Spring Log IV Page 8

  “I don’t know if it would be full of honey at this time of year, though.”

  The harvest time for beehives was between spring and early summer.

  But hives filled to the brim with honey could be worth harvesting even in the dead of winter.

  Holo rubbed her watering eyes and sniffed.

  “A beehive…”

  “That sure cheered you up.”

  Holo pouted and glared at him when he teased her.

  “Should we follow it?”

  Holo had large, triangular animal ears and a fluffy tail. She seemed like the type who would run at full speed after a leather ball stuffed with sheep’s wool.

  She would rage at being treated like a dog, but her tail was already restlessly whipping back and forth.

  “But a bee’s territory can be large. Do we…have time?”

  On the surface, Holo always seemed to want things to go her way, but this was her true nature. Whenever something she truly wanted appeared before her, she hesitated. She had been the same way with Lawrence. It had been Holo who once upon a time wanted to end their journey together before she fell even more in love with him.

  On the other hand, Lawrence was a merchant. He greedily reached out to anything he realized he wanted.

  And Holo’s smile sat at the very top of it all.

  “I guess we’re not enjoying the true pleasures of travel as planned, are we?” He then added, “We had a rough time starting a fire, and now we’ve veered way off track.”

  Holo raised her shoulders and giggled.

  Lawrence acted clownishly as he rubbed Holo’s cheek with the back of his finger.

  “Plus, I got to see a side of my traveling partner I had no idea existed.”

  Even though he knew Holo down to the direction of the swirl of hair at the base of her tail, he never thought she would hate the sight of one bug being consumed by another so much that it would make her cry.

  Realizing that one of her weaknesses had been discovered, Holo stared up at Lawrence with a frown.

  “…Fool.”

  Lawrence was confident that he could easily love her for another hundred years.

  “Then I guess we’ll go chase the bee. We’ll be fine leaving the cart here, right?”

  “This is not a place for humans to enter. There are likely no thieves around. As for our surroundings…I believe this spot should be fine because of the smell.”

  “Right, the sulfur. Should we take a bag and scatter the powder on the path?”

  “Hmm. Let me think…Ah, I see. Heh-heh.”

  Lawrence looked to her, and she was delightfully giggling.

  “’Twas part of a fairy tale, no? Children lost in the woods, leaving a trail of bread crumbs to find their way home…”

  “Yeah, there is a story like that, but you look like you came straight from a fairy tale yourself.”

  Holo blinked and then smiled.

  Lawrence handed the bundle of cloth to Holo and then immediately started collecting tools that would come in handy for quickly harvesting a beehive. He retrieved an empty linen bag; a pole usually used for propping up a tent corner, measuring the depth of mud, or chasing away stray dogs; some firewood; and a set of flint. Then he gathered all the spare cloth he could find to cover his face and body.

  And lastly, sulfur powder to mark their path.

  “All right, now we can go.”

  Holo nodded firmly and unfurled the bundled cloth.

  They thought the furious bee might sting them at first, but after buzzing in circles out of evident confusion, it flew off, heading deeper into the woods.

  Holo and Lawrence weren’t following very fast, but since they were walking with their eyes on the string, Lawrence tripped and almost fell more than once.

  Holo’s physical strength matched that of the young girl she appeared to be, but her wolflike qualities were obvious, given the way she skillfully threaded through the mountainous terrain. She turned around to watch Lawrence stumble along, then immediately walked backward nonchalantly toward him, grinning all the while.

  “Come now—you must give it your all to keep up.”

  She whirled around and leaped off.

  Her fluffy tail bounced about before him, and Lawrence found himself relying on her tail’s guidance to stay on course.

  He frantically followed after her as she walked lightly, crunching the leaves beneath her steps and bounding over massive tree roots.

  She occasionally looked back, a happy, joyful, and teasing smile playing across her face.

  Even back at the bathhouse, Holo often teased him about failing to stay in shape, so he defiantly managed to at least keep his footing. However, she seemed to enjoy watching him do that as well.

  After the distance between them grew to a certain point, Holo stopped, perhaps because the bee had also stopped somewhere, allowing Lawrence to finally catch up to her.

  “Phew, hah…I’m not really sure if I’m following the bee or you anymore.”

  He breathed hard and aired out his clothes. The air was mostly still in this forest, so it felt dreadfully humid when they moved about.

  “Is it because you are always so enraptured by my tail? Are you having a good time?”

  Holo showed not a hint of appreciation for his hard work, but Lawrence found himself following that mischievous smile of hers.

  “Oh yes, this is just the best,” he responded with displeasure, and Holo chuckled, then looked up with a hum.

  “We begin anew.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  The bee flew from the tree, staggering through the air. Lawrence occasionally dropped some sulfur so they would not forget the way back to the cart.

  At this point, for all intents and purposes, Lawrence had no idea where the cart might be. They were so far from any sort of civilization that if Holo abandoned him, then he surely would wind up dead in a ditch somewhere. But when that crossed his mind, he doubted that he would be able to live at all if she did such a thing, the thought of which brought a wry smile to his face.

  “Listen.”

  Holo abruptly stopped and called out to him, bringing him to a sudden halt.

  “Hmm? Whatever is the matter?”

  She peered at him questioningly, but he brushed it off, pretending he had sweat in his eye.

  “No, what’s up with you?”

  “Mm-hmm. The hive is near. The buzz is loud. ’Tis quite large.”

  Her bright, fang-baring grin was so charming, it was almost unbelievable that she had been shaking in his arms just minutes before.

  Their peaceful, repetitive life in the bathhouse was also undeniably wonderful.

  But traveling together was just one surprise after another. It was a chance to discover the unexpected side of people.

  And it was all the more fun with a partner as emotive as Holo.

  “What shall we do next?”

  With her varied expressions, she quickly put on a more serious one as she spoke.

  And he could tell that she was not as serious as she seemed.

  “What do you mean? The best thing would be to have you go take the hive in your wolf form. You have thick fur. You probably won’t get stung too much.”

  After turning to him with a reproachful look, her intentions to do no such thing clear, she offered him a flirting smile, typical of a girl who knew how cute she was.

  “Are you not averse to relying on my wolf powers?”

  “…”

  That was true, but that issue had more to do with his pride, so it was not a problem when it came to harvesting beehives in the forest…is what he wanted to tell her, but arguing with her would just be a waste of breath.

  Not only had they gotten a late start and ended up having to sleep roughly on the very first day, he had been unable to light a fire, and after everything else, he had gotten them lost.

  If he could not manage to recover here, then he had no idea what Holo might coax out of him in the future.

  “I guess it
’s a knight’s job to walk into the jaws of death for his princess.”

  Lawrence lowered the load from his shoulders, crouched down, and started getting ready. Holo cackled and remarked, “What an unreliable knight you are,” as she hung over Lawrence’s back and wrapped her arms around him.

  He was glad she was in a good mood.

  Lawrence wrapped cloth over his face, neck, wrists, and ankles, leaving only his eyes exposed before starting the fire.

  It lit immediately.

  “We chase the bees away with smoke, yes?” Holo confirmed with him.

  Lawrence attached the twigs to the end of the pole in the shape of a bird’s nest, drove the butt into the ground at his feet, and placed the slightly damp leaves on top with the embers.

  White smoke soon began billowing upward.

  “This little smoke is mostly just for peace of mind.”

  “Is that so?”

  “If we burned so much that we found it hard to breathe, then it would definitely be effective, but…Well, there’s so much foliage underneath the hive that I’m sure the fire would spread…What is it?”

  Holo was staring off into space in response to Lawrence’s explanation. For a moment, he entertained the idea that perhaps she pitied how her husband would be stung all over, but instead, she pointed.

  “Why not use that?”

  “What?”

  She was suggesting that they use the devil’s powder that summoned hell itself when a single pinch of the substance was added to a fire.

  “Well, that’s…”

  Lawrence faltered but then decided it was worth it.

  “We’ll give it a try. Now that you mention it, we don’t usually see any bugs in Nyohhira.”

  The smell of sulfur permeated the village they called home. Plenty of withered trees could be found throughout the area around Nyohhira as well, so it was understandable that many depictions of hell were described with the odor of burning sulfur.

  “Also.”

  “Mm?”

  Holo stared blankly, and Lawrence proudly spoke.

  “If this goes well, we can tap into a whole new market for all that powder.”

  Holo, who had said herself that it would be effective as wolf repellent, shot him a grim smile.

  “You would make money even if you slipped down into that hell the Church speaks of so often.”

  How lucky Lawrence was as a merchant to hear such a compliment.

  In the end, they managed to collect the hive. It was on the larger side, so they could expect to harvest quite a lot of honey from it.

  The price he paid for it was a bitterness he felt deep in his lungs whenever he coughed, plus three stings on his face, two on his neck, and five apiece on his hands and legs, plus the burning stench of sulfur that came off him in waves, so potent that even he could smell it.

  But his prize?

  A smile from Holo so great that it made her eyes literally sparkle.

  “Mmmmmm! So sweet!”

  The hive was so grand that simply smoking it had not been enough to kill the bees inside. They would have to keep it in a sack and process it later, but before they put it away, Holo had broken off a piece of the hive, saying it was for “taste testing,” and stuck her spoon into it.

  Honey immediately trickled out and clung viscously to her spoon. It had a deeper color than the honey Lawrence usually saw and practically resembled hard candy.

  Ultimately, the honey was so good that Holo’s tail waved energetically even as she brought the spoon to her mouth and caused her to raise her voice in a cry of delight right after.

  “Let me have a lick,” Lawrence requested, and Holo, sitting on the driver’s perch, looked at him like he was a dreaded debt collector.

  After grudgingly shutting her eyes, as though to say she knew that the one who had bravely volunteered himself to obtain this honey for her was none other than Lawrence, Holo extended her spoon toward him.

  With a tired smile, Lawrence scooped a bit onto his pinkie and had a taste. He was struck by a heady sweetness that did not belie the honey’s impressive appearance.

  And not only was it sweet, but there was also a peculiar scent about it, as though the honey carried the faint fragrance reminiscent of a decomposing tree, imparting a sense of what it smelled like deep inside a forest. Naturally, it had an excellent effect on the taste, giving its flavor more depth.

  “This is incredible. What kind of syrup is it?”

  “You can taste it as well, no?” Holo said, savoring the honey as she licked the spoon. “’Tis born of the large trees in this forest. Syrup of the trees.”

  “Tree syrup…Sap, huh? Interesting.”

  Now that he thought back on it, the bee had stopped at a tree on the way back to the hive.

  Lawrence learned that day that bees did not collect nectar only from flowers.

  “I wonder if the poacher knew the secret of the nectar here.”

  Someone else had wrapped a string around the bee before they arrived.

  “I wonder as well. Bees always cross unbelievable distances. Perhaps it got collared when it became lost on a faraway mountain.”

  Whoever attached the string to their guide had not found the beehive, so what Holo said was entirely possible.

  “But boy, we sure picked up a big one.”

  Lawrence had finished putting away the tools he had used to secure the hive and was reexamining the large sack sitting on the cart bed.

  “I wasn’t sure what was going to happen for a second there.”

  This deed of his should have been enough to clear his name of the trip’s earlier blunders, and he wouldn’t be surprised to have a little left over after the exchange.

  Holo, still greedily licking her wooden spoon, noticed Lawrence’s gaze on her and huffed.

  “Were you planning to curry my favor with sweets?”

  Her reddish-amber eyes stared straight at him, but Lawrence paid them no mind as he climbed up onto the driver’s perch and sat next to her. She deliberately pinched her nose and scooted away from him.

  “Of course I am. If we take that into the next town, we could get enough honey to fill an entire hand bucket.”

  “Ooooooh.”

  Seeing how Holo’s eyes glittered in expectation, Lawrence didn’t even bother with a wry smile.

  He flicked the reins, and the horse moved forward.

  “Sheesh, good and back luck really are two sides of the same coin, aren’t they?”

  A great man once said that good fortune and ill fortune were interwoven, like a rope. Lawrence was certain those wise words were perfectly accurate.

  “I would prefer it if you could find a coin with good luck on both sides, though.”

  When Holo spoke spitefully, Lawrence had a response ready.

  “Don’t you always crave something salty right after eating sweets? It’s the same thing.”

  “Perhaps you are right.”

  Holo then placed her hand on Lawrence’s, which gripped the reins, and snuggled up to him.

  “We got lost because a salty someone skimped on a boat. I sure hope that I am treated veeery well in the next town.”

  “Huh? Wait, that was—”

  “‘That was’ what exactly, hmm?”

  Lawrence was at a loss for words in the face of Holo’s bright smile.

  When she cocked her head slightly, he finally released the breath he had been holding.

  “The price we get for the honey. That’s your limit.”

  Lawrence glanced over to Holo, and she beamed, pleased.

  “Ha-ha. What a fun trip, no?”

  She squeezed her arms around him tighter, clinging to him.

  Maybe he should point out that she never complained about him being smelly at times like this.

  But even if Holo was behaving rather deliberately, that didn’t necessarily mean she was acting that way only for show.

  Lawrence could see the difference between his beloved wife’s real and fake smiles.

>   “Yeah, it’s fun. So, so fun,” Lawrence said. “I’m here with you, after all. Of course it’s going to be fun.”

  Holo’s eyes widened, and her ears and tail began to twitch.

  They were deep in the woods, far from any human settlement.

  Making the excuse to no one in particular, Lawrence wanted people to know that if anyone could smell something particularly sweet nearby, it had to be the beehive in the back and nothing else.

  THE COLORS OF THE FOREST AND WOLF

  The cart made its way leisurely down the riverside road.

  The forest thinned and the path started to even out. A few days after leaving the hot spring village of Nyohhira, said to be at the edge of the world, it finally felt like Holo and Lawrence were starting to catch glimpses of the mortal world. And yet, they still sometimes found themselves swallowed up by the mountains that reached the very edge of the river, and sometimes their path forced them to venture deep into the forest.

  It was autumn, and they were wading through a sea of fallen leaves that came up to their ankles. The crunch of leaves underfoot was satisfying, and the smell of humus was invigorating. The only problem was that the fallen leaves often concealed the correct path, occasionally creating the illusion of a path that could not exist.

  The couple almost found themselves lost on these fake roads many times, discounting the woods that they were familiar with. They did actually become lost once, making their way deep into a wood. By the time they realized their error, they were in a place not marked on the map, a scary situation that gave them chills when thinking back on it.

  Lawrence, gripping the reins from atop the driver’s perch, might have been a former merchant, but he was no woodcutter who wandered the forests freely.

  He would soon fall dead if he got lost on his own and would either wind up as feed for the denizens of the forest or otherwise a nursery bed for mushrooms.

  “You fool, that is not the right way.”

  Luckily, he had a reassuring partner sitting next to him who sometimes told him which way to turn.

  It was a girl with flaxen hair, a color that the autumnal forest suited well. She was combing a pelt of the same color on her lap, but she was not the girl she appeared to be. Wolf ears topped her head and the pelt in her hands was in fact her very own tail.