“Did Holo chase you off?”
As Lawrence asked, it regarded him out of the corner of its eye, slumping down at a bend in the road.
Though he had at first been fearful, now that he knew he could speak to it through Holo, it differed little from a mercenary of few words.
Handing off two slices of sausage as he passed by, he arrived at the bath.
“Hmm…”
Holo, in her giant wolf form, was sprawled over the little island in the center of the large bath. Holo only allowed other beasts to share the same bath when she was in a foul mood – put another way, only when Lawrence was not there to join her.
When she evicted all interlopers and sprawled herself over the island like a king holding court, it was proof she was in a rather good mood indeed.
When she wanted to be alone or was sulking and so forth, she would go to a corner of the bath in human form, offering little clue as to where she was. The point being, she wanted more attention, she wanted the company – or the like. Even with Lawrence’s arrival, Holo did not open her eyes; only her large, well-steamed tail moved, swaying around in the bath.
Even without guests, they had to ensure that the baths were not leaking or otherwise in poor shape, so they had been using the baths practically every day this winter. Holo was overjoyed to immerse herself day after day, but she had become quite sick of bathing by herself. Col might have entered alone more than she had; often whatever what was on one’s mind came to a boil when in a bath.
Once Lawrence set the food and drink down in the usual spot, he took a good look around the bath.
Since a variety of beasts often bathed here – a sight that would shock or enliven the hearts of hunters if they could only see it – it was possible something might be damaged. As he had made a point of strictly telling Holo to fix anything that might be broken, he had seen bears, deer, and rabbits fixing the stone arrangement more than once.
It was something right out of a fairy tale, he thought, drifting off as he recalled the scenes.
At any rate, there were no problems at the moment. The ducts that led to the bath were the same as always. Leave it to Holo to use her nose to find a bath by means literally beyond human facility. Though the elevation was higher than that of other bathhouses, the water volume and temperature were first-rate.
“It’s not too hot?”
Even though Lawrence asked in a loud voice, Holo’s tail merely continued to sway back and forth at the same speed. Meaning, it was fine.
From there, Lawrence inspected the ducts drawing in drinking water all around the area. It was believed that drinking hot spring water so rich in minerals that one could feel them on their teeth worked against all illnesses. Lawrence had found the claim highly dubious since being stricken by diarrhea the first day he had drank the water, but as the water tester he had to put up with it.
But today, too, the rough matting laid around to keep refuse from getting into the bath was in bad shape. The hot spring minerals stuck to it, plugging the gaps. Col had pondered the matter as well, but there was not any good solution to it. As other bathhouses used manpower to bring potable water in, he wanted to stand out somehow with a water fountain or something like that.
For the time being, I’ll have to skip bathing and clean all this, he thought, making another sigh as he rose up. “I’ll have to give it a sweep.”
As he looked up at the sky, judging from the very hazy color, a change in wind direction would no doubt bring considerable snowfall. While falling snow getting into the bath was not a bad thing, being cold on the way back up to the main building was an inconvenience.
He racked his mind trying to think of a way to improve things, but no good plan came to mind.
As he did so, Holo, on the small island, raised her head and spoke. “Your head fills itself with bad thoughts.”
“You want to eat honey-preserved currants, right? I need to make some money, then.”
“I can get both honey and currants with my own paws.”
“Not that you’ve ever done it. Why not learn from Miss Hanna?”
Instead of rebutting, Holo bared her fangs at him in a wordless laugh, making a large splash with her tail that made the bathwater churn.
“There are things one cannot grasp no matter how hard one tries.”
Then she rose up, making a growl as she stretched her back.
“For example?”
“For example?” Holo parroted back before making a great sway of her head to the side, plunging into the bath.
She immersed herself without restraint, her entire body diving into the hot water.
As the depth was, of course, not very great, the face that popped out was that of a person.
“For example, a rainbow.” She’d probably heard the words from some poet. There were many of such people in Nyohhira.
“Would you stop diving in like that? You’ll mess up the stone arrangement.”
“If they come apart that easily, arrange them more solidly next time.”
On their journeys, whenever they found a spring during the summertime; Holo would adopt wolf form and plunge in. It was only since coming to Nyohhira that he learned Holo had done her share of swimming before, but not in human form.
Just then, too, Holo swam earnestly for a while, eventually giving that up and walking as far as the edge.
“Like certain friends of ours.” Immersed in hot water up to her hips, Holo raised her drenched hair up, speaking as she gave him a defiant smile.
“Fool.” As Lawrence mimicked Holo’s manner of speech, Holo made a small chuckle as she smiled, then made a small sneeze. “Soak yourself to the shoulders already. Wine for you?”
“Aye.”
Hearing her reply, he took hold of the cord around the neck of the pitcher when she said, “On second thought, I shall have mead, the same as you.”
She really did seem to be in a good mood.
As Lawrence moved to pour the drink into a pair of wooden cups, Holo checked him with a hand. One cup was fine, in other words.
“After all, that drink could be even sweeter.”
So Holo spoke while having a sip. That mead was sweet enough that serious connoisseurs would even say it did not count as proper alcohol. Amazed, Lawrence stripped off his clothes and immersed himself in the hot water, accepting the cup from her.
“You’re too extreme in your tastes.”
“Ohh? But if it wasn’t for this, I could hardly spend time with a fool like you.”
As he heard the words, he raised his face to the sky as he handed the cup back. “Goodness… but, I have to do something about these cups…”
“Mm?”
“The cups. Wooden cups are convenient, but…”
“They’re not good enough?”
“They’re cheap, no two ways about it. Silver cups are the top class, but…”
At the Morris bathhouse, which received numerous top-class guests, the owner made a great show of using actual silver utensils. If Lawrence tried to use silver utensils in a place like this, they would turn black in an instant. He would need to soak them in oil when not in use and kill himself polishing them before and after each use.
Though steel, tin, and bronze did not require so much labor, they all came off as cheap. Brass was an option, but it was difficult to obtain.
That left rustic earthenware and uncracked, cheap wooden utensils as the only candidates.
“I would think it of little import to one who cares only about what’s inside, like you do.”
As Holo took the cup back once more, she drank as she spun Lawrence’s words into yarn.
“Well, that’s why you picked me, isn’t it?”
“… Ha!”
Holo snorted a blunt laugh as she brought a slice of pork sausage to her lips.
“Well, ’tis pointless just thinking about it, I think.”
“Ah?”
“Are the guests you invite here really so meager as to pay attention only to materia
l things?”
A smile that somehow smelled of victory came over Holo as she gazed squarely at Lawrence.
Those were the eyes of a young man about to set out on an adventure. Such eyes did not doubt their own judgment whatsoever, full of faith that the future waiting for them held only radiance.
Holo came to Lawrence’s side.
If that was so, those eyes were looking at the future Lawrence should be seeing.
“I suppose not,” Lawrence said with a plain, self-derisive smile.
“Besides, I think ’tis meals that are more important. That fellow who you get along with poorly, what’s his name…”
“Morris?”
“Aye. That’s the one. The meals you get there are, ah, second-rate.”
Sometimes Holo knew things that really made him wonder how she knew them.
Had someone invited her there and shared a meal with her…?
“I know because I heard from the birds and foxes that fish through their trash. Right now, the best is the one under the sign with the two oaks.”
“Jeck’s place, eh…? That place is certainly thriving, though its facilities are fairly poor…”
“I think the meals are the secret.”
Since they were all places where everyone stripped bare, bathhouses were more secretive than other establishments in town. While Lawrence’s thoughts crept along in his own fashion, Holo’s presence was strongly felt as his right-hand man, so to speak. One might think this was to be expected of one who was sometimes – though largely against her wishes – called a god.
“So then, you.”
“Yeah?”
“Could you not arrange a great and fine banquet for the saint’s festival?”
Holo wrapped both arms around Lawrence’s neck and grinned as she spoke. Perhaps it was the minerals of the hot spring at work, but the sensation he felt when they touched each other, naked like this, never failed to startle him.
The hot spring flush on Holo’s cheeks was all the more conspicuous against her white skin.
“A-aye…”
But at this stage, it was not Holo’s provocative behavior that made Lawrence stammer.
“Why so hesitant? Anyway, you had better prepare things properly. It has to be magnificent. You understand, do you not?”
Without taking much effort to stretch her neck, Holo was right at the range where her fangs could reach Lawrence’s throat at any moment. As Holo started at him, making a hmm sound all the while, Lawrence came to feel rather nervous.
He had never imagined Holo would be the one to bring up that subject – calling over five old female acquaintances and arbitrarily deciding they would hold a banquet.
As Lawrence’s vision swam, with a splash, Holo snuggled all against Lawrence’s body.
Lawrence did not even have time to think, Oh no, when Holo spoke.
“In these matters, first impressions are very important. If you surprise them at the start, the fish tales later will be even bigger. I’ve used this technique for a very long time. Once you overwhelm your opponent, they’ll rarely defy you even if you let up later, you see.”
Even though she had the body of a maiden, this was hardly the first time she spoke with overinflated pride.
Besides, at the very least, it was fair to say that Lawrence occupying the position in Nyohhira that he now did was largely due to Holo’s suggestions. Given that, he should have just quietly enjoyed himself, but the issue kept tugging at Lawrence’s mind regardless.
Namely, what was Holo really after with this banquet?
“Now hold on, Holo.”
“Mm?”
Even as he thought asking might be lifting the lid of a cauldron full of hellish things, he had to ask. There was no way she had a normal, lucid reason behind this.
If she was angry, she should have just said so. Being surrounded by wolves on the open plain was far preferable to hearing rustle after rustle from the shadows of trees in a dark forest
Lawrence swallowed down.
And the very moment he said, “Now, Holo…” to as certain her true intentions…
“What do you suppose you’re doing!?” As Holo suddenly made an angry shout, he heard cries of birds and sounds of beasts running away the next moment.
When Lawrence looked, he saw a bird taking flight and the tail of a fox vanishing in a grove of trees, both having tried to take a bite of their snacks.
She was magnificently adult when she was chasing off beasts. No matter how much she might deny it, she behaved very much like one accustomed to standing above commoners.
Actually, Lawrence, too, found himself under her rump, her tail spread all over him.
“Goodness…” As Holo sighed, her face went back to her usual good mood in no time at all. “I must be strict in telling my guests not to misbehave. The damage would not be trivial, would it?”
It was just as she said. As it was humans that had forced their way into the mountains to live there, they of course came under attack by those who had dwelled in the forests and mountains for far longer. Were it not for Holo, he would have to hire people at considerable expense just to drive away beasts.
“Indeed. Ah, now then, you…”
“Hm?”
“What was it? Weren’t you going to ask me something?”
Holo looked down at Lawrence with a smiling face as she asked.
But at this stage, Lawrence had no courage left in him to wave about.
“No, it’s nothing…”
“Mm? Well, that’s how it is. ’Twill be fun, will it not?” Immersing herself up to the shoulders, Holo snuggled against him as she spoke.
Those words – “’Twill be fun…?” – seemed entirely too meaningful. Lawrence soaked himself to his lips, making bubbling sounds as he closed his eyes.
Having been told to take care of the men, he had written letters of invitation to those who had attended the opening of his business and, separately, those he was friends with. Having said that, he had no acquaintances from long before anywhere in Nyohhira; there were not many people who he socialized with outside of business.
Holo had sent a letter to Eve without a shred of restraint, but if all those women did come, he had to gather a certain number of men to keep up appearances.
At any rate, Lawrence wrote to all the people he could think of.
Hilde of the Debau Company, Le Roi the book merchant, the Myuri Mercenary Company led by Luward, Hugues the art dealer, Kieman of the Rowan Trade Guild, Huskins the shepherd, and – though it was a reach – he thought of Mark, who had opened a shop in the same town Diana lived in. While writing to Amati, Lawrence could not help his hand stopping. Among all those who had been taken in by Holo’s beauty and charm, no others had the stature to plainly convey those feelings to Holo. By that measure, he had been Lawrence’s greatest rival during their journey.
Lawrence made a prayer to God and struck the name from his list.
Stretching his mind to the limits, there was Jakob, the guild hall master of Ruvinheigen; and the money changer Weiz near the village he had first met Holo; and Marlheit, who had taken care of him during the time he seized back Holo following her abduction.
But none of them struck him as people he could call for whatever this event was, and more of them were of the sort he would be inclined to invite to a proper shop-opening banquet.
“Still…”
With that, Lawrence, in front of his bedroom desk, made a light sigh as he looked over the tablet he had written the names on.
Merely remembering their names showed just how many people he had become involved with.
Furthermore, at each and every one of their towns that he had visited were incidents that became crucial turning points for the course of his life. If a single one of them had been absent from those places, events would surely not have unfolded as they had. Each had played a decisive, irreplaceable role in Lawrence and Holo having slipped out of those predicaments.
From time to time, he had labo
red under the illusion that he traveled under his own power, or his and that of Holo. However, looking at what he had written, he viscerally realized he had traversed a frighteningly narrow tightrope on the way to becoming the man he now was.
Lawrence prayed once more before the stone tablet, willing his thanks to God that he had met all of them.
And bit by bit, Lawrence’s face changed into something pained.
When he opened his eyes, there before him were the names of the people important to him.
“Now, who to invite, huh…?”
There were many who would no doubt gladly respond to an invitation, but they had everyday lives of their own. Furthermore, Nyohhira was practically at the edge of the known world.
Even the fees for the letters alone were practical concerns that could not be scoffed at. There was nothing guaranteeing people happily setting off on a journey in response would not become wrapped up in some accident or incident along the way.
That said, there might well be people he was on good terms with who would hold a grudge later if he did not invite them.
In this world, only rumors traveled thousands of miles. When people opened up an establishment, they seemed to invite only their inner circle of friends to the opening banquets. People would ask, “Weren’t you invited?” And so forth.
It was a depressing thought.
“If only Holo just went and picked them all up…”
Lawrence muttered to himself as he anguished in front of the tablet.
In the end, after agonizing for two nights straight, he sent a bundle of letters to those who could take three months from their work without particular harm; those who would be enraged at not being invited even should they befall disaster en route; and those, like Huskins and Marlheit, who would surely reply that they would come no matter what.
From there, Lawrence switched from matters of the head to those of the stomach. He did not think Eve would really come, but since Lawrence had invited people, too, he had to put on a banquet to make their head spin, just as Holo had urged.
Fortunately, he had funds he could call on.
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