Holo reached without hesitation for an apple from the wooden bowl full of them that was produced. Despite being the master of this shop, Hugues seemed stuck as he stood in the corner.
“Mr. Hugues.”
His large body tried to shrink into itself at the sound of Lawrence’s voice. Lawrence tried to offer him a chair, no longer certain just who was the master and who was the customer here.
“We heard of this place from Mr. Huskins, you see.”
Hugues’s hand was busy wiping the sweat from his brow as he stared at the apples, but hearing this he froze. He looked up at Lawrence desperately, as though begging for mercy.
Munching away on her apple, Holo chose that moment to interject. “Now he…was a tough fellow.” She looked at Hugues with one teasing eye. It was not that he was a sheep that annoyed her so, but his simple cowardice.
And yet she probably would have been annoyed in a different way if he had not shown fear. Wolves are complicated creatures.
“Tough. Sinewy, you know.”
“He was a sturdy fellow, indeed,” added Lawrence to Holo’s unnecessary words.
“Wh-what did you do…no, what did you want with him?” Had he possessed a bit more courage, perhaps he would have asked, “What did you do to him?”
But he surely saw the fangs in Holo’s mouth as she chewed her apple. Wolves and sheep are in inherent conflict. Since time immemorial, one has been the eater and the other the eaten, and so would it continue.
“We listened to his tale of what his kind had done at the abbey. It was a grand tale, too. And then we gave him some assistance.”
“…Why did he—why did he send you to me?”
“We are looking for someone who knows the northlands.”
Strength seemed to be returning gradually to Hugues’s eyes. As an art seller, he had unquestionably been successful, so he was certainly superior to Lawrence, a human and a traveling merchant.
“Ah…yes. In that case…,” Hugues said, but stumbled over the however he wanted to say next and looked at Holo meaningfully.
Holo had devoured five or six apples and licked her fingers as though her hunger had been temporarily sated. She spoke only after she had finished licking her index and ring fingers all the way down to their base. “That one, Huskins, he had some backbone. He knew the way of things.”
“…”
Hugues said nothing, not even taking a breath as he looked at Holo.
“What I mean is, he made sure to properly repay his debt to us. But as to whether it’ll truly be paid…” She glanced at him. “…That’ll depend on your cooperation.”
“That’s…” Hugues swallowed as though trying to choke something down and then continued, “Of course…if that’s what he wants, then…”
“Mm.” Holo gave Lawrence’s arm a light poke, as though to say, “It’s up to you now.”
“So then, Mr. Hugues. We were hoping you would make an introduction for us.”
“Ah…yes, indeed, this company deals in art, and many artists travel widely. So…”
“Yes, we heard the name of a certain silversmith from Mr. Huskins.”
In that moment, Hugues’s face finally belonged to a proper art seller. And in the same moment, Holo transformed from a girl blithely eating apples into a wolf.
“Mr. Huskins gave us the name Fran Vonely.”
Wrinkles appeared on Hugues’s soft forehead. He had the peculiar facial expression common to all merchants when their most profitable secret is discovered. But Hugues had been a merchant for a long time, and as such, he knew all too well of treating any visitors who were sent by someone as important as Huskins.
“I am…aware of her.”
“I hear she is a remarkable silversmith.”
Hugues gave a pained nod in response to Lawrence’s statement. “She makes her living with painting, but her true trade is as a silversmith. I don’t know how she’s managed it, but she’s close to many important figures, and to a one they’re infatuated with her skill…especially those who’ve made their fortunes by the spear and shield, if you…”
For an art dealer like Hugues, she would be like the golden goose. He could’ve gone on at length.
Lawrence cleared his throat. “Could you introduce us to her?”
No one wanted to let a competitor get close to their golden goose. Lawrence certainly understood the feeling—particularly when it was an unknown traveling merchant, a poverty-stricken urchin boy, and a wolf spirit. He could hardly be blamed for imagining himself being devoured headfirst.
It was obvious that Hugues was weighing Huskins’s debt, his own profit, and his personal safety against each other.
Holo then put a finger on that scale. “Yoitsu.”
“Huh?” Hugues looked at her.
“Yoitsu. ’Tis an old name. Few still remember it. And those who remember where it is are still fewer.”
Perhaps Hugues’s mouth was dry, as he was now constantly trying to swallow.
“I seek my homelands. Yoitsu. So, what say you? Have you heard of it?”
Holo was behaving poorly, it was true. But it was clear that she had become tired of keeping up appearances for their own sake.
“If you know, I want you to tell me. Just look at me.”
Holo seemed small, and her head was bowed. If her tail had been bared, it surely would have been drooping between her legs.
“Ah…er, well…”
It was enough to surprise even Lawrence, and Hugues was well past surprise and on into shock. He finally stood from his chair and flapped his mouth as though trying to say something to Lawrence and Col.
It was true that engaging in a real negotiation would have been bothersome, but there seemed to be a basic change in Holo’s attitude.
In Winfiel, she had learned just how naive she truly was, and this from a sheep, an animal she had taken every opportunity to deride. And here she was not making high-handed demands, but simply asking for information.
And while Hugues might not have been a courageous man, he was a generous one.
“P-please look up. If the old one’s sent you…no, rather, if you’ll go to such humbling lengths for me, then, come—I, too, was born as a sheep. And I will aid you. So please…”
Raise your head.
At these last words, Holo slowly looked up and smiled. And perhaps it was strange to think it of someone who had lived as many centuries as Holo had, but it still seemed to Lawrence that her smile was just a bit more grown-up.
CHAPTER TWO
Hugues offered warmed wine instead of apples. “It’ll warm you. Please, help yourself.”
Lawrence gave his thanks and brought it to his lips, and Holo did likewise. He doubted she would like it and stole a glance at her. Col was the only one who had been given warm goat’s milk, and seeing Holo eye him enviously was rather entertaining.
“Now then, you want to know about Fran Vonely, the silversmith, do you?”
“Yes.”
Lawrence got the feeling that Hugues still had something left to say, and soon he came to a conclusion and replied, “She’s in town right now as a matter of fact.”
Holo smiled an obviously unfriendly smile, which Lawrence had to admit he understood. Still, it was no surprise that Hugues was trying to protect his asset.
Lawrence lightly patted Holo’s knee before turning his attention back to Hugues. “Doing painting or smithing, I suppose?”
“No. She often travels here or there saying she’s making preparations for just that, but just when I was thinking I hadn’t heard from her in some time, she comes wandering in, saying she’s heard tell of a certain legend.”
“A legend?” said Lawrence, as though to make sure he had heard correctly, which made Hugues nod.
“Something about a village known as Taussig. It’s up next to a long, wide mountain range in the north. The mountains are tall, the forests deep, and she’s come in pursuit of a legend regarding a lake in the area, she said.”
Hea
ring the words mountain, forest, and lake, Lawrence looked at his companion.
But Holo did not look back, and instead his eyes met Col’s, who was sitting on the other side of her.
“Mr. Hugues, do you know anything about this legend?”
“Certainly, I’ve heard tell of it. As I’m sure you’re aware, we have our own information sources, and to a certain degree we can tell whether such things are real or not…”
“So you’re saying there’s a good chance it’s a fake?”
Hugues nodded. “But she’s a stubborn person. Once she’s decided on a shape for a silver piece, she won’t budge—although many people find such vehemence to have a certain charm to it…”
“So she won’t have time to draw us a map?”
“Perhaps not. Though…”
“Though…?” Lawrence prompted, which made Hugues reply with regret in his voice.
“It’s true that she often journeys into the north in search of subjects for her silversmithing, and I imagine that she’s become more familiar with the old names of places there than old Huskins or myself are, since she’s the only one actually going there.”
Lawrence nodded and urged Hugues to continue. What he had said so far did not answer Lawrence’s question.
“So, yes. But I don’t know if she’ll simply draw you a map if asked to. I had to work very hard in order to establish a relationship with her, so…” Hugues wiped the sweat from his face. Assuming it was not an act on his part, Fran Vonely was indeed a difficult person to get along with.
“What? ’Twill be simply done,” Holo said, casually baring her fangs at the rattled Hugues. All they had to do was threaten her—was that the joke?
Hugues smiled, but not out of amusement at the jest. Crafters were a famously stubborn lot. There were stories of legendary blacksmiths who had been unwilling, been driven to the verge of poverty, licking rust from their anvil to stave off starvation, rather than forge a sword they did not want to forge.
It would be foolhardy of Lawrence to just show up one day and ask her to draw them a map of the northlands.
“I understand entirely,” said Lawrence. “But would you be able to put in a good word for us?”
Hugues nearly fell forward at Lawrence’s question. Perhaps it made Lawrence’s firm resolve all too clear.
“She—she’s a very difficult individual, you see…”
It would be difficult to convince her to meet someone she did not already know. Lawrence contemplated the problem.
Hugues was torn between maintaining his relationship with a particular silversmith or doing right by Huskins, who kept the haven for sheep spirits like Hugues. In weighing one against the other, he was leaning toward the silversmith.
Had they not gotten whatever sign from Huskins they needed in order to obtain Hugues’s cooperation? Or was he just not a very duty-bound person?
Or—was Fran Vonely a silversmith of such ability?
It was not beyond Lawrence’s ability to reason this out. Neither was it difficult for an art seller of Hugues’s ability to guess at what Lawrence was thinking during his short silence.
If Hugues displeased Vonely, then he would be facing something even more dangerous than Holo.
In a pleadingly serious tone, Hugues began to speak.
“The reason I’m so loathe to displease her is related to my trade. But it’s not about money.”
Trade was always carried out to seek money. Lawrence’s curious gaze fell upon Hugues, who seemed to gather his resolve. He stood and walked over to one of the paintings on the way.
“The place in this painting was once called Dira long ago.”
It was one of the largest paintings in the room and depicted a jagged, craggy landscape. Standing before a bare cliff was a single hermit, both hands raised to the heavens as though in prayer. It seemed to be a depiction of the legend of Dira’s patron saint.
Such paintings were common. But as far as Lawrence knew, pieces where the setting was more of a focus than the subject were unusual.
As the thought occurred to him, Hugues said something unexpected. “This is my homeland.”
“—!” Lawrence felt Holo stiffen beside him.
“But long ago it was a fertile, productive place. Without any of these rocks. That cliff…is a claw mark.”
Holo’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “Of the Moon-Hunting Bear?”
“Yes. It is something that my kind will never forget. These paintings were created with the help of individuals like Miss Vonely. It has been decades now. For the sake of my kind and those similar to me, I collect and deal in such pieces, pieces that show the homes we were forced to abandon or the disaster that made returning home impossible. It would be a lie to suggest that I have not profited in doing so, but that is a secondary concern.”
Hugues gazed into the scene of the painting as though through a great window.
“And even the landscape of this painting is now no more. I hear that veins of gold were discovered there…It’s ironic, actually. The guide I hired in order to have this piece made found the gold. And even if that hadn’t happened, wind and water would wear the land away until it’s entirely different. The paintings in the other room and the paintings hanging in churches and manors, too, mostly show landscapes that have disappeared or are in the process of disappearing. And the paintings themselves will not last forever.”
Hugues touched the frame of one of the pieces, gazing at it for a while after he had finished speaking.
This was a place where tiny pieces of vanishing worlds were stored for safekeeping. The passage of time might seem slow to humans, but to his kind it was surely too fast. Their memories of the past were all that remained, and the gap between it and the present grew ever larger.
Hugues suddenly looked back at Lawrence with a troubled smile. His gaze was probably directed at Holo, but Lawrence did not turn to check. He knew that doing so would surely hurt Holo’s feelings.
The only one who could speak to Holo of this was Hugues, who had lived as long as she had.
“If possible, I would like very much to help you. This place does not exist only for we sheep. My customers have included deer and hares, foxes and fowl as well.”
Lawrence heard the sound of rustling cloth as Holo shifted. He would not ask what she had done.
“However, Fran Vonely’s knowledge and skill are irreplaceable. She has a perfect memory, never forgetting anything she’s seen even once, and a sense of purpose she holds more dear than her own life. She is utterly dedicated to capturing the landscape in her art, and I cannot afford to lose her cooperation. There is no time.”
The energy in Hugues’s eyes was not something that one would see in someone who worked solely for his own profit. The evidence of the life that he and his kind had lived was inexorably disappearing, and he was engaged in the work of trying to preserve a record.
Lawrence dwelled on Hugues’s last words. “There is no time”—did he mean that the landscape was vanishing too quickly?
“There’s no time?”
“Yes. We must hurry. There are a multitude of places I hope Miss Vonely will paint, but her lifetime is limited. I think about it often—if only she could live as long as we.”
Lawrence doubted he was the only one to make a surprised sound at this revelation. He had assumed that Fran Vonely was a special being, like Holo and Hugues. That led him to consider the obvious next question: If time was such a concern, why didn’t he and his kind simply do the paintings themselves?
“Like you, I’m meant to be a merchant,” said Hugues.
Lawrence realized that he had been scratching his head in confusion, and Hugues had likely guessed at what he was thinking.
Hugues looked down, then sighed, smiling. He looked at the paintings on the walls and narrowed his eyes. “I understand what you want to say. And in all honestly, we did once take up the brush…and those comrades of mine who went north and east and captured the old landscapes in the south, landscapes
that are now long gone…those comrades of mine were not immortal.”
Holo was the wolf spirit who lived in the wheat, and Lawrence remembered her words—that if the wheat in which she lived disappeared, she too would be gone. And she herself had a natural life span.
But Lawrence could not imagine that Hugues was talking about natural life spans.
Hugues’s quiet eyes regarded him. They were the deep, placid eyes of a wise and ancient man.
“They took up their brushes and traveled abroad, carefully observing the state of the world out of a deep sense of duty. And what they found were forests cleared, rivers dammed and changed, and mountains dug up and scarred. Eventually they could stand it no longer and traded their brushes for swords.”
Lawrence had heard this story before. He glanced at Col, who listened raptly to Hugues’s tale.
“But they were outnumbered. One was burned by the Church, another crushed by an army. One was so mortified by his own powerlessness that he…well. Few remain even as memories, having vanished like so much sea-foam. Humans, they…ah, apologies.”
“Not at all,” Lawrence answered, at which Hugues displayed a sad smile.
“Humans have amassed great power. Control of the world has been theirs for a long time now, and our age has passed. Those unwilling to admit that have one by one fallen in battle and now exist only as legends on parchment. And even those parchments are crumbling, mice nibbled and moth eaten. We are what remains: sheep, in the human sense of sheep. None of us, myself included, have the courage to hold a brush. The bravest of us were the first to fall…It was a terrible cruelty.”
Lawrence understood all too well why Hugues was more concerned with Fran Vonely, a human, over his fellow sheep Huskins or Holo the wolf. Hugues and his fellows had surely not revealed their true nature to her.
If so, there were not many ways they could keep her close. To have her create paintings for them, they would bow down before her, avoid any offense, and hear any demand, no matter how unreasonable.
Even admitting her existence to Lawrence was clearly a great compromise on Hugues’s part.