“I suppose you could call it a witch legend. I don’t know the details myself, but I hear it’s rather famous upriver around Lenos. Evidently there’s a legend that a nun also said to be a witch came to Taussig and settled there, or perhaps it’s closer to a rumor. The lord of Taussig is loyal to the Church, so of course they all strongly deny that there’s a witch there, but…”
“Ah, I see. And because of that, the villagers there are extremely suspicious of outsiders, right?”
Hugues nodded. “The reason Fran asked you along, Mr. Lawrence, is because she knows full well that no one there will so much as speak to her if she goes alone. If nothing else, her ethnicity is very uncommon in this area.”
Hugues had lived longer than any human, so Lawrence certainly understood why he would say so. Lawrence, too, had only rarely seen people with brown skin like Fran’s.
“Is she from the desert?”
“That is the story. But she’s had no parents as long as she can remember and claims to have been raised by a wealthy money changer in the duchy of Laondirre. I have little sense of how she then came to be a silversmith. She’s joked about being a slave, but given her attitudes, I wonder how much of that is a joke…”
Lawrence understood Hugues’s uneasy smile. Given Fran’s diction, anyone would come to a certain conclusion about her background. Of course, slaves could be treated very differently depending on their master, and she might have been bought into a kind and wealthy household – or just as easily adopted into the family but treated cruelly.
There were places where this matched what he had been told by Kieman, and even if not everything lined up, there was at least a certain amount of truth to it.
“She’s certainly got pluck.”
“Yes. Sometimes I think she must be from a line of warriors somewhere, but… in any case, she has many secrets. Oh, and please keep this–”
“–A secret, of course.”
Hugues nodded, and Lawrence returned to the topic at hand.
“Mr. Hugues, you seemed a bit apprehensive – do you think the village will be dangerous?”
Villages were often less welcoming than one might think for a variety of reasons. If they were situated in a place where few traveled, that alone was enough to make outsiders seem suspicious. If it was the sort of place where rumors of a witch would circulate, they might well start to wonder if every visitor had some secret agenda.
“To be perfectly honest, I don’t know. They’re not a place of business. The villagers rarely visit the town, and townspeople go there even less often than that. Frankly, they’re like a jar of food where you’ve forgotten what you put in it and when.”
It was an apt metaphor. One would hesitate to open such a jar for fear of what might come out.
“Oh, do you suppose there’s anything there that would be dangerous even with me along?” It was Holo whose quip cut through the atmosphere of heavy tension between Lawrence and Hugues.
Lawrence met Hugues’s eyes. The two were surely thinking the same thing.
“If you say so, it matters little what we might say, but…” said Lawrence.
“Then I care not. In exchange for fifty gold pieces, she gets to use us as she pleases. Such nerve!” It would have been better if Holo were angry, but she spoke with a smile, so Lawrence’s hands were tied. “And that fool’s even knowledgeable about the north-lands that have you all so intimidated. Is it not just as old man Huskins said?”
It was indeed.
“’Tis true that he who chases two hares catches neither, but no matter how many interesting things are stored in that head of hers, it’s still just one head. So if we do not bite it here, when will we?”
It was a lively speech. And yet Holo was not one to say such things lightly. She only did so because she had faith in her comrades to be trustworthy enough to correct her, to challenge her. That was the feeling Lawrence got, looking at Holo’s invincible smile.
Which meant he had no reason to disagree.
“So, that’s the way of it. Ah, and Hugues, was it?”
“Y-yes?” He straightened at Holo’s address.
Holo grinned at the stiff Hugues. “If we should end up angering that fool such that she never trades here again…” It was unlikely, but not impossible, and would be a crushing blow to Hugues’s business.
What was Holo going to say? All eyes were on her as she continued in a casual tone, “… Aye, should that happen… I’ll apologize.”
Hugues was a well-traveled art seller. His forced smile shifted to a genuine one, and he slapped his large belly. “Ah, just like a wolf!”
“Mm.” Holo’s deliberate little performance.
And yet something about the unlikely friendship between sheep and wolf struck Lawrence as miraculous.
The next day, Lawrence and company found themselves swaying in the Hugues Company’s wagon, heading north along the road to the village of Taussig. In the wagon bed was a mountain of provisions: bread and meat, garlic and onions, wine, salt, firewood, and blankets.
Lawrence sat in the driver’s seat of the wagon, holding the reins, with Holo and Col snuggled in what space remained in the bed. Fran, who knew the way to the village, rode on a horse of her own.
It had not been particularly long since the last time he had driven a wagon, but somehow driving someone else’s wagon made Lawrence uneasy.
“Just who… does that little fool… think she is?” Holo finally said, only getting the words out with some difficulty since her mouth was otherwise occupied.
“That delicious, is it?” asked Lawrence with a resigned sigh as he looked over his shoulder, which made Col flinch in alarm as he sat next to Holo. Normally he only ate what he was given, but he had finally been bold enough to reach into the sack for a second piece.
“Not you, Col. That’s only your second piece, right? The one next to you is on her sixth.” Lawrence pointed deliberately at Holo, and Col looked dubiously back and forth between Lawrence and the sack, finally nodding.
They were delicious enough to make a captive even of Col, who was the very image of honorable poverty. The leavened rolls had been made with plenty of rich butter.
Holo noisily tore a chunk off a roll, wolfing it down before popping the remainder in her mouth. As her mouth opened and closed in the process, her breath escaped into the cold air in white puffs.
Not even Col could resist the temptation of fresh-baked bread in a chilly wagon bed.
Lawrence got a piece himself but had eaten no more for fear that he might get used to such food and never return to the traveler’s life.
“If it gets us so much of this sort of bread, you ought to become an artist yourself!” declared Holo.
“I can sketch simple pictures of goods… and drawings of my future shop, I suppose. I showed you, didn’t I?” He was referring to the days when he’d driven his wagon alone, passing his days by scavenging every copper coin that had been dropped in the darkness. Every time he earned a healthy profit, he would spread out some paper and draw the facade of the shop he hoped to one day own.
“Mm… I suppose.”
Lawrence’s dream had been postponed while he journeyed with Holo.
Holo drew her chin in and moved closer to the driver’s seat. She shoved a roll in Lawrence’s mouth. She seemed neither apologetic nor pained.
Lawrence bit into the bread with a smile. The conversation was only possible because they understood each other so well.
“Can you draw, Col?” Lawrence asked over his shoulder.
It looked as though Col was seriously considering shoving the unfinished roll into his own bag for later eating. He flinched as though having been caught doing something embarrassing. He hastily tried to manage some sort of answer, at which Lawrence could not help but laugh.
But before either of them could say anything, Holo popped another roll she had grabbed into Col’s bag.
“Ah, er… well, I suppose I can draw angels or spirits…”
“From cop
ying manuscript illustrations?”
Col smiled ticklishly at Holo and then turned back to Lawrence and nodded. “Yes. When I had no money and was rolling out sheepskin parchments on nails, sometimes the scribes would teach me a little.”
Col was the sort of boy who would journey south alone just to get closer to the center of Church power in order to protect his own pagan village, but he seemed much more suited to poring over books all day than he did to the adventurous pursuits in which he found himself engaged. Had he been born into different circumstances, he surely would have been a famous scholar.
Lawrence turned his attention to Holo. “And what about you…? I suppose there’s no point in asking.”
If Holo was to pick up a brush, no doubt she could draw a highly recognizable picture.
“Hmph. I do not draw. You can’t eat a picture of an apple,” said Holo, as she helped herself to another roll.
“Well, Fran’s skills must be impressive for her to command such tribute. And she’s followed after legends from many lands,” said Lawrence quietly as he looked across the plain before them. The mountains did not seem to be getting any closer. “She’s seen a lot of trouble, I’ll bet. The northlands are still disputed territory. With belief turning to superstition, and superstition to belief with such dizzying speed, tracking down legends is a dangerous business. Given that, her price might be a fair one.”
And the farther north one went, the more difficult it became to find good building stone, which meant even larger buildings were made of wood. Without stained-glass depictions of saints or figures carved in stone columns, which meant their proselytizing would rely on paintings.
With demand up, it stood to reason that the suppliers must profit.
“She’s to be admired,” murmured Lawrence, stroking his beard.
“Hmph. I’ve admired quite enough,” said Holo, patting her belly and then setting about curling up in a blanket.
They spent the night in the dry, brown grasses of the plains.
There was not much difference between a horse’s walking speed and a human’s, so travelers on that road all naturally tended to arrive at that spot come nightfall.
It was there that Lawrence halted the horse and built a fire where the grass had been cut low and the remains of older campfires were scattered about. Happily, there was a large round log perfect for leaning against.
Former visitors had been similarly grateful. One place on the log had been stripped of bark, and there the former visitors had carved words of thanks.
The small party warmed the bread – which had turned hard from the chill – by the fire, roasting jerky and cheese to eat along with it. There was no wind, but it was cold enough for a small amount of snow to have piled up here and there, so they naturally wound up huddled together atop the log like little birds. It was warmer for three people to huddle together under three layers of blankets than it was for three people to each have one blanket to themselves.
And it was just three, not four.
Fran lay down in the wagon bed alone.
“The stone’s warm.” Lawrence had warmed a stone atop the fire and brought it to Fran wrapped in a blanket. She was gazing vaguely up at the sky, using the cargo for a pillow. Next to her was some half-eaten bread and cheese, but she was so absorbed in the night sky that she seemed to have forgotten all about her dinner.
When Lawrence brought the wrapped stone to her, she shifted beneath her blanket and a hand slid out from under it, accepting the warm rock.
As he gave her this, Lawrence thought he saw her holding a thick book under her blanket.
When he had traveled alone, Lawrence, too, had sometimes resorted to stuffing paper under his shirt for warmth when he was unable to light a fire. It could be even warmer than a blanket.
Fran, too, seemed quite accustomed to hard travel.
“Are you sure you don’t want to sit by the fire?” Lawrence asked.
Fran arranged the stone beneath the blanket and looked back up at the sky before answering, “It would ruin my view.”
Lawrence understood and nodded.
Fire kept animals away, but it invited humans, whether they were friend or foe. Eyes accustomed to watching the fire would be useless for looking out into the night.
Not only was Fran used to travel, she had accrued a very respectable amount of experience.
“About tomorrow…” Fran directed her gaze to Lawrence after he spoke. She did not seem inclined to sit up, so Lawrence decided to simply continue speaking. “Once we arrive in the village, what sort of arrangements shall we make?”
Lawrence had found himself roundly beaten in their first negotiation at the Hugues Company the previous day. Thinking back on it now, he realized it had surely colored Fran’s impression of his capacity as a merchant. Though she had brought Lawrence along to help her gather information, she probably detested the notion of leaving everything to him and his companions, so he posed this question in a humble, servile tone.
But after looking at him steadily for a moment, Fran suddenly smiled and closed her eyes, as though having seen right through the whole of his thinking. “I shall leave it in your capable hands.”
Lawrence was surprised at this response, but if she was truly going to rely on him, he would do his best to meet her expectations. “In that case, I’ll introduce you as a Church-affiliated silversmith and Holo as a nun. Will that do?”
“… I shouldn’t think there will be any problem with that.” She’d taken a moment to consider the notion. She could probably see through to roughly how such a story would be received.
“Holo will be an apprentice nun and maidservant. Col will be our guide. I’ll be a traveling merchant hired to be the group’s eyes and ears.”
“Very well,” said Fran, but her smile was a thin one.
Lawrence took notice of this. “Is there a problem?”
“… No, nothing. I was just amused at how if we assemble the necessary actors, it’s true that even I might look like a nun.”
The ability to see one’s own self so objectively could indeed be counted as a special skill. Lawrence found himself briefly at a loss for words at how naturally Fran was able to speak as though she were looking at herself from the outside.
“What church?” inquired Fran.
Once he had finished frantically filling in the blanks in Fran’s brusque question, Lawrence answered, “Let’s say we’re from the Church city of Ruvinheigen. There’s certainly more than one church there and many factions besides. Even if our answer’s a vague one, we won’t be easily found out.”
“…” Fran opened her eyes and looked at Lawrence.
Lawrence was wondering if he had made some mistake. Fran then looked back up at the sky and spoke. “You’re familiar with some rather faraway towns.”
Lawrence was relieved that it was only this. “A lie that can’t be disproven is no different from the truth. A place as far away as Ruvinheigen is a safer story, I thought.”
Fran nodded, her gaze still skyward cast. “Was that your base?”
Base was a curious choice of words. It made Lawrence sound like a bandit or mercenary.
“I’m a traveling merchant originally from that area. Holo simply jumped into my wagon bed when I passed through a nearby town. Then…” Lawrence paused and looked behind him at Holo, who sat atop the log sipping wine. Only Col seemed to be looking at he and Fran, so Lawrence turned back to Fran and continued, “… And told me that she wanted to go north and that I should take her. As far as Col goes, we ran into him as we were heading down the Roam River, and he joined our travels.”
Fran’s face was still upturned, her eyes closed, but Lawrence nonetheless got the feeling that she was listening to him. For her to be interested in this story at all made Lawrence wonder if she had some sort of attachment to the region.
At length, Fran spoke as though giving voice to words she heard from the sky. “So this map of the north you want is for…” She opened her eyes, and when she
looked at Lawrence, it seemed as though the night sky had melted into them. It was common for stubborn, eccentric people to feel things more deeply than most.
Lawrence was not going to use that to his advantage, but he spoke such that his words would have their greatest effect. “Yes… the only thing my companion remembers about her homeland is that it was called Yoitsu.”
Fran’s eyes did not waver. “I see,” she said, closing them, this time not looking up again, but leaning her head over. She shifted lightly under the blanket, and given that a gentle sigh followed, Lawrence realized she was trying to go to sleep.
Her way of unilaterally ending the conversation made Lawrence understand why she had a reputation for being difficult; it was almost too archetypal.
Perhaps Fran was neither so stubborn nor as eccentric as her reputation suggested, Lawrence mused, but there was no telling what would happen if he was to point that out.
Lawrence quietly made ready to leave her be, but before he did, Fran spoke one last time.
“I shall be counting on you tomorrow.”
Lawrence nodded, whereupon Fran did just as she seemed to be doing and fell asleep.
Chapter Three
The wagon swerved violently to one side. The motion seemed to have awakened Holo.
“… Have we arrived?” She yawned a great yawn, shaking her head lazily from side to side.
The now-close mountains were dotted with trees even in this cold season, and here and there white stuff could be seen. The grassy field looked like a flat plane but was actually a gentle slope, and if one looked upslope, it was clear it descended from an impressive height. It was not Lawrence’s imagination that the air was cooler here than in Kerube, and a thin layer of snow stuck to the road.
“If we turn down this road, then go straight, we’ll soon be at the village, apparently.”
The field of golden, knee-high grass stretched far to the east. If they did not turn and instead proceeded straight, they would evidently run straight into the foot of the mountains.
Lawrence and company had stopped their horses here to practice their various roles and stories before entering the village. Holo had grumbled the previous night but generally enjoyed such theatrical dissembling.
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