Side Colors III

by Isuna Hasekura

  There was yet meat in the cauldron. Traffic continued to stream into the village, so if he stayed where he was, he would sell out before long.

  Lawrence was a merchant and was happy as long as his wares sold. There seemed to him little point in moving just to accomplish the same task—but then he changed his mind.

  Given the people going back and forth between the village and the trading company, news of the business he and Holo were doing was bound to spread. They would do well to expand their market by selling a bit of food to the craftsmen.

  Lawrence sank into silence as he thought it over but was brought back to his senses by Holo stepping slightly on his foot.

  “Why, aren’t you making a cunning face?” she said.

  “I am a merchant, after all. Right,” said Lawrence. He finished placing a slice of meat between pieces of bread and handing the sandwich to a customer, then put the cauldron’s lid back on top of it and turned to the craftsman. “I’ve enough left for twenty men, say. Will that do?”

  The craftsmen working alongside the river were like ravenous wolves.

  The Ohm Company, which had taken on the construction project thanks to their boundless lust for money, had hired these craftsmen but failed to provide food or lodging for them, so the men had gotten by on nothing but an evening meal provided by the villagers out of pure kindness.

  Moreover, since the work was paid piecemeal and done on a deadline, the workers were reluctant to take the time to go all the way back to the village for a meal. Even once they became aware of Lawrence and Holo’s arrival at the mill, they regarded them with only a brief, sad glare before turning their attention back to their work. The ones working on the wheelhouse’s axles or interior did not even show their faces.

  Lawrence carried the wine cask, and Holo pulled one of the small handcarts the local women used to move heavy loads, which in turn was loaded with the cauldron and bread basket. They shared a glance.

  Evidently they would be peddling the food on foot.

  “What, that all? It won’t be near enough!” So said everyone they sold bread to, but the complaint always came with a smile.

  Apart from those who made their living under a workshop’s roof, any carpenter was happy to brag about the terrible conditions under which he’d worked. So while each and every one of them had to be famished, none demanded a greater share of meat or bread.

  Far from it—they asked Lawrence to give food to as many men as he could manage. It was impossible to build a great water mill alone, and if even one man fell it would be trouble for all, they said. Holo had spent so much time watching the workers in her wheat fields that she seemed to empathize with this.

  But she did not just empathize—she seemed to take great pleasure in bantering with the workers, and Lawrence could hardly fail to notice her ladling out extragenerous servings of wine.

  Of course, he said nothing.

  “Two pieces of bread here, please!” came a shouted call from one of the millhouses that already housed a millstone.

  It was covered in fine powder, but the stuff was not flour—it was sawdust from the wood that they were, even then, in the midst of cutting.

  Holo sneezed several times and decided to wait outside the shack. Perhaps her excellent sense of smell made her that much more sensitive.

  Lawrence sliced off two pieces of bread, then ascended the steeply rising stairs.

  They creaked alarmingly as he went, and there was not much room between his head and the ceiling. The men there were covered in sawdust and were fighting with files and saws to get the axle gearing to properly mesh.

  “I’ve brought the bread!”

  A watermill could be surprisingly loud, and it was—all the more so in the small shack, with the creaking and groaning of the turning axle.

  Yet at Lawrence’s yell, the two men suddenly looked up at him and rushed at him with surprising alacrity.

  Holo laughed at him when Lawrence later told her he was afraid he would be knocked back down the stairs.

  When Lawrence sighed because he wished she would be a little more worried about him, Holo slowly and gently brushed the sawdust from his face and smiled.

  The wheel turned, rising, then falling, then rising again.

  Holo was like a waterwheel, like a mallet, and Lawrence was easily undone by her.

  “Well, I think we’ve about made the rounds.”

  “I’d think so. Dividing the meat and bread in half we managed to get to most everybody.”

  Holo pulled the cart that was carrying the wine cask and cauldron, and on her chest was a wooden pendant, carved in the shape of a hare, that one of the carpenters had given her.

  “I’d like to head straight back to the village, put in another order, and see if we can’t double our business by noon tomorrow.”

  “Mm. Still, how much did we make in the end?”

  “Well, now…wait just a moment…” Lawrence counted the various costs on his fingers, and the figure he arrived at was surprisingly low. “Around four trenni at best, after we change the money.”

  “Only four? But we sold so much!”

  It was true that Lawrence’s coin purse was heavy with coppers, but poor-quality coppers were never going to amount to much, no matter how many you had.

  “I’d feel better pushing prices higher if we were selling to greedy merchants, but the craftsmen aren’t making that much. So that’s how it is.”

  Given that Holo was the one who had suggested selling food to the craftsmen, she could not very well argue with this and pulled her chin in with irritation.

  Of course, doing business that people were so grateful to receive came with benefits other than money. Even when profit margins were slim and the dangers great, Lawrence could rarely resist the trade routes to lonely villages since he could never forget how it felt to bring the villagers what they needed.

  Lawrence put his hand on Holo’s head and patted it a bit roughly. “Still, we’ll bring double the food tomorrow and turn double the profit. If we make arrangements ahead, we’ll be able to sell at night, too, which will double our profit again. We’ll have those honeyed peach preserves before you know it.”

  Holo nodded at Lawrence’s words, and her stomach growled almost in time with her nod.

  Her ears twitched ticklishly under his hand, and Lawrence pulled away. He could not very well pretend not to have heard the growl, so he just gave an honest chuckle.

  Holo made ready to play-punch Lawrence’s arm, but just before she did, Lawrence’s stomach itself growled with fortuitous timing.

  Their constant struggle to keep up with sales of meat and bread had kept their hunger at bay, but now it seemed to have returned with a vengeance. Lawrence met Holo’s eyes. He smiled at her again, and Holo’s angry expression immediately softened.

  Lawrence glanced about their surroundings, then reached for the cart.

  “What is it?” Holo asked.

  “Oh, nothing,” said Lawrence. He removed the cauldron’s lid, pulled out the last slice of meat sticking to the inside, along with a nearly crumbled piece of bread. “I saved this. Thought we could eat it on the way back.”

  Normally Lawrence sold everything that could be sold, and when he was hungry ate anything he could find that seemed edible. He’d never before considered saving a piece of salable product and eating it later.

  Lawrence cut the meat with a greasy knife as Holo’s tail wagged.

  “Still, you.”

  “What?”

  “You seem to have missed the crucial point again.”

  The cheap mutton was full of gristle, so cutting it took some time, but Lawrence finally looked back up at Holo. “The crucial point?”

  “Mm. If you were planning all along to reveal this plan, you should’ve used nicer meat. This meat is merely adequate.”

  Apparently it had been too much to trust Holo to suffer through skipping lunch. Of course, it was very like her to have been watching for openings to secretly sneak bites of meat t
hroughout the day.

  Lawrence sighed. “I hadn’t noticed,” he said with a rueful smile.

  He sliced the bread in two, put meat atop each, and then after a moment of indecision, he gave the larger piece to Holo.

  Her tail was as honest as a puppy’s, and somehow, so was her tongue. “I understand the carpenters’ grumbling all too well now. This isn’t nearly enough.”

  “You’re certainly full of complaints. When I was just starting out, I’d eat buds and fruit seeds just to avoid starvation.”

  Holo bit noisily into the bread and meat, giving Lawrence nothing but an irritated glare, noisily chewing the bite she tore free.

  Lawrence put his knife away, and after taking his own serving of bread and replacing the lids of the basket and cauldron, he returned to pulling the cart.

  “And you’re certainly full of elderly scolding,” said Holo (of all things the things to say!) after she finished swallowing the bite.

  If the centuries-old wisewolf was saying as much, then all was truly lost.

  “It’s only reasonable to want to eat more and tastier food. Just as trees wish to grow up and out.”

  Even rank sophistry like this sounded more or less reasonable when Holo said it, which was patently unfair.

  Though she’d eaten the first half of her food in the first bite, the greedy Holo seemed not to want to finish so quickly and instead contented herself to nibble at what remained.

  Lawrence watched this childish display and could not help asking, “So you were that hungry, eh?”

  If all he had given her were those words, he probably would have gotten an angry glare for his trouble. But her look was more doubtful than angry, since as he spoke, he offered her a new piece of bread.

  “God says to share what you have, after all.”

  Holo looked at him steadily for a moment, then finally popped the rest of her share into her mouth. The bread in Lawrence’s hand disappeared moments later.

  “Mmph…Sometimes even you…mm…manage to act like a proper male.”

  Watching Holo talk as she devoured the sandwich half, perhaps wanting the fresher loaf as quickly as possible, was quite enough to make Lawrence feel full.

  He smiled as he remembered a certain old travelers’ saying about food.

  “Still, is this truly all right?” asked Holo, holding the remaining bread in both hands.

  Something about her posture made Lawrence doubt she would let the bread go in any case, but she had asked, so he had no choice but to answer. Just as he spoke, he realized what he said was connected to what Holo had said two days earlier.

  “Sure, it’s fine.”

  “Mm. Well, in that case…”

  “I’ve already eaten quite enough.”

  Holo’s mouth dropped open, and she froze, only her eyes swiveling to glare at Lawrence.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked, which made Holo’s gaze flick this way and that, disturbed, before settling back on him, harsh.

  “Oh, you’ve already eaten, have you? And here I thought you were being considerate for once…,” she grumbled.

  “Isn’t this the time to put what you said before into action?” Lawrence responded.

  “…Huh? Me? What are you…”

  It was always Holo who was putting riddles to Lawrence. At seeing her confusion, Lawrence had to admit that he understood the appeal. He had always thought it was out of malice or mean-spiritedness, but having gotten a chance to try it himself, he finally saw why she enjoyed it so much. Holo had closed her mouth and looked back and forth between the bread and Lawrence’s face, confused.

  The only thing that would have made this better would have been a bit of wine, but the water he’d have drunk to clear his head afterward would have probably been poisoned.

  Lawrence decided the timing was right, and quoted the old travelers’ maxim:

  “For tasty food, double the money. To be full, double the amount. So what do you do to double the pleasure of a meal?” Lawrence remembered the riddle Holo had posed to him while she had gazed at the whole roast pig. He smiled and continued, “You add a companion to dine with. Just watching you enjoy the bread is satisfaction enough for me.”

  He smiled, and Holo looked down, probably more than a little abashed. Of course Lawrence had not intended to attack her, and he truly was content to watch her relish the bread so.

  So instead of telling her to eat up and not worry, he teasingly patted her head.

  Holo brushed his hand away and held hers out instead. “Do you suppose I could eat the whole loaf after hearing such a thing?” In her hand was a torn-off piece of the bread.

  It was not precisely divided, but rather hastily torn in Holo’s earnest effort to compromise—which was somehow very like her.

  If she really wanted to eat the whole loaf of bread, he did not much mind, but still—!

  Lawrence was about to say so, but Holo picked that moment to tease him. “’Twould be an annoyance indeed, to let you have all the fun of indulging.”

  Lawrence had been ready to reassure Holo that she need not worry about eating all the bread, but now she had done the same thing to him.

  “Or do you only care about yourself?”

  She was a wisewolf and not only in name.

  If he turned her down, it would be proof of his selfishness.

  Lawrence gratefully accepted the piece she had so begrudgingly torn off her loaf and bowed. “My thanks.”

  “Mm.” Holo gave a superior nod, her chest puffed out. She bit into her own bread as though this entire exchange were beneath her dignity.

  Lawrence, too, ate his bread, then brushed his hands free of the crumbs that lingered.

  Holo then grabbed his hand with hers, as though she had been waiting for just that moment.

  He was surprised, but not surprised enough to do anything as stupid as looking at her. He smiled wordlessly and squeezed her hand in response.

  It was a pleasant winter’s afternoon, and the only sound was the rattling of the cart.

  End.

  THE WOLF AND THE TWILIGHT-COLORED GIFT

  The towns and villages one encountered while traveling were places where a brief, precious rest could be had and necessary supplies gathered.

  These were not limited to food and fuel. Components for repairing the wagon and mending clothes were necessary, as well as information on the condition and security of the road ahead.

  The more people were traveling, the more things were required and the more work there was to do.

  This was doubly true when one’s companion was a selfish princess.

  He had come to buy the firewood that was absolutely necessary for keeping warm while making camp on the road, but she merely furrowed her brow.

  “…’Tis your coin. Spend it as you will.”

  Had she ended her sentence with a rising, interrogative tone, Lawrence could have at least enjoyed being charmingly deceived, but her flatly stated remark gave a rather different impression.

  Lawrence found this surprising, but there was no reason to doubt that Holo, his traveling companion, would speak words that were utterly contrary to her true feelings.

  “Does it bother you?”

  “Not particularly,” said Holo shortly, looking away. She had a kerchief over her head and a cape about her shoulders, a fox-fur muffler around her neck, and gloves of deerskin—every inch the town lass. Moreover, from beneath her kerchief and down her back flowed a fall of beautiful chestnut hair that would have been the envy of any noblewoman. She had beauty that caught the eye of nearly every passerby.

  A poet might say that a girl in her teens was at her loveliest, but Lawrence knew the truth of the matter.

  Holo was not a town lass, she was not a girl in her teens, and in point of fact was not even a human. Removing her kerchief would reveal wolf ears and beneath her robe was a magnificent tail.

  She was a being who had lived in the wheat and ensured its good harvest, and long ago people had revered her as a god. Sh
e was centuries old, and her true form was that of a giant wolf.

  She was Holo, the Wisewolf of Yoitsu.

  Holo thrust out her chest and proclaimed both those names at every opportunity, which only made Lawrence sigh. Calling her a wisewolf always made him feel rather small inside.

  “It’s not such a great distance to the next town, and it shouldn’t be too cold. You can manage a couple of days of cold food, can’t you?”

  “I told you, spend it as you will.”

  “…”

  Lawrence and Holo were standing in a shop that sold the fuel travelers needed to provide light and warmth. It was not only travelers, either—all sorts bought the firewood stacked high in front of the shop, as well as the product next to it, which sold as though it would not be outdone.

  It was true, though, that compared with firewood it gave a weaker flame, and there was the smell to consider. Given how much more sensitive Holo’s nose was than a human’s, it was no small burden for her to bear.

  But—it was so cheap.

  Merchants would blind themselves to almost anything if it was cheap enough—yes, and plug their noses, too.

  What was it that Holo found distasteful? And what was so much cheaper than firewood? Peat.

  “So, what’ll it be, sir? I can’t have you loitering around my shop all day.” The shopkeeper laid a hand on his woodpile beneath the eaves and smiled a rueful smile.

  He seemed half-sympathetic to Lawrence’s problem with this finicky traveling companion and half-amused at Lawrence getting what he deserved.

  Lawrence himself had felt that way at various points during his travels alone, so he could hardly blame the man. Traveling with a girl as fetching as Holo often earned him the envy of others. If the envy became too much of a problem, though, Lawrence would not be able to make his way as a merchant, so it would not do to appear self-satisfied—especially not when dealing with a nasty fellow like this, who would obviously take special pleasure in watching Lawrence squirm.

  Faced with the prideful Holo, arms folded and back to him, looking for all the world like some spoiled noble lady, Lawrence had no choice but to set aside the matter of the fuel.