The best way to avoid paying taxes was to protest that one had no assets with which to pay, but the king had chosen a solution that would render such protests meaningless.
The king’s resolve was clear, and there would be no wriggling out of it. If there was any hesitation, it would be met with military force. That might even have been the real goal.
A single pack could not be led by two heads—Holo had told him this, but it held true for a nation, as well. The abbey, with its great influence and huge tracts of land, was certainly a headache for the king.
Ruin if they paid the tax. Ruin if they didn’t.
From this impossible predicament, the abbey needed salvation—by Lawrence, a mere traveling merchant.
“It’s—it’s impossible,” Lawrence murmured without thinking.
Picking up on his words, it was Col who looked up. “Is it impossible?”
Col had ventured out into the world to protect his own town. His eyes were deeply serious, almost accusing Lawrence.
“…Once during my travels, there was an accident. The road was muddy from rain the previous day.”
At the sudden change of topic, Col’s face showed a rare flash of anger. Lawrence was a merchant, and merchants often used clever misdirection—and Col knew it.
“The lead cart sank into the mire. We hurried to it and discovered that the merchant driving the cart was fortunate enough to be alive. He was flat on his back and looked quite embarrassed. He seemed to be injured, but we thought he’d survive. We thought so, and so did he…”
Lawrence continued to stroke the sobbing Holo’s back as he spoke to Col.
“But his belly had been opened. A tree branch had gotten him maybe. He didn’t even realize it until he saw our expressions. He smiled stiffly and asked us to save him. But we weren’t gods. All we could do was stay with him until the end.”
Sometimes there was nothing to be done. That was the way of the world. There was no divine mercy, no heavenly fortune, and time could not be turned back.
Lawrence sighed and continued.
“It’s not that I wasn’t sympathetic. But I also know the God who’s supposed to deliver us seems to be so often absent. All I can do is be glad it wasn’t me.”
“That’s not—!”
“That’s all there was to do. And after I saw my unlucky friend off, I stood up and continued my journey, after taking as much from his cart as I could.” One corner of Lawrence’s mouth curled up. “It was a nice profit,” he added.
Col’s face distorted, and he seemed about to scream at Lawrence, but in the end he did not. He looked down and resumed his work of drying Huskins’s wet hair and beard.
When faced with unavoidably trying circumstances, immersion in work could bring salvation. Lawrence wondered how long ago it was he had learned that. He thought about it as he picked Holo up. She was quiet in his arms as he took her to the next room, though whether she had cried herself to the point of exhaustion or simply passed out from stress was not clear.
The snowstorm raged outside, but because the snow had long since accumulated in the cracks in the walls and windows, it was not terribly cold.
Holo’s breathing was quick and shallow, as though she were suffering from a fever. She was probably having a nightmare or else her guilty conscience was continuing to assail her.
He laid Holo on the bed and turned to go attend to Huskins, but she tugged on his sleeve. Her eyes opened just slightly. Those eyes had abandoned shame and pride and simply implored him to stay by her side.
It was not clear how conscious she was, but Lawrence stroked her head with his other hand, and Holo closed her eyes as though reassured. Slowly, one finger at a time, her hand let go of his sleeve.
In the next room, illuminated by the redly burning hearth fire, Col struggled to change Huskins’s outer layer of clothing. In addition to the difference in size between the two of them, Col was not terribly strong to begin with.
Lawrence silently set about assisting, and while Col did not thank him, he also did not turn the help away.
“There’s no danger in considering it at least.”
Col’s face showed surprise, and he said nothing in response. He looked up and paused.
“Pull there, please.”
“Ah, y-yes!”
“There is no danger in considering the possibility. After all, at the moment, we’re probably the only people who know about the contents of this letter.”
Huskins’s things had been arranged in a corner of the room, and from among them, they found clothes for him and removed his soaking-wet shoes.
“Given how important the message is, I can’t imagine they’d send just one copy. Once the blizzard is over, I’m sure someone will arrive bearing the news. Which means we have a few options.”
Whether or not to tell anyone else about the letter. And if so, whom.
“Do—do you think anything can be done?”
“That’s hard to say. But we can make some predictions. The abbey is cornered and so is the king. If we suppose that they’re each employing their strategies of last resort, there are not very many possible outcomes. What’s more, the Ruvik Alliance is also involved.”
Col gulped and hesitantly asked another question. “Will Miss Holo be all right?”
This cut to the heart of the matter; it was like a wound—when touched, some would groan in pain, and others would bellow in rage.
Lawrence was the former. “…This is unbearable for her, and she was unable to accept things as they are, so that’s why she spoke as she did. But so long as the situation permits, she’ll offer her help. Despite how she might look, she’s quite kind. Which you’re supposed to find surprising, by the way.”
Col wrapped Huskins’s feet in cloth to prevent frostbite, then added another log to the fire. Finally, he gave a tired smile.
“She knows perfectly well how unsightly her jealousy is. In the face of Huskins’s resolve, she must’ve felt like a child. Her pride as a wisewolf has been terribly wounded.”
Holo’s pride and vanity were second to none, but she also knew when to joke and when to act in earnest. And when she was in earnest, even Lawrence had to acknowledge her excellence.
“I once told Holo something.”
“What was that?”
“That there are many different ways to solve a problem. But once it’s solved, we must live our lives. Which means we should choose not the simplest solution, but the one that will allow us to feel most at peace once it’s done.”
Huskins was wrapped in a blanket so not even a bit of drafty air could reach him. In place of a pillow, they wrapped a piece of firewood in another blanket and placed it under his head, finishing their care of him.
“And when I told her as much, she called me a fool. As though giving up on me. But I wonder if she could really abandon Huskins and move on so easily as that.”
No doubt Col had imagined Holo simply eating, drinking, and curling up like a dog or cat. But Lawrence found it difficult to believe she would abandon someone who had endured such hardship in creating a second home.
Col shook his head once, then a second time, more strongly.
“As for where you stand, it hardly bears saying.” Lawrence smiled, and Col’s face went rigid as though a great secret of his had been revealed. He looked down, ashamed.
Even if Lawrence and Holo had decided to abandon Huskins, Col would not have done it, Lawrence was sure.
“Anyway, so far it’s an emotional argument.”
“So far?” Col’s eyes looked up uncomprehendingly, and even Lawrence found himself wanting to hug him. Having Col around was certainly good for his pride and vanity.
“I’m a merchant, after all. I don’t act unless there’s some profit in it.”
“…Which means…?”
“This notice of taxation. If Huskins’s words and Piasky’s guesses are to be believed, it will wipe out the abbey entirely. Which means this is a perfect opportunity for us. They say before a
great wave comes, the sea recedes and lays the ocean floor bare. Thus…”
Col answered immediately. “You’d be able to see all the treasure that used to be underwater.”
“Exactly. If there’s anything there, they won’t be able to hide it. As far as Holo’s original goal goes, this is hardly useless. Although whether she chooses to take it by force will be up to her.”
Col nodded and then slumped over as though relieved. “I’m just not as clever as you are, Mr. Lawrence.”
Col was probably thinking of Lawrence’s ability to see things from many perspectives. Lawrence’s wordless smile and shrug were no act. If Holo had been there, she would have known.
Not many humans could lie to themselves, after all.
“The night is long, and we have a fire. Col—”
“Yes!”
“Lend me your wisdom.”
“Of course!” Col shouted and then hastily covered his mouth.
Lawrence made ready a pen and paper and began to draw up a plan.
The movements of an insect’s wings are hard to see, but the wingbeats of a great hawk are easily counted. Thus, a large organization’s actions were easier to predict than a smaller one’s. All the more so when they were cornered.
But good information was scarce.
They knew the abbey was in the midst of a financial crisis. That the king’s failed policies had emptied the kingdom’s coffers. And that the king had decreed a tax that would (and this was supposition) ruin the abbey.
What they did not know was what form the abbey’s final assets would take. Did it have—as Lawrence predicted—a valuable holy relic like the wolf bones, or were its assets in coin?
Lawrence neatly wrote what facts they had on the upper half of the paper. The remaining half listed the choices available to him and his traveling companions.
For example—who should be told of the notice of taxation? The alliance? The abbey? Or should they tell no one?
Next, there were a similar number of choices regarding how to deal with the story of the wolf bones.
Their options seemed at once too few and too many; the unknown elements remaining were likewise. The monastery was in a financial crisis, and even if the leaders were unable to survive another round of taxation, there was no way of knowing whether they would stubbornly defy the kingdom or meekly do as they were told, submitting to the threat of military force like so many sheep.
Realistically speaking, there were no options Lawrence and company could pursue entirely on their own.
Perhaps their only real choice was to go to the alliance with what they knew, carefully trading small pieces of information in order to expand their knowledge, then force their way into the proceedings somehow.
Of course, there were risks. But victory was not impossible.
After all, even if the alliance had the abbey by the throat and was trying to somehow tear it out, they were not some clumsy mercenary band that would devour the carcass all the way down to the bones.
Just as they knew how to harvest wheat, they knew how to increase their harvest. They were perfectly aware that a steady stream of small profit was better than a single great gain.
And because a successful harvest required stable land, the abbey’s continued existence would be a high priority for the alliance. They were surely looking for a solution that ensured the abbey would go on.
Lawrence and Col passed the night thinking the problem through, top to bottom. They considered each and every possibility, deciding whether it was worth the risk. The raging blizzard and cold before the dawn kept their thinking sharp—or perhaps it was Lawrence’s understanding of the way the world worked, combined with having Col at his side.
Around the time the hearth fire was quietly burning itself to ash, Lawrence and Col had found a miraculous possibility and written it on the paper.
Holo’s happy face and Huskins’s surprised eyes greeted him as he revealed the plan to be—
“…—”
He triumphantly presented his conclusions to Holo. And that very moment, he woke up.
The charcoal fire and the falling snow sounded very similar to each other. Lawrence tried to estimate from the crackling sound how long he’d been asleep.
The only thing he could not remember were the specifics of the miraculous plan. No—he understood now.
It had been a dream, and worse, that he had had exactly that sort of dream was now written all over his face.
“Fool.”
He was slumped over the crate on which he had been writing; when he sat up, Holo was crouched by the hearth.
The word echoed more pleasingly in his ears than any church bell could.
He yawned hugely. His neck hurt terribly, probably from the strange sleeping position.
“You fool…”
Two blankets were covering him.
Holo turned away from him as she called him a fool; next to him was Col, curled up and seemingly clinging to Holo’s tail.
Her face was hollow-cheeked, probably because she had cried herself out not long before. Or perhaps she was just cold; she was not wearing her robe.
Lawrence finally realized it was not so much her appearance as it was the general atmosphere that made her look poorly, and just then Holo sighed and spoke.
“Aye, how lucky I am.” Her words and expression were completely unrelated, and yet she seemed to speak even more truly than she did when praising a piece of fatty mutton. “This world so often does not go as one would wish, and still.”
With his mouth half-open and his sleeping breath utterly silent, Col almost seemed dead at a glance. But when Holo gently stroked his head, he shrank away ticklishly.
“Our God tells us to share what we have with others,” said Lawrence.
“Even our good fortune?” Holo asked, bored.
If he misstepped in his response, he was quite sure he would receive a cold sigh in response, along with a disinclination on Holo’s part to listen to him further.
“Even our good fortune. I think I’ve put that into practice quite nicely.”
“…”
“I even let Col use that tail of yours,” he said quite seriously.
Holo only smiled a defeated smile, then smoothly moved her gaze over to the window.
“My body felt as though it were aflame.”
“Was that—”
“—because of what I said?” Lawrence was about to jokingly finish, but could not bring himself to.
But Holo realized how his joke would end and seemed surprisingly happy at it. Her ears flicked, and though she still faced away, her shoulders shook with laughter. “Ah well, all creatures are alike in that they tend toward selfishness. It has been a long time indeed since I’ve felt such envy for the belongings of another. ’Tis almost comforting.”
Lawrence paused before replying, to make it clear that what he was about to say was in jest. “Well, of course it was comforting—it’s always a comfort to be so childishly selfish.”
Holo was not the type to kick away someone who was begging at her feet. It was her nature to try to grant any favor asked of her, no matter if it did her no good, no matter if it angered her—that was why she had stayed in Pasloe for so many centuries.
“Humans and sheep think the same way.”
“Enough for you and I to argue about it certainly.”
“Mm. Unless we fight over the same thing, curse each other with the same words, and glare at each other from the same height, it is not a true fight.”
She sat and stroked Col’s head, occasionally laughing as she spoke, the breath rising in white puffs from her mouth. Lawrence could imagine her as the goddess of some forest, so elegant and gentle her form.
Unlike when she was bundled up in layers of clothing, her slender frame seemed unrelated to any idleness or debauchery.
Lawrence regarded not a weak girl who needed his protection, but the ancient wisewolf Holo, god of the harvest who lived in the wheat.
“I have a
little wisdom and experience. Col has intellect and imagination.”
“And what do I have?”
“You have a responsibility,” said Lawrence. “A responsibility to turn our travels into a tale that will be long told. Isn’t it perfect, the tale of a wolf coming to the aid of sheep?”
For authority to exist, it needed the support of a sturdy system of values. Taking responsibility for one’s words was exactly that.
Holo opened her mouth, and from between her fangs issued another large puff of vapor. She smiled, amused.
It was the childish smile of the scheming prankster. If one were lost in the woods and being attacked by bandits, if there were anyone to call upon for aid other than God, it would be someone with this very smile.
“Is there any chance for victory?”
Lawrence did not reply, only shrugging and handing Holo the paper upon which he had been sleeping. Holo looked at this face and laughed—no doubt it was smudged with ink.
“I have a measure of confidence in my own cleverness…but this sort of situation is not my specialty.” She must have been referring to broad, encompassing ways of thinking. If one could always rely on might to solve one’s problems, there was no need to consider the fine details of a situation. “Of course, an old mercenary general once said that one cannot continue winning battles with a single strategy. Constantly shifting tactics are the best way to defeat one’s opponent. And—”
“And?”
“Only the gods are capable of that.”
It was a mischievous joke.
“Remember that,” Holo’s expression seemed to say, yet she did not appear at all displeased.
“The question is whether the abbey does in fact possess the bones. And that seems very likely.”
“Yes. Nothing else fits the story Piasky told us so perfectly.”
“You should ally yourselves with the pack you already know, not the abbey, don’t you think? Nothing is so frightful as an ally whose thoughts you cannot divine.” As she spoke, Holo’s eyes flicked over the scrawled writing on the paper, where Lawrence had written the results of his talk with Col, reading it with great speed.
Spice and Wolf, Vol. 10 Page 15