“Can you draw, Col?” Lawrence asked over his shoulder.
It looked as though Col was seriously considering shoving the unfinished roll into his own bag for later eating. He flinched as though having been caught doing something embarrassing. He hastily tried to manage some sort of answer, at which Lawrence could not help but laugh.
But before either of them could say anything, Holo popped another roll she had grabbed into Col’s bag.
“Ah, er…well, I suppose I can draw angels or spirits…”
“From copying manuscript illustrations?”
Col smiled ticklishly at Holo and then turned back to Lawrence and nodded. “Yes. When I had no money and was rolling out sheepskin parchments on nails, sometimes the scribes would teach me a little.”
Col was the sort of boy who would journey south alone just to get closer to the center of Church power in order to protect his own pagan village, but he seemed much more suited to poring over books all day than he did to the adventurous pursuits in which he found himself engaged. Had he been born into different circumstances, he surely would have been a famous scholar.
Lawrence turned his attention to Holo. “And what about you…? I suppose there’s no point in asking.”
If Holo was to pick up a brush, no doubt she could draw a highly recognizable picture.
“Hmph. I do not draw. You can’t eat a picture of an apple,” said Holo, as she helped herself to another roll.
“Well, Fran’s skills must be impressive for her to command such tribute. And she’s followed after legends from many lands,” said Lawrence quietly as he looked across the plain before them. The mountains did not seem to be getting any closer. “She’s seen a lot of trouble, I’ll bet. The northlands are still disputed territory. With belief turning to superstition, and superstition to belief with such dizzying speed, tracking down legends is a dangerous business. Given that, her price might be a fair one.”
And the farther north one went, the more difficult it became to find good building stone, which meant even larger buildings were made of wood. Without stained-glass depictions of saints or figures carved in stone columns, which meant their proselytizing would rely on paintings.
With demand up, it stood to reason that the suppliers must profit.
“She’s to be admired,” murmured Lawrence, stroking his beard.
“Hmph. I’ve admired quite enough,” said Holo, patting her belly and then setting about curling up in a blanket.
They spent the night in the dry, brown grasses of the plains.
There was not much difference between a horse’s walking speed and a human’s, so travelers on that road all naturally tended to arrive at that spot come nightfall.
It was there that Lawrence halted the horse and built a fire where the grass had been cut low and the remains of older campfires were scattered about. Happily, there was a large round log perfect for leaning against.
Former visitors had been similarly grateful. One place on the log had been stripped of bark, and there the former visitors had carved words of thanks.
The small party warmed the bread—which had turned hard from the chill—by the fire, roasting jerky and cheese to eat along with it. There was no wind, but it was cold enough for a small amount of snow to have piled up here and there, so they naturally wound up huddled together atop the log like little birds. It was warmer for three people to huddle together under three layers of blankets than it was for three people to each have one blanket to themselves.
And it was just three, not four.
Fran lay down in the wagon bed alone.
“The stone’s warm.” Lawrence had warmed a stone atop the fire and brought it to Fran wrapped in a blanket. She was gazing vaguely up at the sky, using the cargo for a pillow. Next to her was some half-eaten bread and cheese, but she was so absorbed in the night sky that she seemed to have forgotten all about her dinner.
When Lawrence brought the wrapped stone to her, she shifted beneath her blanket and a hand slid out from under it, accepting the warm rock.
As he gave her this, Lawrence thought he saw her holding a thick book under her blanket.
When he had traveled alone, Lawrence, too, had sometimes resorted to stuffing paper under his shirt for warmth when he was unable to light a fire. It could be even warmer than a blanket.
Fran, too, seemed quite accustomed to hard travel.
“Are you sure you don’t want to sit by the fire?” Lawrence asked.
Fran arranged the stone beneath the blanket and looked back up at the sky before answering, “It would ruin my view.”
Lawrence understood and nodded.
Fire kept animals away, but it invited humans, whether they were friend or foe. Eyes accustomed to watching the fire would be useless for looking out into the night.
Not only was Fran used to travel, she had accrued a very respectable amount of experience.
“About tomorrow…” Fran directed her gaze to Lawrence after he spoke. She did not seem inclined to sit up, so Lawrence decided to simply continue speaking. “Once we arrive in the village, what sort of arrangements shall we make?”
Lawrence had found himself roundly beaten in their first negotiation at the Hugues Company the previous day. Thinking back on it now, he realized it had surely colored Fran’s impression of his capacity as a merchant. Though she had brought Lawrence along to help her gather information, she probably detested the notion of leaving everything to him and his companions, so he posed this question in a humble, servile tone.
But after looking at him steadily for a moment, Fran suddenly smiled and closed her eyes, as though having seen right through the whole of his thinking. “I shall leave it in your capable hands.”
Lawrence was surprised at this response, but if she was truly going to rely on him, he would do his best to meet her expectations. “In that case, I’ll introduce you as a Church-affiliated silversmith and Holo as a nun. Will that do?”
“…I shouldn’t think there will be any problem with that.” She’d taken a moment to consider the notion. She could probably see through to roughly how such a story would be received.
“Holo will be an apprentice nun and maidservant. Col will be our guide. I’ll be a traveling merchant hired to be the group’s eyes and ears.”
“Very well,” said Fran, but her smile was a thin one.
Lawrence took notice of this. “Is there a problem?”
“…No, nothing. I was just amused at how if we assemble the necessary actors, it’s true that even I might look like a nun.”
The ability to see one’s own self so objectively could indeed be counted as a special skill. Lawrence found himself briefly at a loss for words at how naturally Fran was able to speak as though she were looking at herself from the outside.
“What church?” inquired Fran.
Once he had finished frantically filling in the blanks in Fran’s brusque question, Lawrence answered, “Let’s say we’re from the Church city of Ruvinheigen. There’s certainly more than one church there and many factions besides. Even if our answer’s a vague one, we won’t be easily found out.”
“…” Fran opened her eyes and looked at Lawrence.
Lawrence was wondering if he had made some mistake. Fran then looked back up at the sky and spoke. “You’re familiar with some rather faraway towns.”
Lawrence was relieved that it was only this. “A lie that can’t be disproven is no different from the truth. A place as far away as Ruvinheigen is a safer story, I thought.”
Fran nodded, her gaze still skyward cast. “Was that your base?”
Base was a curious choice of words. It made Lawrence sound like a bandit or mercenary.
“I’m a traveling merchant originally from that area. Holo simply jumped into my wagon bed when I passed through a nearby town. Then…” Lawrence paused and looked behind him at Holo, who sat atop the log sipping wine. Only Col seemed to be looking at he and Fran, so Lawrence turned back to Fran and continued, “…And told me that she wanted to
go north and that I should take her. As far as Col goes, we ran into him as we were heading down the Roam River, and he joined our travels.”
Fran’s face was still upturned, her eyes closed, but Lawrence nonetheless got the feeling that she was listening to him. For her to be interested in this story at all made Lawrence wonder if she had some sort of attachment to the region.
At length, Fran spoke as though giving voice to words she heard from the sky. “So this map of the north you want is for…” She opened her eyes, and when she looked at Lawrence, it seemed as though the night sky had melted into them. It was common for stubborn, eccentric people to feel things more deeply than most.
Lawrence was not going to use that to his advantage, but he spoke such that his words would have their greatest effect. “Yes…the only thing my companion remembers about her homeland is that it was called Yoitsu.”
Fran’s eyes did not waver. “I see,” she said, closing them, this time not looking up again, but leaning her head over. She shifted lightly under the blanket, and given that a gentle sigh followed, Lawrence realized she was trying to go to sleep.
Her way of unilaterally ending the conversation made Lawrence understand why she had a reputation for being difficult; it was almost too archetypal.
Perhaps Fran was neither so stubborn nor as eccentric as her reputation suggested, Lawrence mused, but there was no telling what would happen if he was to point that out.
Lawrence quietly made ready to leave her be, but before he did, Fran spoke one last time.
“I shall be counting on you tomorrow.”
Lawrence nodded, whereupon Fran did just as she seemed to be doing and fell asleep.
CHAPTER THREE
The wagon swerved violently to one side. The motion seemed to have awakened Holo.
“…Have we arrived?” She yawned a great yawn, shaking her head lazily from side to side.
The now-close mountains were dotted with trees even in this cold season, and here and there white stuff could be seen. The grassy field looked like a flat plane but was actually a gentle slope, and if one looked upslope, it was clear it descended from an impressive height. It was not Lawrence’s imagination that the air was cooler here than in Kerube, and a thin layer of snow stuck to the road.
“If we turn down this road, then go straight, we’ll soon be at the village, apparently.”
The field of golden, knee-high grass stretched far to the east. If they did not turn and instead proceeded straight, they would evidently run straight into the foot of the mountains.
Lawrence and company had stopped their horses here to practice their various roles and stories before entering the village. Holo had grumbled the previous night but generally enjoyed such theatrical dissembling.
Once they had run through their stories, Fran took the lead and they set off again. Holo’s tail swished happily beneath her robe.
“Speaking of which, I neglected to ask you, but that wasn’t you in that tale, was it?” asked Lawrence suddenly, as Fran seemed in a hurry and had opened up a bit of distance between her and the wagon.
Holo replied without much interest as she ate a small piece of jerky. “Alas, I’ve no bird friends aside from that one lass from some time ago, and I’ve no feathers myself.”
“And no ideas, either?”
Holo shook her head wordlessly and sighed. “Had the legendary figure in question been me, they would’ve forced that fool to draw them a map…” She turned away as though apologizing for trouble she had caused.
If Lawrence suspected this as being an act, he would surely make her angry, and yet it had to be an act. Col seemed to be frantically trying to think of the words with which to console her, but meeting his eyes, Lawrence only smiled.
“If all goes well when we begin to ask around, how shall we fill our remaining time?” he asked.
Holo looked up suddenly and smiled. Partially because she was holding Col’s hand in a very sibling-like fashion, she suddenly seemed much like the young maiden she appeared to be.
No doubt she was not entirely in earnest, but at least some part of her was.
Soon a single, far-off thread of smoke appeared, probably from a distant hearth or stove, and soon after that they arrived at the town. Holo took one look at it. “Perhaps I ate a bit too much wheat bread,” she said sardonically.
It seemed unlikely that much wheat bread was baked in Taussig, nestled as it was at the foot of the mountains. Half buried in the foothills, it had an apologetic little excuse of a fence to keep out wild animals, hung with wards for driving off evil spirits—evidence of the Church.
Had they not already heard the rumors of a witch, the placement of those wards would have been strange, because indifferent to the darkness and danger that lurked in the mountains, they instead faced out toward the plains. It made Lawrence imagine inexperienced travelers who feared only the wolves before them, heedless of the bandits behind them.
He imagined Taussig to be a gloomy, sparsely peopled village, but it was not so. The sound of happy children’s voices could be heard from the houses, and sheep and goats grazed lazily in the village’s wide lanes. It seemed a perfectly normal village.
It was said that the source of most quarrels was mutual ignorance, and perhaps that was not so untrue.
Lawrence climbed off the wagon, looking to the still-mounted Fran. “If you would, please,” she said quietly.
With his left hand he took the reins of Fran’s horse, and with his right the reins of the wagon horse, and proceeded slowly into the village. Eventually an old man sitting on a roughly hewn wooden bench at one corner of the village’s entrance took notice of them.
“Now, then,” said Lawrence softly, putting on his best merchant’s smile.
“My, my…have we travelers here?” It looked as though the old man was out watching the livestock as they grazed. His hand gripped a shepherd’s staff.
“Greetings to you. I am a traveling merchant. My name is Kraft Lawrence.”
“Oh, a merchant, are you?” Wrinkles appeared around the old man’s eyes, as though he was wondering what business a merchant could possibly have in this town.
In the village, first the children and then the rest of the villagers began to take notice of their unusual visitors. Some watched from their eaves, others from cracks in their wooden windows.
“We’ve come from Ruvinheigen, a place far to the south.”
“Ruvin…”
“Ruvinheigen.”
The old man nodded and fixed his gaze on Lawrence and his party for a time. When the old man was not moving, he looked like a doll made from tree bark.
“It’s known as the city of the Church.”
Suddenly the man’s gaze moved from Lawrence to Fran, up on her horse—and then, moments later, to Holo and Col, who had climbed down from the wagon bed.
Then with a sudden sigh he looked back at Lawrence with a troubled gaze. “What business would people of the Church have with this village?”
Lawrence answered, with a huge smile that would have made a child burst into tears, “Actually, we’ve heard tell of a legend regarding a holy angel that came to earth here. As faithful servants of God, we were hoping we could hear more of the tale…” The old man did not immediately react, so Lawrence jokingly continued, “Is the angel here in the village now?”
“No! Don’t be absurd!”
The old man’s voice was so suddenly strident that Lawrence was momentarily taken aback. The loud voice startled the livestock as well; the hogs squealed and the goats stamped their hooves. The chickens, though flightless, flapped their wings to escape, and the old man looked Lawrence in the eye.
“It had nothing to do with this village. It’s true that it came through here but merely asked directions. It truly, truly had no business here!”
The man was desperately insistent. Lawrence hastily tried to clear his head and think things over. It came through here? And had nothing to do with the village?
“I understand. I
understand!” It was all Lawrence could do to raise his hands in mollification. He certainly was not going to pose another question.
The old man’s shoulders moved with his heavy breathing, and he leaned forward, eyes wide, as though he had yet more to say. His lips trembled, either from overexcitement or simple anger.
But what had put him in such a state?
As Lawrence mulled it over, several men came out of the village.
Lawrence heard the rustle of clothing behind him; Col was making himself ready. Holo did likewise—because the men were all carrying large hatchets or knives.
Fran, meanwhile, did not so much as move, instead remaining hooded atop her horse.
Lawrence indicated with his hand that they should keep calm, but not because he was trying to preserve his pride in front of Fran, nor out of empty reassurance. If all the men had been carrying were weapons, he would have done an about-face on the spot, and the reason he had not was probably the same reason Fran had not.
The three men that approached were bloodstained up to their elbows, and their faces showed irritation at having been interrupted. The hatchets and knives had surely been used for butchering, and after all, when someone has proposed to kill another, their expression is not one of annoyance.
“Travelers, are you?” asked the most sturdily built of the three middle-aged men. The old man looked over his shoulder and tried to speak.
“It’s all right, elder. Calm yourself.”
The elder’s mouth opened and closed wordlessly. It seemed the men’s expressions of irritation were directed not at the outsiders, but instead at the village elder, the old man.
“Circa!”
The man turned around and shouted, and a woman emerged from one of the homes.
He indicated the elder with his posture, and the woman seemed to immediately understand and approached.
The man directed the woman he had called Circa over to the old man and patted his back reassuringly. He then looked over at Lawrence.
“Apologies, kind travelers. He didn’t say anything too terrible to you, did he?” he asked, dropping his hatchet on the ground. As he casually rubbed his gore-stained hands off on his trousers, he seemed to immediately know who among the band of travelers would speak for them. This was something townspeople always know, but those raised in small villages frequently struggled with the issue.