Col took Holo’s things from her and, without being asked, added them to his own, shouldering the combined burden.
Noticing Lawrence’s gaze, he looked in Lawrence’s direction, but Lawrence only waved lightly and gestured for him to go on ahead.
“Right, then, do mind my companion – try to keep her from being too awe-inspiring, eh?”
“Ha-ha-ha. Can’t have her getting any more worshipers, after all. Worry not, it’s not too far on foot. We’ll surely meet up by nightfall.”
Lawrence nodded, then glanced at Holo, but she was already lying down, curled up in her blanket.
As he looked at her sleeping form, he very keenly appreciated that there was more than one way to quarrel.
Chapter Four
The walk along the riverbank took its toll.
Having traveled for so long on a wagon, though he wasn’t exhausted, Lawrence found it difficult to keep pace with Col.
He wondered how his feet were supposed to keep up this speed.
It made him long for the days when he had been accustomed to traveling on foot and could travel twice as fast as the envious wagon-bound merchants if he was in a hurry.
“There’s no gain in hurrying so,” Lawrence finally said.
“Yes, sir,” the boy replied meekly, slowing his pace.
Ragusa’s suddenly lightened vessel had headed downriver with Holo aboard and was soon out of sight. The boats behind it were all larger, and because they were all being stopped at the checkpoint, the river was very quiet.
The calm river’s surface was slick looking and shiny, like the slime trail left behind a snail, and it was amusing to watch.
Lawrence almost wanted to say that it looked as though glass had been laid down on the earth, but that seemed a bit exaggerated.
Suddenly a fish splashed through the surface, ruining the glassy look.
“Um, Master–?” The little fish beside Lawrence took the opportunity to make its own splash.
“What is it?”
“About the eni…”
“Ah. You’re wondering if there’s any money to be made?” asked Lawrence sharply, perhaps out of habit from spending time with Holo. Col nodded, face sober.
The boy thought making money was shameful.
Lawrence faced ahead, inhaling the cold air through his nose and exhaling from his mouth. “I doubt it.”
“I… see.”
Col was wearing Holo’s robe; when he slumped in dejection, it looked like Holo slumping in dejection.
Lawrence shocked himself by reaching his hand out, but Col seemed only slightly surprised when his head was patted.
“Though I wouldn’t have guessed you’d be having trouble with money.” Lawrence pulled his hand back from Col’s head, opening and closing his fingers several times.
He had expected it to feel different from Holo’s, but apart from the lack of ears, it felt much the same.
Seen from behind, the only difference Col’s figure cut would be the lack of the bulge that Holo’s tail created.
“What do you mean?”
“Hmm? Just what I said. Even among wandering scholars, the really clever ones have more money than they can carry and drink wine every day.”
It was a bit of an exaggeration, but there were definitely students who earned enough to pay to hear a dozen lectures from a professor clear to the end.
Col had become involved in bookselling because he didn’t have enough for even a single lesson.
“Uh, er… I guess there are some like that, yes.”
“Have you ever wondered how they get their money?”
“… Surely they steal it from others, I should think.”
When looking at someone who’s achieved something beyond imagining, it’s easy to assume his dishonesty.
One simply concludes he’s using some fundamentally different method.
Col’s estimation this time was a bit low.
“I expect they’re earning money much the same way you do.”
“Huh?” Col looked at Lawrence with an expression of disbelief.
It was the same expression Holo used when Lawrence managed a truly excellent verbal comeback.
And because his opponent wasn’t Holo, he could afford a bit of pride – but when Lawrence realized what he was doing, he chuckled, chagrined, and scratched his cheek. “Mm. And the only difference between you and fellows like that is effort.”
“… Effort?”
“Yes. On your journey, did you sleep nights under borrowed roofs or beg your meals one at a time?”
“Yes.”
“So it looks like you think you put forth some effort yourself,” said Lawrence with a smile. Col’s face tensed, and he looked down.
He was sulking.
“What you put effort into was asking with all your heart if you could please take shelter from the wind or rain or if you could have some hot porridge to warm your cold body.”
Col’s eyes flicked right, then left, then he nodded.
“But that lot, they’re different. They’re always focused on getting the most, the biggest return. The stories I’ve heard are incredible. They put merchants to shame.”
There was no reaction for a while, but Lawrence wasn’t worried.
He knew Col was a smart lad.
“What… what do they do?”
Asking for instruction was no easy thing – and it was harder the cleverer one was. The more confidence one has in oneself, the more difficult it becomes to ask for help.
Of course, there are people who claim asking others is easier and start out that way.
But those people didn’t have eyes like Col’s.
Lawrence didn’t answer immediately, instead removing a small cask from the pack Col carried, uncorking it, and taking a drink.
It was wine, distilled to the point of being only palely tinted.
He jokingly offered the cask to Col, who shook his head hastily.
The boy’s eyes were tinged with fear. He had set out on his journey knowing nothing and had surely met with terrible misfortune.
“For example, say you knock on the door of a house somewhere, and you get a single smoked herring.”
Col nodded.
“And say it’s desperately meager, and when you remove the skin, there’s hardly any meat at all, just the stink of smoke and not much else. So what do you do next?”
“Um…”
Col had in all likelihood faced this situation before, so it was no mere hypothetical.
His answer came quickly. “I would… eat half, then save the other half.”
“And eat it on the next day.”
“Yes.”
Lawrence was impressed the boy had made it this far.
“So once you had a herring, you wouldn’t then go try to get some soup?”
“… Are you saying I should go around to lots of houses?” Col spoke not admiringly; his eyes seemed a bit dissatisfied.
For Lawrence, this conversation could hardly fail to be amusing.
“So there’s a good reason you don’t do that?”
Col nodded, displeased.
He wasn’t so stupid as to do something without a reason. “The reason I succeeded once… was because I was lucky.”
“That’s true. The world isn’t overflowing with good, kind people, after all.”
“…”
He had taken the bait this far.
Holo would have pretended to swallow it, then tied the fishing line to the bottom of the pond. The moment Lawrence pulled up on the rod, he would be dragged under.
Col would not do such things.
“In business, the more money you have, the more smoothly things go. It’s because you have more tools. But you go into battle unarmed every time. So you come out of it wounded.”
Col’s eyes wavered.
They wavered but soon regained their vitality.
This was what it meant to be clever.
” … So you mean I should use the herring?”
/>
The hook was set now.
To think that there was such pleasure in the world.
“That’s right. You take the herring, and with it seek your next donation.”
“Wha–?” Col’s look of surprise was so profound it seemed it would never fade.
And why wouldn’t he be surprised?
How could someone who’s already received one fish use it to ask for another one?
But it could be done.
And easily.
“You take the herring. It’s better if you have a friend, and younger than you. You take him along and knock on a door. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ you say. ‘You live devoutly by the teachings of God. Look, sir – I have a single herring. But I cannot possibly eat it. Please look, sir – look at my companion. Today is his birthday. If you could spare us some kindness, and give me alms enough to make this herring into a pie for him to eat. Just enough for that, sir – please.’”
Solicitousness was the specialty of the merchant.
Lawrence made a good performance of it as Col gulped and watched.
“Listen to this speech. Who could refuse? The key is asking for just enough money for herring pie. Nobody is going to light their stove for you, but if it’s money, they’ll certainly spare some.”
“Ah, er, so you mean any amount–”
“Yes. You take one herring from house to house, and some of those people are going to tell you that one herring isn’t possibly enough, so you’ll get more. Then once you’ve made the rounds through town, whoosh.”
Col looked so dazed that one could have hung a sign that said DAZED on him and collected coins for the performance.
He seemed to be tasting the shock of having his entire world turned upside down.
There were amazing people in the world who could imagine truly inconceivable things.
“I won’t go so far as to say, ‘Hunger knows no law,’ but depending on how you think about it, there’s no harm in giving alms to a poor wandering scholar, and giving even a small amount of money makes the giver feel good about themselves, so nobody loses. If you have extra money or food, you can even give some to your accomplice. So what do you think? Did you learn anything?”
What made Holo’s sleeping face so attractive was that her normally guarded wisewolf mien was innocent, guileless.
However, that was usually irrelevant.
Col’s face was so naive in the face of the shock that, while he wasn’t as fetching as Holo, he definitely did have his own charm.
“Ignorance is a sin.” Lawrence patted the back of Col’s head, at which Col sighed and nodded.
“I’ve heard the saying ‘Know thyself.’”
“Well, that’s true, but the important thing is–” began Lawrence but then looked behind him at the sound of hooves.
Perhaps there had been men on horses riding on the boat that had been held up at the checkpoint.
They were approaching at high speed – but whether they were horses or simply giant loads of fur, it was difficult to tell.
One horse. Two. Then three.
Seven in total.
How many men among them would be able to realize the profits they’d been anticipating?
Even if they knew something, it would be difficult to turn that into profit.
The important thing was–
“The important thing is to think of something nobody else is thinking of. ‘Ignorance is a sin’ is not about knowledge – it’s about wisdom.”
Col opened his eyes and gritted his teeth.
The hand that held the strap of the bag over his shoulder trembled a bit.
He looked up. “Thank you very much, master.”
Truly, only the gods profit in the end.
It was quite pleasant traveling with Col.
The boy kept silent, though, on the matter of what Holo had said to him earlier.
He was clad in Holo’s hooded cloak.
Holo had long since left her scent on the boy.
It would be difficult to reverse that.
“Hey, I can see it up ahead!”
“Hmm?… Oh, indeed. Looks like it’s turned into quite a mess.”
On the gently downward-sloping plain, the view ahead was free from obstacles.
There was still a good distance to walk, but nonetheless the main details were apparent.
True to Ragusa’s words, a large ship was diagonally blocking the river, and behind it was a tangle of vessels caught in the obstruction.
The boat that was stopped near the riverbank might have been Ragusa’s.
There were many men on horseback as well, the majority of whom were surely the messengers of noblemen, bearing urgent news.
Many other people milled around, but it was difficult to tell what they were doing.
“It seems kind of like a festival,” said Col, dazed, and Lawrence gave the boy’s profile a casual glance.
Maybe it was because the boy was looking far off into the distance, but somehow he seemed lonely, as though he were longing for his homeland.
Lawrence, too, had left his tiny home village and its stifling gray air but still sometimes thought fondly of it.
The boy’s eyes seemed moist, but the sun was fairly low in the sky, so it might simply have been from the color-tinged light that reflected in them.
“Where were you born?” Lawrence asked without thinking.
“Huh?”
“If you don’t want to answer, that’s fine, too.” Even Lawrence, when asked where he was from, would put on airs and name the town closest to the hamlet where he was born.
Of course, half of the reason he did so was because nobody would recognize the name of his village anyway.
“U-um, it’s a place called Pinu,” said Col nervously; Lawrence had indeed never heard of it.
“Sorry, I don’t know it. Where is it? The east?”
From Col’s accent, Lawrence guessed he might also be from the deep southeast.
It was a country of hot seas and limestone.
Of course, Lawrence had only heard stories of it.
“No, the north. Actually, it’s not so very far from here…”
“Oh?”
If he was from the north and wanted to study Church law, he might have been related to immigrants from the south.
There were many who had abandoned their households to seek new lands in the north.
But most of those had been unable to accustom themselves to the new place, and things had been difficult.
“Are you familiar with the Roef River that flows into the Roam?”
Lawrence nodded.
“It’s toward the headwaters there – up in the mountains. Winters are cold, I suppose. But when the snow falls, it’s very pretty.”
Lawrence was a bit surprised.
He remembered the story about Holo that was in the book he’d borrowed from Rigolo. It said that she’d come out of the mountains of Roef.
But when it came to people wandering about this region, ones from the south were surely rare.
The Roef River was quite long – the population of its basin was certainly the greater figure.
“If you’re moving slowly, it’s two weeks from here. If things really don’t work out, I was thinking I might go back home,” said Col, embarrassed. Lawrence, of course, did not smile.
It required an unbelievable amount of determination to leave one’s village.
Whether one shook off the village’s control and left or enjoyed its ardent support, one couldn’t very well just waltz back in without having achieved the goal.
Yet wanting to return home was an emotion that everyone felt at one point or another.
“So did you immigrate to Pinu, then?”
“Immigrate?”
“What I mean is, did you migrate there from the south?”
Col gaped for a moment, then shook his head. “N-no, but there’s a story that the village’s original location sank into the bottom of a lake created in a landslide.”
“Oh no, I just mean that not many people from the northlands study Church law.”
Col’s eyes twinkled at the words, and he smiled with a touch of self-consciousness. “My master – er, I mean, Professor Rient – used to say such things, as well. ‘If only more people from the pagan lands would open their eyes to the Church’s teachings’ he would say.”
Lawrence wondered why Col’s bashful smile seemed so self-conscious.
“No doubt. Did any missionaries come to your town?”
If they had been moderate missionaries, it would be by God’s grace. Most fought with sword in hand, engaging in plunder and murder under the auspices of “reform.”
But if that had been the case, Col would have learned to loathe the Church and would never have thought to study Church law.
“No missionaries came to Pinu,” he said, and again his gaze was fixed in the distance.
His profile was somehow terribly unsuited to his true age.
“They came to a village two mountains away – a place smaller than Pinu, with many hunters skilled in trapping owl and fox. One day men came there from out of the south and built a church.”
It seemed unlikely that Col would then explain that the villagers had thankfully listened to the missionaries’ sermons and opened their eyes to God.
The reason was obvious.
“But,” said Lawrence, “each village had its own god; those who rebelled against the Church were–”
Surprised, Col looked at Lawrence.
That was more than enough.
“I guess you’d have to say I’m an enemy of the Church now. Can you explain what happened?” asked Lawrence.
Still stunned, Col seemed to be on the verge of saying something, but unable to form the words, he closed his mouth.
He looked down, casting his gaze this way and that, before looking back up at Lawrence.
“Truly?”
It was obvious Col was unused to doubting other people.
If he stayed this softhearted, much suffering awaited him.
And yet for all that, it was part of the boy’s charm.
“Yes, in God’s name I swear.”
Col’s wincing face was so charming that Lawrence couldn’t help patting the boy’s head.
“… The headmen of all the villages in our region hadn’t assembled in 220 years, I heard,” began Col. “They met for many days, discussing whether to bow to the Church or to fight back. As I remember it, the mood wasn’t one of agreeing to hold a discussion with the Church, I don’t think. The news that reached us across the mountains every day was only about who had been executed. But eventually winter came, and the leader of the Church fell ill, and we were saved when he left the mountain, muttering that he didn’t want to die in a pagan land like this. Of course, if it had come to a fight, we knew the mountains and there were more of us, so we would have won.”
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