Spring Log IV Read online

  “Hmm? Yeah, it sounds like they have a lot to pack…They’re busy exchanging the wheat from the south’s summer harvest and the furs from the north. Um…and? We could probably see all the sights in town in a day, and I asked the Debau Company to order writing implements for you…”

  But Holo gripped some sort of paper in her hand. It seemed the lazy Holo had gotten up early and gone to gather information.

  Lawrence swallowed a yawn and looked up to his sometimes-outrageous traveling partner.

  “So what are we doing?”

  Holo sniffed, then sighed, and then stuck the paper out into Lawrence’s face.

  “I shall be working myself to the bone!”

  I think you’re still drunk from last night, Lawrence thought.

  Once they entered the lively town of Atiph, Holo eagerly peered at the piece of paper in her hand as Lawrence yawned beside her. The note had various things in Holo’s usual bad handwriting written on it, and it seemed to be generally the types of work found in towns.

  Holo was a proud wolf, but it was exceedingly uncertain to say if she was diligent or not. It would take rather a whole lot for her to work during a trip without sightseeing or wandering around and eating the local specialties.

  When he asked, the day before really did seem to be the cause of it.

  “I whined like a child about wanting the picture, but you cannot create something from nothing. And your wallet is meant for buying me food and drink at the end of the day.”

  “I’m really happy that you noticed the truth. I wish you’d known that when I was traveling around as a merchant, though.”

  “Fool. And I asked about the price of a painting, and, well…I do understand why you would refuse on the spot.”

  Holo was, all in all, sharp and clever, so she had a better grasp on the market values of things than any random girl wandering about town.

  “But if we just have something done with charcoal and cloth, then we could still have someone draw us with pen and water in just a few days.”

  “…”

  Holo glared at Lawrence when he said that.

  “Why does that little fool Myuri get something so wonderful, while my face must be dirtied with charcoal?”

  The Great Wisewolf was hundreds of years old.

  But Lawrence knew Holo very well.

  Beneath her massive wolf fangs was a maiden more ladylike than her daughter, Myuri.

  “Of course. You’re just as cute as Myuri is, but you would shine much brighter in a painting for all the dignity that you have.”

  He would not dare breathe a syllable of calling her childish, so that was what he said. Of course, there was no mistruth to it, either, so Holo, whose ears could detect lies, was delighted.

  “It seems you’ve finally understood.”

  “Yes, finally,” he responded theatrically, and Holo burst out into laughter, unable to hold it back, and Lawrence laughed as well. “So are you planning on earning some money somewhere? It’s a lively town, so I don’t think you’ll be too hard-pressed to find some temporary work…What are these symbols here?”

  “Mm, ’tis work I believe would suit me.”

  Work suitable for Holo the Wisewolf.

  Lawrence quietly repeated that phrase to himself as Holo showed him her notes, but ignoring her as she beamed with pride, he found himself making a rather dry smile.

  “Bakery salesgirl, tavern salesgirl, sausage salesgirl…These are all food-related.”

  “Good, no?”

  He would refrain from asking how it was good.

  She likely assumed she could snack her way through work.

  Despite that thought in his head, Lawrence said, “I’m sure the shop owners would be happy to hire you as a poster girl for their shop.”

  “Indeed!”

  She was charismatic and had a nice smile, so if she stood out in front of a store wearing a headkerchief and an apron, a line would form in no time.

  There was no question about that at all, but Lawrence knew one thing that Holo did not. Well, perhaps it would be more apt to say that there was something, thinking back on their past trade journey together, that she had forgotten.

  Yet, if he said it out loud, Holo would likely not acknowledge it.

  There were plenty of things in the world that one had to experience to learn.

  “Well, good luck,” Lawrence said and returned the paper to Holo. “Your drunk and useless husband is going to go laze about in his room.”

  Holo flashed a gallant smile and laughed.

  Holo was hired on the spot as a salesgirl for a bakery. Not only was this a busy season for travelers, but boats were coming into harbor one after the other, so customers who were fed up with hardtack came in droves to the shop to get their fresh bread. They greeted her briefly before telling her to stand outside right away.

  After waving to Holo as she excitedly put on her apron, Lawrence left the shop.

  He wandered around the port afterward, looking into the price and quality of the goods that came to Atiph, and paid a visit to the companies he always ordered from. He then went around to visit a few companies that dealt with flours in town. They had run into trouble ordering wheat before, and there might be something cheaper than the barley from the production center they always bought from. The barley farms were always going in and out of fashion.

  And he found himself getting excited just by looking at the shops in a lively town.

  Running a bathhouse was by no means boring, but it was a different sort of enjoyment from thinking about how to order an unbelievable number of products and where he might sell them to get the highest price.

  He ate lunch outside at some food stands, then, feeling like he was a rookie again, he went around to look minutely at the business transactions in Atiph. He decided to peek in at the herring egg exchange while he was at it, and he chuckled to himself when he saw the price of eggs was going up.

  Time passed in a flash as he wandered around doing this and that, and the loud ringing of the church bell brought him back to reality. It signaled the end of a day and was also the bell to close up shop for most places. Holo would be finishing work soon.

  Thinking she would have been standing and talking all day for work, Lawrence bought what he was told was freshly made apple cider, then returned to the Debau Company. The maids let him know that Holo had already returned.

  Lawrence opened the door to the room and gave a tired smile.

  “Good work today.”

  Holo had scattered her thick clothing and lay facedown on the bed, wearing only her chilly, casual clothes.

  She did not even budge an inch, and the lay of fur on her tail that she was so proud of was mussed.

  The room was filled with the scent of fresh bread, and the source of the smell was likely Holo.

  If he hugged her as she was now, she would doubtlessly smell incredibly good.

  “What do you want to do for dinner?” he asked, but she did not move. He thought about how she did not seem to be asleep as he placed the small cask of cider on the table. There was a bag there. He loosened the strings to open it and found some bread that she had brought home, likely a gift from the shop owner. It all looked delicious, but it did not seem like any of the loaves had been touched. The gluttonous Holo would never have considered something so laudable as waiting until her dearest husband had returned home before eating.

  With a knowing smile, Lawrence said, “It’s only the first few minutes that it smells good, isn’t it?”

  She probably figured that if she was to work at all, she might as well spend her hours be surrounded by good smells…But there was such a thing as too much of a good thing.

  “You…knew…”

  He heard her parched voice coming from the bed, one that made his own throat hurt just listening to it.

  “Sure, but you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  “…”

  Her messy tail stood and then lifelessly drooped.

&nbs
p; “I can’t remember when, but you went to go sell meat and bread to a water mill construction site, remember? Did you forget that it was only at the very beginning that you were happily snacking on the product?”

  “∼∼∼…”

  Holo said something with her face still pushed into the pillow, kicked her feet, and then held them straight out. That meant Shut up and massage my feet.

  “Now you see how hard it is to make money.”

  He sat down on the bed, and Holo kicked him with her bare feet. There was lukewarm water and a washcloth in a washtub next to the bed, so he soaked the cloth in the water, squeezed it out, and then wiped her feet. They were small and shapely.

  The maids had likely been very considerate by putting hot water into the washtub, but Holo was in no mood to bother with it after using up all her energy; she had used the last of it removing her clothes before lying facedown on the bed.

  “But it was a good event to remember, wasn’t it?” Lawrence said with a smile, and her left foot, which he was not washing, kicked him in the shoulder.

  “Are you going tomorrow?”

  The moment he asked, her right foot shuddered in his hand.

  When he looked up to her face, she had lifted her head and spoke painfully. “…The name of the wisewolf would be shamed should I run away after one day…”

  Shops hired travelers temporarily on a day or half-day basis, so they typically would not mind, but Holo was a proud one.

  “Well, tomorrow you can work hard, and then we can just say that a different shop called on you.”

  Holo closed her eyes and sighed deeply, then slowly sat up and clung to Lawrence.

  “I can’t wipe your feet like this.”

  Even though he still had her left foot to go, Holo continued clinging to him, unmoving, like a small child.

  Despite how she could easily breeze her way through the world on her own, she was in this state after just one day of working at a bakery.

  Lawrence found himself smiling, but he was also happy when he thought about how she was showing him her vulnerable side like this.

  “You should take a little rest. The lights are on all night at the port this time of year, so we can do some sightseeing as we go eat.”

  He patted Holo’s head, and her triangular wolf ears flicked about. When she did, wheat flew off them, like scales falling from a butterfly, and he could tell how rough her work was.

  “Well then, I’m going to talk a bit with the manager here about my wo—”

  Just as he was about to stand, he was pulled back into the bed. Holo did not even move to lift her head from his chest. She had surely lavishly spent an entire year’s worth of amiability at the bakery.

  Holo was shy; she was trying to replenish herself after being eroded down by customer service.

  Lawrence made a tired yet kind smile, embraced her in return, and her tail began to lightly thump against the bed.

  Someone always needed the happiness of a merchant.

  And before long, he could hear her snoring softly.

  In the end, Holo worked for three days at the bakery out of pride and did not quite earn a silver trenni but made about half of one. She was paid in small change, which also helped. Her payment was overboard considering the market prices, either because she worked really hard or because the bakery was very successful.

  In exchange, Lawrence was busy filling in all the parts of Holo she had worked to dust.

  He brushed her hair after getting up in the morning, dressed her, ripped off pieces of bread to feed her, patted her on the head when she got down, complimented her tail—he almost wanted some sort of salary for himself, but he did not mind such days every once in a while.

  After it was all said and done, Holo spent almost two full days in depravity after finishing work at the bakery before she finally got her energy back.

  “Honestly, what a terrible thing I have been through!” Holo said as she ripped into the sausage she was eating for lunch in the room they were staying in.

  She spoke as though it was Lawrence who had forced her into working, but it would only drag on if he pointed that out to her, so he stayed silent.

  “But I could not even manage a shiny silver for myself; how dreadfully long it must take…”

  “There’s no rush in making money. There’s still so much work here.”

  The paper Holo had filled with notes about work she had heard about around town was packed with jobs meant for travelers who were waiting for favorable winds for their boat or for their stagecoach, or the kind that suddenly needed more helping hands.

  Unloading cargo at the port was a standard job, and there was also work for people to chase the herds of pigs and sheep once they were unloaded. There was also demand for boat cleaners, as well as seamstresses to repair the sails—all very typical of a port town.

  There were also plenty of salesgirls, and those who could read and write would undoubtedly find work at the notary association.

  “I have had enough of the food sort,” Holo said, sprinkling a generous helping of mustard onto her sausage before biting into it.

  Her shoulders immediately tensed at the spice, and the hairs on her tail stood on end.

  “Then what’s left is technical work or heavy labor.”

  “Ooooh…Is there nothing else? Something easy and simple. Wine tasting or something of the sort.”

  Despite how she had just gotten a taste of the pain of being surrounded by too much food, she had not learned her lesson.

  “You’d be a huge help if there was work meant for sniffing out mixed flour.”

  That very thing had happened in the bathhouse once, and Holo and Myuri realized they had gotten mixed flour thanks to their wolf noses.

  “You fool. Should I do a job like that, I would not be able to smell for ten days afterward.”

  But then you wouldn’t realize you were eating cheap food, and that’d be a big help…, Lawrence murmured silently to himself as his eyes stopped on a line in the list of jobs she had collected.

  “What is this?”

  “Mm?”

  Traveling merchants went to many different lands and conducted business in each place according to circumstances. That was why he had considerable confidence when it came to knowledge about the world, but there was something there that Lawrence did not know.

  “Mixing girl?”

  “Ah yes, that one.” Holo stuffed her mouth with bread filled with walnuts and clapped her hands. “I heard about it from a girl who was sewing all day in this trading house. There is some sort of job like that in the harbor.”

  “Do you mix things, like the name says? What do you mix?”

  “I hear the most common is wheat. Aye. Sounds quite suited for me.”

  That did not ring any bells.

  “Do you help a baker, then?” Lawrence asked, and Holo swallowed her wine to finish off her meal, then exhaled in bliss.

  “I have already said I will no longer do such a thing, no? This work is caring for the wheat before it is made into flour. You only deal with wheat by placing it on your nice, breezy cart, which is why you do not know.” Holo wiped her mouth, energetically reached for a certain coat pocket, and grabbed Lawrence’s share of food as well. “You know wheat goes bad quickly in the damp, yes? ’Tis also true in the village. So when it is being stored, it must be mixed twice a day to air it out. Ones that might seem especially damp are left to dry outside.”

  “Huh, I didn’t know that. I do wonder about the quality sometimes, but I never wondered how they kept it.”

  “Hmph.” Holo crossed her arms and for some reason looked at him with a reproachful stare. “Honestly, you always act like that.”

  Holo’s fluffy tail deliberately swayed back and forth behind her. The thick fur never failed to keep him warm at night.

  “…Don’t you always write down how much I support and nurture your tail?”

  That was even doubly true for the main body it was attached to. Had she already f
orgotten how he treated her yesterday and the day before?

  “You fool, ’tis not enough.”

  When she said that, Lawrence could only shrug with a sigh.

  “Anyway. I am practiced at caring for wheat, and the markets in both the village and the town have decided that ’tis a woman’s job.”

  “So that’s why it’s called a ‘mixing girl.’”

  Every job had its own responsibilities and its own territory. Even in towns that Lawrence thought he knew everything about, there were still some things that a man would never notice.

  “I have heard that there are also songs to sing when mixing. Sounds delightful.”

  She did not often join in on the festivities in the bathhouse, but Holo did sometimes sing and dance.

  When he imagined her sticking her arm in a sack stuffed with wheat, humming cheerfully as she did so, Lawrence found it endearing.

  “Don’t let your guard down and start wagging your tail.”

  “I am not a dog!”

  As Holo glared at him, their hands intertwined, they made their way down to the port.

  After inquiring from people on the street at the port, they headed to a district lined with warehouses where they would most likely find the work in question, and sure enough, among the many cargo handlers and merchants, there were a few women here and there. Lawrence had also noticed that there were women about when he visited the harbor, of course, but it never crossed his mind what sort of work they might be doing.

  Being a mixing girl apparently required wearing short sleeves, even in the middle of winter, so when he saw that all the women were wearing short sleeves, he only felt embarrassed at how clueless he was.

  “Ah, will you be working, miss?”

  After asking people passing by on the street, they met a little old man, gripping a pen, who supervised the mixing girl work at the notary office by the warehouses.

  He seemed like a regular kind old man at first, but they could see countless scars on his skin, which had been terribly weathered by the sun, and the bones in his fingers were unusually fat. He was likely well-known as a cargo handler and had shouldered the processing of goods when he was younger.