“And I am with you.”
When she smiled at him, he decided with his gut. He could go anywhere, as long as Holo was by his side.
He cleared his dry throat and placed his hand on the gates to hell.
As long as Holo was with him, he could get through it.
“You are breaking out in quite the sweat.”
“No, I’m all right.”
It was then he wiped the sweat from his brow.
“Once before when you took several head-butts in retaliation to the stomach, were you this scared? You took quite the magnificent tumble, though…,” Holo remarked.
“…Huh?”
Head-butts? Retaliation?
He then heard a snorting noise of air escaping. When he looked to see the source, the president burst into laughter across the table and hurriedly covered his laugh with his hand.
“Not to mention that should it be a bad hit, something may break.”
“Oh, God.”
The president murmured with a serious expression and stirred in his chair.
“But your game, too, will be disorganized, so I don’t think you need to worry about that.”
“Oh? I have heard they are quite the violent ones.”
“That is not something I can say as someone who has asked you to do this. But I can guarantee that it will be exciting. Well…I believe you are prepared to take one or two hits…”
What are they talking about?
As Lawrence sat, baffled, Holo split a piece of bread in two and began to munch on it.
“And say the name. Or perhaps, he will hear the name and tremble with fear.”
“Oh, I see!”
The president stroked his long, white beard and nodded as though he understood.
“Oh, Mr. Lawrence, I know the name is ominous and it seems fraught with danger, but I don’t think it will be that bad.”
He spoke cheerfully to Lawrence, who no longer had the strength to ask any more questions.
“It’s called the Festival of the Dead, but it’s not as gruesome as you imagine. I can’t really explain the way and scope of the festival better than this. If you watch, I’m sure you’ll understand.”
“’Twill be the most exciting. I’ve heard they serve the meat of the butchered game, as well.”
“Exactly. That’s why we do it, actually. The point is to enjoy preparing for the Revitalization Festival of the Patron Saint, which happens after the Festival of the Dead. Too many people that gather in town around this time. The workers at the butchers can’t meet the need for tallow, to make candles with, and the demand for meat we use in the ceremony all by themselves. We needed to do something to address these issues, and that’s how it all started. And everything will get quite complicated after obtaining the political power to monopolize these important preparations.”
“When I heard about it, I was most impressed with how well it was performed. And the rules of the festival are rather nice and clear-cut.”
“Oh, you know? That’s right. Long ago, this area was on the brink of starvation. The unwritten rules were typically something like how those at the top are simply those who had worked the hardest. In other towns with long histories, I’m sure the distinguished people lived in worlds filled with dirty schemes, but our town is different. We decide who sits in the city council by who gets the most game during the festival!”
He tightened his hand into a fist and seemed genuinely excited.
Lawrence did not know much about the festivals in this town. He had only heard that his work was to help out. He faintly recalled Holo asking him on the way here what sort of work he would be doing. She loved lively events and had undoubtedly asked one of their guests at the bathhouse about every little detail so she was probably well informed.
“Up until now, I, though unworthy, have held the stick, but I can’t win against old age…Having said that, the only ones who can participate in the festival are the ones who have a connection to this land. All the notable young people have already been reserved. That is why at this rate, we’ll lose to the other associations who’ve brought in mercenaries with permits, appearing suddenly like shooting stars. Please consider treating this year as an exception, and accept this job!”
Lawrence, his eyes drained of energy, asked in response:
“And what is it exactly?”
The president spoke.
“To capture sheep and pigs. We will handle the disposal. Yours is the most dangerous job, but please!”
He placed his hands on the table and bowed his head. The ones intruding in on the lumber and meat associations were mercenaries from the south. They were no doubt physically strong.
Lawrence gazed off, staring at the texture of the wooden ceiling, and nodded.
“I accept.”
“Ohh! You have my thanks!”
The president looked up, then took Lawrence’s hand and shook it vigorously. He would leave things as they were, but Lawrence had been thinking of something else entirely up until now.
He had to somehow hide the foolish misunderstanding.
But the sharp-sighted, mischievous Holo was not one to simply allow his odd behavior a pass. When they returned to the room after eating, she immediately bit into him. He did not try to resist. Like a pet pig that appeared timidly before his hatchet-wielding master, he confessed with blank eyes.
No poet alive could describe how much Holo had rolled about in laughter.
Starting the day after, Lawrence set out inside town with a wooden mallet in hand. It was not something meant for just a bit of timberwork. Including the handle, it was about the same size as Holo. This was a tool meant for hammering in the railing that kept the round fence in the town square together for the Festival of the Dead.
It was simple but backbreaking work, so it was apparently divided between the town’s craftsmen associations. So it was obvious with one look at the square which association was working properly. Among them, the money changers’ association was not making much progress by any standard. They were quite busy and elderly men who sat down for work every day, so they all had bad backs. That was why every year, they relied on representatives from Nyohhira to do it for them.
Lawrence borrowed just one boy from the association and got to work. Propping up a stake the size of his thigh, there was no way he would be able to hammer it in alone. Though Holo would probably be able to hold it up, she refused. Likely because no matter how carefully she held the stake, she would end up covered in mud.
So in the end, as Lawrence spent the day hammering away, Holo stayed in their room at the association building, preening herself in luxury.
“…I really think I need to have a talk with you about what the word cooperation means.”
“There is work that is suitable for a weakling like me.”
Holo assured her husband as she elegantly blew on the white hairs at the tip of her tail.
Lawrence did not have the energy to get mad at her and washed himself in the bath the association had prepared for him.
Tired, he sat on the bed and began to dry his hair, but Holo took the handkerchief instead and dried it for him.
“Don’t think that this is me forgiving you,” Lawrence reminded her, and she spitefully rubbed his face, too.
“More importantly, have you spotted the fools who are trying to intrude on our territory?”
When she was mostly finished wiping his hair, she gave a little smack with the handkerchief on Lawrence’s head.
“No, I asked around, too, but apparently, they already finished with their work and are gone. For now they’ve left town, and they are probably digging holes for the baths.”
The members of other associations were surprised at how fast those newcomers worked. When Lawrence himself examined the stakes they had hammered, he shuddered. It was set in deep and perfectly straight and did not budge in the slightest. Would he be able to beat them at hunting pigs and sheep? He was beginning to have honest doubts.
“W
ell, ’twill turn out all right.”
When Lawrence told her his thoughts during the day, Holo would not seriously listen to him. She put her cheek to his back, wrapped her arms around his waist, and wagged her tail. She was likely so obviously wanting attention because her usual conversation partner Hanna was not here, and she had spent the entire day alone in the room.
Usually, he would be pleased, but now his mind was filled with other things.
“I can’t be as relaxed as you right now.”
If they did not do well, then the money changers’ association would lose seats in the city council, and they would lose their right to dictate the flow of goods in town. If they lost their standing, then they would no longer be able to give Nyohhira special treatment. Should that happen, Nyohhira’s supply procurement would be suddenly hindered…Which might not happen, but it would not be a good thing for the village regardless.
If it came to that, he did not know how he would be able to face the rest of the villagers when they returned home.
“But worrying will not grow muscle in your arms. Still, I doubt you could refuse, then. Even if…’twere assassination?”
Holo said it herself and then laughed. She would be playing with that particular foolish misunderstanding for a while.
“That’s…well, true…”
“Then, ’tis decided, aye?”
She released the arms around him and slipped in front of him.
“Food?”
“And drink.”
They could not fight on empty stomachs.
Though he had just come back in, the stalls outside would close if they dallied. Mustering up the energy, Lawrence stood up, and Holo held her overcoat.
He was certain that Holo would make him go shopping on his own, but it seemed she was coming with him.
“…You always surprise me with how good you are at pushing and pulling.”
On careful examination, he thought that was something normal, but Holo was amazing to think that, for some reason, he meant it as a compliment.
Putting on a fox muffler, which she never wore because it was a bit much for the village, Holo smiled purposefully.
Then, like a cute young girl, she tilted her head as if she was clueless.
This sort of life continued for several days, and they watched the town prepare for the festival.
Two days after Lawrence first used the wooden mallet, he found himself plagued in his body and heart by terrible muscle pain, and he did his best to continue helping as much as he could. While, of course, there was the construction of the round fence for catching pigs and sheep in the Festival of the Dead, he was also running about to help make the giant straw statue for the Revitalization Festival of the Patron Saint, which came afterward. He quite literally dashed to the different districts of Svernel, collecting the straw as he pulled his cart along.
Every town had a similar kind of festival because there was all sorts of trash, such as damaged straw beddings or chair stuffing, after expending things over a long winter. And of course, he would assist pulling out this straw. In addition, he collected stockpiled fodder that had gone bad after rats took up residence inside it as well as packaging material that large companies had long kept.
After he gathered it all, he pushed through the crowd and headed to the square to tie it all together.
Helpers bound the straw together using hemp and leather string that had also outlived its usefulness—their final duty before they were to be discarded. Together with strangers from this town, they combined the straw and held it up, tied the string around it, then passed it to the people who would place it onto the statue’s wooden skeleton. One company had the sense to bring lunch for everyone in the square. Lawrence took his share with mud and straw still coating his hands, ate, and then washed everything down with alcohol to cheer himself up. The livelier ones sang.
He had done these sorts of things when he traveled as a merchant, so it was nostalgic for him as well as fun. When Lawrence returned to their room at the money changers’ association building, his exhaustion was so acute that as he ate with Holo, he began falling asleep.
But it was a very good tired feeling, and Holo happily took care of him.
“Can’t you be at least half this helpful on a normal basis?” he asked, but she made a rather foul expression.
“I am Holo the Wisewolf. I will move when the situation calls for it.”
She seemed to imply that Lawrence should offer her tribute more frequently, though this particular outing had already cut quite deeply into their savings.
And he had another mountain that he really had to climb.
As the pain racking his body subsided, the incredibly tall statue of the patron saint in the town square was finished.
Svernel was an ironic town—just as the war to establish the Church’s teachings in the heathen lands had ended, the southern religion suddenly spread and grew popular. Most people likely found the Church appealing on an emotional level since before. But because the war had still technically been undertaken, albeit only as a shadow of the conflict it once was, people still minded how their neighbors would react if they converted to the enemy’s religion at the time.
But listening to the stories of the townspeople he was working with, most of the people who converted to the teachings of the Church were not especially moved by them. They did so mostly because they had heard there were many festivals every year if they adhered to the Church’s calendar. If they were to pray to a God that they were not entirely certain existed, then life was more enjoyable.
When he told Holo this, who long ago was offered supplication in return for a good wheat harvest in a village, she reacted with an indescribably bitter smile.
All that being said, the townspeople’s passion for the festival was real. It was plain to see this peculiar enthusiasm at the spring festival, the first day of which coincided with the Festival of the Dead.
“Leave the disposal to us! If you like, we’ll do it with the sharpened edges of bronze coins that have been shaven down too much!”
The president of the money changers’ association howled, holding a large hatchet he had polished just for the occasion today.
The ones accompanying him were all money changers at least a decade or two older than Lawrence. All the younger money changers lay facedown on their desks, asleep after several consecutive days and nights of work. Most of the older money changers’ excitement was likely due to sleep deprivation.
But Lawrence admired what looked like the sturdiness of elders that had seen war’s hardships, and the president grinned.
“We don’t have many years left in us. We will work as hard as we can, knowing we won’t be able to come to the festival after a few more years.”
There was a saying—“live today as though tomorrow is your last.” He looked at them the way Holo peered into something flashing and radiant. He knew that due to Holo’s longevity, everything passed before her eyes in an instant. When they all left the association building like an old bandit gang, with the president in front and everyone with their own hatchet in hand, Lawrence spoke to Holo.
“I don’t have much longer to live from your perspective, do I?”
Holo opened her eyes, and her expression hardened.
“I’ll work as hard as physically possible. So try to smile as much as you can for me?”
Not for a routine where yesterday and today blended together, but for a special day that they could look back on and talk about fondly, where this happened and that happened.
Once he thought about it, Holo probably had her own reasons for suddenly leaving Nyohhira and accompanying him on this errand. Even in that ever-unchanging mountain village, Col left and Myuri followed after him. She might have sensed the approaching feeling of what would come next more strongly than Lawrence had.
So his honest, foolish misunderstanding that the money changers were asking him to assassinate someone would make a great souvenir for her.
And
so would today’s festival.
“You fool.” Holo smiled as though she would cry and wrapped her hands around her face. “You are my better half. You must shine the brightest at the festival.”
“Of course. The village is counting on me, too.”
The more game he caught at this festival, the higher the association would rise in status.
In the end, Lawrence had no chances to find out what warriors these former mercenaries were before the event.
It would be difficult to win, but he had to stand his ground.
“I am with you.”
“And I’m counting on you.”
Lawrence rubbed her head through the hood-like cloth covering her. Then, when he nodded as a signal to go, she seemed as though she would say something else, but chose not to.
More importantly, the town had never been as congested, so there was no time for idle chatter.
They moved forward, Lawrence practically holding Holo so that her small frame would not be shoved around by the crowd.
When they finally reached the square, he was out of breath and felt hot from being jostled around.
“Well then, let’s do it!”
The money changers, who had arrived just before them, were raising each other’s spirits by striking their hatchets against one another’s, in perhaps what was one of their rituals.
Around the outside of the fence, where he had worked so hard hammering in the posts, people were pushing to get closer. He did not know if the barrier was meant to keep in the roaming livestock or if it was to protect them from the crowd.
Inside the round barricade, there were gatherings on a straw mat that had been placed at a set distance away from the edge. That was where the representatives for each association were stationed. Everyone seemed to have done their best to gather young competitors, and Lawrence could not tell at a glance which group contained the mercenaries.
“They determine the winners by the weight of the meat, so instead of aiming for one big one, you have a better chance with two that are easier to capture.”
The association president explained the rules to Lawrence as he handed him a club.
“You can also take your opponent’s game! If you hit it once, they’ll fall over, right? That’s when people who aren’t veterans wait for a response, and they waste time. Chase after the pigs and sheep with courage, and get them by jumping at them from behind!”