“Sorry. I can’t have you saying I inflated the numbers in the confusion.”
“Ha-ha. I’d say the same thing even if there was a written count.”
“Is there any proof I ate the dried meat?”
That is what Miss Holo had asked at the inn.
In this world, irrefutable proof rarely existed.
“That’s thirty-two Ladeon Diocese silver pieces; fifty-five Mitzfing Cathedral silver pieces; forty-one Archduke Dandren Enthronement silver pieces; and finally, eighty-five silver trenni pieces.”
As the gentleman listed them off, he gave Mr. Lawrence a somewhat sleepy look when he reached the last part. “The same as I recall.”
As Mr. Lawrence replied, the gentleman made a broad grin before shifting his gaze toward Miss Holo.
“That’s how it is. Don’t be concerned; just separate that many coins out. If you make a mistake, correct your mistake and you will be forgiven, for the Lord is generous.”
The last part was a famous line from scripture.
As Miss Holo nodded, Mr. Lawrence emerged from behind, extending the hand nearest to the table.
Without a word, Mr. Lawrence pointed out the silver coins concerned and assisted with the work. Clang, ching – the sounds peculiar to silver coins reverberated, almost as if they were crying.
The gentleman seemed satisfied as he gazed at Miss Holo and Mr. Lawrence’s work.
And when he suddenly looked in my direction, his smile grew even stronger as he said this:
“Lad. What did your master tell you earlier?”
I resumed my work in a hurry.
Miss Holo finished sorting out the silver coins that had been jumbled together around the same time I finished sorting out the gentleman’s remaining silver coins.
“Good. Splendid.”
Looking at the coins neatly piled on top of the table, the gentleman spoke with pride.
“Glory to God.”
Afterward, Mr. Lawrence used reference samples to make a more detailed classification, focusing on those he considered especially troublesome. Mr. Lawrence said that this was all that could be instantly recognized on sight and to please consult a proper money changer with proper scales for an expert opinion on the others.
The gentleman seemed quite satisfied with just this, nodding with a smile on his face.
And as the three of us were preparing to depart from the inn, he handed Mr. Lawrence a small leather pouch.
“You’ve been a real help.”
As Mr. Lawrence’s hand accepted the pouch, the gentleman clasped both hands around his with a good-natured smile on his face. “Call if you need anything else,” Mr. Lawrence said with a smile; then they parted.
I had been sure that we were going to have dinner together, but it did not feel like that at all. I could not really tell if they got along well or poorly. Perhaps relationships between merchants just aren’t like that, I thought, committing it to memory.
Besides, there were other things pressing on my mind far more.
The first was: Why did Miss Holo put coins in my carrying bag and bring it over?
The second was: Why in the world did Miss Holo make a blunder even worse than mine?
“Goodness.”
As I pondered these things, Mr. Lawrence finally opened his mouth.
For a moment, I was startled, wondering if he was referring to the words inside my head, but Mr. Lawrence had spoken after opening the pouch from the gentleman and placing the contents atop his open palm.
“That’s a well-known miser for you. Made us work like money changers and this is all he pays us.”
Mr. Lawrence pinched three coarse silver coins together and held them up to the sun.
Even though he had told me the story of his master swindling his own student, I was shocked nonetheless.
“This won’t even cover lunch.”
As Mr. Lawrence spoke, I finally recalled that I hadn’t had lunch.
“Hungry, aren’t you? Let’s go buy something with our profits.”
I thought I had heard wrong, but the next moment, Miss Holo, who had remained silent up to this point, let out a chuckle.
“So, how much did we make?”
Mr. Lawrence did not find Miss Holo’s behavior suspicious in the least.
Miss Holo seemed to be toning down her usual voice as she laughed.
What in the world is going on? I wondered, as Miss Holo pushed the carrying bag, packed with silver coins, onto Mr. Lawrence.
“Who knows? I am not a merchant. I do not know the prices of silver coins.”
At those words, I thought, Ah!
At the time, the gentleman had counted from memory, but I wondered if a few extra had not fallen into the sack in the confusion.
Isn’t that plain burglary? The moment after I had that thought, Miss Holo spun toward me and took my hand. making a proud, grinning smile, with her fangs showing.
“How many coins were you able to swap?”
While Miss Holo stood beside me, grinning all the while, Mr. Lawrence carefully opened the mouth of the carrying sack wide and peered inside as he spoke.
My head was full of question marks. Swap?
“About ten of the silver coins with swords on them; I did not replace any with lilies. I replaced around thirty of your beloved silver trennis.”
“Mm… if that’s the case, well, considering the age difference, it comes out to a fair bit.”
“Heh-heh. That fool was desperately counting them, was he not? It was as if he had grease in his eyes. I wonder, will you turn into that when you grow old?”
Mr. Lawrence made a disagreeable face at Miss Holo’s final words.
Miss Holo made a small cackle before suddenly looking toward me.
“Ah, Col. I had to use your carrying bag. Do not be concerned, your belongings are all in order at the inn.”
I nodded at that, but I still had not the faintest clue what was going on here.
They had not stolen silver coins, yet they profited from swapping them alone?
“Good of you, though. At what point did you notice?”
Mr. Lawrence closed the carrying bag and directed his words toward Miss Holo.
“Mmm? ’Tis obvious. ’Twas the moment you returned to the room and spoke to me rather than the lad.”
I was completely lost.
Even Mr. Lawrence looked at Miss Holo with a suspicious look now.
“Well, I’ll take your word for it.”
“Fool. But I must say, you put on quite an act yourself. When Col made that dubious face at the carrying bag, I thought things might get a little rough.”
“…!”
That was when Mr. Lawrence had warned me.
“I was surprised, too. I thought you’d pick a gentler method.”
“But ’twas perfect, was it not? ”
“Very much so. Well, it’s a good thing I’m used to giving out that humble, submissive feeling, too.”
Miss Holo maintained the smile on her face while baring her fangs, which was quite a dexterous feat.
However, she immediately withdrew her fangs, pulling her head back in apparent happiness.
I was the only one not in on it.
As I stood there like a scarecrow, Mr. Lawrence noticed me and said, “Ahh, sorry, sorry,” and explained.
“Holo can tell whether silver is good or bad by sound.”
“Huh?”
“She can tell by sound just like we can tell steel and copper by taste. Even if the symbol is the same, the silver purity rate varies heavily according to the year it was minted. It was clear from the start that stingy old man would get people to help him without any proper reward, you see. So, we swapped our bad coins for good coins and took our own reward.”
The sound Miss Holo made when scattering the silver coins about. And then, the sounds the coins made when she hastily sorted the silver coins out again.
“This fool wouldn’t ask me to do something troublesome for no reason, you see
. There was definitely something behind it. And then there was that mountain of coins. Of course, I understood right away what he had in mind.”
At the very least, so far as I was aware, there was no evidence either of them had spoken a single word to plan out this conspiracy. After all, no doubt if they had, I would have heard them, and being a timid person, I could not have calmly gone along with it.
Miss Holo took my hand with her left; she took Mr. Lawrence’s hand with her right.
Mr. Lawrence’s face had a satisfied smile as well; they really were dancing to the same tune.
“Well, we’re not traveling for nothing, are we?”
Miss Holo was looking up at Mr. Lawrence as she spoke. As she did so, Mr. Lawrence looked down at her, somewhat sarcastically curled up the corners of his lips, and inclined his head a little.
It was when I felt somewhat left out by the tight bonds that Mr. Lawrence and Miss Holo shared that Mr. Lawrence said that to me.
“Aye. ’Twas because the lad worked so diligently that the fool let his guard down, after all. Besides, paying attention to one rabbit is one thing; two rabbits is a different matter altogether. Col’s hard work making him careless beforehand was what made it possible.”
“That’s because the apprentice is a reflection of the master. He seemed to think Col was my apprentice, so that must have made him more confident I had nothing up my sleeve.”
As they were both very kind people, I thought this was probably more than half being considerate of me.
However, the other half, or even less than half, was praise, something I should gratefully accept.
That made me happy, and I smiled widely at it.
When Miss Holo and Mr. Lawrence saw me like that, the smiles they gave me were much gentler than before.
They were very good people. They were people I could trust, people I could open my heart to. Moreover, they were people considerate to someone like me. If the people in the Church were like this, people would be able to live in my village and the villages nearby with greater relief.
In spite of that thought, I needed to lament about that less and be happy I was able to travel with both of them. Setting my thoughts in order, I picked my pace back up and I, Miss Holo, and Mr. Lawrence walked side by side.
“Now then, time for lunch?”
“Yeah. Let’s buy something appropriate around here. I know there’s a cheap bakery right around…”
Mr. Lawrence tried pulling Miss Holo’s hand down a street, but as if he had made a misstep, Miss Holo stopped walking, with her hand holding Mr. Lawrence back.
“Mmm? There’s a restaurant with delicious-looking food over there. Is that not better?”
“That’s the one with what, roasted chicken and duck? During the day it may smell delicious, but it’s expensive. Bread’s plenty.”
As Mr. Lawrence tried to walk forward once more, Miss Holo fiercely yanked him back.
“Fool. You go earn money, but you have no intention of using it?”
“No intention whatsoever. If I use up everything I earn, when can I rest easy?”
“Hah! That’s quite something from someone who’s always sleeping like a foolish, lazy cat. What you earned back there was thanks to me, so use it as I tell you!”
“I’m the one who took the job. Besides, you don’t even know how to arrange coins by type. Let’s say you earned half. That half probably doesn’t even cover all the food you’ve swiped.”
“Y-you’re dragging that out again… Really, this fool is just…”
“Don’t you think about anything but eating? Think ahead a little more…”
In hushed voices, here in the middle of the street, the back-and-forth started again. Fortunately, the street was incredibly packed, making an even more incredible racket. There were craftsmen arguing with one another and merchants having price disputes all over the place. The people around them gave Mr. Lawrence and Miss Holo slightly odd looks, but immediately lost interest and hurried along their own way.
But as I watched the two of them like this, I slowly had a thought:
This is probably what getting along well means.
In the end, as if unable to come to terms, both suddenly looked away from each other; Miss Holo came toward me with incredible force.
Then, she grabbed my hand and walked off.
“Ah, er, and Mr. Lawrence?”
As I asked her, Miss Holo had a sulky look on her face like that of a little girl as she said this:
“That fool can jump off a bridge!”
In the midst of being pulled away by Miss Holo, I looked back at Mr. Lawrence.
Mr. Lawrence looked toward us and, moving his mouth, formed but did not say the words:
You, too!
Still, they looked like they would be making up before supper.
Like telling the quality of coins by their sound, I had a fair grasp of the tone of their words.
I quietly thought about that as we slipped into the bustle of the town.
End
White Path and Wolf
He was not sure if he was twelve or thirteen when he apprenticed himself and left the cold village in which he had been born. He had lived as a merchant ever since.
He and his master had spent a long time together as just the two of them, but there were sometimes others who traveled with them.
There were people they would travel two or three days together with before immediately parting ways, only to unexpectedly rendezvous with them a week later; there were others they would travel with for a month or two, living on the road through thick and thin, and as soon as they had learned all there was to know about one another, they parted ways, just like that.
That was normal for those who lived on the road; of course, other rare things happened that one would likely never experience living in a town. A person could meet nobles of high on the road they would be bowing to in the middle of town and enjoy a warm meal together as equals.
For that reason, it was understandable why those who lived in a town all their lives looked at those who lived on the road as strangers. The stigma toward foreigners was especially strong among residents of remote villages who had known everyone around them since birth.
Some people would raise up scythes as tall as men as if driving away bandits. But they were outnumbered by those who welcomed one on friendly terms. In particular, those who occupied high places by villager standards were friendly out of burning curiosity – which was really quite a bother when one got a hold of you.
Sometimes people who had lived on the road for a long time offered those just starting out some amusing tales when staying at the same inn.
At times like these, the storyteller received a warm welcome fit for a king.
“Yes, yes, yes.”
That was the reply he received when asking someone in a nearby field if he could have some water from the village while passing through.
The man looked at Lawrence in surprise as if he was a son returning after going off to war without a single word since; suddenly, a broad smile came over him, and his mud-caked hand grabbed hold of Lawrence’s own.
The man was fairly advanced in years, but with his face bronzed by the sun, he was like a doll crafted out of mud when he smiled. Furthermore, his eyes had a glittering radiance in them like that of a child.
Though Lawrence was indeed pleased at the welcome, experience had taught him this might turn into trouble.
“Um, water…?”
But his words were lightly brushed off with a smiling face and a “Now, now now.”
And with impressive strength, the man pulled Lawrence toward his house.
Later, Lawrence would learn that this was the village headman, but he would be done for once the wine came out.
The man would fiercely ask what drinks Lawrence would recommend and stories of Lawrence’s journey; the conversation would no doubt continue until Lawrence’s shoulders shook from complete exhaustion.
After hearing such sto
ries, he would no doubt claim he wanted to go on a journey himself to get a feather under his cap.
In his usual travels, Lawrence would drop the name of the lord of the land and proclaim he was a merchant on official business and make his escape, but today he did not. Or perhaps it was better to say, he could not – for his traveling companion, who ought to have waited at the horse-drawn wagon, had at some point turned up at Lawrence’s side.
“Here.”
With that, his traveling companion gave the village headman’s hand a light, chiding slap.
Lawrence was not certain if this was really a rebuke, for after slapping the headman’s hand, she had an exceedingly serious look on her face that she usually never showed, grabbing Lawrence’s hand on the arm opposite the one the headman was pulling.
It was like an actual mother and a mother-in-law bickering over a child, but on the one hand was a man from a village.
On the other was a girl who looked beautiful on the surface, but Lawrence could only sigh.
His elders had warned him, “Beware of girls with hoods on their heads.” Indeed, there was a secret under this hood.
If she opened her mouth, pretty white fangs liable to rip one’s throat out poked out; her name was Holo.
By happenstance, she had come to travel with Lawrence, but her true form was that of a giant wolf easily able to gobble a man whole.
Then, she said this: “This one is mine.”
Under her hooded religious habit, he could see her pretty, noble, flaxen-furred tail.
The headman gave Holo’s face a long look, but Holo’s reddish eyes, like amber-colored jewels, returned a stout look to the headman.
The two hands pulling on Lawrence’s arms, the headman’s and Holo’s, differed in size, smoothness, and every other way.
“Would you give him back?”
Holo tilted her head slightly, looking sad as she spoke.
With that, the headman regained his senses as if a spell on him had been broken.
“Ha! Er, well, pardon me.”
He let go of Lawrence’s hand in a hurry.
If villagers in the surrounding fields looked over to see what was going on, no doubt it would look like their cheerful, guileless headman had once again done something rude and was being scolded by a traveling nun.
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