Side Colors III

by Isuna Hasekura

  Holo glared at him after that, but then sighed and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she did not look at Lawrence, but rather down at her hands.

  Holo had probably been worried about him, but more than that, she had been lonely, left shut up in the room like this.

  She had once said that loneliness was a fatal illness and had in the past put her very life at risk for Lawrence. He had not forgotten her, nor this. He could never forget.

  That was why he had worked himself to the point of exhaustion for her, but simply feeling this way would not tell her anything. Just as Holo looking down at him from the window had not.

  Even if it was a simple, tedious job, and even if it would only worsen her own exhaustion, Holo wanted Lawrence to bring her along. Anything was better than being left alone, she bravely seemed to think.

  Lawrence cleared his throat to buy himself some time.

  Since this was Holo, if he was to just up and invite her along, it would be inviting either her exasperation or her anger, and if she felt she was being pitied, it might become an issue of wounded pride.

  He had to find some sort of pretext. Lawrence put his mind to work harder than he ever did while plying his trade and finally came up with something that he thought might work.

  Lawrence coughed again, then spoke. “There are places on the road to the village where wild dogs have started to appear. It’ll be dangerous come nightfall. So if you wouldn’t mind…” He paused and checked Holo’s reaction.

  She was still looking down at her hands, but he detected little of the loneliness from before.

  “…I would very much appreciate your help.”

  Lawrence emphasized the very much and could not help but notice Holo’s ears twitch at the words.

  But she did not immediately answer, probably thanks to her pride as a wisewolf. No doubt she considered it beneath her dignity to wag her tail and happily reply to the words for which she had been hoping.

  Holo sighed a long-suffering sigh, gathering her tail up in her arms and giving it a long stroke. Then, when she finally did look up at him, her upturned gaze gave Lawrence the briefest vision of a mightily put-upon princess.

  “Must I?” she said.

  It seemed she wanted Lawrence to truly insist upon her presence. Either that, or she was simply amusing herself by watching him fold.

  This was Lawrence’s own fault for leaving her alone. The fault was his to bear.

  “I need this favor of you,” he said still more desperately, and Holo had again turned away, her ears twitching again.

  Holo lightly raised her hand to her mouth and coughed, probably to disguise the laugh that threatened to burst out. “Very well, I suppose,” she said with a sigh, then glanced back at her companion.

  Craftsmen were acknowledged as such because they finished the job down to the last knot. Lawrence pushed his exasperation and amusement down and responded with a wide smile. “Thank you!”

  At this finally, Holo let slip a guffaw.

  “Aye,” she said ticklishly, nodding her head. It was proof she was truly pleased.

  In any case, he had managed the tightrope walk across Holo’s foul temper. He heaved a sigh and removed his coat and belt. Ordinarily, he would have folded his coat over the back of the chair, but he lacked the energy to even do that much. What he wanted to do most of all was to become horizontal and go to sleep.

  And in just a moment that pleasure would be his.

  Lawrence’s mind was halfway to the land of sleep when Holo stood and spoke. “Just what are you doing?”

  He was unsure whether the sudden darkness in his vision was because he had closed his eyes or not. “Uhn?”

  “Come, now that I’m coming along there’s no need for rest. We haven’t any time for dawdling.”

  Lawrence rubbed his eyes and willed them open, then looked up at Holo. She was busily putting on her hooded coat.

  Surely this was a joke.

  He was not angry so much as aghast while he watched Holo prepare. Her innocent smile struck him as cruel, her happily swishing tail as terrifying. She finished dressing, then approached him with that same smile.

  She has to be joking. She has to be, Lawrence prayed to himself, but Holo continued to approach.

  “Come, let us go,” she said, taking the prone Lawrence’s hand and trying to pull him to his feet.

  But even Lawrence had his limits. Almost unconsciously, he brushed her off. “Please, have some mercy, I’m not a cart horse—”

  The moment he said it, he knew he had blundered, and he looked up at Holo to see her reaction.

  But having been brushed off, Holo was simply looking back down at him with a mischievous smile on her face.

  “Aye. That’s true.”

  Lawrence wondered if she was angry, but then Holo sat herself down next to him on the bed. “Heh. Did you suppose I was angry?” Her delighted expression made it clear her goal all along had been to rile him.

  In other words, he had been made sport of.

  “You imagine that resting now will let you earn more efficiently at night, when traffic is lighter?” It was easy enough to discern as much, watching the comings and goings out the window for as long as Holo had.

  Lawrence nodded, his eyes pleading with her to let him sleep.

  “And that is why you are a fool, then.” She grabbed hold of his beard and tugged his head to and fro. He was so sleepy and exhausted that it actually felt nice.

  “You carried loads all night, napped in the driver’s seat, left without even having breakfast with me, worked until just now, and made—what, seven pieces?”

  “…That’s right.”

  “I remember well enough that there are thirty-five trenni to a lumione, which leaves how much time until you’ve made enough to buy the honeyed peach preserves?”

  It was a sum even a child could do. Lawrence answered, “Four days.”

  “Mm. Too much time. And moreover”—she ignored his attempt to interrupt—“the loading dock is a madhouse. Do you suppose you’re the only one who’s had the notion to give up, rest, and return in the evening?”

  Holo made a proud expression, and beneath her hood, her ears twitched. No doubt from here her ears could hear all the conversations around the loading dock.

  “Is everybody else thinking the same thing…?”

  “Aye. It’ll be just as bad come night. The dockhands themselves need rest, too. And if you’re already so profoundly exhausted, consider five days of this? No doubt you’ll need more rest, and it will be more like seven or eight.”

  Lawrence had the feeling her estimate was more or less accurate. He nodded vaguely, and she lightly poked his head.

  In his state, he could not even summon the energy to oppose this attack. As he lay faceup on the bed, he moved only his eyes over to regard the girl.

  “What should we do?”

  “First, pray the honeyed peach preserves don’t sell.”

  Lawrence closed his eyes. “And next?” he asked, already half-asleep.

  “Think of a different business.”

  “…A different…?” When so much money could be earned simply hauling cargo, it was foolish to contemplate anything else, Lawrence thought in the darkness. But in the instant before his consciousness faded entirely, Holo’s voice reached his ears.

  “I’ve heard the chatter here. If you were going to use me to scatter the wild dogs anyway, there’s a much better way to make money. You see…”

  As he slept, Lawrence calculated the potential profits.

  At the stables, Lawrence rented a two-wheeled cart.

  It had a smaller bed and a more cramped driver’s seat, but it was lighter and thus could be pulled more quickly than his wagon.

  Next, he collected rope, blankets, baskets, a bit of board, and a good amount of small coins.

  Having done all this, Lawrence pulled the cart around to a certain building, whereupon the shopkeeper came running out as though he’d been waiting.

&n
bsp; “Ah, I’ve been waiting! You got them?”

  “Aye, and you?”

  “Everything’s ready. Honestly, I thought you were nothing more than other travelers when you came knocking on my door so early this morning—never thought you’d ask for such work.” The man who laughed heartily was an innkeeper, though his apron was messy with oil and bread crumbs. “I hear you went to the bakers with your request last night. Reckon any craftsman that ends up rising earlier than a priest’ll be none too happy about it!”

  He guffawed as he spoke, then turned around to face his inn and beckoned someone out. Two apprentices emerged, unsteady with the weight of a large pot.

  “That’ll be enough for fifty people all together. When I sent the lads to the butchers’, he wanted to know just how many people were staying at my place!”

  “I truly appreciate it on such short notice. My thanks,” said Lawrence.

  “It’s nothing. The guild dictates how much money we can make with its rules—if this helps me make a little more, it’s a cheap favor indeed.”

  The two apprentices set the cauldron in the small cart bed and tied it down with the rope. In the cauldron was roast mutton with plenty of garlic, and Lawrence could still hear the fat bubbling.

  The next item brought over was the large basket, which contained a heap of notched loaves of bread. Next came two full casks of middling wine.

  With all this, the two-wheeled cart was fully loaded. With the help of the innkeeper, Lawrence secured the load with rope. The cart horse looked back at them, which probably was not a coincidence.

  I have to haul all this? is no doubt what it would have said, if it could speak.

  “Still, to take the money, even with this much preparation…well,” said the innkeeper deliberately, once he had finished counting up the remainder of the payment for the food. He gave his apprentices a few of the more worn coins—perhaps he always did as much when he had an unexpected little windfall like this. They returned to the inn delighted.

  “Will you really be all right?” he asked. “The road to Le Houaix cuts right alongside the forest.”

  “When you say the forest, you’re talking about the wolves and wild dogs, I suppose?”

  “That’s right. The Ohm Company built that road in a hurry to take materials to Le Houaix. All the dogs there came from the city, so they’ve no fear of humans. To be honest, it seems dangerous to carry something that smells so delicious right through that. I’ll bet there were others who thought to do the same thing but gave up, owing to the danger and all.”

  Lawrence thought back to the conversation that Holo had overheard from her room. If something could be done about the wolves, then there was money to be made selling food and water in Le Houaix, where there was more demand than supply.

  “Ha-ha. It’ll be all right,” said Lawrence with a smile, looking at the two-wheeled cart.

  There was someone covering its cargo with wooden boards. Someone slight, delicate, with a casually tied skirt from which seemed to peek a furred sash or lining of some kind. Once she was finished securing the boards, that girl sat atop them with a satisfied smile on her face.

  When the innkeeper noticed what Lawrence was looking at, Lawrence smiled. “They put a goddess of good fortune on the prow of a ship to guard against sea devils and disasters. She’s mine.”

  “Oh ho…but still, against those dogs?” said the innkeeper doubtfully, but Lawrence only gave him a confident nod and said no more.

  Running an inn, the innkeeper had surely seen people from many different regions employ many different good-luck charms. Lawrence would probably be fine admitting to it, so long as he avoided making any offerings to frogs or snakes.

  And since he had already given the innkeeper himself a nice offering in the form of some lucrative side business, the man had no reason to complain.

  “May God’s blessing go with you,” said the innkeeper as he took a couple of steps back from the cart.

  “My thanks, truly. Oh, and—”

  “Yes?”

  Lawrence jumped up onto the driver’s seat of the cart before he spoke. Two-wheeled carts were not especially rare, but that changed when there was a fetching lass in the cart bed. Passersby stared curiously, and children running in the streets waved innocently to Holo as though she was part of some festival.

  “I may come again in the evening for the same order.”

  The innkeeper’s lips went round, and he then smiled a toothy smile. “My inn’s full up, so I’ve plenty of help. The guild rules don’t say anything about putting your guests to work!” he said with a laugh.

  “We’ll be off, then.”

  “And good travels to you!”

  With a clop-clop, the cart began to move.

  Moving through the town’s morning congestion involved much horse stopping and direction changing, and with only two wheels, it was more effort for the cart’s passenger to stay mounted. Every time the cart swayed, Holo would have to take pains not to fall as she shouted her dismay, but eventually they made it to the outskirts of the town—to the wider world that was a two-wheeled cart’s natural environment.

  “Now then, are you prepared for this?”

  Lawrence’s question was answered with a nod from Holo, who leaned forward from her sitting position to drape her arms around his neck from behind. “I’m the faster one, you know. A horse’s speed is nothing to mine.”

  “Yes, but that’s when you’re on your own feet.”

  Normally, it was Lawrence who clung to Holo. Similarly, when in business, it was nerve-racking to conduct a trade with someone else’s money.

  Holo snuggled her arms around Lawrence and rested her chin on his shoulder. “Well, I’d best hold on tight, then, hadn’t I? Just as you always do—desperately, trying to keep from crying.”

  “Come on, I don’t cry…”

  “Heh-heh-heh.” The breath from Holo’s snigger tickled Lawrence’s ear.

  He sighed a long-suffering sigh. “I won’t stop even if you do cry.”

  “As though I’d—!” Holo’s words after that were cut off by the sound of the reins smacking against the cart horse’s backside as Lawrence gave them a snap.

  The horse began to run and the two wheels to turn.

  The question of whether Holo had or had not cried would surely be a source of many quarrels to come.

  The road could be summarized with the word bracing.

  A two-wheeled cart was very limited in the amount of cargo it could carry, and it was far less stable than a wagon with four wheels. But in exchange, its speed was a beautiful thing.

  Lawrence did not often use a cart, but it was perfect for the needs of the moment, when he wanted to transport the food while it was still hot. As he sat in the driver’s seat gripping the reins, it felt as though he were controlling the landscape itself as it rushed by.

  Holo had clung to Lawrence nervously at first, but very quickly she became used to the accommodations. By the time they neared the forest, Holo was content to hold on to Lawrence’s shoulders with her hands, standing in the cart bed and letting the air rush over her as she laughed.

  Given the rumors of wild dogs, the other travelers on the road mostly kept their eyes warily downcast, and a few of them had swords drawn and ready. To see a girl laughing so merrily in a two-wheeler, they must’ve felt ridiculous for being so terrified of anything like a dog.

  The faces of the people they passed lit up as they went by, and they would raise their hands and wave. It happened more than a few times that Holo would reach up to return their waves and in the process nearly lose her balance and fall from the wagon. Each time, she would end up having to half strangle Lawrence’s neck to keep her grip, but her snickering made it difficult for Lawrence to feel much alarm.

  Given her lively good cheer, it was no wonder the wolf had been so enraged to spend her day locked up in a room.

  As they went, a howl sounded from within the forest, and everyone on the road froze and looked to the trees
.

  Then Holo howled herself, as though she had been waiting for that moment, and everyone turned and looked at her in shock.

  They seemed to realize the extent of their own cowardice, and as though to admit the rightness of the girl’s courage in the cart, they all howled with her.

  Lawrence and Holo arrived in the village of Le Houaix after a trip that could never have been so enjoyable taken alone.

  The throng of people assembled there all gazed in curiosity at this cart, which contained not waterwheel parts but casks, a blanket-wrapped cauldron, and atop all those, a girl. Lawrence stopped their vehicle amid the gazes, then helped Holo to the ground. She seemed so pleased he would’ve been unsurprised to hear the swish-swish of her tail wagging. He left her in charge of setting up while he went off to find and negotiate with the manager of the village. He finished by pressing several silver coins into the man’s hand, and in exchange, he received permission to sell food in the village since the workers were so busy with work they did not even have time to fetch water from the river.

  No sooner had Lawrence and Holo begun to sell slices of meat sandwiched between bread than people started to crowd around—not just merchants who had failed to bring food, fearful of what might emerge from the forest to take it, but also ordinary villagers.

  “Hey, you there! Don’t crowd! Line up properly!”

  They were slicing the already thinly sliced meat in two, then selling it between pieces of bread. That was all, but they were still too busy for any amount of politeness. The cause of this was the wine they had brought, thinking they would be able to sell it at a fine price. Portioning it out took extra time and effort—more than twice as much. Lawrence had done this sort of thing once or twice before but had totally forgotten about that little fact.

  They’d managed to sell about half of what they had brought when a man who looked to be a carpenter approached them from behind. “My comrades have been toiling away on empty stomachs,” he said.

  Holo was originally a wolf-god of wheat and was thus always sensitive to manners of food. She looked at Lawrence, wordlessly insisting that they assist.