Lawrence smiled, feeling lucky that he’d come here without Holo.
* * *
When Holo woke up, Lawrence wasn’t there. He had known better than to wake her at noon, when Moid invited him to the first floor to eat with the other mercenaries. Both Moid and Lawrence knew that the next time they met, they would be enemies. The wolf would become the lamb; the prey, the hunter. Moid had made his invitation with that understanding.
Even if they couldn’t coexist, they still had a lot in common. They spoke about how tiring long trips were, and shared cooking tips. It was a nice chat. Myuri hadn’t returned yet, but apparently the captains of the mercenaries were always meeting with other captains and nobles. Myuri’s visits to the inn were rare, so Moid turned out to be more like their manager; they actually seemed to respect him like a father.
Lawrence was used to traveling alone. It was quite a change to see such camaraderie, even if he had his own companion now. But if he really did open a shop, he’d have his own staff like this to help him and share meals as their business grew. Lawrence really hoped it might turn out that way. It went without saying that he wanted Holo to be the one who sat closest to him.
Lunch went by quickly as his thoughts shifted, and when he returned to their room he saw Holo awake and looking for him. He even heard her breathe softly in relief when she saw him.
“Nnng..”
She let out a mighty yawn, her smooth movements clearly not an act. Sleeping really could heal a lot of things. In fact, she kept yawning and stretching for so long she seemed to forget the piece of paper in her hand. Apparently she had slept with it in her hands, given how crumpled it was right now. She hummed in satisfaction after the sound of the paper snapped her out of it.
“Would you like some lunch?”
Lawrence was counting his coins and making some calculations on paper as he asked. A proper nun wouldn’t eat at this time, only when the Church bells rang, but thankfully the Church had little presence here. According to Moid, the clergy here were really just here to strengthen financial ties with the Diva company. Just like in Ruvinheigen, precious minerals could be worth much more to the Church than coin. A bar of blessed gold was considered a powerful item. It wasn’t just merchants who stood to benefit from trade here.
“Well.. a little.”
“We still have some raisins packed away.”
They were leftovers from the morning and previous night. He wondered if she was having second thoughts about not eating much before. She slowly found the bag of raisins and dragged it to the desk Lawrence was working at. After a quick greeting, she sat on that desk, still in her blanket. She had to like how warm the inn’s blankets were; in fact, her scent had already seeped into it.
“You should think ahead and make sure you want to eat them all. There aren’t any more.”
He was doing his best to be reasonable with her, given how attracted he was to even just her smell right now. He knew how childish she was with her food, and in a couple of days they would probably regret not saving some of the raisins. But she ignored him, and he fought over whether to just be happy that her mood had recovered. Her legs dangled as she ate, and she looked down on him.
“Well, I should probably listen to you once in a while.”
She set a few more raisins on the desk, then tied the bag back up. As he gasped at that rare occurrence, she gently pressed one of the raisins into his mouth.
“After all, you are fighting so hard to stay in control.”
When he moaned, the raisin fell out of his mouth. She was holding his collar in her other hand, so he couldn’t back off. He was trapped; he couldn’t disagree with her. He remembered what had happened in Lenos, and stole a glance at her to see if she was angry with him. However, what was on her face was a puzzled smile. He guessed it was a look of pity, but that only earned him a flick on the forehead.
“You truly understand nothing.”
“?”
He wasn’t about to disagree, especially when she was being deliberately vague. The common wisdom was that “a woman’s mind isn’t easily read”, wasn’t it? He picked up the raisin that fell. It tasted sweet and sour at the same time. Holo stood up, drinking some water out of thirst. She brought the water skin back with her.
“Alright. When I was asleep, what did you do?”
He felt the water skin hit the back of his head, and a chill ran up his spine like he’d been shot in the dark. Her next words relaxed him, however.
“You wrote to that shepherd lass?”
So she had been concerned about that since they took their stroll? Despite that, she leaned up against his back. It might have been endearing had she said something like “I will not allow you to think about other females,” but her behavior was more like a master reminding their slave who the boss was. In other words, Holo was back to normal. His face twisted in spite, but she just smiled and turned his head to make him look at her.
“I was too worried that you’d cry if I wrote it behind your back, so I waited to get your permission.”
“Hmm.. that was not bad.”
“May I?”
“Alright, go ahead.”
They were so close right now that they looked like cats touching their foreheads together. He sighed, and began arranging the pile of gold and silver coins on the desk.
“What were you working on?”
“Working out what we have left. I haven’t had any time to do it lately.”
“Um..”
She began like this whenever she was worried about their budget. She stared at the raisin still in her hand and then turned back to him.
“Did I.. eat too much?”
He had warned himself not to laugh, but he couldn’t help it. As expected, it earned him a kick.
“Oh don’t get angry. I wasn’t calculating expenses, just what’s left of our profits. I’ve been way too busy since I met you to figure out our expenses.”
In truth, he had a rough idea, but wasn’t sure how accurate his guess was. They had received gifts from others, and stayed in rooms for free, so it wasn’t all that much. That wasn’t even counting the loans he’d been able to repay, so in fact he was actually much better off than he was before.
When he counted, he saw that most of his business had earned some profit, but he’d ended up failing every time a bigger chance came around. Still, at least he was in the green. He felt like thanking the heavens. Over the last half-year, he’d also been living a rich life, which was a big win in and of itself. And none of that even counted the fact that he had been living that life with Holo.
“What is with that strange look on your face..”
She saw the look in his eyes and frowned. But he was unafraid.
“Nothing at all.”
She resumed eating. This was what wealth meant to Lawrence. He kept looking up at her, and smiled. She stared back at him with anger in her eyes, but didn’t leave his side.
He’d lately begun thanking the heavens for his fortune, which now included seventeen-hundred Trenni silver and an unbelievable network of contacts. Altogether, it was hardly a dream for him to buy the building, stock, and hire employees.
“Oh, that is quite a lot.”
She was sighing at the figures on the paper like she had finally spotted her prey. Just like last time, Lawrence put his hands between her and the coins on the desk.
“This money is important.”
Her ears immediately shot up, and his mind went blank when she flicked his nose like there had been a fly on it.
“Of course! I know that! Who do you think I am?”
She began her cavalcade of complaints at the stupid, impolite man in front of her. But even if she began biting, he was still happy to have her attention.
“You have worked so hard for that.”
She said that so seriously that he was more embarrassed than happy to hear it. He turned away before replying.
“That’s quite a painful joke to hear.”
She g
rabbed his nose and pulled it this way and that, but at least he was still the object of her focus. If she’d had enough of him, she would have been fussing with her tail by now. Not today. She was scolding and prodding him, even if she was going to help him write a letter to Norah.
It could be that she just wanted his attention, but it really was more likely that she was just hoping to see what he wrote so he didn’t sneak in anything inappropriate to Norah. Holo was a brown-haired wolf, and Norah was a golden-haired shepherd.
Eve was completely different from her, so Holo didn’t really care much about her. But her hostility toward Norah stemmed from her being her exact opposite. Norah was the type of girl who would gently snuggle with you under the same blanket, but Holo was the kind who laughed loudly as she held her beer mug aloft in the bar.
Those kinds of devilish thoughts were running through his mind as he began his letter to Norah. He was doing his best to avoid Holo’s gaze and keep her focused on his writing, but it was tough. If he cringed, she would surely move in to write the letter herself. If he let her do that, it would surely become an invitation to a duel, so the situation was dire.
However, she let him write the letter himself, even though it was addressed to Norah. He figured it was because he was really writing to her so she could make her dream come true as well. Holo ate sloppily as he wrote, and kept saying childish things like “you really do prefer poor girls, huh?” Still, he knew that she was murmuring like that so she wouldn’t say what was really on her mind.
“So what is the situation?”
She was trying to act naturally, so she waited until he was sprinkling sand over his ink before she asked. But despite her efforts, her voice wavered a little. Clearly she wasn’t asking him if he liked Norah, or about how much money he had. She was being devious. She knew why he was working out his profits. It was obvious enough, after she saw him standing so idiotically in front of that empty shop. He put on his best merchant’s manner and replied as matter-of-factly as someone talking about the weather.
“Hmm? Oh, well I can open a shop anytime I want.”
He debated whether to add “if we’re talking about money,” but he gave up when he saw the side of her face. She was lost in thought.
“Hmm.”
She always kept her thoughts hidden, which lead to several risky situations in the past. He was just as much to blame, of course, given how infrequently he considered her feelings. But more importantly, he’d always taken the wrong approach. Not that long ago, he might have asked her “what’s wrong?” but now he knew better.
He knew for sure that she loved him. It wasn’t the kind of gut feeling one had when they knew they could trust a villager or shopkeeper. It wasn’t related to profits or losses in the slightest. His mind had gone blank, like it was paralyzed, so he forced himself to talk.
“Where do you think I should open my shop?”
He shook the letter to cast off the sand. It was short, and he didn’t like wasting paper, but he knew that if he wrote anything unrelated to business, he would earn Holo’s wrath. But she still turned to him vindictively, as though his thoughts were leaking out.
“That is all we have been talking about lately. Can you not think of something else?”
It was exactly what he expected her to say, so he still answered her slowly and precisely.
“You’re rarely gentle enough for me to be able to ask you such things.”
Her face twisted in anger, as if she’d bitten her tongue. She grumbled as her tail wagged.
“..you are really good at this.”
“Because I’m a merchant.”
“Damn.”
Holo huffed and gently hopped off the desk.
“Anyway. If this town’s company does anything I do not like..”
She turned her neck and growled, as though preparing for a fight.
“..then I, this gentle and fragile girl, shall leave.”
Lawrence was shocked at her choice of words. She was just too cunning. She was being even more careful than she liked to say she was.
“It’s not like this is the only town out there. It doesn’t have to be here. Besides,”
He only said “besides” to keep her from talking. He knew how to deal with her now.
“At least let me figure out if I even want to open it here, will you?”
She was normally quite willful, but she also liked to hear others being willful. She liked to feel dependent, and was happy to be pulled along by the hand that held hers. He knew just how different the two of them were. He’d learned to live alone, and to suspect everyone. She’d learned to live alone in Pasloe, but had gone there in the first place because she was lonely and wanted to trust someone. In spite of her sigh and look of scorn, her tail was happily wagging right now.
“..So that is what you were up to while I slept.”
She knew that just asking about Diva’s movements wasn’t going to help much. Her amber eyes stared at him as if to say “foolish males are always the proudest.”
“Very well, then I shan’t mind if you do your little investigations, as long as you remember why we came here.”
She also realized her tail gave her away, but she still wanted to keep up the act. She might as well have added “you love me most when I am like this, do you not?” like she wanted to, because it was the truth. He had no way to deny it.
“I’m glad to hear that.”
He forced a smile as he replied, and she finally laughed. After all, any investigations about the shop coincided with their mission to figure out what Diva was doing. They controlled the town, so if he wanted to run a shop here he had to learn more about them anyhow.
* * *
It would be fastest to ask the locals, so they started at the manger. The teenager was feeding the horses as they chatted, and his attitude as they chatted was carefree.
“You want to know about our town?”
Cole was honest, but also too humble. This lad had more experience.
“Well, I hope I’ll be able to help.”
“This looks like a nice place to trade, so I’m trying to learn more. Even just a bit about the atmosphere will do.”
“Atmosphere..”
The boy didn’t stop working as he thought. He just kept distributing feed to the horses, tightening knots, and clearing trash. Lawrence wasn’t sure if he was just expected to work hard, or did so out of his own volition. It almost seemed like the latter.
“Well, I’m not a local.”
That was his sudden answer.
“I came here on a boat from the south. It took several weeks, and we were hit by a disease and all my friends died. And yet-“
His blue, gem-like eyes looked into Lawrence’s.
“If I wrote home and told everyone, they would come too.”
Older towns didn’t accept many newcomers. Even Amati, the boy who had fancied Holo, had to go north when he left his hometown.
“Why? Because it’s so lively here?”
Hearing that, the teenager lifted a bucket of feed that seemed to weigh more than he did, then set it down somewhere else. With that, he finally flashed a smile befitting a lad of his age.
“Freedom.”
It was just as Lawrence had read on that stone tablet, and later heard from Moid. Even Lawrence was starting to want to believe it was true, after so many failures he was suspicious of any good news. If Diva company was managing this place and hoping to open more mines, then it did seem more and more likely.
Of course, Moid might actually be telling the truth, and Lawrence was just being overly cautious. But he had to avoid being swept away in optimism. After all, what he’d heard about Diva outside of this town had little to do with “freedom”. He had to be careful, so he thanked the teenager and left.
Holo remained silent the entire time.
“Let’s go ask some others.”
As they walked toward the square, he chatted with as many stall owners as he could. They all repeated the s
ame words: freedom and liveliness. Even when he started the conversation with something like “I heard that a war is brewing” people just smiled and shook their heads.
This town, they all insisted, was lively and was being run well by Diva. They didn’t have any desire to fight anyone. Someone even suggested that they might be working to stop any fights in the vicinity. Everyone was free here, and Diva company was a bunch of normal people.
Holo and Lawrence were still struggling to adjust their mental image of the company.
“Did we just get the wrong impression?”
He asked aloud as they sat on some steps to rest.
“It’s tough to just accept this.”
“And yet I do not think they are lying.”
He noticed Holo’s ears moving, and nodded. If everyone was lying, it would be too tough to keep it up and someone would eventually slip up. Also, it was plainly obvious how well the town was doing.
The building for Diva company turned out to be quite far from the square. It seemed to be a place for people to talk business, more than a warehouse or store front. It was neither overly marvellous or pitiful. It had an air of stability and safety about it, the ideal place for normal people to work.
One didn’t get the impression that it was a place with nefarious goals; it exuded a feeling of freedom like rays of sunlight. It amplified the sentiments the townsfolk were spreading. Lawrence was now almost ready to accept what he was hearing, but there was one thing that still made him suspicious: it was too good to be true. Things could only ever seem perfect on the outside, and every time Lawrence thought otherwise it was he who suffered.
“What will you do now?”
Holo didn’t seem to be paying it any mind. Was he being too suspicious, or was there a darker truth here? He couldn’t decide which was more likely, and realized that he needed someone to force him to make a judgment call.
“What should I do..”
He was simply perplexed. Holo sneezed as though her nose had been tickled by the wind, and then stared off at something with squinted eyes while rubbing her nose.
“What is it?”
“Oh? Oh.”
He figured she was seeing something with her eagle eyes, but she just put her hands behind her back and held them while shrugging, then spoke shyly.