Spring Log IV

by Isuna Hasekura

  “Mm. The sheep and pigs and chickens there must have gotten plump over the summer, no? And that fool Millike must be around as well. I like it because there are always sweets.”

  Millike was another animal avatar who had a centuries-long life span like Holo. He was also a man of influence in Svernel.

  While the two of them always looked like they did not get along, they were surprisingly good friends.

  The last time Holo and Lawrence visited him, they were served sweets that were sugared purple flower petals.

  “…We’d be farther from the sea if we went to Svernel,” Lawrence replied, his eyes dropping to the map, and he suddenly felt a gaze boring into his cheek.

  “We are not in a hurry.”

  “Well, yeah, that’s true…,” Lawrence said, looking at the cheerful Holo with a cool gaze. “Don’t tell me you acted so admirably just now all to convince me to take a detour to Svernel…”

  “Wh—?”

  Holo’s wolf ears stood up straight and she widened her eyes, at a loss for words.

  “I…I was simply thinking of you…”

  Her ears drooped, her shoulders sagged, and her tail slumped; her entire body seemed to deflate.

  Her slender frame made things worse—she looked so pitiful, but it wasn’t as if Lawrence had lived with her for over a decade with nothing to show for it.

  “Honeyed peaches.”

  “…”

  Holo’s wolf ears perked up even though she clearly didn’t intend for them to do so.

  Lawrence regarded her with narrowed eyes, and she opened hers again to glare back.

  “Is that all you think of me?!”

  He would never doubt the depth of Holo’s concern for him, but ulterior motives were ulterior motives.

  “We just started our trip. If we indulge in luxuries from the get-go, we won’t have any money left for the rest of it.”

  “You fool! Are you not supposed to be selling the cargo behind us in the first place?! A town filled with lots of people will be a good opportunity for you!”

  Holo was referring to the great number of sacks piled on the cart bed. Inside was sulfur powder, sourced from the Nyohhira hot springs, given to them by the other bathhouse owners when they found out the couple was going on a trip, so it could be sold along the way.

  It had been over ten years since Lawrence first opened his bathhouse in the village, but since he was still considered the newcomer, he didn’t hold a very influential position. When his seniors asked him to do something, he couldn’t refuse.

  Lawrence would have to sell all the cargo while he and Holo were on the road, but sheer quantity made that difficult.

  “The Nyohhira bathhouses order everything from Svernel. The market there is fully stocked with the sulfur from the baths, so we won’t have much luck selling there.”

  “Grrr…”

  “Let’s head west and follow the river down to a port town called Atiph. The catches should’ve all been unloaded by this time of year, so the town should be overflowing with fish. They’re all fatty and really good.”

  “Fish do not fill me up…Ooh…stuffed chicken…roasted pig…beef shoulder…”

  Holo groaned in a faint voice like a maidservant who never received enough food.

  Just a moment earlier, she had been stuffing her face full of roasted chestnuts—Lawrence could feel only exasperation.

  Well, perhaps she simply craved something savory after feasting on the sweet chestnuts.

  “You say that, but I can easily see you asking for seconds of those fish dishes in Atiph.”

  Deep in the mountains of Nyohhira, river fish aside, most of the fare that crossed their tables was cured. Most seafood consisted of herring, though cod and flounder sometimes made an appearance. It was typically not the kind of food most people wanted to eat every day.

  But fresh fish that couldn’t be had anywhere but seaside towns could be boiled or fried.

  “And if the point is to find a place where we can trade, then you should know that Atiph probably has fresh wine.”

  Holo’s ears perked.

  “They might have dried grapes or, if we’re lucky, fresh ones.”

  Grapes could be found only in places that were relatively warm, so it was normally uncommon to find them fresh in this region.

  Holo turned away in a huff with no intention of listening to Lawrence, but she swallowed.

  “Well?”

  She stayed quiet.

  There was only the clip, clop of the horse’s hooves and the rattling of the cart.

  Above them on the road that cut through the forest, several little birds flew by, singing.

  When Lawrence peered up at the sky and squinted, appreciating the fine season, he felt a headbutt on his shoulder.

  “…You fool,” a sulking Holo said curtly. She had apparently given up.

  Seeing Holo acting so childishly, Lawrence found himself smiling wryly. But some of that sentiment was also directed toward himself.

  He had fought his share of battles with Holo’s appetite in the bathhouse, of course. However, that duty generally fell to their worker Hanna, who was in charge of the kitchen, so this was the first time in a while that Lawrence got to do this head-on; it not only brought back memories, but it was also rather fun.

  They had always been like this when he was traveling as a merchant.

  A smile broke out on his face because he so adored these conversations of theirs.

  “It finally feels like we’re on a journey.”

  His manner of speech sounded so different that Holo’s ears and tail stood on end.

  Not long after, Holo begrudgingly stared up at Lawrence.

  “Then—”

  “Well, making my heart flutter still won’t loosen my purse strings.”

  When he said that, Holo responded with a dejected look.

  “Hmph. ’Twould be much too pitiful to be swindled out of it all right from the start.”

  “You say that all the time.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “What about it?”

  As they talked, the cart rolled lazily down the road.

  In the end, they both stared at each other and burst out laughing.

  There was a river that flowed through the mountain hot spring village of Nyohhira, so visitors often came and went by boat when they were in a hurry or when the snowdrifts swelled.

  But when it came to loading a horse and cart on board, it became necessary to rent a ship with enough space to accommodate them, and a single crewman wouldn’t cut it.

  After reviewing their budget and other considerations, Lawrence and Holo had finally departed on their journey atop their cart, and even after the sky started to display the colors of evening, they were still on the road. They strung a tarp between two trees, and at the small firepit they had shaped with rows of stones, Holo sat hugging her knees, pouting.

  “…Camping straightaway…”

  They had thought it might be possible to reach an inn at the nearest checkpoint if they tried their best, but it had been so long since they last took a cart along a mountain road, and they went slower than they had hoped.

  “A soft bed…a thick blanket…a warm bath…plenty of meat and wine…”

  Holo murmured, as though believing that if she closed her eyes and prayed, what she wanted most would surely appear right before her, but Lawrence ignored her pleas and handed her a dark piece of bread that was half-wheat and half-rye.

  “Come on—we got this bread baked for us. It has some rye mixed in. Doesn’t it remind you of the good old days?”

  On their previous peddling journey, Holo and Lawrence had rarely ever gotten to eat white wheat bread. They often dejectedly dunked wood-hard black loaves of rye in ale to soften them as much as they could.

  Holo, now entirely used to the idle life of their bathhouse, regarded Lawrence’s cheerfulness with absolute disbelief.

  “Why not just have regular wheat bread…?”

&n
bsp; “Pure wheat bread goes bad fast. It might be fine in the dead of winter, but some days are still warm this time of year, and that will be especially true once we get off the mountain.”

  Lawrence placed a small iron pot onto the firepit as he spoke, cutting thin slices of cured meat and putting them in.

  Holo finally sighed, giving in as she started munching on her bread now that she had confirmed the presence of meat.

  “Cut thicker slices.”

  “Frugality, frugality.”

  Holo glared at Lawrence with teary eyes as he quickly put away the hunk of cured meat.

  “If we have any spare change left over, we’ll treat ourselves on the way back.”

  When he offered Holo his merchant’s smile, the centuries-old, self-proclaimed wisewolf pouted and frowned like a little girl.

  “You fool…Come now—fry the meat. This dark bread is so bitter and sour, I cannot stand it without meat.”

  “Yeah, just wait a second…Hoo, ho…Hmm?”

  Lawrence was hunched over, striking the flint together, but the tinder of plant buds didn’t react at all.

  “It is dry, right…? Here we go…”

  He clacked the stones together again, but they weren’t making sparks very well. He never kindled the fires himself at the bathhouse, so he was entirely out of practice.

  After a short struggle, Lawrence’s hands and hunched back started to ache, so he stretched out with a groan. That was when he noticed Holo’s cool stare.

  “…Just…just a little more.”

  “I hope so,” Holo said with a sigh, and Lawrence started striking the flint together again, refusing to give up.

  He then heard three very deliberate-sounding yawns from Holo, but the fire still would not light.

  “…I should’ve practiced before we left…”

  “I worry for the future.”

  He looked reproachfully at Holo as she muttered, but she turned away.

  “Mrgh…”

  As he stayed crouched, striking the flints together, all sorts of spots on his body began to hurt. His joints were clearly stiffer than they used to be.

  He was amazed, finally understanding what it meant to get older, and came back to his senses when Holo remarked, “Honestly,” with a sigh. “If anger could start fires, then all I would have to do is tease you.”

  Holo obviously had no intentions of blaming him anymore, and her attitude invited Lawrence to give an indignant response.

  “No, if that was the case, then things would be faster if I invited a passing shepherdess to eat with us.”

  “Oh, and what does that mean?”

  “The Great Wisewolf should know what that means right away.”

  Lawrence and Holo glared at each other and then sighed at the same time.

  “’Tis fine, since we are not in the cold of winter yet, but…hard, dark bread and raw cured meat horrify me. Shall I make a quick run back to the bathhouse to retrieve some live coals for today?”

  Holo’s true form was a massive, towering wolf; it would be easy for her to cross three mountains in a single night.

  “No…Let’s leave that as our last resort…I appreciate the offer, though.”

  “Hmm? Very well, then. I know you have your pride as a boy.”

  Holo teased him, but he no longer believed that he would be able to kindle a satisfying fire.

  “Considering how this is going, I feel like Myuri would be able to thrive outside the village much better than we can…”

  Lawrence was truly upset at how pitiful he felt, and Holo, who was fundamentally a kind person, offered a troubled smile.

  “True. She manages to hunt in the mountains in her human form, after all. Even I cannot do such a thing.”

  While she could display her power as a wolf in all sorts of important ways, Holo was generally the little girl she appeared to be when in her human form.

  On the other hand, though Myuri had the same physique as Holo, she could nimbly run through the mountains like an animal even while in human form. And above all, the most surprising things were her technical ability and intelligence. She could create traps to ensnare game, butcher her catch, tan the hide, dry the meat; then once she kindled a fire using her drilling technique, relying on her slender arms and untiring strength, she could string a bow with an animal’s tendon as she waited for the meat to cook.

  She could flourish on her own in the mountains if they sent her out there.

  “Mm, indeed. That little fool did try it once before, no?”

  “Hmm?”

  Holo stood as though recalling something, leaving the canopy to approach the cart.

  As Lawrence wondered what she was doing, she pulled out a bag from the luggage piled on the cart bed.

  “See, she once heard that the yellow powder could be used as kindling and made such a commotion when she tried it in the hearth, remember?”

  “Right.”

  Lawrence instantly remembered and smiled wryly.

  When he recalled that moment, he could actually detect the bitter taste filling his mouth again.

  “She learned that from Mr. Luward, didn’t she? A way to start a fire quickly.”

  “Why not give it a go? I’m sure ’twould not be a problem if it smells foul…Well, I shall still separate myself,” Holo said as she placed the bag before him. It was stuffed with the sulfur powder harvested from the baths.

  “I’ve heard that a pure hunk of sulfur is better for kindling, but…Well, I’ll give it a shot.”

  He suspected that his trouble was because of his failure to use the flint effectively in the first place, but Holo wasn’t alone in rejecting the idea of camping outside without a fire. Lawrence decided to try everything he could, so he scattered the sulfur onto the tinder and even rubbed some on the dried grasses and twigs.

  He then crouched down and struck the flint together…and a bright-red flame suddenly burst from the cottony tinder.

  “Ooh!”

  Even though it wouldn’t have been such an event way back when, Lawrence could not help voicing his delight. The sulfur probably had very little to do with it; he was sure he had recovered his strength after a bit of a rest.

  Either way, he didn’t plan on letting the embers go to waste, so he covered them with his hand, breathed on them, and once smoke started to rise, he transferred the flame to the dried grass. It grew larger in an instant.

  Why, it’s easy after all.

  Lawrence got up with a radiant look, and just as he was about to say those exact words to Holo, he realized she was gone. He looked around the area and found her hiding behind a distant tree, only her face showing.

  “You don’t have to be so…”

  It happened just as Lawrence started laughing.

  He then heard a sputtering noise as though something was burning. He turned around and saw thick smoke rising from the fire.

  Immediately afterward, he covered his face once he noticed the offensive stench.

  It was metallic, like charred iron—the smell of sulfur. The discomfort didn’t stop at his nose—it left a bitter taste in his mouth and brought tears to his eyes.

  “…!”

  The odor was repulsive enough in his memory, but facing it in reality proved it smelled much worse than he remembered.

  When Myuri had thrown the powder into the hearth without thinking, Lawrence could detect the nasty tang throughout the house for nearly a week afterward, and Holo had been sniffing it for nearly a month.

  Not even Lawrence could bear the smoke anymore, so he ran toward Holo.

  “You fool! Don’t come this way!”

  Holo genuinely rejected him, as though the day they exchanged vows of love to stay together until death had never happened. Though Lawrence was slightly hurt, he stopped in his tracks because he saw Holo was holding bread.

  He did not want to eat his dinner by that hellish fire, either.

  He held his breath and returned to the fire, collecting his bread and the small cask full o
f ale before rushing to Holo.

  Holo seemed grumpy as her nose wrinkled at his approach, but when Lawrence handed her the cask of ale, she reluctantly allowed him to sit next to her.

  But she still gave Lawrence a displeased sniff and scrunched up her face.

  “You shall be sleeping on your own tonight.”

  Lawrence glared at her—Who was it again who suggested we use the powder?—but Holo wrapped her arms around her prized tail as though protecting it. She probably could not stand the thought of her fluffy tail smelling bad, especially considering how she painstakingly took care of it with rose oil.

  Though true winter was still a while away, the mountain nights were cold. Having Holo’s fluffy tail and her childlike high body temperature made a big difference.

  But that said, if he forced her to sleep together, she might actually grow angry with him.

  Lawrence sighed, stared at the smoke billowing from the fire, and then sighed again.

  Seeing how the first day of their trip had turned out made him worry about what was to come.

  The next morning, Lawrence awoke with a sneeze, only to find Holo already sitting on the driver’s perch.

  She was concentrating on writing something, probably her diary; she had not been able to write the night before because she refused to get close to the fire.

  It frightened him slightly to imagine what sort of curses and complaints she was writing about him.

  Whether it was because the sulfur powder had completely burned away or because his nose simply got used to the smell, he had managed to fall asleep by the fire the night before when it stopped smelling too terrible. Now, in the white ashes, the charcoal was glowing red.

  “Is the smell gone?”

  When Lawrence asked, Holo gave a big sigh. It was not terribly cold, but the air was damp, so her white breath danced in the morning sun.

  “Somehow. Honestly, ’twould be very effective if you sold that as wolf repellent.”

  “…I’ll think about it.”

  Holo had meant it as a joke, so she flinched in response to Lawrence’s sincere reply.

  “I guess we’ll have breakfast for now…We couldn’t eat anything warm last night.”

  “You ate the meat from the pot, no?”

  Lawrence shrugged as he added more fuel to the ash.