Side Colors III Page 8

  Her companion had a tendency to believe she could be wooed with food, but regardless of how good those humans were at cooking, she wondered if he truly considered that a wisewolf such as herself could always be distracted by food?

  The notion that she would return simply because she was hungry—how absurd!

  She would return because she did not relish the notion of eating alone, and she wagged her tail out of pleasure that he saw fit to spend his precious coin on her, that was all.

  “Fool.”

  Her companion’s horse was eating field grass, and he shook his head in irritation at it, tugging it this way and that. Yet he still fancied himself a cool, collected wolf among humans, which struck her as very funny indeed. “He’s but a sheep,” she murmured to herself and rested her cheek on the wagon bed’s edge.

  There in the still sunlight, she watched her foolish companion. She had no dissatisfaction, nor any complaints.

  A smile played about her lips in spite of herself and grew wider as she realized her own silliness. “Perhaps I’m the fool, after all,” she murmured in amusement, dropping her gaze to the ground.

  And then—there, between the blades of grass, was something strange.

  “What’s that?”

  She leaned over to look at it, but still could not quite make it out. Finally she got out of the wagon bed and picked it up. It was a beast’s head rendered in metal and hung about a leather cord.

  “What is this?” she murmured, peering at it, then heard the voice of her companion.

  “Easy, easy!” The horse, evidently enjoying its rare freedom, seemed displeased at this interruption.

  She met his dark black eyes and caught there a flicker of spite. But the horse would have had any number of chances to run away had he wanted to. In other words, he was just having some fun at her companion’s expense.

  Well, it served him right.

  “Come, don’t buck like that! Yes, fine, I see how it is…there we go.”

  Her companion was used to this, though, and quickly harnessed the horse back up to the wagon while murmuring soothing words.

  It was quite charming to see a usually perfect person suddenly act foolish, but not nearly as so to see a foolish person show surprising skill.

  But when the horse gave her companion a long-suffering nudge with his nose, said companion was back to his usual self.

  “Honestly…well, then, let’s be off. Er…what is it?”

  He seemed to have thought she had already curled up under the blankets in the wagon. She was about to ask him about the item she had picked up, but decided to think on it for a while first, and in the end said nothing.

  She gave a vague reply, then climbed up one of the wheels and into the wagon bed.

  Her companion seemed unworried. He climbed back into the driver’s seat, took up the reins, and started the cart moving forward. Their journey resumed.

  In the gently swaying bed, she curled up atop the blankets and again inspected the item she’d retrieved.

  All sorts of metals and gems she had never heard of circulated in the human world, but of the metals she was familiar with, this seemed to be lead. It was about the size of the last joint of her thumb and seemed to depict the head of a dog, a fox, or perhaps a clumsily rendered wolf.

  It must have been made quite a long time in the past, as it was well rounded and many of the finer details had blackened. Yet the feeling of long use made it, if anything, a more fascinating piece.

  This particular wisewolf found such objects suited her better than newer, shinier ones. And given that this one was already so conveniently fastened to a leather cord, the notion of putting it on just to see her companion’s reaction had a certain appeal.

  Thinking as much, she first tried putting it around her wrist, but the cord was too long for that, and it did not look quite right, either. Then she considered putting it around her neck, but the pouch of wheat was already there.

  She was trying to work out how to wear it when the thought finally came to her.

  Since humans fastened their hair with all manner of ties, would it be so strange for a wolf to do likewise with the most splendid bit of her coat? Surely not. The cord was a mite too long, but with a bit of adjustment she got it secured nicely.

  The lead device was only about the size of her thumb, so it did not look bad at all.

  Tying a leather cord around her tail—such a notion would never have occurred to her in either the wilds or the wheat fields without the influence of humans.

  She stood, spinning around like a puppy and chasing the adornment affixed about the middle of her tail. “Ooh-hu-hu-hu,” she giggled, her face breaking into a smile from the pleasure of this unexpected find.

  “Oh, that’s right. There was something I wanted to ask you about,” her companion said from the driver’s seat.

  He turned around. There was no chance for her to hide how she was curled around her own tail, admiring it.

  But given that she had planned to show it to him anyway, she merely turned to face her stunned companion and waved her tail proudly. “What say you? Not bad, eh?”

  She put her hand on her hips and twirled, doing her best imitation of the dancing town lasses she had seen on their travels.

  Her companion’s gaze remained fixed on her tail. He seemed to be at a loss for words. “It’s, er, nice, but…”

  But? Was he too abashed to simply admit how nice it looked that he had to add some sort of qualification? How adorable! she thought.

  “Where did you get that?” her companion continued.

  “Hmm? I picked it up over yonder.” She regarded the piece again. It really did suit her well. Its nearly black-gray had a lovely presence amid her dark brown, white-tufted fur.

  She wagged her tail, and her companion regarded her with a strange expression for a while before merely saying, “Ah,” then turning to face forward again. This from her companion, who lost his composure if she so much as cocked her head in the manner of a town girl!

  Surely this was proof of just how thoroughly the adornment suited her.

  She sighed through her nose, then hopped up into the driver’s seat. “So, what was it you wished to ask me?” Owing to the height difference, she had to look up at him to ask.

  When in wolf form, she looked down on most creatures. Perhaps because of that, she had initially found looking up to feel rather subordinate, but lately she had come to enjoy it a certain amount.

  And if her companion was going to be elusive, so much the better.

  She stifled any sort of grin and simply looked up at him like an innocent pup. Her companion glanced over at her, trying to hide his obvious fluster.

  If there was anything she looked forward to as much as mealtime, it was this.

  She beamed at him, and he cleared his throat nervously before finally speaking. “Ahem. Er, no, it’s not anything of importance, but…” As he talked, he glanced at her tail. “The town we were in until yesterday—about the quality of the furs there…”

  “Mm.”

  Evidently he wanted to broach the subject of profit.

  But when her companion made a profit, she was able to eat tasty things, which was always a fine thing. She felt no particular need to flatter him, but if she was going to travel with him anyway, she might as well do so with a smile.

  Now she, too, cleared her throat, giving him an indulgent look. “Mm.”

  At this, her companion began to pepper her with questions about the quality of this or that pelt. Humans, for their part, judged the fineness of a pelt with their eyes and hands, but she was able to divine the quality on the spot, with no more than a sniff from her nose.

  As she answered him, explaining that this one was fine and that one was not, she saw her companion’s attention very clearly shift from her, then and there, to his memories of the goods they had seen.

  When she had answered his last question, he did not so much as thank her, instead simply sinking into silence.

 
How rude, she thought, but could not bring herself to despise her companion’s too-serious face. Feeling a little put out, she watched his profile. He seemed to think of something and reached back into the wagon bed.

  He placed the waxed board with its tallies and figures scrawled all over it on his knee, and after murmuring something to himself, suddenly exclaimed, “Yes! I knew it!”

  Humans, with their bad noses and bad ears, tended to have the unpleasant habit of shouting too loudly.

  She was not the only one surprised; the horse was startled, too. Her companion, though, took no notice of this, and he roughly tossed the writing board back into the wagon and took up the reins. He pulled on them to stop the horse.

  “…What is it?” she asked, rubbing her still-stinging ears like a cat would. Her companion’s face was tiresomely cheerful.

  “There’s a gap in the marketplace. We can make some real money!”

  As he turned the wagon around to head back the way they had come, he looked like a pup too young to have all of his teeth yet.

  Having spent so much time with a merchant, she had grown to understand the basics of commerce. But she still wondered how a series of buying and selling that ended up with the same goods they started with could possibly turn a profit.

  According to her companion, it could.

  “You’ll be despised if you bring out a mountain of small coins to pay for an expensive item, and if you try to buy a small thing with a high-value coin, it’s the same thing. So people use coins appropriate for the various goods they’re buying. But sometimes furs are simply exchanged for furs, and the same goes for coins. So—”

  “So in all that exchange, sometimes there are places where they aren’t equivalent, aye?”

  “That’s right. I’ve calculated it over and over, and there’s no mistaking it. By doing nothing more than buying and selling in town, we can make twenty, maybe even thirty percent. It’s a grand opportunity!”

  That might well have been true, but her companion’s excitement was dampening her own. And she had yet to be properly complimented on the tail adornment she had so cleverly put on.

  But of course, her companion was unable to pay attention to more than one thing at once. She really could not expect too much from him.

  They entered the town’s walls they had only just left that morning. It was just as crowded as it had always been, and looking at the crowd, she could not help but wonder if her companion had truly considered whether out of all these people, not a single one had noticed the gap he thought he had discovered.

  Of course, no matter the endeavor, both successes and failures were common. At the very least, she had to admit that her companion had brought her on adventures the likes of which she had nearly forgotten after so long.

  Watching him glance here and there in his impatience to begin trading was quite amusing. But then—no sooner had they stabled the horse than her companion looked to her and spoke.

  “Now then, would you go and wait for me in the tavern?”

  “Wha…?” she said, frozen in place. She had been certain that she would be going along with him, to sniff out the quality of the pelts and to listen to the sounds of the coins, that for a moment she honestly thought she was being teased.

  “I’ll be going to shops all over the town. With these crowds, I think you’d hate being dragged this way and that, wouldn’t you?”

  Unfair, she thought. If she was going to be such a burden for him to bring along, he could at least say so. But he obviously did not want to bring her, so when he said, “…Wouldn’t you?” how could she reply but to agree?

  Only merchants were so skilled at exploiting the difference between inward intention and outward expression to manipulate things for their own ends. Her companion did this quite frequently, though he was not particularly aware of it.

  “Aye, I suppose not,” she said, faking a vague smile, not bothering to hide her irritation from her companion. But he seemed to misunderstand and patted her head as though she were a pup.

  He probably thought she was merely pouting at being left alone. And would he even now think her to be holding his reins?

  He was an exasperating fool, but even then she found his confident smile so charming—so perhaps he was not the biggest fool.

  “Still, I don’t suppose you’ll have me wait there without any means,” she said. Her companion’s arm looked thin, but it felt surprisingly sturdy as she took it.

  He shot her his most sour look, but in the end, he gave her a single shiny silver piece. Evidently, he was confident in his current prospects.

  “Don’t use it all.”

  She did not bother to remind him that it would not have cost him a single copper had he only brought her along.

  In truth, her companion probably had not had the time to leisurely take her around with him, because here in this walled town, the ringing of the bells marked the strict beginning and end of the day.

  The ringing of this bell marked the opening of the market; the ringing of that bell meant the craftsmen could take their break. It was a spectacle, as though the whole town danced to the beat of the same drum. From her vantage point out of a second-story window of the inn, bottle of wine in hand, the rhythmic impression she got was particularly strong.

  When she thought about it that way, her companion—who journeyed across the land, making his living with nothing but his wagon and his wits, beholden only to the movements of the sun and the moon—was unmistakably among the freest of humans.

  Freedom and strength flowed from the same spring. Despite his foolishness and softheartedness, his belief in his own abilities gave him a mysteriously attractive strength.

  She thought back on the memories of their journey together thus far, but this did not do much to soothe her frustration with being left behind—or rather, perhaps it was failing to quiet her anger.

  With just a single silver coin to spend, she was forced into the corner of an open-fronted tavern. With night yet to fall, the only patrons were a few indolent travelers, along with some withered regulars, drying like fish in the sun. And even with them, there were not many there, so Holo wound up in one corner of the tavern, lazily watching the swirl of foot traffic stream by in front of the place.

  Worse, she had not even had time to change clothes, so she was still dressed as what the humans called a nun.

  Thanks to that, whenever anyone passed near her table, every single one of them said the same thing as they left her a small coin: “God’s blessing be upon you.”

  Then they would put their hands together or occasionally seek to take hers in greeting, then return to their own table.

  Despite how much she hated being worshipped, she found this particular form of respect paying so foolish she could not even be angry at it.

  She ate her beans and sipped her wine in order to drown the occasional tears that her great yawns squeezed out.

  Thinking of the times her foolish companion’s business plans had not gone well, she had ordered sour wine of notably poor quality.

  It was bad enough to keep her awake and bad enough to keep her mind on her anger at having been left alone. She was wiping a lingering drop from her lips with an irritated finger flick when a familiar figure entered her field of vision.

  On his back was a great load of pelts, and he was walking straight ahead and purposefully, without so much as a sideways glance.

  The look in his eyes was the one he had when things were going well.

  Her companion seemed not to realize that whenever things were going his way, he wore an expression that made it obvious he thought he was being cool and collected. Likewise, whenever things went poorly, the desperation with which he fought back panic was also easy to see. He was always trying to keep his thoughts to himself.

  Was the only time he was truly calm while he slept? Seeing him serene was so rare that she sometimes stayed up at night to watch him, just to see his quiet expression. She wondered what he would say if he knew.

>   He would probably become too self-conscious to sleep.

  And yet that in and of itself was rather charming, she thought—and then realized she was out of wine.

  Without anyone to talk to, it was all too easy to empty one’s cup.

  She raised her cup in the air and ordered another round from the bored-looking tavern keeper.

  Her companion came out of the swirl of humanity and entered her quiet little corner of the world, but only after passing by several times.

  Having had nothing but the bad wine, her stomach had gotten sour, too, so she told him not to say a thing until he had ordered her some cheese or bread, about which he offered not a whit of complaint.

  Rather, he wore a wide and satisfied smile. She would not have been surprised if he had scooped her up in his arms and nuzzled her with his face.

  “I love the feeling of outsmarting everyone around me!” he said, pinching her cheek.

  He was in high spirits indeed. And yet, he did not produce the requested coin, which was very like him.

  “Just so long as you aren’t caught at it.”

  “I’ll be long gone before anyone catches me.”

  Given the adventures they’d had so far, it was comically rash for him to say such things, but it was pleasant to see him brimming with such confidence. Finally, he smiled and presented his winnings.

  It was true, though—from the gradually increasing loads of fur on his back as he had traveled back and forth, she could tell he had been profiting.

  Greater profit required greater capital.

  She remembered the words from a previous misfortune, and surely the reason he had asked her to judge the quality of the pelts he started with was to understand the amount he stood to lose if things went poorly.

  It was a sickening level of care, but it arose from his usual habits.

  The way he observed and interacted with her, carefully and dispassionately, was the best example of this. It was conservative, even mercenary. If he ended up being unreliable when she truly needed him, she ought to give him a view of the dust she would kick up as she left him behind, but unfortunately doing so would tip her own hand, which hardly seemed fair.