, she had listed the most expensive of all meats, namely quail, peacock, and so forth.
“Where am I going to buy peacock…?”
A great theologian had supposedly proven that peacock meat did not rot. Even kings sitting on their thrones did not partake of it often; many commoners probably had no idea it even existed.
But beside the entry for peacock was written “if possible,” so she probably meant it as a joke.
She had surely been tempted to write that beside the entry for quail as well; that was probably what she was really after.
The fish were comparatively tame: pike, carp, eel, and so forth, all centered on river fish.
Small doubt she wanted these because everything from the sea had to be smoked or salted, and she was entirely sick of eating smoked and salted things during the winter months. Maybe I should mix some herring in and play dumb, he thought mischievously.
And finally, the last was “fish tail.” No doubt this was the rodent prepared on the riverbank she had eaten in Lenos. He could order that relatively cheaply.
The next part of the list contained fruit.
“Thanks to the season, this one’s relatively easy to do, but…”
Lawrence made a sigh as he looked the list over.
“Where did she learn about oranges and lemons?”
He had heard only rumors that ports to the south traded in them when giant trading ships unloaded their cargo. Apparently they were shipped from somewhere close to the desert, but Lawrence had never seen it firsthand.
Figs, raspberries, huckleberries, currants, peaches, apples, pears – these he could get if they were dried and pickled. The rest of the list was filled by a bunch of shellfish, chestnuts, and miscellaneous types of beans.
At that point, she was probably writing down anything else that came to mind.
He showed Hanna the list and struck off the things even Hanna could not prepare.
She said, “You can do basically anything if you’re cooking meat.
“For example, roast pig.”
He added that to the list.
He had seen Holo beg to be able to eat roast pig more than once. Usually she directed her begging for food toward Hanna, but she had begged Lawrence for roast pig, too.
Furthermore, when she went, “You have not forgotten the taste of the roast pig you and I ate back then,” he had no real leg to stand on.
He was not going to deny Holo now.
Roast pig here in Nyohhira? Lawrence thought, hanging his head. With salt-pickled meat the foundation of the market, he wondered just how much it would cost.
But having resolved to do it, he would carry it through.
Besides that, if he was going to spe
nd this much on food, he of course needed music.
“Eh? Miss Annie?” When Lawrence called Col over to discuss it with him, Col of course parroted his words back in surprise.
“I mean, it’s been so long and it neatly solves that problem…”
She was the musician who had tried to woo Lawrence. However, her skill really was first-rate, and moreover, he was afraid of what would happen if he invited any other.
“So could I have you ask her for me?”
“…”
Col, who still had a book open that he had borrowed from someone who had come to the baths, made a disagreeable face, but he yielded in the end. The women musicians were always calling out to Col, too.
He had never once wavered in the slightest from his resolve to become a man of the cloth, but this aloofness sent the girls’ hearts aflutter all the more. Lawrence said to him that God might overlook a minor indiscretion or two, but Col being Col, his stubbornness turned what other men would consider good fortune into what seemed to be an improbable source of concern.
“Also, what’s happening with the craftsmen arrangements?”
During winter, craftsmen looked for work where there was no snow, and when a certain amount of snow did fall, they came north. He wanted to open his establishment in spring so badly because of all the people gathered around.
“Based on the letter I received yesterday, there’s nothing else left to do. They’ll arrive in a few days’ time, so I think we should get ready for them.”
“Understood. Besides that, ah yes, we’ll need bedding and so on for the guests… Is Eve really going to come? If she really does, we can’t be having her sleep on a bed of straw, can we…?”
At home, a merchant of Eve’s caliber no doubt slept atop silks filled with cotton on a wood-frame bed sitting atop a stone foundation. Norah could probably handle sleeping on the floor if only she had a blanket, but it was not something he would actually care to propose to her. It was not the way to treat guests invited to a banquet to say the least.
“How about going to Mr. Morris and borrowing some things?”
“Ugh.”
Certainly, he was short on guests and so had bedding to spare. That plan was especially attractive.
“I’ll think about it…”
“Besides that, how will you pick them up? If it’s by carriage, we should make arrangements as early as possible, but we don’t really know when they will arrive…”
“Ah! That’s right!”
He had forgotten about that. One could use a carriage on the road that continued to Nyohhira, but coming with assumptions from the south would not work very well. For that reason it was better for them to go to a comparatively large town like Svolnel and prepare specifically for the mountains in winter.
If a carriage was not arranged, they would have to hire someone to ship the goods… and walk.
One way or another, he needed to get in touch with them somewhere.
“If we’re considering escorts, too, how about we ask Mr. Luward and his men? You’re probably inviting them anyway?”
Lawrence was cradling his head when he suddenly lifted his face up.
“We can do that.”
“I’ll add an attachment to your invitation letter, then. Perhaps we can manage to send a letter to Lenos to Miss Eve and the others? Miss Eve is surely accustomed to traveling, so she’ll probably gather information and make preparations there.”
That was Col for you, both intelligent and well accustomed to travel.
He had already become completely dependent on Col; the boy was less of an apprentice than someone he could not help but think about convincing to stay on in order to keep the business running.
“I’ll entrust all those things to you.”
“Understood.” Col respectfully bowed his head as he spoke.
He would leave the spring banquet in Col’s hands; he had to deal with the more immediate issue of the craftsmen.
Having righted his thoughts, Lawrence went down to the central town amid lightly falling snow to make various preparations.
Things instantly got much livelier with the arrival of the craftsmen.
Usually, it was just Lawrence, Holo, Col, and Hanna – four people in a building designed for the lodging of numerous people, making it feel rather empty.
Besides, even though Holo was highly territorial, she was unexpectedly accommodating of guests. When they had settled on going ahead with a bathhouse, she had said with interest, “I do not mind it being lively.”
But with winter having crested, with spring seemingly on the other side of the hills, Holo withdrew from the ruckus they were raising every night.
Out of not feeling well, she spent many daylight hours shut in her own room; she did not seem to have any appetite, either.
She claimed it was from living this deep in the mountains during such a season and being forced to eat mostly dried meat and fish every day. When people spoke of spring sickness, they usually meant colds going around; people recovered right around when vivacious, fresh plants sprung up. Even the council had numerous absences; some people lost a fair bit of weight from loss of appetite. Seeing these things, Lawrence thought it mysterious that no one questioned the effectiveness of the baths, which were said to cure everything. Perhaps spring sickness was in the same category as love sickness.
For his part, Lawrence had told Hanna to wash as much of the salt off as she could when preparing meals, even at the cost of less taste, but Holo seemed unable to endure that.
She had probably eaten too much along with the lively craftsmen at times, too.
For a while, even when Lawrence brought her gruel, all she seemed to do was take the scent in. In the end, though wheat gruel was no good, rye bread boiled in goat’s milk went down fine, so she was currently eating small amounts of that. She was holding up pretty well given that she could not even drink wine.
Even though this was spring sickness, Lawrence was fairly worried at times, but Hanna told him there was no reason for special concern. As she seemed to be well versed in illnesses, Holo evidently trusted Hanna quite extensively; even if she could pull the wool over Lawrence’s eyes, she got nowhere with Hanna.
As he nursed Holo and gave instructions to the craftsmen, more and more days passed as he prepared for the spring banquet.
When a little more time passed, around when sunny days began to outnumber days when snow fell, a letter reached Lawrence. It had come to Svolnel, written by Eve’s hand. As Col had suggested, he had written a letter and sent it to Lenos, but that seemed to have been in error.
Even so, just as he had surmised, for her to have properly sent a letter ahead of her from Svolnel, she had not lost her knack for travel.
If she came from Svolnel, she would arrive before the festival of St. Alzeuri, but preparations for food and other things would still be steadily under way. That was why Lawrence replied that she would make it just in time if she took it easy on the way up. He also wrote that he was surprised she would really come.
She would probably make a strained smile and say, “I was invited, so why are you so surprised?” but she would no doubt laugh herself silly if he told her the circumstances under which that letter had been sent. Lawrence chuckled to himself as he pictured the scene.
Because she was in a foul mood, Holo, sideways on her seat in front of the fireplace, made a questioning sound and shot him a suspicious look.
“It would seem our guests are on their way, safe and sound.”
Several days prior, he had received letters indicating Weiz and Mark and those with them had safely reached Lenos. They seemed to have sent their letter on the way out, so they had probably reached Svolnel around the same time as Eve.
He felt somewhat odd as he thought about that.
Holo made a halfhearted nod as she sat in her chair, pulling a blanket over her lap. “You supposed poorly,” she said curtly.
“And yet, there is still time, is there not? You should focus on recupera
ting till then.”
As Holo spoke, she slowly closed her eyes, moving her chin so vaguely it barely felt like a nod, and turned toward the fireplace.
Even in poor condition, Holo was Holo.
When he was being soft, she always behaved frankly, but gracefully.
After taking the opportunity to show Holo the letter, he gently stroked her head. In the old days, she liked it when he messed with her hair, tousling it, but nowadays she seemed to prefer long, gentle strokes.
As her hair was being leisurely stroked, Holo browsed the contents of the letter. Though she had difficulty with writing even now, reading was no problem at all. There had been times when Lawrence’s concern over Holo’s lies that she could not read a single word had backfired. Perhaps Holo was remembering back to that time when, as she finished reading Eve’s letter, she sniffed the letter’s scent and made a small giggle.
“She is fairly angry about something, it would seem.”
“Oh, aye?” Holo made a typical small smile as she returned the letter to Lawrence. “Eve’s angry, is she?”
As Lawrence asked her back, Holo shifted her gaze to the side and closed her eyes.
It was as if she was saying, “The fool still understands nothing.” She chuckled.
But Holo’s good mood frightened Lawrence in a different sense.
Holo sank back into the chair, eyes closed. In that pose, with the tip of her tail gently swaying, it was as if she was having a pleasant dream.
“More importantly, how are things going with the business?”
For Holo to switch to that topic herself meant she wanted to dance around the other.
She was definitely hiding something, but with her worn down like this, he prudently followed her lead. On their journey, too, arguments broke out most easily when she was feeling of stride.
“It’s getting there. I’d say the skeleton’s all finished and eight tenths of the meat is on, too. We should be getting the fine decorations and fixtures bit by bit as the snow clears.”
“Indeed. A pity I cannot watch the work in progress.”
Certainly there was pleasure in watching wood and stone put together as a building was being built. But only the passive observer had it easy; owners had no small amount of things to worry over.
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