How many chances remained to enjoy a festival with Holo?
Merchants were always considering profit and loss. Always.
And the fact remained that he still didn’t know why Holo was angry. Perhaps to Ragusa, who was a few years older than Lawrence, the solution was obvious.
The problem was, he had to speak up.
Despite having finally gotten some measure of confidence in his relationship with Holo, it was not so strong that he could expose that relationship to a stranger and still feel confident.
“Come, have some trust in me! Listen well, now–” Ragusa put his massive arm over Lawrence’s shoulders; it seemed strong enough to knock Lawrence out with a single wave.
It seemed as though he was trying to hide their conversation from Col, but Col stuck close to Ragusa and listened in.
“I’ve got some confidence when it comes to such troublesome matters. Know why?”
Lawrence shook his head, and Ragusa took his arm off Lawrence and thrust his chest out proudly. “I’ve been taking boats up and down the river for past twenty years. When it comes to water under the bridge, you just leave it to me!”
Behind Ragusa and some distance away, Holo had been talking to the actress when Lawrence saw her suddenly burst into laughter.
She had been listening in.
Holo did not seem displeased.
Which meant she, too, wanted this cleared up as soon as possible.
And while Lawrence couldn’t really count on Ragusa, he might as well talk to him, since Lawrence and Holo’s relationship was evidently easily understood from the outside.
“In that case… may I?”
“Count on me, friend.”
They put their heads together – not just Ragusa, either, but Col as well.
Though their ages and professions were different and though they had only met that same day, the three now looked like old friends.
Lawrence coolly considered that before he’d met Holo, this would never have happened.
He somehow felt that even if he had to leave her, he would be able to go on.
“Does anyone have any old rags or things they don’t need?”
The call went out, and soon an impressive pile had been collected.
It was piled up on the riverbank as preparations for the festivities continued.
There had been a peddler selling food at the checkpoint upriver, and the man’s entire mule load of food had been bought up and handed out without hesitation.
At first, several merchants had vented their spleens at the master of the sunken vessel and the fur shipper, as though the weight of their sins was equal to the weight of the furs they’d tried to move – but beating them wouldn’t make the river usable.
Of course, that didn’t mean that the other merchants would simply say nothing, but if anything, the loud exchanges were a kind of ceremony to shed the frustration that the clogged river had caused.
In the end there was no violence, and after a short pause, the food and drink the provisions shipper had bought was passed out, and smiles returned to everyone’s faces.
Since there was nothing else that could be done, not enjoying themselves would have been a waste.
Despite the mood of enemies joining hands in merriment, there was no one by Lawrence’s side.
Not even Ragusa or Col was there.
“Don’t grow up like this fellow, you hear?”
After Lawrence had explained the circumstances of Holo’s anger, the two had fallen silent.
At length, Ragusa had opened his mouth to speak, but not to Lawrence – to Col.
Col had very considerately not answered Ragusa’s first question, but when Ragusa looked to him and asked, “You’ve figured it out, too, haven’t you?” he had hesitantly nodded in the affirmative.
Which meant Lawrence was at fault – so Ragusa had put his heavy arm over Col’s shoulders and forcibly taken the boy away.
He had left Lawrence with but a single hint.
“The river does indeed flow. But – why does it flow?”
It was a complete riddle.
Col had cocked his head in confusion at the words as well, but when Ragusa whispered in the boy’s ear, his eyes had lit up with comprehension.
It seemed both of them had easily understood the reason for Holo’s anger.
What was worse, it was evidently something so obvious that they had half given up on him, leaving him alone to ponder his mistakes.
Lawrence felt like an apprentice who had been left to stand outside because he was unable to do as he was told.
As he saw Ragusa and Col talking with Holo, that feeling grew more and more pronounced.
No – that was it exactly, with Holo conspicuously avoiding looking in his direction, and Col and Ragusa occasionally sneaking furtive glances.
When they realized Lawrence was looking back at them, he could tell, even at that distance, that they shrugged and smiled.
Holo dragged Col out from under Ragusa’s arm, self-indulgently petting the boy’s head and hugging him.
Lawrence could tell Col was getting flustered, but as soon as Col glanced at Lawrence, the latter could do nothing but look away, frowning.
He was being made fun of.
But strangely, Lawrence didn’t feel bad – not even when being laughed at by Ragusa and Col as well as Holo.
Not long ago, right up until he had met Holo, he’d believed that once a merchant’s reputation was damaged, regaining it was no simple task.
So he’d stuck out his chest, put on airs, told lies, and trusted no one.
And he realized that that behavior was exactly the same as what came to mind when he looked at Col.
When Lawrence had proposed to buy Col’s sheaf of paper, Col had glared resentfully at him, as though refusing to be forced into selling it cheaply.
Such an action was worse than useless – it made Col look cheap and unsightly, yet Lawrence knew fully well that he himself had been captive to the same behavior until recently.
No wonder Holo teases me, he murmured inwardly, grabbing a handful of his own hair.
He started to question whether he was even a full-fledged merchant.
Holo clearly saw him as a conceited, self-absorbed youngster.
He couldn’t help but smile.
Though he had been so starved for company that he’d begun to wish his horse would talk, becoming close to others really was this simple.
Lawrence wondered if the people he’d met so far had looked at him with the same indulgent smile with which Holo and Ragusa looked at the stubborn Col.
And yet–
“All this said, this doesn’t tell me what the right answer is,” said Lawrence to himself, sighing.
Ragusa and Col left Holo to get some of the wine that was going around.
Col must have had a bad experience with liquor in the past, because even from a distance, it was obvious he didn’t like it, but Ragusa still hung drunkenly on to the boy.
Col had left the pack that he was carrying there by Lawrence; he took the distilled wine out of it.
Lawrence had chosen the strong distilled liquor in anticipation of the cold night aboard the boat, where it would be impossible to light a fire – but he expected Holo’s reasoning was a bit different.
She had probably been thinking of something strange when she happily smacked Lawrence – but what?
The riddles piled up one after another.
Lawrence’s confidence that he had a better-than-average mind steadily eroded, but such pathetic thoughts lasted only a moment.
A cry arose, and suddenly there on the twilit riverbank bloomed a large fireball.
No – not a fireball, Lawrence realized, but the bonfire made of discarded rags and broken barrels flared up so fast once lit that it was an easy mistake to make.
Someone had to have thrown oil on it.
The thick black smoke rose into the air like a skull, the yellow flames crackling.
On a winter journey
, where there was a fire, the words friend and enemy had no meaning.
At no particular signal, everyone raised their cups.
Then suddenly, things developed.
The woman Holo had been speaking with seemed indeed to be an actress, and she and her troupe jumped forth, as if proclaiming the event their stage.
There was flute and drum, song and dance. Some cheerful people followed, skillfully avoiding spilling their wine as they danced.
Their dance was not the smooth, careful footwork of the imperial palace, but a leaping, prancing, mad thing.
The rest of the gathered people watched and laughed, raising their voices together or, like Ragusa, playing drinking games.
No one was near Lawrence.
A sad smile rose to his lips, but he stifled it when he sensed a presence in the darkness borne from the fire.
There was only one person who would bother with a foolish traveling merchant like him.
He looked, and it was Holo.
“Whew. Talking after a long silence – it makes one thirsty.” she said, as though talking to herself. She then swiped the cask away from Lawrence and took a drink.
This was no ale or thin wine.
Holo shut her eyes and clamped her mouth closed.
Then, after exhaling a great puff of breath, she sat down right on the spot.
She seemed to have given up on ignoring him, Lawrence thought, so he sat next to her.
“So, that actress… what were you talking ab–”
He didn’t finish the sentence, because as soon as he started speaking, Holo looked bluntly away.
What stunned him was not that she wouldn’t listen to him.
It was that he was happy about it.
“Ugh, ’tis a cold night,” said Holo, not replying to Lawrence in the slightest. She did not meet his eyes, but as she spoke, she drew near him, just as she would when they were in the driver’s box of the wagon.
At first, Lawrence wondered if she was being stubborn, but then he realized that he was the stubborn one.
He somehow got the feeling that if he apologized now, though it might be pathetic, she would forgive him.
It was earlier that she had been angry at him for failing to understand something obvious.
But now, it could be that since she had been able to make fun of and snicker at Lawrence, she would hear him out.
He was tempted to simply say, “I don’t know.”
Leaning against him there, she would probably look up, irritated at the noise.
Then she would hurl some irritated invective at him.
But she wouldn’t stand up, nor would she move away from him.
It was as if she was saying that the closer she was, the better she could hear him.
Lawrence did not doubt the idea. After all, doubting that would be tantamount to doubting everything that happened on his travels with her.
A faint, chagrined smile appeared on his face.
Holo seemed to notice this; her ears flicked beneath her hood. Her tail wagged in anticipation of the pathetic words she would soon hear.
Lawrence spoke, as if to answer that anticipation.
“Those traveling performers are excellent. That’s a lovely dance.”
“Wha–?” Holo flinched away as though her tail had been stepped on, looking up at Lawrence.
“Hmm?” he asked, but of course received no reply.
There was nothing Holo hated more than being surprised by having her expectations defied.
The quick switching of her tail made her anger very clear.
It was clear, yet her amusement was also undeniable.
“I-I may have caught cold. My nose is rather itchy.” The slight tremor in her voice might have been from the frustration at having been bested by Lawrence or from the effort of trying not to laugh.
Holo took a drink of the liquor, as though to swallow the feeling down, then burped.
Lawrence could tell that the ensuing silence came from each of them, groping for the next move, trying to best the other.
The sun gave a last glimmer before sinking beneath the horizon, and after a single breath, the stars flickered into existence. People crowded around the bonfire, merchant and boatman alike trying to turn the bad luck of the river delay into something special.
The journey of life was short, and one couldn’t waste a single day.
The flute was blown, the drum beaten, and the misfortune of the sunken ship turned into a funny tune by a minstrel.
There were alluring dancing girls with sashes aflutter as they danced, along with exhausted, clumsily dancing revelers, who seemed to constantly totter, on the verge of spilling the drinks they held.
Lawrence had been focused on getting Holo to say what was on her mind, but now he felt like he understood what it was that had settled into her thoughts.
Holo, who believed anything was better with drink, could hardly sit still in this environment. This was no time for her to be talking about her feelings with a hopelessly outclassed merchant.
Holo looked up at Lawrence doubtfully.
Since declaring that she would speak to him no more, perhaps she really planned to make good on that promise, but that said, he felt it would be a bad idea to stand up from this spot.
Perhaps that was it.
Lawrence ignored her gaze just as she’d ignored him, instead taking the wine cask from her hands. “With strong liquor, the cold won’t be so bad for a while.”
At those words, Holo seemed to smile at their shared stubbornness, her expression softening as she lightly touched Lawrence’s hand, then stood.
Lawrence wondered if she was going to go dance, but her clothing was a bit loose, and her ears and tail were peeking out, which was a bit worrisome.
Holo’s eyes shone.
No doubt her eyes had looked much like this during the festival they’d read about in Lenos.
And it was understandable, too, that in an atmosphere of fun like this, she might carelessly let slip her tail, and thus would come another name – the wheaten tail.
She might even become carried away and assume her wolf form, raising a great furor.
She surely wouldn’t do something like that here and now, but based on the way she was checking her robe and sash, she planned to do some serious dancing.
Looking at her, Lawrence couldn’t help voicing what came to mind. “You should just take your wolf form and pull that sunken ship right out–”
It was not because Holo’s happy expression suddenly vanished that Lawrence stopped talking; nor was it because he remembered that she wouldn’t answer him.
Holo assuming her wolf form and pulling the wreck out of the river. It wasn’t actually feasible, of course, but it was certainly within the realm of a forgivable joke.
It wasn’t an awkward thing to say, really.
It wasn’t that – it was that he really couldn’t imagine Holo assuming her wolf form for just anyone.
As to why that was, the answer came to Lawrence immediately.
And that answer led him to another conclusion with startling speed.
Holo’s once expressionless face now looked down on Lawrence with an exasperated smile; by contrast, Lawrence felt his own face grow sober. The reason Holo had been angry – he finally understood it.
“Honestly…” said Holo, looking around briefly before coming down to him.
Her arms wrapped around his neck as she sat lightly upon him.
As a man, it was a pleasant sensation for Lawrence, but given that she was doing this, she must have been truly angry enough to want to ignore him.
“One can flatter a pig right up a tree, but flattering a male just makes him lose himself. Didn’t I say as much?” Holo half whispered into Lawrence’s ear, their cheeks close enough to touch – but Lawrence knew full well her eyes were narrowed and sharp.
And the fact that Holo had looked around before coming to him was not because she didn’t want anyone to see her like this. It was quite the opp
osite.
At the end of his gaze, Lawrence saw Ragusa covering Col’s eyes as the boy squirmed to get away, Ragusa laughing hugely.
His boatmen friends were watching too, of course, grinning as the sight made a pleasant side dish to go with their liquor.
It wasn’t so much embarrassing as it was simply awkward.
“If our positions were reversed, you would surely have been just as angry. Am I wrong?”
Her resentful tone made Lawrence fear she’d bite his ear clean off.
But that was not what he was truly afraid of.
Holo did not kill her prey quickly – she preferred to toy with it for a while before ending its life.
“Hmph.” She unwrapped her arms from around his neck, sat up, then looked down at Lawrence and spoke, baring her fangs. “Will you now show me how sincere you are?”
When she poked the tip of his nose with her finger, he did not resist.
Holo grinned, then stood up and spun about like a whirl of wind.
All that was left behind was the warmth of her body and her somehow sweet scent.
Her smile did not remain in his memory.
After all, as the one who held the coin purse, that was a very dangerous smile indeed.
“Sincerity?” Lawrence muttered to himself, taking a drink of liquor.
It had been when he was trying to get her to consider the copper coin puzzle with him.
Holo was very clever, and her abilities to jibe at Lawrence, laugh at him, and make him laugh were excellent. Her mind was so sharp it could fairly be described as “mysterious”; it had saved him more than once.
So he thought she would enjoy the challenge.
But that hadn’t been the case.
Ragusa had told Lawrence, “The river does indeed flow. But – why does it flow?”
Those words had once seemed a complete riddle to Lawrence, but now he understood their true meaning.
Boatmen rode upon the river’s currents as they plied their trade. And those currents never ceased. But the boatmen did not take that flow for granted. They were always grateful to the river, even tearful at the deep generosity of the river spirit.
When Holo got angry, what Lawrence was guilty of was not trusting her enough. But taking her dependability as a given suggested that it was becoming less important, and he would eventually come to overlook it.
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