It would be a silent fortress, dedicated to rules that Holo would no doubt have trouble following for even a single day.
But such a place would not be built by robed, scripture carrying lambs of God. The people of this village were probably related to criminals or had been connected to pagans.
Building an abbey in such a remote location was not merely a question of erecting the buildings – to ensure the monks could sustain their lives, fields and drinking water had to be secured. By engaging in this grueling work, the villagers could atone for their sins.
“Hmm… It’s as you say, then…” Holo began and then suddenly seemed to recall just what sort of people made up the Church. Having done that, she arrived at the answer on her own.
“So then, you’re going to take advantage of their weak position.” Her choice of words was quite intentional.
“I’m merely going to help some people who are in trouble.”
“Oh, indeed. You want to be the first to mark this village as your territory and make it into grist for your business.”
Lawrence’s constant, easy smile was thanks to this village. It was like discovering a lake brimming with fish.
Farm tools, craft equipment, livestock, and looms for textiles and clothing – the era when a village could be truly self-sustaining was now long past. When a village was created, supply and demand followed soon after.
Finding a village where the people led plump chickens around on ropes and sold delicious ale from barrels by the roadside was, to a traveling merchant, like discovering a mountain of treasure.
In exchange for its poultry and ale, Lawrence would provide the village with its necessities. If he could become the sole provider for the village, the profit would be tastier than any ale could ever be.
Holo made an exasperated face, sipping her drink as she looked at Lawrence out of the corner of her eye.
He thought he saw her ears flick rapidly beneath her hood, but then she grinned and faced him. “Hmm. Well, do enjoy playing the savior.”
“…?”
Before Lawrence could ask what she meant, there was a hasty-sounding knock at the door. Behind it was the man who’d called for the village elder earlier.
Lawrence could guess at what he wanted.
“My apologies, honored travelers. If either of you can read, we have need of your assistance, if you would be so kind.”
Here in this remote village where no merchant ever visited, he was being asked if he could read.
Lawrence bounded to his feet at his unbelievable luck.
“Enough! Would you break the agreement we’ve already made? My field is six chiechen in size!”
“That is a plain lie! It’s mine that was clearly stated to be six chiechens! Yours is five! So why is mine now smaller? And now you’ve the nerve to build this fence–”
Lawrence did not need to have the situation explained to him. From the angry shouting that was audible some distance away, it was clear enough.
From the use of the chiechen unit, he could even make a guess as to where the men were from. There was a land of forests and springs known as Rivaria, where a wise king named Chiechen the Second had once ruled.
In his kingdom’s land surveys, the span between the king’s outstretched arms was used as a unit of measurement: one chiechen.
Of course, even with the measurement the wise king had decreed, there was no end to land disputes.
Before the two arguing men stood the village elder, at a complete loss for words. As the village did not have the benefit of a long tradition, there was no authority to settle the fight. Resolving this sort of baseless dispute was very difficult without the authority to transcend reason and decide by fiat.
“Elder, I’ve brought them.”
“Aah, yes.” The elder appeared at his wits’ end and he looked at Lawrence imploringly. “It is very difficult to ask you this, but…”
“A fight over land division, is it?” Anyone doing business with small villages like this would find that such disputes were very common.
Yet the elder seemed to find Lawrence’s statement evidence of some deep wisdom. “Yes, that is it exactly,” he said, bowing very deeply. “In truth, this village was built on the orders of a certain nobleman, and there are often fights over the size of the lands as they were decided at that time. Normally we resolve them calmly, but those two have nursed a grudge for a very long time, it seems…”
The shouting had moved from an argument over land size to simple exchanges of contempt. The villagers surrounded them in a large circle, seemingly irritated, with only Holo finding the scene amusing.
“So then, is there a written deed for the land?” Lawrence asked. That had to be the reason he’d been asked if he could read.
The village elder nodded and produced a sheet of parchment from his breast pocket. “This is the same, but none of us can read what’s written upon it.”
A village where the whole of the population was illiterate was like an unlocked treasure chest.
Merchants converted agreements into written words.
So how long could one remain honest in a place where none could read those words?
“If I might have a look at it, then.”
Such villages were not common, and merchants with the good fortune to be the first to visit them were still fewer in number.
Lawrence solemnly regarded the parchment, his heart pounding with excitement.
“… Ah, I see.”
The moment he looked at the parchment, he realized that such good fortune did not exist after all and quirked a small smile.
The village elder blinked, and Lawrence’s smile became a wry one.
It was no surprise none could read the parchment – the land deed had been written in the holy characters of the Church.
“There are a few among us who can read, but none of them can understand this parchment. We believe it must be in the letters of some foreign land.”
“No, this is the special writing of the Church. I myself can only read numbers and a few set phrases in it.”
Lawrence had seen land deeds and certificates of privilege written with the letters of the Church before.
From beside him Holo peered at the parchment, but she, too, appeared unable to read it. She soon lost interest in it and returned to watching the two men shout.
“Hmm, yes. I believe I see where the trouble is.” Lawrence read through the parchment again and delivered his pronouncement. “Did those two men happen to be craftsmen before?”
As the argument turned into a physical brawl, Holo snickered beneath her hood, and the villagers finally moved to separate the men.
The elder seemed to be debating whether to go in himself, but hearing Lawrence’s question, he looked up in surprise. “Th-that’s right. But how did you know?”
“The land is divided such that they both should receive six chiechen. There’s no mistake about that. But here…” said Lawrence, pointing out a single word.
The elder narrowed his eyes and looked, but since the word was written in letters he could not read, no understanding came to him.
“‘Sheepfold,’ it says. One of the sheepfolds is six chiechen, the other five.”
The elder stared at the parchment blankly for a while and then finally seemed to arrive at the conclusion. He squeezed his eyes closed and smacked his own balding head. “I see…” he murmured. “So they didn’t realize they were meant to be sheepfolds.”
Land division was very important to villagers. Before they’d set out for the new colony, there was no doubt these illiterate villagers had the particulars of that division explained to them. But how were people who’d never so much as tended a garden meant to understand such specialized terminology?
The only parts that would linger in their minds would be the numbers.
And that would lead to fights like this.
“It seems that Chai Barton donated just a bit more to the abbey, so Barton was given the six-chiechen sheepfold.�
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“Barton’s the one on the left there. Goodness, to think that’s what they’ve been fighting over…”
“Without any experience with such matters, it’s hard to understand the importance of a mere sheep pen.”
Just as the name suggested, a sheepfold was a fenced area for keeping sheep – but the goal was not generally to raise them within such a pen, but rather to bring them there at night so that their droppings could fertilize the area.
Since it was obvious that more sheep went into a larger pen, just as a smaller one would hold fewer, pens were measured not by their capacity but rather their area. Some farmers would fill their pens to capacity, while others wouldn’t even cover half the area with sheep.
The elder bowed politely to Lawrence, then trotted off toward the two arguing men. He spread the parchment out in front of the two men, who were forcibly pulled apart by other villagers. As Lawrence looked on with an indulgent smile, the two men finally exchanged a grudging handshake.
“That was settled rather too quickly,” said Holo, sounding disappointed.
“Memories are all too often mistaken. Not so with the written word.” Those words had been well drilled into Lawrence by his master. One of the reasons traveling merchants were always losing out to city merchants was that they had to remember each purchase and sale without writing it down in a ledger.
Whenever there was a dispute, the written word would always triumph.
“You can’t expand your business if you’re having fights like this every day. It’s why contracts are so important.”
Holo listened to Lawrence, seemingly uninterested. “Important enough that you were thinking to back out of your promise of chicken.”
“Quite so,” said Lawrence, just as the village elder turned to face him, then bowed slowly.
Lawrence gave the man a slight wave. It was nice to be useful to someone else once in a while, he thought.
That evening, the villagers celebrated the end of the two men’s conflict by slaughtering a chicken and roasting it whole. There was also as much liquor as one could drink – as long as they wanted ale.
This would satisfy even Holo surely.
Or so Lawrence thought, but after partaking of only a small amount, Holo retired like the pious nun she appeared to be.
Evidently an entire building had been set aside for them to stay in, and upon excusing herself, she was led there. Perhaps she was weary from traveling, and the meat and ale were proving heavier than expected.
He couldn’t discount the possibility, so after participating in the feast a bit longer so as not to offend his hosts, Lawrence, too, returned to their accommodations.
The third day of a winter’s journey often decided whether one’s body would accustom itself to the rigors of travel, and even veteran travelers could find their strength failing if they weren’t careful.
And Holo had already felt poorly several times.
Even the wisewolf who dwelled in the wheat was not immune to exhaustion.
Lawrence quietly opened the door to the building he was led to; inside it was dark and quiet.
He took a tallow lamp and slowly entered, and found that storage boxes had been arranged to form a makeshift bed in the center of the room on the earthen floor. The villagers themselves slept on straw spread upon the floor, so this was special treatment for honored guests.
What he could not guess at was why they had prepared only a single bed. Did they suppose they were being considerate?
In any case, Lawrence regarded Holo, who was already curled up in a blanket. “Are you all right?”
If she was asleep, that was fine.
After a few moments without a reply, Lawrence concluded that she was.
If she awoke the next day and was still feeling unwell, Lawrence would offer the villagers some money and stay a bit longer.
Having decided as much, Lawrence extinguished the lamp and curled up on the straw of the bed, pulling the thin linen blanket over himself.
He was careful not to wake Holo and seemed to have been successful.
Though merely straw, this bed was far more comfortable than the bed of his wagon. All he could see was the ceiling and its joists and what moonlight streamed through the small hole in the roof that was there to let smoke out from the hearth.
Lawrence closed his eyes and considered the village’s situation.
It held thirty or forty people. Nearby there were forests and springs, and fruit, fish, and wild honey were all surely abundant. It sported fine pasturing, too. Excepting the relative rockiness of the land, it seemed quite fertile.
If the abbey were completed, it would easily support a hundred people.
As long as no other merchant had already marked the place as his own, it seemed possible that Lawrence would be able to monopolize its trade. During the feast, he had spoken with the villagers; he had talked to them about trading for iron tools, cattle, and horses.
When a nobleman donated a remote parcel of land for the construction of an abbey, it often happened that they or someone close to them was nearing death. The plans were rushed, construction proceeding without important details having first been decided. And it was not necessarily true that the nobleman even lived near the land being donated.
Since deeds to lands were recorded on paper, they traveled like so many dandelion seeds blown on the wind. It was not unusual for land to be turned over to someone the nobleman had never met and barely knew of. The beggar’s patchwork of land division that resulted from such situations was the seed of many a dispute.
Thus it was common for neighboring communities to avoid contact with newly settled occupants, fearing they’d be drawn into such conflict. This village seemed to be typical of such situations, and evidently the merchants of nearby towns and villages were reluctant to do business with it. The village elder had said the young man taking the beer and chicken to the side of the lonely road where Lawrence had found them had been a last-ditch effort.
For Lawrence, the timing could not have been more fortunate. For the village, he was like a messenger from God.
It was only understandable that his face would redden with pleasure despite not having too much to drink. An opportunity he’d often dreamt of during his lonely travels was now right before his eyes.
So just how much profit would it bring him?
As the night grew darker, his mind brightened. The notion of his prospects here was a stronger liquor than any ale he’d been served, and–
He felt Holo shift in the bed, and then she spoke up with a sigh. “Honestly, you are a hopeless male.”
“Hmm, so you were awake, eh?”
“How could I sleep with the sound of you grinning away like that?”
Lawrence couldn’t help but touch his face to check.
“I left the feast in such a state, and you just kept grinning away, not a care in the world…”
Now that she had said as much herself, it was clear she had intentionally left early.
But Lawrence sensed that if he pointed it out he’d only earn her ire, so he chose his words carefully. “Your voice seems so cheerful now – I can’t tell you how relieved that makes me.”
Holo’s tail shifted beneath the blanket they shared. But Holo herself, who could tell when a person was lying, grabbed Lawrence’s cheek and bared her fangs. “Fool.”
She would’ve been angry no matter what his answer had been, but he could have done worse, it seemed.
Holo sulkily rolled over so that she was facing away from Lawrence. Given the obviousness of her actions, she was probably not so very furious.
“Why did you leave so early? The chicken and ale were both delicious.”
The villagers had brought out special ale, and it had been just as splendid as their claims suggested it would be. When Lawrence asked about it, they said that spices had been dried, ground, and added to the brew.
The chicken was so well fed that fat fairly dripped from it, so what could she be so unsatisfied with
?
Holo did not immediately respond. Only after a fair span of time did she finally speak in a low moan. “Did you truly find that ale delicious?”
“Huh?” Lawrence responded, but not because Holo was speaking quietly.
“I could not drink it. I cannot believe anything so foul smelling would be called ‘delicious.’”
People had differing tastes, of course, so it was not hard to imagine that she would not find the heady scent of the ale to her liking. But why it would make her so angry, so sad – Lawrence could not guess at that.
His gaze wandered for a moment before he spoke very carefully, as though Holo were a bubble beside him that might pop at any moment.
“They put the spices of their homelands into it. It’s a very peculiar scent. For people who like that scent, it’s wonderful, but for those who don’t–”
“Fool.”
She kicked him under the blanket and then faced him.
Her features were distorted, but not by the moonlight that streamed in from the hole in the ceiling.
When she looked like this, Holo was holding back whatever it was that she truly wanted to say. And Lawrence never knew the reason why.
“Enough!” she finally said, then rolled back over and curled up tightly.
When they slept on the wagon bed, she would lay her tail on his legs – but not only did she snatch it away, she also took the blanket they had been sharing.
Her ears were turned away, making it all too clear she was in no mood to listen to him. It was evident enough from her turned back that she wanted him to take notice of something.
“…”
Surely she was not this displeased merely because the ale was not to her liking. She had broached this only as an excuse for her anger.
Lawrence reflected on how obsessed he’d been with gaining the village’s business ever since they had encountered the young man by the roadside.
He had heard that a hunter’s faithful hound would often become jealous when that hunter took a wife.
He wondered whether his reluctance to believe that Holo would feel similarly was the “foolish male” thinking that she’d accused him of.
Lawrence stole a glance at Holo’s back and then scratched his head.
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