Holo nodded and took a deep breath.
“Mr. Huskins gave me the name of someone who knows the north, and who can draw us a map. And, since he only knows nice people, like a certain wolf I could name, we should be able to trust them.”
Holo responded to his joke with a stony stare, but Cole broke out laughing.
Earlier that morning, Lawrence had made himself clear to Holo: he would be happy to honor his promise to take her home, but he probably couldn’t live up to a promise of incredible heroism, such as foiling Diva’s plans. They were a huge company.. even their mines were huge.
It wasn’t just about money. The plot involving holy relics would be just one small part of their grander plans. Lawrence had just learned all of this from Huskins; he wasn’t saying any of this to point out how small they were in the face of things, but rather because he felt overwhelmed.
One man could only do so much, and traveling merchants weren’t exactly renowned for their strength. But Holo wasn’t blaming him, so he didn’t feel ashamed of any of that. He was still going to do whatever he could, and only offer his best.
“So basically, we should go back to Gerube and meet this person.”
Back to Gerube.. where that mess with the Narwhale just happened. Holo was clearly unhappy to hear that.
“We are going back to that twit who caused so much trouble for you?”
“Keeman? No, not him. Probably just one of Huskins’ friends.”
Hearing that only worsened her mood.
“Yet more sheep..”
“Still better than a shepherd, isn’t it?”
Holo wasn’t exactly nobility, but she could pass as one of blue blood. Yet, her motives and behavior were often capricious and vain, like a child. Even she would admit to that. Her off-hand reply to Lawrence sounded more like a statement.
“What else, if not a shepherd?”
Lawrence’s answer was direct.
“An art dealer.”
* * *
Just as rivers divided territories, channels separated continents and islands. The key difference was that the climate on each side of a channel might differ. In fact, an old joke was that you could write a summer’s letter to a friend across a channel and get back a letter covered in snow.
It was cold in Gerube, but not quite freezing. Yet the view further north on the Roam River would resemble the Winfield Kingdom’s - pure white. The world really was an amazing place.
“So are we heading to the north or south side?”
Holo questioned him with tired eyes from under the blanket. She had joined him with the excuse that it was cold, only to continue drinking under the blanket. He brushed the hair away from her brow and replied.
“South. The crowded side.”
Gerube was divided straight down the middle by the river. The north side was full of the original residents, while the south was full of merchant newcomers and was much more crowded.
“Hm.. then, there will be good food?”
Holo yawned, staring off into space. Perhaps she was already seeing a great feast in those dreamy eyes. It was enough to make Lawrence worry if his purse would make it, so he decided to joke around to avoid the topic.
“I just knew it was a mistake to not take those sheep back with us..”
Huskins, who was a shepherd working for the monastery, had offered to let them have a few of his best sheep to take back with them.
“Well.. as you said, that would have been far too much trouble.”
“I never expected you to accept that argument so easily.”
Sheep were expensive. And Huskins was the Golden Sheep - he surely knew which sheep were be the best. But still, in the end they didn’t accept his offer, for the reason Holo just repeated. He knew she was unhappy that he refused the offer, but she seemed to understand.
“Of course. After all, one sheep is trouble enough..”
Holo, who was lying on their luggage under his arm, smiled up at him mischievously. She didn’t continue her assault, maybe out of kindness, but probably more out of fatigue.
“Can’t you sleep quietly, like Cole?”
Being afraid of fainting, Cole had had a bit to drink and dozed off next to Lawrence.
Holo closed her eyes slowly before replying.
“I do not fear fear, but I do fear the drink. While I need fear nothing when I sleep, to sleep I fear I need to drink.”
A priest’s joke. Priests, of course, were not allowed to drink. Holo wasn’t evil because she knew a lot, but because she used that knowledge in just the right ways and at just the right times.
“I hate paying for food, and now it seems that I’ve been left with only my tears to drink.”
He heard no reply. Perhaps she’d finally been sufficiently bored to nod off. It wasn’t until the boat arrived at Gerube - on time - that he roused Cole and lifted Holo to her feet as well. They were the last to leave the boat.
“Well.. huh.. it has only been a few days, but it feels like much longer. I did not expect to feel that way.”
Those were Holo’s first words upon setting foot on the south side of Gerube. During the Narwhale incident, the city had been divided in two, so perhaps it was simply that vivid a memory.
“Maybe it’s because Winfield looked so different? But you’re right, I feel the same way.”
Cole was helping Lawrence with their luggage, while holding down Holo’s cloak as she stretched so her fluffy tail didn’t make an appearance. He continued talking.
“It’s the first time I’ve returned to a town since I joined you two.”
“Hmm? Oh, that’s right, now that you mention it.”
The streets were still crowded and disheveled, but that only relieved the three of them after having seen the sorry state of the Winfield kingdom. Merchants always preferred markets and towns to be lively.
“..and we’ve been traveling together for a while now, haven’t we?”
“Hmm?”
Holo squinted and looked around, then put her hand behind her back and walked ahead of them.
“Every town has a joke worth laughing at for 50 years!”
He perceived a hint of loneliness in her manner. It wasn’t something he could just dismiss.. he knew he wouldn’t be around anymore if she stopped to laugh at him for 50 years.
“..”
Hearing no response from Lawrence, she stopped and turned to face him.
“Hey, you.. Just treat that as another happy moment in our journey, will you not?”
His eyes had focused on something behind her - eels being fried in oil.
* * *
Having dropped off their luggage, Lawrence then met with Keeman to thank him for writing them the introductory letter that got them to the Brondel monastery. Despite Lawrence only being able to thank him with trivia about the monastery, Keeman seemed to enjoy it nonetheless.
Keeman handed Lawrence another letter. It had been sent to him several days ago, from a famous port in the south that dealt with furs. It went without saying who sent that letter, and indeed it contained but a single sentence: “We made a killing.” If he put his nose to it, he would surely smell the distinct odor of a wolf who wasn’t Holo.
“An art dealer? You mean Athner Company?”
“Yes. I’d like to meet Hugh Athner.”
“Then just hop on down the road outside; it’s on the right. You can’t miss it, their sign’s a big goat’s horn.”
That was sure daring, for someone who knew Huskins’ and his friends, and their true forms. Hearing that brought a smile to Lawrence’s face.
“But hey, why are you going to see Athner?”
Only the upper class would be interested in buying artwork. It wasn’t the kind of place a traveling merchant would care about. Lawrence wondered if Keeman, branch manager of the Rowen Trading Guild in Gerube, was concerned about him: he might be thinking Lawrence had been swept up in another strange incident. Maybe Keeman knew something he didn’t.
But Lawrence had no r
oom for doubts, nor was he here to comfort Keeman.
“I want to see a painter, Fran Bonilly.”
The moment the name Huskins had given him escaped his lips, Keeman reacted with obvious surprise.
“You know her?”
He covered his face with his hand to massage away the surprise, then smiled and spoke again.
“She’s famous. But not for good reasons.”
What did that mean? Lawrence stared blankly for a moment before turning back to Keeman with a look on his face asking him to continue.
“Mainly because of her clientele.”
Keeman’s eyes made it clear that he was concerned about Lawrence, but also that he was concerned about not saying anything negative about Fran Bonilly.
“Everyone lauds her for gaining the appreciation of nobles at her age.. but nobles all have their secrets that they can’t afford to have public. And no ones knows who her master was, so she’s considered mysterious.”
Keeman’s social network was like an intricate spiderweb, so that was all probably true. Just what kind of person was Fran Bonilly, then? As Lawrence mulled it over, Keeman continued.
“I think you’d be better off steering clear of her sort.”
Keeman far outranked Lawrence in the Rowen Trading Guild, so any such advice from him was really more of an order. And yet, he pretended he was just reading his ledger, and raised his eyes after jotting something down in it.
“Oops, I should be more careful to not let others hear my inner thoughts..”
A strained smile crossed his face, making it clear that he really did intend this only as advice. Lawrence thanked him, and got up to join Holo and Cole, who were waiting for him outside. Keeman made his final request without raising his eyes.
“Let me know how it turns out.”
It felt quite odd to count Keeman as a friend, but he spoke it without the usual guile of a merchant, putting Lawrence at ease.
“Yes, of course I will.”
With that, Lawrence smiled and left.
“Nothing bad happened, did it?”
That was the first thing Cole asked, his face full of worry. Anyone would want to avoid Keeman after what he put them through. But merchants weren’t the types to hold grudges - they could happily drink with a former enemy. Lawrence patted the boy on the head.
“There was a letter there waiting for us. Just one sentence: We made a killing.”
Cole’s eyes lit up with a look that made it clear he liked Eve. In fact, Eve liked him as well. Holo was the only one who seemed unhappy with the news.
“I hope all of this does not merely mean that another disaster is waiting ahead of us.”
Holo clearly still held a grudge with Eve, who had nearly killed Lawrence. But was she probably also talking about Keeman’s advice about Fran Bonilly. If he was right, it meant trouble. But Lawrence just looked at Holo as if begging her to let bygones be bygones.
“Well then.”
She broke the silence.
“Where are these art dealers?”
Her obvious bitterness was obviously a mask to hide the happiness she actually felt underneath, so Lawrence trudged on ahead. The fact that she followed him was proof of her true feelings. And shortly thereafter, they were looking up at the signboard of Athner Company. Holo was trying to hold back her laughter.
“I do not know what to say about this.”
“Maybe they’re doing it to mimic nobles who draw eagles onto their stamps.”
He opened the door in front of them as he spoke. The interior of the building appeared simply decorated, but also shone as if covered in a layer of gold. The smell of paint struck them.
It seemed to be a rather small company for one on such a busy street, but Lawrence soon realized just how much they probably earned. Many paintings hung from the walls, all of them sharing a common element: they were huge.
What determined the price of a painting wasn’t the painter, nor other intangible concepts, but simply the cost of the paint itself. The secondary price-driver was the size of the painting, followed by the quality of the paint’s colors.
All of these paintings were clearly expensive.
“Oh my..”
Some paintings pictured the God of the Church, or the Holy Mother. Some were landscapes. Some had reclusive saints standing beside lakes. But each of them had an impressively large background. It was as though the paintings subjects were the backgrounds, rather than God or the Holy Mother.
“Is no one here?”
Lawrence walked forward leaving Holo and Cole behind, impressed and breathless respectively. Of course, he didn’t leave the oh-so-curious Holo behind without a warning.
“Don’t touch the pictures.”
She seemed enraged at being treated like a child, but had only her finger - about to touch the picture - to blame. If she so much as chipped a bit of paint off of one, they would have to hightail it out of there.
“Excuse me, is anyone here?”
His shout earned him a muffled reply. It seemed the shopkeeper was somewhere deeper in the building. While he waited for him, Lawrence took a closer look at the painting nearest to him. It featured a group of monks walking along a riverbank.
“Can I help you?”
The man who came out after a while resembled not a sheep, but a hog. His flat cap gave off the impression of a clergyman, but not his luxurious merchant’s attire. His air was entirely different from Huskins’, and seemed every bit the greedy merchant.
“I’d like to see Mr. Hugh Athner, if he’s..”
“Oh? That is I. So.. how may I help you?”
It was painfully obvious that Lawrence was just a traveling merchant, and with him was a nun and a boy who seemed pulled straight off the streets. Paintings were the domain of the wealthy, so they must have seemed quite oddly out of place.
“Actually, Mr. Huskins of the Brondel Monastery introduced us to-”
Lawrence trailed off when he saw Hugh’s giant nose - almost more like a snout - quiver. He was staring past Lawrence. Holo, having noticed this, turned away from a painting of the Holy Mother holding an apple and faced him. She appeared small, but she was still a wolf.
“Oh.. um.. uh..”
“This would be Holo. She quite enjoyed our time with Mr. Huskins.”
Lawrence turned back to the frightened Hugh, doing his best to smile politely as he spoke. Hugh, on the other hand, clearly didn’t hear any of it. He was staring back at Holo like a cornered rabbit about to run for his life. He might have stayed that way if Holo didn’t move. Rather than sighing, she walked up to him.
“Might you have any apples like the one in that painting?”
When one was surrounded by wild dogs, their only chance was to fling dried meat in another direction and pray. Obviously, that was what the now-nodding Hugh was thinking. The flesh on his face jiggled as he nodded, and he quickly shot into the back room.
“Less a sheep than a pig, I would say.”
Holo spoke softly as she stared as his back.
* * *
Holo ate her basket of apples with relish. Despite being the owner here, Hugh was the one who seemed cornered.
“Mr. Athner..”
Lawrence began talking but only startled Hugh, who kept inching away from them. By the time he finally managed to offer Lawrence a seat, he didn’t look like he was the owner of his own shop anymore.
“We’ve heard everything from Mr. Huskins.”
Hugh stared at the apples being devoured and raised his hand to wipe the sweat from his brow. He only stopped because Lawrence had begun to talk again. His eyes were pleading for his life.
“How.. pathetic..”
She whispered to herself as she wolfed down the apples. She only peered at Hugh out of the corner of her eyes, unhappily. Of course she wasn’t whispering about Hugh’s offering of apples, but his cowardly reaction to her. And yet, something told Lawrence that she would have been just as upset even if he wasn’t so fearful of her. She was a
complicated wolf, after all.
“..and stubborn.”
Look in a mirror, thought Lawrence. He cut in.
“He’s seems outstandingly prudent to me.”
“Wh-wh-what did you.. uh, no, what’s your relationship with Huskins?”
Clearly, if he wasn’t so terrified he meant to ask “what did you do to Huskins?” Holo continued eating her apples delightedly, proudly showing off her fangs. Wolves and sheep seemed doomed to be this way; always set in these roles, according to who was the hunter and who the hunted.
“We merely listened to the story of his involvement with the monastery - a great tale, indeed. And then? We helped him out a little bit.”
Hugh’s eyes darted between Lawrence and Holo thrice before he spoke.
“And why did he.. mention me?”
“We’re looking one who’s familiar with the north.”
Hugh’s eyes seemed to clear when he heard that. He truly was a merchant of some renown, so he really shouldn’t have any trouble with an opponent on Lawrence’s level, a traveling merchant.
“Wellll.. alright then. If that’s what you’re after-”
He kept whispering as his eyes remained glued on Holo. He seemed to be about to say “but”, but stopped short as if having suddenly lost his nerve. Having eaten 5 or 6 apples, Holo had just paused to lick the juice off her fingers. Once she had licked them clean, she spoke.
“Huskins is a wise sheep. He knows the order of things.”
“..”
Hugh stared at her, unable to respond. In fact he seemed unable to even breathe.
“That is, he knows that it is his turn to repay us for our help. And it is up to you-”
She turned her eyes to Hugh.
“-to decide if you can provide that payment.”
“Well..”
Hugh swallowed as though trying to un-stop his throat.
“Of course I will.. if it’s his request.”
“Mhm.”
Holo poked Lawrence in the arm, making it clear that it was his turn now. She then poked Cole, making it clear that if he didn’t take one of the delicious apples soon, he would lose his chance.
“Basically we’re hoping that you, Mr. Athner, can introduce us to someone.”