Side Colors III Page 3

  Once the fetters of letters are around your ankles, they may as well be around your neck, went the the old phrase. Even the devil in hell would’ve had a little more mercy, Lawrence could not help but think.

  “Excuse me,” he said. Everything changed when there was money to be made.

  The young merchant looked up at Lawrence like a sluggish bear. “…Yes?”

  “The boss over there said that I could ask you about where these goods go and my wages as well.” He was not lying. It just was not the entire truth.

  The young merchant looked in the direction Lawrence indicated, then back at Lawrence, staring vacantly at him for a moment. The pen in his hand did not stop moving. It was a bit of a performance.

  “Ah, er…yes, quite. Well…” Papers and parchments were piled atop the desk one over the other, even as he spoke. Perhaps they corresponded to the amount of goods that were passing through. In any case, they were many. “The destination is…Do you know Le Houaix? There are signs pointing the way, so you should be fine, but…take…those goods there. Any of those, as much as you can carry.”

  As the man talked, his attention seemed to drift, his eyelids drooping and his speech slowing.

  “And my wages?” Lawrence asked, patting the man’s shoulder, which brought him back to wakefulness with a jerk.

  “Wages? Ah, of course…Er…There are labels on the goods, so…just bring those back. Each one should exchange for about…a trenni…or so…,” the man murmured, the words becoming mush in his mouth as he fell forward, asleep.

  He would probably be in trouble if he was caught, but Lawrence felt bad for the young man and left him be, starting to walk away.

  Lawrence had only taken three steps before he turned around and shook the sleeping man awake. He’d forgotten the other reason he had come here.

  “Hey, you there, wake up. Hey!”

  “Huh, whuh…?”

  “This job came up so suddenly I haven’t a place to stay. Can I rent a room here at this company?” A place of this size ought to have a room or two for resting in, Lawrence reckoned.

  The man nodded, though whether it was out of exhaustion or in response to Lawrence’s question was difficult to tell. He indicated farther back in the building. “The maid…is in the rear, so…ask her. You can probably get…some food, too…”

  “My thanks.” Lawrence gave the man a pat on the arm and left him.

  Though Lawrence had done the man the favor of waking him up, he slumped immediately back into sleep—but it was no concern of Lawrence’s now.

  Lawrence approached the side of the wagon where Holo still sat. “I’ve found us a room.”

  Beneath her hood, her amber eyes flashed at Lawrence, and in them he could see a mixture of admiration and exasperation at his roughshod tactics. She looked away and then back, this time with a wordless question. Just what are you planning to do?

  “I’ve got a job to do.”

  “A job? You—” Holo furrowed her brow and soon arrived at the answer, but Lawrence did not engage her further.

  He prompted her to get down from the wagon. “They’ll probably be at it all night, so it might be noisy.”

  Lawrence pulled on the reins with his left hand, bringing the wagon into the loading area. Given the commotion, he doubted anyone would have helped him in even if he had asked, but now that he was here, the men inside would just do their job. And indeed, the dockhands converged on the wagon, and in no time at all it was fully loaded.

  Holo watched the scene, eyes wide, but then her expression began to turn steadily more displeased. She stared at him. Saying nothing, not moving.

  “This’ll earn us a bit of money. And a room, but…” He’d already explained what sort of room that would be.

  It was clear that at this rate they faced making camp outside the town, and Lawrence wanted to give the exhausted Holo at least one night under a roof.

  “We’ll worry about tomorrow when it comes. For tonight, at least, let’s…H-hey!”

  Right in the middle of his explanation, Holo stormed off into the trading company.

  She had pluck and wit enough to get herself a room, Lawrence knew. “What a bother,” he muttered with a sigh, whereupon he noticed Holo—who was talking to a woman who was probably the maid—look over her shoulder and glance at him.

  She moved her mouth as though she wanted to say something, but in the end did not open it. No doubt it had been some invective of some kind.

  Fool.

  The same word could mean very different things, depending on who said it and the circumstances surrounding the people.

  Led by the maid, Holo disappeared farther into the building, alone. He had to laugh at her constant stubbornness, but he knew she was not much different from him in that regard. Lawrence was just as tired as she was, yet here he was, taking on extra work without so much as a break just so he could buy the honeyed peach preserves—the preserves upon which she had surely given up.

  Lawrence climbed back atop the driver’s seat and departed, the wagon bed piled high with goods. He felt a certain ticklish amusement, as though he were playing a perverse game.

  Or perhaps it was what happened next that made him feel that way. As the wagon pulled away from the loading dock, he looked back and up at the building’s third floor, and just then, a window opened and Holo looked out.

  She had already taken out some of the honeyed ginger preserves, and putting a piece in her mouth, she leaned her chin on the windowsill.

  “Truly, such a foolish male you are,” her face said.

  In spite of himself, Lawrence had the urge to raise a hand in a wave, but he resisted, gripping the reins and facing forward.

  He gave the leathers a flick and made for the village of Le Houaix.

  The merchant at the company had told Lawrence that he would know Le Houaix when he saw it, and shortly after he left the town, he knew the reason why.

  The name Le Houaix was hastily scribbled on a temporary-looking wooden sign. Moreover, the town seemed to expect deliveries to continue through the night, as the path was well lit here and there by torches.

  This was probably half to show the way, and half to watch out for unscrupulous drivers who were likely as not to simply take the load somewhere else and sell it off.

  The sky had turned red and would soon be a deep, dark blue.

  Everyone Lawrence passed seemed uniformly exhausted, and many of the drivers of empty-bedded wagons were asleep in the drivers’ seats.

  When he looked back, he could see others like him, all headed for the same destination. Some carried goods on their backs, others in bags on packhorses, and some drove loaded wagons. Their clothes and tack were all different, and all spoke very clearly of having been suddenly and temporarily assembled for the job.

  The town seemed to be surrounded by fertile land, which would mean it would need a mill to grind the grain from its bountiful harvests. But waterwheels were not only useful for grain. Lush land would attract more people, and more people would bring more needs. Smithing, dyeing, spinning—all of these could make uses of a waterwheel’s power.

  However, constructing and maintaining such a thing was a very expensive proposition, and rivers where they were built tended to be owned by the nobility. Even when a waterwheel was needed, its construction would often become tangled among conflicting interests and schemes.

  Given how busy the trading company was, it seemed those interests had all finally been resolved and construction had been decided upon.

  The hurry came from the thaw that would come with spring’s arrival, when the melting snow would make construction very difficult. The company’s plan was surely to build the dikes and install the wheel while the river was low. The rising water that would come with the spring thaw would power the wheel quite nicely.

  Lawrence did not know whether it was going to succeed, but he could see the desperation in the operation. Of course, that was what allowed him to waltz right in the way he had, so he thanked
his luck for that.

  Moreover, this was the first time in quite a while he had conducted the wagon without Holo at his side, and while it would have been overstatement to say it was a relief, it was certainly a pleasant change of pace.

  Formerly, he would have found driving alone an unavoidably lonely activity, and it made him reflect on how fickle humans were.

  As the sun set, he shivered at a far-off wolf howl—this, too, for the first time in quite a while.

  He stifled a yawn and kept his attention on the road, the better to keep the wagon’s wheels out of holes and puddles. Soon he came to Le Houaix, where the glow of red torchlight brightened the moonlit night.

  To the north of the village was a forest nestled against a steep upward slope, and through it passed the driver. Normally nightfall would drown the forest in darkness, but here the riverbank had been cleared and fires built along it so that it looked almost like a river of fire.

  Here and there some workers caught what sleep they could, but Lawrence could see other craftsmen toiling away by the river. It was a larger construction project than Lawrence had anticipated; it seemed they were planning to build multiple waterwheels at once.

  It seemed likely to yield unusually large profits.

  Lawrence delivered the goods and received wooden tags in exchange, then cheerfully climbed back onto the wagon. His horse did not speak human language, but looked back at Lawrence with his sad purple eyes, as though to say, “Please, no more.”

  Lawrence nonetheless took up the reins and wheeled the wagon around, and with a smart crack, he urged his horse forward. This was a simple business—how much money he could make would depend on how many times he could repeat the trip.

  The busy, hurried work made him reflect on his rarely remembered past. It might mean only trouble for his horse, but Lawrence came to smile thinly and drew a blanket over his shoulders.

  How many trips would it take to reach the honeyed peach preserves? He mused over the question as the wagon rolled on under the moonlight.

  The way to Le Houaix was chaotic.

  In addition to the Ohm Company’s aggressive hiring, the construction period was short enough that it was advertising its need for porters. As a result, throngs had gathered to get the work.

  This was why most of the people that crowded the road all day were not merchants, but rather ordinary people trying to make a quick wage—farmers and shepherds, street performers and pilgrims, craftsmen with their aprons still on. It was as though the entire town had turned out for the job. Most of them carried loads on their backs as they set about doing the unfamiliar physical labor.

  Moreover, while the road that led to the village of Le Houaix was not a particularly steep or severe one, it was beset by other problems.

  The voices of wolves and wild dogs could be heard from the forest alongside the road, either in reaction to the presence of the people on the road or the food that they ate as they went, and at the crossing of a stream over which a shoddy bridge had been built, there was constant fighting over whose turn it was to cross.

  The loads brought to the village had to be dealt with, not to mention the arrival of itinerant craftsmen who’d caught wind of the construction. Added to that was the traffic of women and children running to and fro to draw water from the river, to quench the thirst of the men coming to the village. The path from the village center to the river had become a veritable swamp thanks to all the water being spilled.

  The village was sprinkled with soldiers, too, with swords at their waists and iron breastplates on their chests. No doubt the watermill’s noble masters had come to make sure the work was proceeding well.

  Earlier in the day, people were full of vigor and thoughts of the wages they might earn, so there were fewer problems. But as the sun went lower in the sky, strength waned and knees buckled, and the situation grew tense.

  Even when he returned to the Ohm Company, the loaders’ labors had slowed to a crawl from all the noise being made. On top of all that, some of the most dispirited porters were beginning to complain that wild dogs were now venturing onto the road.

  Lawrence had made seven trips with his wagon and was beginning to feel quite fatigued. Even if the road was not so steep, the number of people was itself exhausting.

  A quick check of his coin purse revealed that the day’s earnings amounted to seven trenni. That was not a bad wage at all—in fact, it was exceptionally good—but at this rate, it would take three or four days before he had enough to buy the honeyed peach preserves. As more people arrived, causing the work to back up, it might take even more time than that. He found himself inescapably irritated—he could earn more if he could just get his wagon loaded more quickly.

  But there was a limit to the amount of work a person could do.

  Lawrence took a deep breath, and there on his wagon, he did some thinking. Haste made waste. He would take a break and wait for nightfall. The crowds would thin, and he would be able to make more profitable use of his time. Such was the possibility Lawrence decided to bet on.

  He pulled out of the line bound for the loading dock, then stabled his horse and wagon alike. The building was completely empty—all the other horses had been hired out. He then made for the room the trading company had spared him.

  Whatever Holo had said to the housemaid, she had neither been chased out nor made to share a room with anyone else. Holo was there in the room alone, sitting in a chair by the window, combing out the fur of her tail, illuminated by the red light of the setting sun.

  She did not spare the exhausted Lawrence a glance as he removed his dagger and coin purse and placed them on the table. “Well, isn’t she the elegant one,” Lawrence grumbled to himself but admitted that he was the one who’d told her to stay here. He managed to avoid blundering into the particular folly of voicing his irritation but wondered whether it was even worth it.

  Such things went through Lawrence’s mind as he collapsed sideways onto the bed. Then—

  “There are two left, he said.”

  Lawrence glanced at Holo, not immediately understanding. She did not return his look.

  “One sold, and another will probably sell soon, he said.”

  It took Lawrence a moment to realize that she was talking about the honeyed peach preserves.

  While he had been tired, he had not expected her to thank him for his hard day’s work, but he’d at least hoped for some enjoyably idle chatter. But no, after a day and night of pulling on the reins, he was being immediately pressed on the topic at hand.

  Lawrence was unsurprisingly irritated, but as he replied, he tried to keep that from affecting his tone. “You went back there just to check on them?”

  His annoyance made it through via the word just, but he was too tired to worry about such things. As he sat on the bed, he untied his bootlaces in order to remove his shoes.

  “Will it be all right, I wonder?” Holo pushed him, and his hands froze for a moment. Soon thereafter they started moving again, and he finished removing his boots.

  “At one lumione, they’re not asking a price that most people can easily pay, and people who can easily pay that much aren’t exactly common.”

  “Is that so. They’re safe, then, no?”

  It was an honest enough answer that it could have been taken at face value, but her deliberate tone grated on his already-tired nerves. He was considering explaining very carefully just how much money a single lumione amounted to when he stopped and thought better of it.

  Holo had no particular reason to be deliberately irritating him, so it was probably exhaustion that was making him feel this way.

  Lawrence calmed himself and loosened his clothing here and there in preparation for a nap.

  Holo had looked over at him at some point, and he noticed her gaze just as he was readying himself to lie down and fully relax.

  “After all, you must have earned quite a lot.” Lawrence was honestly surprised at her open hostility. “So tomorrow, then? Or are you back becau
se you’ve earned enough already? You’ve made seven loads so far. That’s got to amount to a goodly sum.”

  Biting, nibbling ants were an irritation, but the plunging stinger of the wasp was something to fear. Lawrence reacted to the teeth-baring, growling Holo mostly out of reflex, as he wondered where the nibbling Holo of a moment ago had gone. “Er, no, that only comes to seven silver pieces, so…”

  “Seven? Oh ho. After all that haste, how long is it going to take you to earn a full lumione, then?”

  He had seen her tail fluffed up in the reddish light when he had returned to the room, but now he realized it had been puffed out for a different reason.

  But as he cast about, Lawrence’s mind was a blank sheet. He had no idea what Holo was angry about.

  Was it because the honeyed peach preserves were about to sell out? Or because she simply wanted to eat them as soon as possible?

  His confusion had nothing to do with his exhaustion or anything so trivial. He purely and simply did not understand Holo’s anger and was at an utter loss for words.

  Holo’s eyes blazed as red as a hare’s in the setting sun. Her rage-filled gaze bore down on him, making Lawrence feel like his very life hung in the balance of his answer. The moment after that last absurd notion occurred to him, Lawrence realized something strange: What had Holo said just now? She had pointed out that he had made seven trips, but how did she come to have such detailed knowledge?

  Not even the company merchants themselves would know exactly how many times they had loaded his wagon bed. It was as though she had been watching him from the window throughout the night.

  As Lawrence thought of this, an “ah” escaped his lips. Holo’s ears pricked up, and in her lap, her tail puffed out.

  But that angry gaze was no longer directed at him, and he heard no bitter words. Instead, Holo’s eyes narrowed, and she averted her eyes, as though wishing the red light of the setting sun would simply wash everything away.

  “…Were you…,” Lawrence began, but Holo literally snarled at him, and he cut himself off. “Uh, never mind,” he mumbled.