It mollified Lawrence to think this, but he was still grateful for Amati’s assistance, so he abandoned that train of thought and looked out onto the street.
Everybody on the wide boulevard seemed to be staggering home.
Lawrence chuckled and looked behind him to see Holo sitting cross-legged on the bed, pouring herself another cup of wine as if she hadn’t already had enough to drink.
“Don’t come crying to me if you’re hungover tomorrow. Have you already forgotten what happened in Pazzio?”
“Mm? Oh, this is fine. Fine liquor never lingers past its welcome. And who am I to turn down its friendship?”
Now finished pouring, she happily put the cup to her lips, then ate a bit of dried trout left over from dinner.
Left to her own devices, Holo would most likely eat and drink herself into a stupor, but Lawrence was still grateful for her pleasant mood.
He had to broach a subject that was far from his favorite.
The reason he had altered his usual yearly route, which included Kumersun only in the summer months, was because he was heading for Holo’s homeland.
Lawrence was not clear on precisely where Holo’s home of Yoitsu was. Although he had heard of its name, that was in a story from ancient times, which provided no concrete sense of its location.
He had avoided pressing her for more information thus far, because every time the subject came up, she would smile with nostalgia but soon sink into a depression at the realization of the distance, both temporal and spatial, that separated her from home.
As sad as it was, that was reason enough for him to hesitate to bring up Yoitsu.
But if Lawrence were to mention it now that they were closer, there would be nothing to be sad about, he decided. He sat on the desk that was placed against one wall and spoke.
“So, before you’re three sheets to the wind, there’s something I want to ask you.”
Holo’s exposed ears immediately pricked up.
Her gaze soon followed. “What might that be?”
Evidently her keen wolf senses had already picked up that Lawrence was not engaging in idle banter. A thin smile curled her lips, a sure sign of her good mood.
Lawrence forced the words out of his mouth. “It’s about your home village.”
Holo immediately grinned and took another sip.
This was odd; Lawrence had expected her to turn serious at the mention of Yoitsu.
Just as he concluded that she must already be drunk, Holo swallowed her wine and spoke.
“So you don’t know where it is, eh? I was starting to wonder when you were going to ask.” Then looking down as if gazing at the reflection of her smile in the wine, Holo said, “Do you really think I go to pieces at every mention of Yoitsu? Do I seem so weak?”
Lawrence considered mentioning the time she had cried over a dream of her homeland, but Holo was certainly aware of this. Her tail wagged happily.
“Not at all,” said Lawrence.
“Fool. That was your chance to say ‘Aye, you do!’ ”
Her tail flicked once, as if she had received the answer she actually wanted.
“Still, you do worry over the strangest things. So you decided to finally bring this up now, after seeing my mood at supper? Such a soft touch.” She giggled as she drank her wine, then continued, “I can’t say it doesn’t make me happy, though it’s mostly your foolishness that is so amusing. Did you plan on getting lost in the northlands before finally asking me?”
Lawrence shrugged. “Will you tell me where Yoitsu is, so I don’t look any more foolish than I have to?”
Holo paused, taking a sip from her cup.
She gave a long sigh.
“I do not exactly remember.”
She continued, as if to preempt Lawrence’s imminent protest that she had to have been joking.
“I know the direction, certainly. It is that way.”
Lawrence looked in the direction she pointed, which was obviously north.
“But I do not remember how many mountains to cross, nor how many rivers, nor how long one most walk across the plains. I had thought I would remember as we get closer—will that not do?”
“Can’t you even give me a hint as to where it might be? The path is not a straight one, and once we arrive in the north country, maps will be hard to come by. Depending on the location, the path could be very roundabout. Do you remember the names of any nearby places, for example?”
Holo pondered this for a moment, a finger pressed to her temple. “I remember Yoitsu and Nyohhira. And...hmm...What was it...Pi—”
“Pi?”
“Pire...no, Piro...That’s right! Pirohmoten.”
Holo seemed quite happy to have recalled the name, but Lawrence only cocked his head. “I haven’t heard of that place. Is there anything else?”
“Er...there were many towns, but they didn’t all have names the way towns do now. One could just point and say a town was beyond that mountain, and that was enough. We didn’t need names.”
It was true; Lawrence had been surprised by this the first time he visited the north. He had arrived at a certain town and found that its name was used only by travelers. Neither its residents nor the people living nearby knew or cared about the town’s name.
There were elderly people who claimed that naming a town would bring it to the attention of evil spirits.
Undoubtedly what they really meant by “evil spirits” was the Church.
“Well, we’ll start at Nyohhira, then. I know where that is.”
“That name brings back such memories. Are the hot springs still there?”
“I’ve heard that nobles and bishops secretly visit the town for its hot springs, despite the fact that it’s in pagan lands. According to rumor, it’s even exempt from Church attacks because of those same hot springs.”
“Those springs don’t belong to any one group, after all,” said
Holo before coughing slightly. “If Nyohhira’s our goal, then from Nyohhira it is that way.”
Holo pointed southwest—not north to Lawrence’s relief.
Any farther north than Nyohhira meant lands where the snow never melted, even in the summer.
Yet even knowing that Yoitsu was southwest of Nyohhira left too wide a region.
“How long did it take to get from Nyohhira to Yoitsu?”
“For me, two days. For a human...I do not know.”
Lawrence thought back to the time he had ridden on Holo’s back when she was in wolf form, near Ruvinheigen. She would have no trouble traversing unimproved roads.
That left too much area to search, even starting from Nyohhira. Searching for a town that itself might only be a tiny village would be like looking for a needle in a desert. It was precisely because Lawrence himself was a traveling merchant, who was used to walking from town to town, that he understood the difficulty involved.
There was also still the fact that Lawrence had heard Yoitsu had been destroyed by a great bear spirit.
If that was true, finding the remains of a town that had been destroyed centuries earlier would be truly impossible.
Lawrence was not a nobleman with the luxury of passing his days in idleness. He could only stray from his original trade route lor six months at the outside. His mistake in Ruvinheigen had set him still further back from his goal of opening a shop, and he did not have anything like a surplus of free time.
He was thinking all this over when something finally occurred to him.
“Could you not find it yourself from Nyohhira? You know the general direction, right?”
If it was just two days from Nyohhira, then just as Holo said, she would most likely be able to remember the details as she got closer.
The words had simply fallen from his mouth without any particular ill intent, but no sooner had Lawrence spoken than he realized his mistake.
Holo looked at him, stunned.
Surprise also registered on Lawrence’s face as Holo looked away.
“Y-yes...if
I got as far as Nyohhira, I could certainly find my way to Yoitsu.”
Holo forced a smile. Lawrence wondered what was wrong, then voiced a sudden “Ah—” as the realization dawned.
In the port town of Pazzio, Holo had said that loneliness was a deathly illness.
Holo feared loneliness above all else. Even if he didn’t mean anything by it, she was likely to take his suggestion hard, and she had been drinking.
She probably took his suggestion to mean that he had grown weary of searching for her homeland.
“Hey, now, wait just a minute. Don’t take it the wrong way. There’s no reason I couldn’t wait in Nyohhira while you searched for a couple of days.”
“Yes. That would be enough. You’ll guide me as far as Nyohhira, won’t you? I had hoped to see a few more towns.”
The conversation moved so smoothly it was almost a letdown, and Lawrence had to attribute this to Holo’s agile mind.
Despite her apparent agreeability, a disconnect lay beneath it.
Holo had been away from her homeland for centuries. Just as in the legend Lawrence had heard, she had to have considered the possibility that Yoitsu no longer existed, and even if it did, the countless months and years would have wrought great changes. She must have been filled with uncertainty.
No doubt she was afraid of going to her homeland alone.
That uncertainty was disguised by Holo’s innocent, happy smile when she claimed the liquor reminded her of Yoitsu.
A few moments’ thought made this clear, and Lawrence regretted his rash suggestion.
“Listen, I have every intention of helping you as much as I can. What I said before—”
“Didn’t I ask before how precious a male’s kindness was? I can’t have you being too kind.”
Holo’s forced smile mixed with her troubled expression as she set her cup down on the bed and continued, “I’m in the wrong. I can’t help thinking of things from my own perspective. But you humans, you become old in what seems like the blink of an eye to me. I always forget how precious a single year is for someone with such a brief life span.”
The moonlight streamed in through the room’s large window, illuminating Holo. She seemed almost unreal to Lawrence in that moment; he hesitated to approach her for fear that she would disappear.
Holo looked up after staring into the contents of her cup, still with that same troubled smile.
“You really are too softhearted. What am I to do with you when you look at me so?”
What was the right thing to say? Lawrence could not find the words he wanted.
A rift had undeniably formed between the two of them.
Yet the words to heal it would not come. A convenient lie would be useless as Holo would see through it instantly.
Holo’s words had made it hard for Lawrence to say anything at all. He couldn’t very well tell her he would see her through to Yoitsu no matter how many years it took. Merchants were too practical by far for such grandiosity. The many centuries of Holo’s life were too distant.
“I am the one who lost sight of the obvious. I have gotten too comfortable by your side. I presumed...too much,” said Holo with a self-conscious smile, her ears twitching with her embarrassment. She spoke like a maiden from somewhere near the bottom of her heart.
But such honesty did not bring Lawrence any pleasure.
It was as though Holo was saying good-bye.
“Heh, I seem to be a bit drunk. I’d better sleep, or who knows what I’ll wind up saying.”
Holo was never reticent at the best of times, but the way she talked made it seem like she was simply putting on a brave face.
In the end, Lawrence was unable to say anything to her.
All he could do was take note of the fact that she had not yet simply packed up and left. It seemed simultaneously unthinkable and entirely likely that she would do such a thing.
Lawrence wanted to scream at himself for being so powerless to help her.
The night silently deepened.
The cries of drunken revelers could be heard from beyond the window.
Chapter 2
No matter how plagued with worry merchants may be, it is said that they always manage to sleep well.
So it was that despite Lawrence’s concern that Holo might depart on her own during the night, Lawrence slept soundly and awoke to birdsong coming in through the window.
He didn’t do anything so flagrant as jumping frantically out of bed, but Lawrence did glance at the bed next to his and sighed in relief when he saw that Holo was still there.
He got out of bed to look outside the window. It was quite cold within the room, but the early-morning air outside was still colder; his breath turned smoke white in it.
Yet the cold air was perfectly clear—a morning made of crystal.
There were already people on the street that the inn faced. Looking down at the town merchants, who rose still earlier than the notoriously early rising traveling merchants, Lawrence arranged the days plans in his mind, finally saying “all right” to himself when they were in order.
Though it would not exactly compensate for the previous night’s blunder, Lawrence wanted to be able to fully enjoy the festival—which started the next day—with Holo, and that meant concluding his business today.
The first order of business would be selling the merchandise he’d gotten in Ruvinheigen, he thought to himself as he turned around to look back at the room.
Still a bit heavyhearted from the previous evening, Lawrence walked over to his companion, who slumbered away as usual, intending to wake her—when he stopped and furrowed his brows.
It wasn’t unusual for Holo to sleep as late as she pleased, but something else was amiss.
Her usual guileless snoring was entirely absent.
Lawrence wondered if the silence was what he thought it was, reaching out to her. She seemed to sense it; the blanket stirred minutely.
He lifted the covers' up gently.
What he saw made him sigh.
Holo’s face beneath the covers was more pathetic than any abandoned kitten.
“Hungover again, eh?”
Her ears twitched slightly; perhaps it hurt too much to move her head.
He thought about teasing Holo about it but remembered the previous night and thought better of it. And in any case, she would be in no mood to listen.
“I’ll bring a cup of water and a bucket just in case. You just be good and rest.”
He put extra emphasis on the “be good” part, which her ears twitched at yet again.
Lawrence didn’t think she would behave just because he told her to, but she was unlikely to go wandering off in her current state. Given the impossibility of her packing up and striking off on her own, he let himself relax a bit.
He knew Holo was fully capable of faking a hangover, but her face had been so pale he doubted this one was fake.
Turning the thoughts over in his head, he finished his preparations for going out without saying another word and then came back to her bedside—she was evidently incapable of so much as turning herself over.
“The festival doesn’t get going until tomorrow, so you needn’t rush yourself.”
Relief showed instantly on Holo’s exhausted, alcohol-ravaged face; Lawrence had to laugh.
It seemed that even suffering a hangover was less important to Holo than attending the festival.
“I’ll be back in the afternoon.”
Holo’s ears were still; this statement did not interest her.
Lawrence gave a strained smile, at which point the corners of Holo’s mouth curled ever so slowly into a grin.
She seemed to be doing it on purpose.
Lawrence slumped over and drew the covers back over Holo. She was undoubtedly still grinning away under there.
Still, he was genuinely relieved that she seemed not to hold a grudge from the previous night.
As he left the room, Lawrence took one more look back at Holo. Her tail stuck out from u
nderneath the blanket, and it flicked twice, as if waving good-bye.
Thinking he would buy her something tasty, he closed the door behind him.
Trying to do business before the ring of the bell that opens a market is not generally smiled upon in any town—and this is even truer when one is smack-dab in the middle of the marketplace.
However, depending on the time and circumstances, this rule can be bent.
In Kumersun it was even half-encouraged to mitigate the congestion that came with the opening of the market during the festival.
So despite the early hour, with the sun just beginning to rise above the buildings, the marketplace—which took up half of Kumersun’s southern plaza—was already busy with merchants.
Here and there were stacks of crates and piles of burlap sacks, and pigs, chickens, and all manner of livestock stood tied up or caged in the cramped spaces between goods and the stalls. As Kumersun was the largest exporter of fish in the landlocked region, it was easy to spot fish swimming in huge barrels of freshwater, not unlike the ones Amati had been hauling the previous day.
Just as Holo was unable to hide her excitement when faced with a line of eateries, Lawrence’s pulse could not help but quicken when he saw the vast array of goods in the marketplace.
How much profit could one make transporting this good to that town? This other commodity was so plentiful that there must be a surplus of it in that location—would the price be lower? Such thoughts chased each other through Lawrence’s mind.
When he was just starting out as a merchant, Lawrence had no sense of what was a favorable price for a good, so he wandered about aimlessly without knowing what to do—but now he could discern all kinds of things.
Once a merchant fully grasped this intricate web of commodities, he became like an alchemist, transmuting lead into gold.
Lawrence felt giddy at the power this notion afforded him until he remembered his failure in Ruvinheigen, which he chuckled at, chagrined.
Turning one’s eyes to avarice made it all the more easy to stumble, after all.