Side Colors III Read online

  Even if the town had deep faith, without a priest there, the items in the church must have been neglected.

  “In here,” the woman said in a voice suddenly much quieter than it had been a moment ago. She pulled the cloth aside and gestured for my master to enter. I thought I might be barred, but the woman smiled and let me pass.

  I elevated my opinion of her a bit.

  “…It’s only been a day, and he’s so—”

  I couldn’t help but wonder if my master would have finished by saying “thin.”

  The woman nodded and for the first time let a worried-sounding sigh escape.

  Evidently we hadn’t mistaken the bishop’s condition, despite the gloom. An injury can be enough to cause someone to weaken and waste away—and the bishop was not a young man to begin with.

  My master clasped her hands, closed her eyes, and began to pray. I doubted I would ever forget the way the church had treated her before, so I couldn’t bring myself to feel comfortable there. I sat down and waited. At the very least, Giuseppe bore no responsibility for my master’s suffering. Far from it, he’d held me in properly high esteem, so I could not deny that I, too, hoped he recovered.

  “…And may the blessing of God be upon you,” my master finally murmured, then reached out to touch the sheet under which Giuseppe quietly slept. She then turned to face the woman. Humans are very talented with speech, but in such times a simple look was often more eloquent. The woman nodded and placed her hand on my master’s shoulder, and the two of them left the room. I stood and turned to follow them, but then looked back around.

  Perhaps it was my imagination, but I thought I felt Giuseppe’s eyes on me.

  But his old body still lay asleep and unmoving there on the bed.

  I was a sheepdog, who slept under the stars and felt the breath of the land on my body. I had an instinct for the movements of the earth and the heavens. I was glad I could not speak, nor have the wealth of expressions that humans enjoy. Otherwise, I might not have been able to hide my feelings from my master.

  On the other hand, his sleeping face had obviously been very peaceful, so perhaps Giuseppe’s heart was peaceful as well.

  This was not cause for sorrow.

  I left the room and followed my master.

  When two sparrows meet, noise follows.

  So it should be no surprise that when humans (who are more talkative than any bird) assemble, a great commotion always comes with them.

  As she’d gone to visit Giuseppe and his companion, whose name was evidently Rudeau Dorhof, it seemed the villagers would not let my master quietly return to her bed.

  “Ah, so you’re from Ruvinheigen, eh?…Where is that, incidentally?”

  “I’ve heard of the place! They say the cathedral there is lit all night long thanks to God.”

  “Yes, yes! And I’ve heard they tan most of their leather there on tanning stones of gold.”

  “Gold?! Well, that’s Ruvinheigen for you. Where was it again…?”

  Thus it went, on and on, villagers either peppering my master with questions or talking over her among themselves.

  I was lying beside my master and yawned a lazy yawn. The words coming out of their mouths were no different from the baaing of a flock of sheep, as far as I was concerned.

  “Didn’t Father Nico say the cathedral in the holy city of Ruvinheigen reaches all the way to the heavens?”

  “He did, he did. He said the cathedral was so tall, his prayers were always being interrupted by angels passing by the windows!”

  “I wonder how it really is?”

  The conversation finally turned to my master, and I glanced up at her. She was smiling, but it was a pained smile, not a pleasant one.

  “I suppose…that might be true.”

  It was true that the cathedral was tall enough that one had to look up to see it, and perhaps crows and sparrows could be counted as angels.

  But if she’d denied that, it would’ve made a liar out of Father Nico. My master had learned these sorts of truths from hard experience.

  No matter how dire the circumstances, it was never good to accuse a clergyman of lying.

  “Indeed! I remember Father Nico saying he wanted to see Ruvinheigen one more time before he died.”

  “But still, Bishop Giuseppe has been there many times himself, and this time passed through it on his way to this very town. And it was Miss Norah, who once worked at the Ruvinheigen Church, who led him here. I can’t help but suppose that God heard Father Nico’s prayers,” said a woman, and all present nodded firmly.

  Then they all ardently sought to shake my master’s hand again, saying “Thank you” over and over again.

  This all made my master very uneasy, either because she was not used to being thanked or because her experience led her to feel uncomfortable with even the small lie of having “worked at the church.”

  Grain millers, shepherds, tanners—all were despised just as thoroughly as executioners and tax collectors. If she was to let slip the truth here, all the smiles she received would be strained ones, and none would have any warmth in them.

  And in any case, my master wasn’t lying by saying she worked at the church. She simply wasn’t telling the whole truth.

  It wasn’t even untrue that she was to thank for Giuseppe’s arrival in this town. I felt that if the town was going to treat us with such overflowing gratitude, we ought to accept it with all pride…but that was difficult for my master.

  For my part, as I participated in this discussion, I received a pork sausage, albeit one that was about to go bad. Thanks are so much more substantial when they come with something more.

  “Still,” asked a woman after the questions abated. “Why were you coming here in the first place? Hadn’t you heard the rumors?”

  We had finally come to the heart of the matter, I thought, which illustrated the difference in our respective priorities.

  My master and I were homeless wanderers. We were less concerned with the happenings of the next town over than we were about whether or not there was someone at our side. For someone who lived in the same place their entire life, the opposite was true.

  “Yes, I’d heard.”

  “So why did you come? Was it because—did God tell you to?”

  The conversation had jumped in a strange direction, and the other women’s expressions were changing.

  Unsurprisingly, my master hastily demurred. But in doing so, she would have to reveal her true reason, and she looked down at me. I was certain she was remembering how Ars, chief of the clothiers’ guild, had treated her. If my master admitted she’d come here looking for work, she might be given quite a tongue-lashing.

  Until that very moment, even she seemed about to be overwhelmed by the conversation around her; at least it had been pleasant. I couldn’t blame her for being desperate to preserve that mood.

  Unfortunately, I was in no position to come to her aid. I curled up my tail and drooped my head.

  “Oh, there she is!” came the sole man’s voice, cutting through the voices of all the women. In that moment, the mood of the place changed instantly.

  It was as though they were a flock of sheep stunned into silence by the sound of a wolf’s footfalls.

  First my master was surprised by this, and only a moment later did she follow all the women’s gazes to their end.

  There was the man who’d interrupted us at the guild house earlier that day. He was looking at my master, waving his hand.

  “What’re you doing here, you devil!”

  It was those words that were the most surprising of all. They came from one of the women who’d been so lively and pleased up until just a moment earlier.

  My master winced at this sudden turn, automatically reaching down to put her hand on my head.

  “Just where do you think you are? This is a church, the house of God!”

  “Come now, don’t scream at me like that. I’m allowed to come to church, too, am I not? It’s not the righteous ma
n that needs God, but the wicked man,” he said, his lip curling up at one corner in a sarcastic sneer.

  His expression was clearly hostile, but it was difficult to see at what the spearpoint of his malice was aimed.

  Just as I was feeling a certain kinship with that, one of the women ventured to answer.

  “Shut your mouth! You usurer! You loan shark!”

  The man merely shrugged off the vicious accusation—he raised his hands to about the level of his shoulders, his palms facing the women.

  Usurer. Moneylender.

  So he was one of us.

  “Fine, fine. But I haven’t come after your meager little coin purses today, I’ll have you know.”

  The reaction of the women in that instant was indescribably comical. They looked at each other uncertainly. “Well, if that’s so…”

  I understood humans surprisingly well for a dog. Their thoughts were utterly obvious to me.

  “E-er, do you have some business with me?” said my master, after a few moments of silence.

  The women’s body language told her not to talk to this fellow, but my kindhearted master finally met the man’s gaze—whereupon a smile bloomed upon his face, and he spoke in a merry tone.

  “Well, we met in such circumstances earlier today, after all! After you left, I heard the circumstances from Ars, and I knew I couldn’t leave the situation as it was.”

  “…Ci-circumstances?” asked one of the women finally, unable to restrain her curiosity. It was like dangling a barley shoot in front of a cat.

  The man shrugged again and answered, “Listen up, you all. This girl came here in search of work.”

  Everyone’s gazes fell upon her, and my master froze in sudden fear.

  “She came here to this plague-ridden town that everyone else is fleeing. She came all this way to become a seamstress, and Ars screamed at her and drove her away.”

  The silence that followed was surely a long one for my master. I managed to hold back my growl, but my master’s hand gripped the back of my neck with nearly painful force. The tension was like the first step onto the rickety boards of an old bridge across a deep river, and everyone there felt it.

  When gazes fell upon my master in a town, they held fear, hostility, and hatred. The same staff that was used to gather sheep in the fields would drive people away when in town.

  Witch. Pagan. Shepherd.

  All three words carried the same meaning, and my master was always looking down.

  Just as I was starting to worry that her grip around my neck was going to choke me to death—

  “Welcome to Kuskov!” said one of the women with tears in her eyes, taking my master’s empty hands in hers. My master, not understanding, remained downcast until her gaze flicked frantically here and there as the other women gathered around her to join in the embrace. Since she’d done the same thing to me just a moment earlier, I decided to let her be.

  But I noticed that the man was still watching us with unsmiling eyes.

  I knew that moneylenders were largely despised. No doubt he was envious of the treatment my master was getting.

  “Well, you know Ars—she can be rather stubborn. You might have to wait awhile, but circumstances change. So please, don’t leave town yet. Stay awhile. That’s all I wanted to say,” said the man, even as my master was surrounded by the women. One corner of his lips was still curled up. “And please, do let me know if you’d like to be a seamstress,” he finished with a courteous bow.

  The women had silently listened to the man’s talk up until that point, but embracing my master together, they replied for her.

  “Have some shame, moneylender! How dare you try to get this girl’s help!”

  “That’s right, don’t you dare try to make her suffer the way you have us!”

  The man endured these rebukes with that same half smile of his. Perhaps he was used to it. “My name is Johan Erdrich. They say I’m a usurer, but really I’m just a money changer.”

  “How dare you tell such an obvious lie in the church!”

  “I exchange the money of now for the money of the future, so I’m a money changer.” His expression still didn’t change, but for the first time, his words carried some force.

  The women all fell suddenly silent, as though doused in cold water, and it took some time before the strength came back to their gazes.

  “That’s all I had to say. Now then, if you’ll excuse me.” His final smile was of a piece with the smiles of all who make their living in trade.

  A strange exhaustion lingered, as though a storm had blown itself out in the room. The women held their breath until Johan’s footsteps disappeared.

  “W-well, anyhow, if you’ve come looking for work, you’re very welcome here. Kuskov will surely recover.”

  “Yes, yes! Just having more people to make the town lively again is a great help.”

  Perhaps because this treatment was so different from Ars’s attitude, my master was a bit worried, but once she understood that the women were not lying to her, a smile gradually returned to her face.

  It was the smile of one who had spent many days in the field finally catching sight of a town.

  When I looked up at my master’s face, she nodded with a smile.

  That night, we returned to the inn.

  “What a busy day,” said my master as she stroked my back with her bare feet.

  How right she was.

  Certainly it had been more stimulating than herding sheep.

  THREE

  The next day, our breakfast was a very lively one.

  The brave little knights that had survived the plague gathered in our room and listened fervently to my master’s stories. It was not certain whether or not one of the women my master had spoken to in the church the previous day had spread the word she was perfectly suited to caring for children, but in any case, when the innkeeper had come to bring breakfast, the children were right behind her.

  But perhaps because she felt she owed a debt for staying at the inn, my master invited them into her room with nary a pause, sharing her small breakfast with them and telling tales, both myths and stories from her travels.

  I was a bit exasperated with my master’s strong sense of duty, but I endured the little knights’ rather rude treatment of me without any complaint. I was rather impressed with my own forbearance, honestly, and eventually I noticed that my master’s stories had diverted their attention from me.

  The youngest wound up on my master’s lap and eventually fell asleep. On either side of her presently were slightly larger children, who clung to her clothing and looked up at her, totally absorbed in her story.

  My master’s face was uncharacteristically mild, and even when she had to quiet a fussing child or soothe the tears of one who’d misunderstood her stories, she did so happily. She seemed nearly overwhelmed a few times but has also matured quite a bit herself. Knowing as I did that my master had been driven around by her shepherd’s staff more than she’d wielded it herself, I couldn’t help but find this rather affecting.

  And of course, it seemed more natural for my human master to be surrounded by human children. Although there was not much difference between the ability to communicate with them and with me.

  “…And they lived happily ever after!” As she finished the story, there was a collective sigh of relief from the children. They’d all been rather absorbed in it, apparently.

  Still, it wouldn’t take much for them to become even more savage than I. If you gave them something to eat, they would stuff themselves fit to burst—which was even more true when it came to stories, since no matter how many they heard, their appetite never lessened. My master was beginning to seem a bit troubled by their endless demands for more, more!

  I was a knight, and my most basic job was to protect my master. Just as I thought she was about to seek my help, there was a sudden hiccup. My master, still harassed by children pulling on her clothes and her hair, froze.

  I backed up. Something
was coming. A dark cloud seem to rise up and darken the room. Then there was a terrible, thunderous sound.

  “…Waaaaaaaaaah!”

  The astonishing noise dizzied me. My master flailed haplessly in the face of the screaming child.

  Lambs are easy—they can walk the moment they’re born. But human children are different.

  Though my master frantically tried to calm the child, its intense screams drowned everything else out.

  What had happened? Even I was starting to worry.

  “Ha-ha, here, miss, let me help!”

  These same children had moments earlier been grabbing shamelessly at my master’s hair and clothing, as selfishly as any barnyard animal. They giggled as they spoke, then took the infant from my master’s lap. The children were not much larger than the infant. And yet somehow, they had no trouble holding it and quieting it.

  They seemed quite adept at the skill, and when I looked at my master, I saw that she, too, was round-eyed with surprise.

  The infant was finally calmed, happily poking at the chest of the child who held it. The remaining children followed after him, looking for all the world like a flock of chickens. The only thing that indeed did distinguish them from chickens was how they turned and waved to my master on their way out of the room.

  It had been so noisy just moments earlier, but now it was suddenly silent, and all that remained was a strange feeling of fatigue. My master stared blankly at the left-open door for a while.

  Eventually she returned to the present, and the next thing she did was put her hand to her chest. If I had been human, I would have laughed.

  Something seemed to occur to her, and she looked down at her chest, then over to me. The smile that played about her lips was a wicked one.

  She stood from her chair and walked over to me, then crouched down. “You were laughing at me, weren’t you?”

  Absurd! Preposterous!

  I looked away, but she showed me no mercy. She pushed me over onto my back, and as I lay there, she began to rub my belly.

  I was a proud sheepdog, but where I could impose my will upon sheep, I could not so easily control my own instincts. In the moments that followed I was thoroughly reminded just who was the master here.