Town of Strife II Read online

  Holo had discovered the possibility that the bones would be used in an unforgivable manner by the Church, while Col wanted to learn the truth of his homeland’s god.

  Holo’s tone was thus amused when she asked the question, but her eyes were not smiling.

  The object in question was not so very far from the wolf bones as goods went, which was why the powers that be were in such a frenzy to acquire it.

  “Something similar. A beast from the northern seas—a magical creature with a single horn. Eating its flesh grants long life, and a tincture of its horn cures disease. It’s called a narwhal. Evidently one of the north side’s fishing boats hauled one up in its nets.”

  Holo had been listening to Lawrence speak as though his words were a pleasant side dish to go with her wine, but suddenly her ear twitched.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “…’Tis nothing.”

  The lie was so obvious it wasn’t even worth laughing at.

  “Still—”

  “Yes?”

  “You’re certain that all this talk centers around that, aye?”

  “Yes.”

  “In which case, you yet have choices you can make. Isn’t that so?” Holo, amused, directed this last question to Col.

  While Holo had been listening to Lawrence speak, Col watched the pair’s exchange from the outside.

  He was the obvious person to identify a third option.

  “Er, ah, um…”

  “Come now, be bold!”

  Holo slapped his back, and Col finally summoned the courage to speak.

  “E-er, couldn’t Miss Holo simply…go and take the narwhal…?”

  “…Huh?” was all Lawrence could manage in the face of Col’s words.

  The thought simply hadn’t occurred to him.

  “If there’s a fight over some object, then the conflict hinges on the item itself. I’m sure Miss Holo can traverse the river in a single bound, so she should be able to steal it easily.”

  Col was, after all, from the deep mountains.

  He spoke these flattering words with total sincerity, and Holo’s ears twitched happily.

  It was probably true that stealing the narwhal was in and of itself not a difficult thing for Holo.

  No matter how well guarded it might be, in the face of the fangs of Holo’s true form, the guards’ armor would scarcely be more than the paper armor in which children clad themselves for playacting. Despite all the plotting and planning of Eve, Kieman, and the other monstrous powers at play, it would be no great trouble for her to take the thing and run.

  Lawrence scratched his head and spoke. “Look here, even if we do that, the question becomes what to do next. Even if the theft were simple, you would certainly be witnessed. At which point, the idea that anyone would then buy the narwhal from us is completely absurd. That much is—”

  “I’m well aware of that. But”—Holo interrupted, her eyes narrowing with her smile and her head cocking to one side—“you must have seen how simple this all truly is. Have you not?”

  “…Huh?”

  “You haven’t, then? The matter that has you so terrified you can think only of escape, I will tear open with my fangs and claws. To have my companion in such a dither over this is quite a problem. So much more the fool me for choosing you as such, I suppose.”

  “…”

  Lawrence looked back at Holo; he was at a loss for words.

  He had to admit she was right.

  When it came to deception in the service of profit, Holo was capable of brazen cunning that would cause even the most jaded town merchant to grow dizzy.

  Suddenly the things Lawrence had been so afraid of seemed very small. He could feel the blood flowing back into his once pale face and was unable to stop the reddening.

  “Heh-heh-heh. You see, Col, my boy? This is what comes of letting a tempest in a teacup get the better of one.”

  Col, of course, looked abashed out of consideration for Lawrence, who would have preferred the boy to simply laugh at him.

  Col regarded Lawrence with an almost girlish gaze on his upturned face, which Lawrence smiled at nervously. The boy returned the smile in evident relief.

  The blood drained back out of his face, and Lawrence’s cramped field of view seemed to expand.

  “Always have your weapons at the ready,” his master had once told him.

  And next to him stood Holo, the Wisewolf of the forest of Yoitsu. There was a certain august dignity to her tail-swishing, wine-swilling form.

  “Also, if you escape this current predicament, will it not be easier to find out more about the bones?”

  “…Eve knows that, too. She told me that if I would cooperate with her, she would hand over what she knows about the bones. In other words, she’s saying she wouldn’t mind finding out what Ted Reynolds of the Jean Company supposedly knows.”

  Holo raised a single eyebrow, though whether the expression was one of anger or amusement was unclear. “Hmph. The vixen is cooler headed than you are. Listen here—is our search for the bones so very different from the trouble you seem to have found yourself mixed up in now?”

  Lawrence found himself speechless at the analogy.

  Holo, of course, did not hold back. “When we began our pursuit of the bones, you warned me of this. But now you flinch away at the prospect of a similar challenge? At this rate…” The force drained from her angry face, and she looked away. “…I will begin to doubt your words.”

  These last words were spoken sadly, and she glanced up at the merchant briefly.

  Lawrence knew he was being provoked. But it was only Holo’s way of trying to motivate him.

  “Did you not tell me you were that rare male good for more than talk?” she now inquired teasingly, her head tilted.

  She beamed at Lawrence’s sour face.

  Pointless inflexibility was of no use in business, but that didn’t mean he could always be perfectly rational.

  Lawrence grumbled, his gaze downcast. “I suppose we can take escape out of the discussion.”

  “Aye. So now you can relax those shoulders of yours.”

  “Because you’ll be here should the worst happen?”

  If that was what it took to discover the truth behind the wolf bones, Holo would unsheathe her teeth and claws without a thought. But that was far from an ideal solution as far as Lawrence was concerned.

  In response to his question, Holo shook her head and replied with a calm smile. “No, because you’ve no need to worry over who to sell this sea beast to once it’s between my jaws. Just as the boy Col said, if the pups begin fighting over it, I should think the easiest solution would be for me to simply eat it.”

  “…I suppose it’s not surprising I didn’t think of that myself.”

  “That merely proves how little you were considering me,” Holo replied. Standing between them, Col’s gaze flicked back and forth from one to the other.

  “Obviously,” Lawrence shot back, which made Col look suddenly a bit worried.

  Lawrence had to admit that from the outside, it must have appeared as though they were bickering. But Col soon seemed to understand otherwise. In contrast to her expression, Holo’s tail was wagging.

  “Hmph. You say such things, and yet how many times have you needed my aid? There’s no great difference between the third and fourth time.”

  As much as he could, Lawrence wanted to avoid relying on Holo. Yet in spite of what he might say, she had delivered him from danger many times.

  So while it might have seemed as though consequences were the only thing that mattered, lately Lawrence had began to suspect otherwise.

  Which was why even as he admitted his reliance on her power, Lawrence faced those ears that could detect any lie and spoke.

  “You are indeed the Wisewolf of Yoitsu, but that’s not why I chose you as my traveling companion.”

  Holo ducked her head and giggled.

  Col pretended not to be seriously attentive, but in front of him, Lawrence
could say no more. It was doubtful if he would have been able to say more even if he had been alone with Holo.

  “So you’ll show me such cleverness as to impress even a wisewolf, then?”

  “Of course,” responded Lawrence shortly. “Of course.”

  Had he been alone, he would have fled—or let himself be used.

  But there was a reason why a smile crept into a corner of Lawrence’s mouth.

  Truly? Was it truly wise to stand and face this mad situation?

  He could not help but inwardly put the question to himself.

  The inn at which the three were staying was one to which Eve had originally introduced them, and Kieman now knew its whereabouts as well. Thus, having decided not to flee the city, the only thing Lawrence could do was wait to be contacted.

  If he were noticed attempting to collect information on his own, either by Kieman or Eve, it would not leave a very favorable impression.

  Given that Lawrence’s opponents held the advantage in both information and power, the only strategy available to him was to watch their movements and try to outwit them after the fact.

  Intellectually, he was well aware of this, so he also knew that Holo’s tactic of dozing on the bed with her tail flicking lazily to and fro was much better than his own, which involved sitting on a chair as his leg bounced restlessly.

  Nevertheless, he sat on that chair by the window and gazed outside, unable to calm himself.

  In this season, the cloudy skies darkened even the brightest of moods—all the more so when one was already gloomy.

  Lawrence knew full well how small he was in the face of the schemes and greed of Eve and of Kieman. All he could do was sigh.

  Holo had compelled him to stay in town rather than run, but having made the decision, he felt no better about it.

  This was no one-on-one negotiation between merchants; this was a battle of many against many.

  Never get involved with a business you don’t understand, his master had taught him, and yet here Lawrence was, breaking that very rule. He sighed again and surveyed their room in the inn.

  There on the bed, Holo lay sleeping, having lost her battle with the demon slumber.

  Col sat on the floor beside the bed, attending to his belt after having removed it from his waist. A short while earlier, he had borrowed a needle from the innkeeper, and Lawrence had assumed he intended to repair his belt, but it seemed the opposite was true.

  Col pulled threads from his belt and tied them together to form a single long thread. He then threaded the needle with the result. Finally, he removed his shabby, beat-up coat, whereupon Lawrence finally understood his aim.

  Lawrence stood and walked over to him. “If you’re going to resort to that, soon you won’t have any belt left at all.”

  Col had begun stitching away with the improvised thread, the needle moving adroitly through the fabric. The boy was practiced at this.

  At Lawrence’s words, Col looked up with an abashed smile but without ceasing his repairs.

  The thread was quite short, so the mending was quickly finished.

  From the perspective of a merchant who made his living by judging the quality of goods, such mending amounted to little more than a prayer to God.

  “I’ll buy you some thread, at the very least.”

  “Huh? No…I’m quite all right. See?” Col bit off the end of the thread and then held the coat up proudly.

  Had Holo been watching, she probably would have smacked his head lightly and wagged her tail.

  But Lawrence was not Holo, and so he simply put his hand on the boy’s head. “I have yet to pay you back for explaining the mystery of the copper coins to me. Church scholars are paid for their lectures, are they not?”

  Col seemed to want to reply, but appearing to weigh Lawrence’s goodwill against his own modesty, he must have concluded that accepting the goodwill was the better choice.

  He smiled sheepishly. “Would it really be all right?”

  “Naturally. Shall we find a tailor and buy some thread? Wouldn’t it be better to be able to do your mending sooner rather than later?”

  Lawrence imagined that the money the thread would cost could probably purchase a better coat than the one currently in Col’s possession, but he didn’t say so.

  The boy had summoned the courage to leave his village. Was the coat he had been given to mark the occasion truly worth so little?

  It would hardly feel good to be told that the item that held so many memories was worth less than the thread it took to repair it.

  “Well, then, thank you!” said Col happily, hurrying to shrug the coat back over his shoulders.

  Lawrence thought to invite Holo along as well, but with her having just fallen asleep, even pinching her nose closed would not wake her, so he and Col left as a pair. Besides, if Kieman or Eve came calling, it would be better if there was someone in the room.

  “So, which thread would you like?”

  Having asked the innkeeper where to find a tailor, the two found the place with no trouble.

  It seemed that only certain parts of the town had been thrown into chaos by the narwhal.

  Power was power because it could not be shared; most people were not concerned about large-scale land ownership or town-wide reputation—such matters were as far above their heads as the moon.

  Before meeting Holo, Lawrence himself had been one such moon gazer. Despite all the adventures he had been through with Holo, this quiet life was where he felt most at home.

  The tailor shop at which they arrived had shutters open to a makeshift table upon which were arranged clothes, as well as thread and scrap cloth for patching.

  The bored-looking boy minding the shop held his chin in hands that were dyed a dark color, probably owing to the fabric dyes he worked with.

  He straightened and smiled as soon as he noticed Lawrence and Col, and seeing this, Lawrence returned the smile.

  This world felt very familiar.

  “So, the price varies with the color, but what do you think you’d like?” asked Lawrence.

  “Hmm…since this is my coat’s color, I suppose…”

  The shopkeeper spoke up as Col looked down at his coat. “A nice pale yellow shouldn’t stand out.”

  Yellow-dyed goods were a luxury item, and the side of the shop boy’s smile made it clear just how true that was.

  The boy seemed to be a year or two younger than Col but was probably a far tougher negotiator. Craftsmen’s apprentices were often beaten and kicked. They were toughened up in a way Col had not been.

  “Er, but can’t yellow be quite…” Col seemed to understand that dye color affected price and hastily met Lawrence’s gaze, but of course, the shop boy would hardly admit that openly.

  “Ah, you must be the master of a great shop somewhere!” he said, brushing aside Col’s words and leaning over the table. No doubt his own pay was based on the value of the goods he sold.

  “It’s a shame we didn’t wear our finest out today,” said Lawrence in response to the boy’s merchant spirit.

  The boy straightened his collar and puffed out his chest, leaving Col still silent. “Yes, yes, I quite take your meaning! Please do have a look at this here,” said the boy, producing a sample of thread.

  The thread in the boy’s hand was no longer than his palm, but if it happened to blow away in the breeze, he would probably lose three days’ rations to make up for it.

  The yellow dye came from across the seven seas, from a flower called saffron whose blossoms flowed down the river that led to an earthly paradise. Its rich golden hue called to mind gold itself.

  Dye of any kind was an expense, and the sole purpose of fine clothing was to flatter the wearer’s pride. Since the wealthy bought such products without a thought, the price rose and rose.

  In any case, Col seemed to have deduced where the conversation was heading and grabbed Lawrence’s sleeve hastily.

  “M-Mr. Lawrence—”

  “Hmm?” Lawrence smile
d and turned back as the young apprentice raised his voice in an effort to hold on to his customer.

  “Good sir! Good sir, look, take a good look at this fine golden color! So pure a gold that even gold itself looks shabby beside it! This is my master’s finest product. What say you, hmm?”

  Lawrence nodded dutifully at the young salesman’s urging.

  Behind the boy, farther inside the shop, a man who was presumably the shop’s master paused in his work to watch.

  He seemed to be evaluating the boy’s technique more than he was watching to see whether the thread sold or not.

  Lawrence looked at the master, who seemed to notice him, and the two men shared a glance. The man gave a voiceless smile and raised his hand in greeting.

  Lawrence replied with a nod and then turned his attention back to the boy. “It is indeed a fine gold. Bright as any metal.”

  “Is it not? So, if you please—”

  “Still, wouldn’t such fine thread be wasted on such a coat? If it’s so bright as to cause even true gold to fade by comparison, won’t it cause the seams to stand out?

  In that instant, the boy’s desperate business smile froze.

  Behind the boy, Lawrence heard the master sigh helplessly.

  “To make sure the seams aren’t too visible, we’ll take your cheapest gray thread.”

  Perhaps visions of the commission he had hoped to make from selling the golden thread had been dancing in his head, for the boy was at a loss for a reply. Behind him, the master stood and approached. “What length will you be needing?”

  The man knocked the boy on the head with a rough hand worthy of a craftsman.

  If he could not stand up to a clever merchant, he would never be able to sell his wares for a good price, no matter how skillfully they were made. The master seemed to be trying to teach his apprentice this lesson.

  “How much could I get for three silver lute?”

  “Indeed…in that frayed state, maybe enough to do five seams like it? And while you’re at it, how about taking some of this blue thread off my hands? The dye’s been coming off the boats like mad these days, so there’s quite a lot.”