It was a standard phrase within the Church. The man rose from his chair and, along with his wife, gave a polite nod before leaving the hall. Lawrence, too, vacated the chair the man had requested that he bring over from the corner of the room. He then returned the chairs the couple had occupied to the corner.
The only people who sat on chairs in the great hall were nobility, knights, and the wealthy. Most people disliked all three.
“Heh-heh, you’re not a man to be trifled with, master!”
Once Lawrence had cleared the chairs and returned to Holo’s side in the middle of the hall, a man approached them. Given his dress and affect, he, too, was a merchant. His bearded face looked young. He had probably not been working on his own very long.
“I’m merely a traveling merchant like any other,” said Lawrence shortly. Beside him, Holo straightened. The hood over her head shifted slightly; only Lawrence would know that it was her ears pricking.
“Far from it, master. I’d been wanting to speak with him for some time but couldn’t find the opportunity. Yet you slipped right in. Thinking that it’s traders like you that I’ll be going up against in the future, why, it’s hard not to despair.”
The man grinned as he spoke, revealing a smile that lacked one front tooth, giving it a certain charm. Perhaps he’d pulled the tooth on purpose to lend his foolish smile persuasion. As a merchant, he’d know how to use his appearance to best effect.
Lawrence realized he’d better not be careless.
Nonetheless, he himself had struck up conversations just like this one when he was starting out, so he held a spark of empathy for the man.
“That’s nothing — when I was starting out, all the established merchants seemed like monsters to me. Half of them still do. But I’m still eating. You just have to keep at it.” “Heh-heh, its a relief to hear you say so, sir. Oh, by the way, I’m Zheren — and you’ve probably figured it out, but I’m just starting out as a merchant. Begging your indulgence, sir!”
“I’m Lawrence.”
Lawrence remembered that when he himself had just started out, he’d also tried to strike up conversations like this one and gotten frustrated by the cold responses. Now on the receiving end of a solicitous young merchant’s conversation, he understood those cold responses.
A young merchant just starting out had nothing to share and could only receive.
“So, then ... is this your companion?”
It was unclear whether Zheren broached the subject because he truly had nothing to share or if he’d committed the common beginner’s mistake of trying to gain without offering anything in return. If this had been a conversation between veterans, they would already have traded information on two or three locations by this point.
“My wife, Holo.” For a moment Lawrence hesitated, wondering if he should use a false name, but ultimately decided there was no need.
Holo bowed slightly in greeting as her name was mentioned.
“My, a wife and a merchant both?”
“She is an eccentric and prefers the wagon to the village home.”
“Still, covering your wife in a cloak this way, she must be very precious to you.”
Lawrence had some grudging respect for the man’s charisma; perhaps he’d been the town rogue. For his part, Lawrence had been taught by his relatives that it was best not to say such things.
“Heh-heh, but it is a man’s instinct to want to see hidden things.
God has led us together here. Surely you can let me have a look at her.”
What shamelessness! thought Lawrence in spite of the knowledge that Holo was not actually his wife.
But before Lawrence could take the man to task, Holo spoke.
“The traveler is happiest before the journey; the dogs bark fiercer than the dog itself, and a woman most beautiful from behind. To show my face in public would dash many dreams, and thus ’tis something I cannot do,” she said, smiling softly underneath the veil.
Zheren could only grin, chastened. Even Lawrence was impressed with her lilting eloquence.
“Heh-heh . . . your wife is something else, master.”
“It’s all I can do to avoid being quite henpecked.”
Lawrence was more than half-serious.
“Yes, well. . . it’s certainly providential that I’ve met the both of you. Can you spare a moment to hear my tale?” said Zheren. Silence descended as he flashed his grin that was one tooth short and moved closer to the pair.
Unlike typical inns, churches only provided lodging — not food. However, the hearth could be used for cooking, provided one gave the proper donation. Lawrence did so and placed five potatoes into a pot to boil. Naturally the firewood for cooking had to be purchased as well.
It would take time for the water to boil, so Lawrence threshed the wheat that housed Holo and found an unused leather pouch to keep it in. Remembering that she’d said she wanted to keep it around her neck, Lawrence took a leather strap and attended to the hearth. Altogether the potatoes, firewood, pouch, and strap came to a significant cost, so he mused over how much to charge her as he brought the potatoes back to the room.
Because his hands were full, Lawrence couldn’t knock on the door — but Holo’s sensitive wolf ears could identify his footfalls. When he entered the room, however, her back was turned to him as she sat on the bed, combing her tail fur.
“Hm? Something smells good,” she said, raising her head. Evidently her nose was as sensitive as her ears.
The potatoes were topped with goat cheese. Lawrence would never have indulged in such luxury had be been alone, but now that he was in a party of two, he decided to be generous. Holo’s happy reaction made it entirely worthwhile.
Lawrence set the potatoes on the table beside the bed, and Holo immediately reached out to help herself. Just before she could grab a potato, Lawrence tossed the pouch full of wheat to her.
“Wha .. . oh. The wheat.”
“And here’s a strap, so you can work out a way to hang it around your neck.”
“Mm. My thanks. But this takes precedence,” she said, tossing the wheat aside with surprising nonchalance, then licking her lips and reaching for a potato. Apparently eating was a priority for Holo.
Once she had a potato in hand, she immediately broke it in half. Her face fairly glowed with delight at the steam that rose from the food. With her tail wagging back and forth she looked undeniably canine, but Lawrence was sure that if he pointed it out she’d be irritated, so he said nothing.
“So wolves find potatoes delicious, do they?”
“Aye. It is not as though we wolves eat meat year-round. We eat tender buds from trees. We eat fish. And the crops that humans raise are better still than tree buds. Also, I rather like the human habit of putting meat and vegetables to a fire.”
It is said that a cat’s tongue cannot stand hot food, but wolves did not appear to have this problem. Holo held half of the potato in her hand and popped the entire piece into her mouth at once after blowing on it two or three times. Lawrence felt that shed bitten off more than she could chew, and indeed she soon appeared to choke. Lawrence tossed her a water-skin, and with it Holo managed to get the potato down.
“Whew. Rather surprising, that. Human throats are so narrow. It’s rather inconvenient.”
“Wolves swallow things whole, right?”
“Mm. Well, we lack this, so we cannot chew at our leisure.” Holo pulled at the edge of her lips; presumably she was talking about her cheeks.
“But I’ve choked on potatoes in the past, it’s true.”
“Oh ho.”
“I suppose potatoes and I are ill-fated.”
Lawrence resisted telling her that it was her gluttony that boded ill, not potatoes.
“Earlier,” he began instead, “you said something about being able to tell when someone is lying?”
Upon hearing the question, Holo turned to face him mid-bite, but suddenly looked aside and moved her hand.
Before Lawrence could ask w
hat was wrong, her hand stopped, frozen in midair as if she’d grabbed something.
“There are still fleas.”
“It’s that nice fur of yours. I bet it’s a lovely bed for them.” Transporting fur or woven goods often involved smoking the fleas out of them, depending on the season. Lawrence spoke from experience, but Holo seemed quite shocked, and thrust out her chest as she spoke proudly.
“Well, it’s a credit to your eye for quality that you can tell as much, then!” she said haughtily. Lawrence decided to keep his thoughts to himself.
“So is it true that you can tell truth from lies?” “Hm? Oh, more or less.” Wiping off the hand that had grabbed the flea, Holo turned her attention back to the potato.
“So, how good at it are you?”
“Well, I know that what you said about my tail just now was not meant as praise.”
Lawrence, stunned, said nothing. Holo giggled happily.
“It’s not perfect, though. You may believe me or not... as you wish,” said Holo impishly, licking cheese from her fingers.
She’d gotten the better of him again, but if he were to react, that would only give her another opportunity. Lawrence composed himself and tried again.
“So let me ask you this — was the lad’s story true?”
“The lad?”
“The one who spoke to us by the furnace.”
“Oh. Heh, lad,’ you say.”
“Is something funny?”
“From where I stand you’re both but lads.”
If he tried a comeback she’d only toy with him more, so Lawrence stifled the reply that rose within him.
“Heh. I daresay you’re a bit more grown than he, though. As for your lad, it seems to me he is lying.”
Lawrence calmed himself; this confirmed his suspicions. During their conversation in the hall, the young merchant Zheren had spoken to Lawrence about an opportunity for profit.
There was a certain silver coin in circulation that was due to be replaced by a coin with a higher concentration of silver. If the story was true, the old silver coins were of poorer quality than their replacements, but their face value would be the same. However, when being exchanged for other currencies, the new silver coins would be worth more than the old. If one knew in advance which coin was due to be replaced, one could buy them up in bulk, then exchange them for the new coins, thus realizing what amounted to pure profit. Zheren claimed that he knew which coin among all those circulating in the world would be replaced, and would share the information in exchange for a piece of the profit. Since Zheren would certainly have made the same offer to other merchants, Lawrence could not simply swallow the story whole.
Holo stared into space as if thinking back on the conversation, then popped the piece of potato into her mouth and swallowed it.
“I don’t know which part is a lie, though, nor do I understand the finer points of the conversation.”
Lawrence nodded and considered. He had not actually expected that much from Holo.
Assuming that the transaction itself wasn’t a lie, Zheren must be lying about the coins, somehow.
“Well, currency speculation isn’t rare in and of itself. Still. . .” “You don’t understand why he’s lying .. . no?”
Holo plucked a bud from the surface of her potato and ate the rest. Lawrence sighed.
He had to admit that she’d long since gotten control of him. “When someone’s lying, what’s important is not the content of the he, but the reasoning behind it,” she said.
“How many years do you think it took me to understand that?” “Oh? You may have called that Zheren person a lad, but you’re both the same to me,” said Holo proudly.
In times like these, Lawrence wished Holo did not look so frus-tratingly human. To think that the youthful Holo had long understood the principles that he had suffered so much to grasp was too much for him to take.
“If I were not here, what would you do?” asked Holo.
“First I’d work out whether it was true or not, then I’d pretend to believe his story.”
“And why is that?”
“If it’s true, I can turn a profit just by going along with it. If it’s a lie, then someone somewhere is up to something — but I can still come out ahead if I keep my eyes and ears open.”
“Mm. And given that I am here, and I’ve told you he’s lying, then . . .”
“Hm?”
Lawrence finally realized what had been eluding him. “Ah.” “Heh. See, there was nothing over which to agonize so. Either way you’ll be pretending to accept his proposal,” said Holo, grinning. Lawrence had no retort.
“I’ll be taking that last potato,” said Holo, snatching the potato from the table.
For his part, Lawrence was too abashed to even split the potato he held in his hand.
“I am Holo the Wisewolf! How many times longer do you think I have lived than you?”
Lawrence’s mood only worsened with her concern for his feelings. He took a vindictive bite out of his potato.
He felt like an apprentice traveling with his teacher all over again.
The next day was beautiful with clear autumn skies. The church awoke still earlier than the merchants, so by the time Lawrence rose, the morning routine was already finished. Lawrence anticipated this and was unsurprised, but when he went out to the well to wash his face, he was shocked to see Holo walking out of the worship hall with the members of the Church. She had her head bowed and was wearing her cloak, but even so she stopped frequently to chat pleasantly with the churchgoers.
The sight of the devout chatting with the god of the harvest whose existence they refused to acknowledge was amusing, though Lawrence lacked the nerve to find it so.
Holo took her leave from the congregation and quietly approached a dumbfounded Lawrence. She clasped her small hands together in front of her chest and spoke.
“Lord, grant my husband courage.”
The well water was chilly due to the approaching winter; Lawrence poured it over his head anyway and pretended not to hear Holo’s laughter.
“It’s gotten a bit more important, the Church has,” said Holo.
Lawrence shook his head to clear it of water, just as Holo had done with her tail the previous day. “The Church has always been important.”
“Hardly. It was not so when I came through here from the north. They’d always be going on about how the one god and his twelve angels created the world and how humanity was but borrowing it. Nature is not something created, though. Even then, I thought to myself, ‘When did these people learn to tell such jokes?’ ”
This centuries-old harvest god was talking like a natural philosopher criticizing the Church, which made it all the more amusing. Lawrence dried off and dressed. He wouldn’t forget to leave a coin in the tithe-box that was prepared there. One was expected to leave money in the box if one used the well, and the people of the church would be checking. Anyone who failed to leave a donation would have unlucky things said about him. The constantly traveling Lawrence needed all the luck he could get.
Nonetheless, what he tossed in the box was a worn, blackened copper coin that could barely be counted as money.
“I suppose this is a sign of the times, then ... much has changed.”
Presumably she referred to her homeland, given the desolate expression on her face.
“Have you yourself changed?” asked Lawrence.
..” Holo shook her head wordlessly. It was somehow a very childish gesture.
“Then I’m sure your homeland hasn’t changed, either.”
Despite his youth, Lawrence had endured much. He’d been to many nations, met many people, and gained a wide variety of experiences, so he felt qualified to say as much.
All traveling merchants — even those who had run away from their homes — couldn’t help holding their homeland dear, since when in a foreign land, one could only trust one’s countrymen.
Holo nodded, her face emerging slightly from underneath the clo
ak.
“ ’Twould be a disgrace to the name Wisewolf to be comforted by you, though,” she said with a smile, turning and heading back toward their room. She gave him a sidelong glance that could’ve been interpreted as gratitude.
As long as her attitude was that of a very sly, very old person, Lawrence could cope.
It was her childish side that he found difficult.
Lawrence was twenty-five. If he lived in a town he’d be married and taking his wife and children to church. His life was half over, and Holo’s childish demeanor penetrated his lonely heart.
“Hey, what keeps you? Hurry!” shouted Holo, looking over her shoulder at him.
It had been a mere two days since Lawrence met Holo, but it felt like much longer.
Lawrence decided to accept Zheren’s offer.
However, Zheren could not simply rely on Lawrence’s word and hand over the information; neither could Lawrence afford to pay up front. He would have to sell his furs first. Thus the two men decided to meet in the riverside city of Pazzio and sign a formal contract before a public witness.
“Well then, I’ll be on my way When you arrive in Pazzio, find a tavern called Yorend; you’ll be able to contact me there.”
“Yorend, is it? Very well.”
Zheren smiled his charming smile again as he took his leave, hefting his burlap sack of dried fruit over his shoulder as he walked on.
Besides actual trading, the most important task that faced a young merchant was exploring the many regions, becoming familiar with the locals and their goods, and making sure his face was remembered. To accomplish this, it was best to carry something well-preserved that could be sold at churches or inns and used as an excuse for conversation, like dried fruit or meat.
Lawrence watched Zheren, feeling a certain nostalgia for the time before he’d acquired his wagon.
“Are we not going with him?” Holo asked as Zheren’s form disappeared into the distance. Having checked to see that there was no one around to see her, she was grooming her tail fur.
Possibly because she had to cover her ears with the cloak, she did not bother combing her fall of chestnut hair, merely tying it back with a length of hempen rope. Lawrence felt that she could at least comb it, but he had no comb to offer. He resolved to acquire a comb and hat when the arrived in Pazzio.
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