Wolf & Parchment, Volume 3 Read online

  “No…We had plans to have dinner with an acquaintance staying here.”

  He responded, then continued.

  “In celebration of a successful deal.”

  Col was now dressed as a merchant. The sailor squinted, scrunched his nose, then leaned over to him and held up his tankard.

  “That’s fantastic.”

  Col lifted his own tankard to his. He did not seem like a bad person.

  “But who? I’ve been here a while, too. I’ve got a good grasp on what most people are up to. If you’re gonna look for ’em, I’ll tell you what I know.”

  The sailor, who had now completely turned to face his table, spoke as he stroked the stiff hairs on his arm.

  “A wool broker named Gisele the Black Sheep.”

  He said the name the innkeeper had used, and the sailor looked at him in astonishment.

  “Gisele? The one at the back of the second floor?”

  He recalled the overflowing cargo and the skull above the door.

  The sailor threw back his tankard and gulped it down.

  “Hmm…that’s weird…That was definitely for Gisele.”

  He then turned back to his own table.

  “Oy, lads, there were people coming and going during the day today, yeah?”

  “Huh?”

  Their conversation began. As he wondered what was going on, the ceiling above him shook.

  It shivered with such force he could see the sound when he saw feet at the stairs, then her body, then Myuri.

  Her face was tense.

  Her eyes were red.

  “I knew it. That Gisele said she was off to travel and was gathering her stuff.”

  “Huh?”

  Myuri stood behind Col, her shoulders drawn up.

  “Ilenia’s gone.”

  Her face was pale, and her eyes were a deep red.

  “Maybe a trade deal is taking a long—”

  “Her door was unlocked, and those boxes were gone, and so was all the nice-looking wool.”

  She cut him off and spoke conclusively.

  There was an emotion she was desperately holding back that was baring its fangs deep in her unblinking eyes.

  “What’s up, did you lend that Black Sheep some money?”

  The sailor looked back and forth between them.

  There was one question that came to mind immediately.

  “Was it Miss Ilenia who was gathering her things?”

  The word that she was gathering her things to go on a journey scratched at him like sand mixed into bread. With a tax collection permit worth fifty gold coins, she had gotten her hands on the cloth of Saint Nex, kept in a secret closet, which was in a secret room in the cathedral’s vault.

  Though she said it generally would not have much value, it had been kept with a bit of hair from a famous saint that even children knew of and a fragment of the legendary ark that appears in the scripture. He could not imagine how much gold it was actually worth.

  Had she been robbed?

  And then it occurred to him.

  Who on earth had noticed she had gotten her hands on a treasure?

  “No, it wasn’t the girl herself, but they said she’d asked them to gather her things.”

  In a place such as this, where people who lived on the road gathered, no one would pay mind to something like that. For inns, it was typical that new people came every day and left suddenly.

  But could it be anything other than robbery?

  “Let us go check again.”

  Col rose from his chair.

  “Do you mind if we use that?”

  The other sailors pointed to their table, and Col responded, handing over the bag of food.

  “Take this, too.”

  The eyes of the drunken sailors were immediately clear when they saw the bag. When Col and Myuri left the table, they could hear cheers of joy behind them.

  Following the impatient Myuri’s lead, they went up to the second floor and traveled farther down the hall.

  The liveliness of the tavern downstairs made it seem even quieter.

  “Can you sniff out who’s been coming and going?”

  She had a wolf’s nose.

  But she shook her head.

  “Does it seem like there’s been a fight? Like…the smell of blood?”

  While he wished such a thing had not happened, he had to be sure.

  As Myuri placed her hand on the door, she shook her head again.

  “Nothing. I think she was tricked and led out.”

  If there was no sign of struggle, then that was possible. When she opened the door, the light shining through the gaps in the window faintly illuminated the outlines in the room.

  “You said the boxes are gone, right?”

  “Yeah. And all the good-quality wool is gone, too.”

  As his eyes grew used to the darkness, sure enough, everything that made the room feel small was gone.

  “Could you follow Miss Ilenia’s scent?”

  Just as he asked, Myuri took a deep breath then exhaled.

  “I…don’t think so. Everything smells like sheep in this town. Even when I go downstairs, I lose track of everything.”

  That meant there were only so many things they could do. They could either ask around on the street or make guesses.

  The fact that she carried the cloth of a saint would only make asking questions even trickier.

  “Brother, Ilenia…”

  Myuri said, and she looked ready to burst into restless tears.

  She had said that Ilenia was only nice to her because she wanted to include her in her party, but to Myuri, a fellow nonhuman was a big deal.

  He only needed to remember Habbot’s face when he visited the cathedral, dressed as a priest. It was a happy thing to meet someone who lived under similar circumstances as oneself, even if they were strangers, or even if they were hostile.

  And unlike Autumn, Ilenia looked like a girl and was not as old as Holo. Of course the friendly Myuri would quickly let down her guard around her.

  But they would gain nothing by panicking, and more importantly, he did not want to see a sad face on Myuri.

  “It’s all right. Calm down now.”

  He pulled her into a hug, and she hugged back even tighter.

  As he patted her small back three times, he moved his head.

  “Well, we can’t move forward by standing here.”

  He offered words of comfort as he let go, and Myuri smiled at him bravely.

  “Myuri, can you tell where she put the odd fabric?”

  As she wiped the corners of her eyes, she immediately stooped down and entered the room.

  Her ears and tail sometimes shone dully as the light grew brighter and dimmer.

  “Here…maybe. It smells like mold.”

  She found a wooden box with a lock at the back of the room. It was reinforced with metal and big enough to fit two of Myuri.

  “It’s unlocked, and…it’s empty.”

  Such a big box would typically hold a variety of different things. Myuri poked her head inside and sniffed around.

  “It smells like money, and sheepskin…Oh, Brother, I think this stuff might’ve been inside.”

  She reached down the side of the box, and from a gap between other boxes, she pulled out a sheet of parchment.

  She neared the window, held it up to the light filtering through, and saw words.

  “It’s a contract. Then it’s possible she kept valuables in this box.”

  And all of it was gone.

  Was this a coincidence? Like Habbot said, a wool broker bidding on a tax collection permit was enough to stand out on its own. Fifty gold lumione for a permit was not cheap.

  It was not entirely impossible that she had been targeted a while back and was only now being attacked.

  If there was no struggle, then Myuri’s suggestion was perfectly valid: She had been tricked and led away, then her room was searched while she was gone.

  But if it was not a coincid
ence?

  “If the reason her room was searched was because of that cloth…”

  The list of suspects naturally shrunk.

  “I cannot imagine anyone besides Mr. Habbot.”

  “Then—”

  Myuri’s tail puffed up with so much energy it was almost loud, and she started to run off.

  “But then why are we safe?”

  Col looked at Myuri, and she looked back at him blankly.

  “According to Mr. Sligh, there are spies from the Church in town. It would be appropriate to think that it was them who took her away. If that were the case, then we should be apprehended, too.”

  “…They might think we’re just random passersby that she used.”

  “And yet, we did help her. There must be some kind of behavior for this…Did you notice anyone looking at us like that?”

  Myuri dropped her head, even her shoulders, and looked away uncomfortably.

  “…No…”

  “Which then means we were not necessarily being watched.”

  Myuri was not a stupid girl.

  “And that’s right. If Mr. Habbot really had sent out orders, then there’s the problem of communication.”

  “Communication?”

  “The cathedral is at the top of the cape. Anyone walking on the cape stands out, and having said that, if spies really are in the city, then how did he let them know that a treasure had been taken away?”

  Myuri looked off distantly and tilted her head.

  “Or it is possible that someone else was in the cathedral.”

  But that did not seem likely, either, judging by Myuri’s response. More importantly, since her house had been searched while the sun was up, Habbot himself would have had to go into town during the day, or the spies would have had to go to the cathedral.

  They needed to confirm this, but it was hard to imagine.

  “Then where did Ilenia go? Who took her stuff?”

  Myuri was getting impatient.

  She must have thought they were wasting precious time, but there was no point in both of them panicking. Myuri had saved him with how calm she was in the northern islands. Now it was his turn.

  As he wondered what they should do, he noticed the parchment in his hand.

  “Miss Ilenia said she belonged to a trading firm from the south. If that’s so, then she surely has someone to depend on in her time of need.”

  In the northern islands, that was the church the merchants built at their own expense. No one could know what would happen in a distant land, nor was it certain that local people in power would help. Though people were weak all by themselves, that was not the case in a group. Not to mention that Ilenia, as a sheep, should know how important that was.

  Her company would be of much more help than himself and Myuri simply worrying about her.

  “But where should we go?”

  “Seek and you shall receive.”

  They only needed to ask.

  “I’ll ask the people downstairs.”

  Col hurriedly stopped Myuri as she was about to rush out.

  “Even though they don’t know what company she belongs to?”

  He looked at the parchment in his hand, disregarding Myuri as she stopped in her tracks. It was dark and he could not see the writing very well, so he opened the window and brought in the light. The sleepy, pale pink of the fire lit the page in his hands.

  It looked like a note about the wool trade, and going down the page there were signatures and seals of Desarev’s notaries, then merchant statements, then finally, Ilenia’s signature. Her writing was clean, fitting for the intelligent air about her, but when he saw what was written beside it, he gulped.

  There was the name of a company that even he knew.

  “Brother, what’s wrong?”

  Myuri had noticed how he was acting and drew closer. The world was big yet felt so small; large companies had clients all over, like lattices in a net, so it was not unusual to run across them in the wild. Yet, he felt as if he was on the verge of gaining some sort of meaning from this. Things in his head were beginning to connect.

  And it was not something that gave him a very positive hunch.

  But what was it?

  As he stared intently at the signature on the parchment, he suddenly heard a shrill sound coming from outside.

  “…A whistle? Have they arrested someone?”

  It might be the whistles of those who kept the peace within the walls. It was port town, a gathering place for hot-blooded sailors, so there were fights and the sort all the time. Yet, Col could not wipe away his feelings of unease, and when he went to peek out the window, Myuri pushed him down.

  “M-Myuri?”

  He looked at her in surprise, and she was not looking down at the city below but at the sky.

  “Here!”

  Just after she waved, a star fell from the sky.

  “Ahh!”

  Something passed before his face with great speed and the force knocked him back, but the wool left in the room saved him. He blinked in confusion, and there in the center of the room, his eyes met with a large bird.

  Myuri, undaunted, walked closer to it and softly pet its big beak.

  “It was far, wasn’t it? Thanks.”

  The large bird puffed itself up even bigger and flapped its wings a couple of times, as though sighing.

  “Myuri, who is this bird?”

  “There’s a letter.”

  She untied the letter attached to its leg and handed it to Col. That meant the bird must be a messenger from Rausbourne. He only spent a few moments in shock before he quickly opened the letter. There was no signature, but he could quickly tell by the writing that it was from Hyland.

  He looked at the bird not because he was checking if it could understand human speech.

  For a letter to be delivered this way meant that the contents were urgent.

  “What does it say?”

  “‘I heard from my messenger about your activities in the northern islands. I thank you. Now, about the second man, do not ask for his faith. This man will use any methods necessary to gain power.’”

  If Hyland was so overtly criticizing him, then he was much worse than Col thought.

  “‘I am also aware of the rumors shared among a small number of merchants. But please think of it as idle gossip. More importantly, now is not the time for the second man to be hooked on such fantasies. He is taking advantage of this storm and aiming for the first. He is likely not worried about what will become of our family. Please think of his attempts to open the vaults across the kingdom as his way of gaining funds.’”

  Hyland’s calm yet powerful strokes caused the hand holding the letter to sweat.

  There was no talk of dreams or anything.

  Heir Klevend saw the fight with the Church as his opportunity to steal the throne. Hyland was saying that he was forcing money from the Church for that very reason and allowing the civil strife to continue.

  “‘If he is gathering holy relics, then that is not for he himself to pray, but—’”

  To make others pray.

  Faith was the pillar of the heart that people relied on in times of trouble.

  If so, then when was it in life that people needed it the most?

  When their lives were in danger. When they engaged in war.

  “‘Those supporting the second man are only those currying favor with him for when he becomes the first. There is nothing but greed there. I summoned you so that you may become acquainted with the first man…’”

  When he finished reading, he heard the bird pecking at his own feet.

  “Then that means Ilenia’s been tricked?”

  Myuri seemed bewildered. That was the apparent conclusion in Hyland’s letter.

  Or perhaps, they could also conclude that Ilenia had simply read too much into it on her own.

  But the hand that held the letter still sweated not because of that but for an entirely different reason.

  His heart
beat so loudly, it pained his chest.

  A plot to steal the throne by the one second in line for it. He was collecting money from the weakened churches throughout the kingdom for that purpose, allowing the strife to continue.

  On the other hand, those supporting the prince were those hoping for compensation once he became king, expecting to be granted privileges or, in some cases, be appointed as nobility.

  If that were so, then he could easily explain Ilenia’s action.

  That was because…

  “Myuri.”

  “…What?”

  It was not her typically flippant response.

  Her wolf ears and tail were tensed in nervousness.

  Her expression matched.

  He really wanted it to be his own misunderstanding. But he had learned in the northern islands how dangerous it was to only see the world the way he wanted to see it.

  And that it was painful for people to change the way they think.

  “Miss Ilenia might not have been tricked.”

  “…Brother?”

  When Myuri asked back in confusion, he had no choice but to respond as such:

  “Miss Ilenia might have tricked us.”

  Her ears and tail stood on edge.

  “Brother…”

  “Listen, Myuri.”

  Not budging, he showed her the contract Ilenia had dropped beside the wooden box.

  “Written on here is the name of the trading firm that Miss Ilenia belongs to. It is called the Bolan Company. I know the merchant who founded this company, and she sent her congratulations both when Spice and Wolf was completed and when you were born.”

  Myuri only stared blankly when she heard that, perhaps confused at the gap between her urgency and how calm he looked. “Th-thank…you?” she mumbled.

  But if Ilenia was someone from the Bolan Company, then the answer was simple.

  They knew that the company owner was aware of what Ilenia truly was, and they knew that Ilenia looked up to the owner. The owner, Eve Bolan, was a true-to-life miser, but she was not a bad person.

  However, Eve Bolan had a past. She was a fallen Winfiel noble, and her husband, who had bought out her family name, went bankrupt in the wool trade. She was a heroic woman who then became a merchant on her own, crossing dangerous bridges with a straight face, and established her own trading company in the south. When Col met her when he was a child, she had the air of a wolf about her, but had always been somewhat kind.