“I did the best work, and I was the bravest.”
Myuri puffed out her chest in pride, but when Col thought about how she would soon be of marriageable age, he wished she would be a bit more ladylike.
“Hurry and finish eating.”
“What? But you always get mad when I eat fast.”
She pouted.
“…That is because you would always have meat in one hand and bread in the other like a bandit, stuffing it into your face all at once, then going to play in the mountains.”
It was written all over her face how much of a pain she thought his remarks were as she scraped the bottom of the bowl with her bread and tossed it in her mouth.
“But you have nothing better to do, right? All the commotion in town’s died down.”
That commotion was exactly what had caused him to collapse from exhaustion and the reason why they had come to the port town of Atiph in the first place. The issue was the standoff between the Church that headed the world’s grandest religion and the Kingdom of Winfiel that stood against it.
The Church, holding the same seat of authority for a thousand years, had forgotten the meaning of faith and instead wielded its power to satisfy personal desires. Needless to say, the clergy indulged in debauchery and other transgressions. They extracted taxes at every opportunity and exploited their privileges. Lately, they had been drawing the ire of the entire world due to their tithes, originally levied to pay for a holy war against the pagans, which were still being pried out of the people’s hands even though that war ended.
Thus, the Kingdom of Winfiel finally stood up to the Church’s tyranny, spurring Col to leave the rural mountain hot spring village of Nyohhira to become a collaborator in the kingdom’s efforts.
Then he and Myuri got caught up in a big incident right as they were attempting to persuade the church of the port town Atiph, but somehow, it all managed to end up being okay.
“I do have better things to do. After this, I must go to the church and help Heir Hyland.”
Hyland, an illegitimate child of the king of Winfiel, was a respectable noble of royal blood who had directly asked Col for help. She had a virtuous will and, despite the overwhelming odds in the aforementioned incident, had calmly put her own life at risk for the sake of her faith.
If everything Col had learned deep in the mountains could be of some help, he wished to use it in service of a person like her—someone who embodied his ideals.
“Aw, what?”
However, when Myuri heard Hyland’s name, she made a clear frown.
“You don’t have to go…That blondie said so herself. You should concentrate on getting better. So after this, we should take a walk in town or even rest in the room.”
She called Hyland “that blondie.”
He wondered why she disliked her so much. Perhaps it was because Hyland was a beautiful woman who dressed as a man.
It vexed him, but it seemed that his respect and vassal-like attitude toward Hyland looked quite similar to love for Myuri.
“I have spent an entire week in bed. And there is a mountain of things that need to be done in order to correct the wrongdoings of the Church.”
“Hmph.” Myuri snorted, uninterested, as she splayed her upper body on the table.
“Of course, if you decide to quit this troublesome journey and return to Nyohhira, I will allow you to do so.”
Still bent over, she lifted her head and glared at Col for his comment.
During the whole commotion, Myuri had supported him both physically and mentally. It was clear that without all her help, things would have gone very differently for him, so it was necessary to recognize her outstanding strength and wit. That was why, if he sent her home without hearing what she had to say, he felt as though he would be the one at a disadvantage.
Even though it was typically unthinkable that such a young girl would go on a journey, she made her way in the world much better than he did, so he could do nothing to convince her.
Myuri, currently staring at him, was more than clever enough to grasp all this.
“Fine, fine.” She said as though she had given up, and she looked up at him from the corner of her eye, anticipating what he would say next.
“Then go and put your dishes away. Or would you rather stay behind in the room by yourself?”
“No.”
“Then please clean up.”
“Fine.”
As though with great effort, Myuri did as she was told and went to the kitchen to return her tableware.
Before long, she returned with a piece of dried meat in her mouth.
Col could not summon the will to remind her that girls should not stand and eat.
“The church, then?”
“Yes. Oh, before that, we should go say hello to Mr. Stefan. I haven’t been able to see him since becoming bedridden.”
Stefan was a part of the Debau Company, which had branches all over the northlands. He was responsible for business conducted at the Debau Company’s trading house in the port town of Atiph, where Col and Myuri were borrowing a room.
But when he said that, Myuri was astonished, and it was not as a joke.
“You probably shouldn’t, Brother.”
“What?”
“Did you forget you mercilessly threatened him during all the uproar? Beardy was really afraid of us…of you, really.”
“…”
It was true that during the crisis, Col had needed to persuade Stefan to cooperate with them in order to save Hyland. Their plan involved convincing him of a massive misunderstanding. To put it simply, they made it appear as though they were truly instruments of God.
Though they had been captured, the fact they escaped so easily must have seemed like the work of God anyway. On top of that, when Stefan saw Col free from his prison, a silver wolf stood at his side, potentially a proxy for carrying out God’s punishments on earth. From an outsider’s perspective, it should have been easy to see there was something supernatural at play.
Of course, if anyone were likely to anger God, it would actually be that wolf herself—Myuri.
“You probably shouldn’t deal too much with him, so he can relax a bit.” She smiled dryly before adding, “I feel kind of bad for him.” There was a particular look on her face that she only showed when she knew one of her pranks had gone too far.
“W-was it that terrible?”
In response, she shrugged like a little girl who couldn’t help but want to seem like an adult.
“…Very well, then.”
“It’s fine, I think.”
Col had no wish to hurt others.
“Then, let’s head to the church for now.”
Myuri nodded, munching on her dried meat.
In larger towns, it was a typical sight to see the retired elderly remain in the church once morning prayer ended. With this in mind, Col was bewildered when he found an entire crowd after opening the door.
“Line up, line up please! We ask that you take any requests not related to the church to the council!”
A young man, perhaps a deacon, literally stood out from the rest of the crowd, perhaps because he had climbed atop a crate or something, and was yelling as loudly as he could in the hallway. Much like the hallway, beyond the crowd Col could also see that the nave was overflowing with people. From the clothes of the people packed inside, he discerned a diverse group of merchants, artisans, farmers, shepherds, and even some who, for whatever reason, held up flagstaffs bearing association crests.
“Haven’t we seen a scene just like this one, Brother?” Myuri asked as she tilted her head a bit, but he did not know.
As he was in complete shock at the sight of what seemed like the church holding a festival, someone bumped into him from behind.
He turned around, and there was a stout man who looked like a merchant.
“Oh, pardon me! …Mm? Oh, a man of the Church! Perfect. I wanted to ask where we might be able to discuss the wine tax.”
“Huh?”
“I’ve heard there’ve been reforms enacted by the archbishop, so we from the Brotherhood of Taverns and Inns from Schulaze Parish Alley wish to request he reconsider the contributions for ceremonial wine, you see.”
The man seemed sad, and he lowered his head, placing a hand on his large stomach.
“Ah…”
“As you know, on top of the tax we already have to pay when we import wine, oftentimes we can’t get any because the ships don’t come in. So to bring a contribution of wine whenever we come to pray is too much…Oh, here are pastries baked by the girls from our parish and candles. Please accept these.”
As though the man thought he had spoken too one-sidedly, he joyfully produced a package and pushed it onto Col.
Because Col was dressed like a priest, it seemed this petitioner had completely mistaken him for a member of the Church.
It seemed that the entire building was overflowing with people like this.
“O-oh, I’m sorry, I am not a member of the Church. I’m a traveler…”
“Oh? Ah, is that right? Then how about it? Why don’t you come stay at an inn in the Schulaze Parish Alley while you’re in town? We have great food and comfortable beds ready for you. And of course, if you happen to see the archbishop, please tell him of our integrity and piety and to reconsider the tax on wine—Wh-what? Hey!”
At this rate, they would be talked into staying at some inn by this pushy merchant. Col took Myuri’s hand, who had stood beside him grinning for some reason, then apologized while pushing his way through the crowd to head farther into the church. It seemed that the aftermath of the recent tumult that consumed the town just a few days before had morphed into something bigger, throwing the people into even more disarray.
To put it simply, though the townspeople had stood up and denounced the evil practices of the Church, it seemed too rash to assume that everything would be all squared away once they won over the archbishop. Along with the city council, which managed the government of the town, the church was a place with a large influence on the town’s administration. All the inhabitants followed the Church’s decisions, which meant collecting taxes on a great many things. Any time the archbishop changed his mind and wished to enact a new policy, he could not avoid dealing with many people. And if the townspeople thought a change could be for their benefit, they would rush over to his side, asking to be included.
As one of the people partly responsible for this trouble, Col cringed in regret and horror.
However, what he was working toward was not a small adjustment in a northern port town.
It was to right all the wrongs that the Church had accumulated over a thousand years. If that came to pass, it would surely cause chaos ten or a thousand times bigger.
This was no time to be horror-struck by such trivial matters.
“…Oh God, please give me strength.” Col murmured under his breath, encouraging himself.
Hyland was likely at the center of the commotion, and he concluded that she was probably in the meeting room. The flow of people seemed to be vaguely heading in that direction. He and Myuri shuffled through the crowd until they could finally see the entrance of the meeting room.
The large doors to the room had been left open. A maidservant emerged from the crowd inside, carrying an armful of parchment. Though her head and face were wrapped in cloth, perhaps out of respect for the Church, the long hair that spilled out from beneath the veil gave her an image of exhaustion. Her eyes were cast downward as she made her way meekly through the frenzied throng.
She was a sight to behold; her height pairing well with her brilliant, albeit frazzled, blonde hair.
But Col could not stare for too long lest he be rude, so he immediately looked away. Then, he suddenly remembered that Myuri was beside him, which made him grow nervous for some reason.
“What is it, Brother?”
Myuri posed the question while trying her best to avoid being crushed by the crowd. There was a puzzled expression on her face, denoting that the short Myuri had yet to catch a glimpse of the maidservant.
“Oh…It’s nothing.”
A few moments after he responded, he looked back to the maidservant, like being drawn in by a fishhook.
He opened his mouth but unwittingly closed it, because the maidservant had noticed him as well, and she softly placed a finger to her lips. Then, with a surprisingly clean-looking finger for a working girl, she pointed farther inside the church before walking off briskly without waiting for his response.
Dumbstruck, he had no other choice but to follow her. He grabbed Myuri’s hand, and they pried their way through the press of people.
They followed the woman for some time before finally arriving at the stairway that led up to the bell tower, where there was no sign of any others.
“Well.”
The woman threw the parchment she was holding onto some crates that were stacked in the hallway, removed the wrapping on her head, then ran her fingers through her hair to fix it. It was strange, since as she did so, she looked like upstanding nobility from the shoulders up.
And for some reason, she also looked like a beautiful widow.
“What a surprise, Heir Hyland.”
He called her name, and Hyland, who was a true noble, the blood of the king of Winfiel in her veins, displayed a hint of fatigue behind her smile.
“I wouldn’t have been able to leave that room if I didn’t do this. The townspeople swarm me when I try to get back to the trading house, even late at night, so I’m staying here. That being said, I’m glad I can’t be recognized in this disguise, but it also feels a bit strange.”
At the end of the day, people often judged others simply by their appearance. Col recalled how he had mistakenly assumed Hyland, who had dressed as man for her travels, was male, even though they had quizzed each other on the scripture in the hot springs, so he could not exactly bring himself to laugh.
“Hello there, little miss. How are you doing?”
It seemed Myuri had immediately recognized who it was when she saw her dressed as a maidservant, and her mood instantly grew sour. On the other hand, Hyland was rather happy to elicit that response from her.
“Myuri.”
Of course, Col had to rein in her rude behavior. When he admonished her, she looked away in a huff.
Hyland’s shoulders shook with laughter.
“I guess it’s because I don’t have any candies today. Oh well.”
“I am so sorry…”
“I’m just having fun; it’s like I’ve made a sister much younger than me. Well then, how are you doing?”
“I am much better, thank you.”
He thanked her like a vassal would his lord, and from his side, Myuri shot him a dispassionate glare.
“You should be thanking the little miss here. I’m not the one who took care of you.”
Myuri slapped Col’s back in agreement with Hyland.
“And I should be the one showing you gratitude. You saved my life, as well as the flame of righteous faith.”
He looked up and Hyland was smiling.
Nobility did not easily bow their heads, but her feelings reached him well enough through her smile.
“I didn’t…”
“You’d act like that even if you saved the world.” She chuckled. “Well, no matter. As your superior, I shall simply show my thanks through action. It’s not quite a celebration for your recovery, but why don’t we eat together? I’ve been working since before the sun rose, you know.”
Like Myuri, she pressed a hand on her stomach.
“Can we have meat?” Myuri butted in.
Col wanted to scold her for the audacity of such constantly rude behavior, but Hyland seemed to be truly enjoying it. Besides, he did not have the heart for it. Of course, Myuri was doing it precisely because she knew that Hyland would not get angry with her.
“I don’t mind. I’d like some meat with plenty of salt, too.”
“Yay!”
It would have been pointless to remind her that she had just eaten breakfast.
“Then let’s leave through the back door. Bear with me—I don’t have a covered carriage to take us. And while we’re on the way, I want to tell you about what’s coming next. A lot happened while you were asleep.”
They did not come to this town to enjoy a relaxing vacation.
Col straightened up and nodded, while Hyland dipped her head slightly in turn.
They exited through the back of the church into the street, which was as quiet as the front was loud. Though people seldom passed through here, it did not feel empty or desolate. It would be more appropriate to call it tranquil.
Perhaps the sky was so clear because the air in seaside towns was known for being remarkably dry. And maybe it was because the sounds of housework and a crying baby could be heard from a small window of one of the buildings that lined the street.
The town was undoubtedly filled with the energy of people going about their daily lives.
“For now, everything’s going perfectly.” Hyland spoke as she gracefully lifted the hem of her skirt and stepped across an old, thin dog that lay on the ground, blocking the street.
Col carefully moved to the side of the street and went over its tail instead. When Myuri followed, the old dog respectfully curled its tail out of her way. To the dog, it was not nobility nor a lamb of God who stood at the pinnacle, but a girl with the blood of wolves.
“The town’s archbishop has promised to rethink the rights he had taken for granted as well as the indulgences, opting to live a simple life from now on. Of course, when he says that he means a lifestyle that is not too meager for an archbishop, but it is still an enormous step. Tithes are nothing compared to using the offerings he gains every week, every month, every season from prayer and festivals for his own private use.”
“The moment I entered the church, a person from the brotherhood of one of the town’s parishes came to talk to me about contributions of wine.”
Wolf & Parchment, Volume 2 Page 2
