“Thank you.”
However, as Holo said those words, she grabbed Lawrence’s now-free arm with a covetous look unbecoming of any nun.
Though no man could find this disagreeable, for Holo to do this within sight of others meant she was definitely up to something.
When they had first met, his being unable to tell when she was serious or not made him nervous, but lately it had not been so. He had become able to calmly discern when she was serious, even in the solitude of a room for two at the inn.
Lawrence sighed, as it was quite obvious what Holo had in mind.
“What did you want incidentally? We came thinking we might get some water, but… perhaps he made some mistake?”
It was unclear if she would leave it at that when she pushed up onto her toes and gave Lawrence’s head a light slap with a “Here.
“This truly is a helpless soul. Even though I tell him over and over to approach all things with a sincere heart…”
He had no idea where she had picked this up, but somehow she plausibly strung similar words together, speaking them with a clear tone one would normally never hear them spoken with. Though it was no bad thing to be gently scolded with words at his age, Lawrence’s spirit grew heavy.
“No, no, not at all. Not at all.”
It was the village headman who interjected with great excitement, having finally grasped who was in charge between the two people before him.
With great energy, he humbled himself and explained not to Lawrence, but to Holo.
“Because I live in a village such as this, I was hoping very much I could speak with you.”
“Mmm? Speak?”
“Yes, yes. If I may say so, I am the headman of this village and I bear the duty of broadening the horizons of the people who live here. Therefore, I was very much hoping to speak with travelers such as yourselves about your experiences in other lands…”
If Holo played her con to the hilt, she would have this village headman use his position and bring them into the house of one of his fellow villagers and satisfy her own curiosity.
Lawrence had never seen such a humble yet shameless headman.
It was plain as day who he normally spoke with. Almost beyond all doubt, they were merchants taking a shortcut, just like Lawrence.
It was easy to tell what sort of people had influenced his choice of words and manner of speech.
“Aye… certainly we are travelers. We have come from the south on our way to the north where all is cold. Of course, our lives are like candles flickering in the storm, and we have been saved not a few times by the grace of a great light.”
She spoke like a true believer, throwing in an appropriate wave of her hand.
She was probably recycling stories told by bards to groups of children and bored adults in town. What made Holo frightening was that she was sharp enough to be worthy of her other name, Wisewolf, and furthermore, she feared nothing, which made her able to pull off stunts like this.
“Ohh, ohh, my goodness… In other words, you bear tales of fantastic creatures of legend, vagabonds, heroic knights, and the like?”
“Mmm? Aye, certainly I know several stories like that… Mmm… No, you probably would not believe them…”
“Ohhhhh…!”
Lawrence himself, in spite of striving to be a complete merchant in every way, was hardly unfamiliar with taking advantage of people’s ignorance, particularly people living in backwaters like this with limited sources of information, but the sight before his eyes made even him blush.
“Oh, I forget myself. Were you not here to get water?”
As if going out of her way to keep it private, she whispered into Lawrence’s ear.
Now that she had gone this far, he had no idea what kind of retribution she would indulge in if he did not play along. If it was business, he had plenty of confidence in his acting ability, but thinking of doing it in any other context gave him stage fright.
Quietly, Lawrence took in a large breath and girded himself.
“… We’re still all right, but if I don’t do something soon…”
Lawrence thought as hard as he could and forced the words out. As he did so, Holo gave him a sour glare.
Lord have mercy on our souls, Lawrence thought, turning his face away as he spoke.
“We’re not running out of just water, but wine, as well…”
That moment, in the direction opposite to where Lawrence turned his face from, he felt a gaze shift to him so hot, he could feel it even in his sleep.
It was the village headman; he looked like a knight whose beloved princess had been taken captive.
“What! You should have said so sooner!”
His voice was so great that Holo’s angular, dignified wolf ears, hidden under her hood, threatened to spring right up. It was no doubt a voice honed so that he could give precise instructions to villagers working in large fields. No doubt Holo, of excellent hearing, was surprised by it.
She looked like she was desperately trying to calm herself under her hood.
Seeing Holo like that, and having come this far, Lawrence assumed an expression of surrender. He bypassed Holo and spoke to the village headman.
“Meaning?”
The headman made a smile so great that it almost sent Lawrence flying.
“Come stay at my house! I’ll prepare fine wine indeed!”
Holo, who was bad with loud noises, looked like she was desperately enduring the ringing in her ears. She still had a look of suffering on her as she glanced up at Lawrence.
“What a… generous offer…”
And after taking a short, deep breath, she turned back to the village headman, looking like she had been offered the chance of a lifetime.
And so, with her whole heart set on drinking his wine…
“No doubt the blessings of God shall be upon you.”
Being something like a god herself, Holo cared little for the God that the Church spoke of.
Even while thinking she was quite a troublesome girl, he wondered if her manner of relentlessly pushing her way to her own objective might be something he should learn for himself.
At any rate, Lawrence and Holo had just traded stories of the road for a drinking party in the village.
In the first place, Lawrence should not have engaged in unnecessary conversation in the middle of the road.
Lawrence had asked a passing stonemason on a pilgrimage about the state of the village to cut down his own travel times.
Since he apparently repaired the stones that made up the stone bridges of the area’s villages, their millstones, and sometimes even went to town to cut cobblestones, Lawrence was able to ask him detailed questions about various things.
He was a good-natured craftsman, so Lawrence thought it was probably kindness at work.
He had been at special pains to sing the praises of one nearby village, which apparently had a beautiful spring, and the wine made there was exceedingly tasty.
But, the craftsman said, the wine made by the principality’s commoners was so good the archduke himself could not neglect it, so the technique of producing the wine, and the wine itself, remained fairly well-kept secrets.
He said that once, he had even been called up by the archduke himself for a job, cutting pretty stones to repair a collapsed well, and this treasured wine had been his reward.
At the time, he was deeply moved by an aroma so extravagant, one would not think such a thing existed in this world; a taste so rich, it numbed a person’s very temples; and so forth. Holo, to whom food and wine were nine-tenths of the pleasures of the world to be craved, listened to the story, her tail swaying under her robe the whole time.
Moreover, Lawrence’s wallet had become lighter of late from allowing Holo to eat the food considered the most famous specialties at one town after another. Perhaps it was like he had been taught as a child: One keeps trouble from stray dogs at bay by never feeding one, no matter how hungry it looks.
But very much l
ike a child who had never been taught, Lawrence had fed Holo delicious food over and over when she made that hungry-looking face. As a result, just like stray dogs emerging from the mountains and forests to cause people trouble, Holo, with the knowledge of what delicious food tasted like, used various means to cause Lawrence grief.
This was despite his knowing where this led: Once she had tasted good food, she wanted more of the same; then she wanted even more delicious food and more of it.
For that reason, holding Holo in check was essentially impossible.
“Aye. And then, that very moment, he heard the distant howl of a valiant wolf. It was like a cry of victory…”
Trailing off as she spoke, Holo made a sigh full of admiration at the last part.
Everyone was listening so intently that they forgot to drink the wine in their hands.
“The wolf pack plunged down into the valley like an avalanche. In the end, the bandits that had invaded the valley could do nothing against them and fled, all in a jumble. The only ones left were the villagers who lived in the valley.”
“A-a valley full of wolves?”
“Even if the bandits were driven off, that’s… you know?”
“Y-yeah. Even if the bandits were gone I can’t tell which’s worse…”
Several villagers argued among one another.
A village in a valley isolated and helpless before a band of heinous bandits, saved by the arrival of a pack of wolves; it sounded too good to be true, yet Lawrence did not think a single person doubted it.
“S-so, what happened in the end…?” One of the flustered villagers asked.
Though men like these were often called villagers ignorant of the world, they simply knew a different set of things than the humans who lived in towns. Indeed, it was they who were far better informed about the outside world.
They knew all too well that bears and wolves were animals that brought direct harm to men.
They knew that wolves had never been domesticated.
But that was precisely why they hung on every word.
“The villagers in the valley no doubt thought the same thing; one calamity followed by another. No, this could be worse than the bandits, for this was not a foe one could reason with.”
Holo seemed quite satisfied when the callous smile that came over her as she spoke made all the villagers tremble.
No doubt these villagers had all endured numerous hardships, such as mercilessly blowing windstorms and hail one could only think of as the anger of God himself.
But just as windstorms and hail seemed to rebuff the prayers of men, those who had seen locusts gnaw on not only the ears of wheat, but also on homes and even men themselves knew in their hearts that it was meaningless to beg for aid beyond that of man, whatever their eyes or mouths might say.
Once one had seen the eerie sight of stricken men with empty eyes, obeying nothing but their own instinct to eat, it was a sight never forgotten.
Wolves existed at the summit of man’s mountain of fears.
Everyone held their breath.
Holo slowly took a sip of her wine and spoke.
“But one wolf advanced in front of the line of villagers. It was an old wolf with gray hair mixed in. And the village headman had seen this wolf before.”
“It was the wolf he’d helped?!” Someone shouted in his excitement, earning a smack to his head from someone else.
But it was clear this was where it was going and what everyone was waiting for.
A wolf, never to be domesticated by man, saved the village from danger, for he never forgot his debt from long ago.
It was not the moving tale that the villagers sought; it was the possibility itself that such a thing could happen in some far-off land.
“In the end, the villagers offered all the salt-pickled meat they had. But they did not eat the villagers even so. After all, wolves do not eat ears of wheat. And so, the village managed to get through the winter that year.”
“Ohh…”
Men, women, and of course children were all lost in the tale.
Anyone who had listened to stories at an inn had a fairly good grasp of which stories were true and which were fabrications. Even so, few thought this story was false.
Holo told seven or eight stories more. Some were stories of things she and Lawrence had been dragged into; others Lawrence had never heard of before.
In villages like this, which seemed to transform every drop of the high-quality spring beside it into wine, Holo was wont to say, “I have no more stories to tell,” casually pouring more wine into her tankard all the while.
Therefore, a number of her stories might have been flat-out lies.
“And? Is there more? Other stories like that to tell?”
“No, how about tales of chivalry! There’s lots of those all over the place, right?”
“I want to talk about the Church. There’s things I want to ask people on a pilgrimage. Is it true that the Holy Mother is at the cathedral in the Belan Mountains?”
It continued like that, one after another.
The village headman, rather than admonishing the villagers as headman for their shamelessness, seemed to be busy lightly engraving the story Holo had told into a roll of tree bark with a finely pared stone.
“Hmmm. But really, I am all out…”
Holo spoke with a laugh as if in mild distress, but of course the villagers would not let her escape so easily.
“Hey, looks like you’re running low on wine. Lemme pour some more!”
“Hey, hey, God forgives people for drinking all the time. We don’t get these chances very often, so please, tell us more stories like that one!”
Perhaps not so with the food. but the wine was every bit as good as the mason had claimed.
Furthermore, Holo, who normally had at least some regard for Lawrence’s wallet, was not bothered in the least by villagers taking her stories as having equal value to their wine; she glugged it down without restraint, becoming even more talkative about this and that.
But even Holo’s strength against wine was not infinite; nor was the variety of stories she could tell as great as dandelions in spring were many.
Though Holo hardly needed to be told either of these things, for whatever reason, she did not stand up while inside the ring of villagers around her.
Even so, it felt like it was just about time to end this; also, that standing up might prove difficult.
There probably really was not any more for her to talk about; Lawrence had his doubts she could even taste the wine anymore.
Watching Holo like that as the furthest person in the ring of people, Lawrence was somewhat at a loss as to what to do. Normally, he ought to put an immediate stop to it, saying, “We’ll have a fun time again tomorrow,” to take the steam out of them. Then, when “tomorrow” came, they just needed to set off before anyone was the wiser.
It might seem a cold and arbitrary way of doing things, but one could hardly be a traveler without doing at least that much.
The problem was if Holo had different ideas, pulling her out of the throng would only backfire. Holo was not the little girl she seemed to be; indeed, she was as pampered and stubborn as any princess.
As he thought about that, his eyes met Holo’s as if on cue.
Even if her look didn’t quite say, “I want some help here,” it was close enough.
Apparently she realized she could not simply escape the ring of people on her own power.
Goodness, thought Lawrence with a sigh, rising up.
“I’m very sorry, but…”
The atmosphere soured the moment Lawrence pushed through the people clustered around Holo.
Of course, he could not help but think, Damn you for making me play the villain.
The villagers seemed to be arguing over Holo continuing her stories, but it was the village headman who calmed things down.
Notwithstanding how much he seemed to be a childlike mass of innocence and inquisitiveness, when it was
time to do his duty, the headman carried it through.
The villagers seemed disappointed, but as Lawrence, keeping his mouth shut, embraced Holo, their gazes were like those given after a feast.
One young lady took a tallow candle in hand and led the way for Lawrence and Holo. She guided them to a large barn beside the village headman’s house that stored about a year’s supply of food for the villagers.
The common barn had been built sturdier than the villagers’ own houses, but the villagers thought this perfectly normal.
In the center of the barn, a single bed had been prepared, a bed made of bales of straw tied together with hemp rope, piled up in what seemed to have been a great hurry. Surely whether they thought this was tactful, or simply had nothing else to provide, was something better not asked.
Lawrence gave the girl a smile on his face and a silver piece of middling value as he uttered his thanks.
After accepting the silver coin, the girl reverently opened the door; after, Lawrence could see her jumping for joy as she returned to her cottage.
“So, why didn’t you get up before it got to this point?”
As he laid Holo down upon the bed of straw, the moonlight shining through the skylight built for summer use shone right on top of Holo’s belly. Thanks to that, he could not see her expression all that well, but he could tell it was an annoyed one.
“Goodness…”
As Lawrence spoke, Holo made a small groan in her throat, probably because it was so very dry from having spoken too much.
“… Water.”
Then, what came out was but that single word.
“… Hold on.”
Surely it would have been no great sin to say something sarcastic.
However much she might blame it on drinking wine, she had been a complete child to make it a huge ruckus like that.
Mixing in a sigh, Lawrence searched the room with his eyes, but there was no water pitcher to be found. Apparently, so few were the travelers who stayed overnight that the villagers had neglected that detail.
“There’s no water pitcher. Hold on a bit, I’ll go draw some water.”
But just as Lawrence spoke, starting to move away from the bed…
“Me, too…”
With that, she grabbed hold of Lawrence’s trousers.
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