Side Colors III

by Isuna Hasekura

  So it felt to me a bit of a waste for her not to take the credit, but at the same time I could not help but respect her honest modesty. I looked up at her, and she noticed my gaze.

  “What’s the matter?”

  I could not use human speech, and thus did not respond to her question. And anyway, I was my master’s servant and would never do something so distasteful as proclaiming her greatness myself.

  I looked away from her and watched Giuseppe be led away, whereupon I felt a sudden weight on my head. When I looked, I saw that it was my master’s hand.

  “I don’t suppose you’re waiting for a feast to be laid out to thank us, hmm?”

  Ah, lamentations! I gave a quiet bark to voice my indignation. My master could occasionally be rather mean-spirited—or perhaps that was how I truly looked.

  I felt wounded, and she drew me close in a sudden embrace.

  Once Giuseppe was led away, there was no longer anyone near the gate. We seemed to have been utterly forgotten, which probably made my delicate master feel a bit lonely.

  Her face was right by mine, so I licked it, and she giggled. “I was waiting for it a bit, too.”

  My master can be surprisingly indulgent when it comes to food—but as they say, no fish are had from water too clean.

  I licked my master’s cheek again and gave a short bark.

  TWO

  The fresh-baked wheat bread generously dipped in oil tasted like a cloud on the tongue, and the sliced beef, first blanched, then roasted, was luxurious as well. My life was a simple one, but my weakness was delicious food, and I was well satisfied.

  The only thing that I found dissatisfying was the amount of food, and I finished mine quickly. My master noticed me licking the dish, and laughing, she gave me another slice of beef.

  “Not enough, is it?”

  She knew me too well.

  I accepted it gratefully and rubbed my head against her leg.

  “They say we needn’t worry about the bill for room and board.”

  My master did not lick the plate as I did, but is not so dainty as to let the meat drippings go to waste. She sopped them up with a piece of bread and smiled a contented smile.

  “Though I heard them saying in the kitchen they’d give us rye bread for dinner,” said my master mischievously, which made me sigh a long-suffering sigh and lie down on my belly. “The town’s in a bad spot, after all. This might really be the last of the good bread they have.”

  I only tilted one ear toward my master’s voice. I didn’t bother raising my head to look at her, because I could not imagine her face wore a particularly cheerful expression. Instead of looking up at her, I settled for licking her ankle.

  “Hey!” she said, poking me with her toes—my master is ticklish, you see.

  It happened often that she would cut her legs on the grass of the fields, and there was never any guarantee that there would be water handy to wash the wound. In such times I had no choice but to lick them clean, which would make her face go red—not because she was trying to bear the pain, but rather because she was trying not to laugh. When she cut her foot on a stone, my licking would be so ticklish that she couldn’t help herself, and she would end up kicking my face away reflexively.

  And yet she seemed to enjoy stroking my back with her bare feet. She ate the last bite of bread and chewed it contentedly while rubbing her feet against my coat.

  “Now then.” Having enjoyed the lingering taste of the meal, she stood. “We should visit the church first and then maybe the trading house.”

  After stacking her dishes she put on her coat, and after a moment’s hesitation she left her bell-less staff leaning against a wall. It was one thing while out in the fields, but walking around with a long staff inside a town was a good way to attract strange looks. People would think her a fortune-teller or a sorcerer—or a shepherd.

  While I myself still held pride in the shepherd’s work, I felt something like resignation toward the prejudice the human world had for our vocation. No doubt my master, being human herself, felt that even more keenly, and her face as she left her staff at the wall looked lonely and uncertain.

  “Mm…it will be all right,” she finally said, after I nudged her leg with my snout.

  Though my master has never said so aloud, one of the reasons she wished to become a seamstress was to have work where no fingers would be pointed at her behind her back. I could hardly blame her; indeed, it seemed quite reasonable to me.

  Her only conversation partners had been myself and the sheep, and so it had been only animals to whom she had directed her smiles. This was the shepherd’s tendency, and so perhaps it was inevitable that baseless rumor about shepherds’ children being half-beast, half-human would arise.

  And such rumors only made shepherds lonelier, and eventually the resentment between them and the people of the towns only grew.

  Perhaps my master had long since grown to hate other humans. I certainly wondered about it.

  “It’s fine, it’s fine! Come now.” She smiled and held my face between her hands.

  I was well aware of what her stiffened cheeks meant. It was the human way of smiling. But I was not a human and could not so smile.

  “…I’m sorry, that was a lie. To be honest, I’m very worried.”

  I hardly needed to ask what she was worried about.

  She hated being thanked by others so much that she’d made that request of Giuseppe just before entering the town. It had been painful to watch her perform her gratefulness for this inn treating her as an honored guest.

  By leaving her staff behind, it meant that she was going into the town not as a shepherdess, but as an ordinary traveler.

  But would she be able to act like a normal human?

  No one was more concerned about that than my master.

  “Still,” she said, her voice stronger as she looked up. “We must keep moving forward.”

  A strong person is not one without weakness. It is one who can prevail over that weakness.

  I let out a bark, and my master stood.

  Emerging into the town of Kuskov during the hours of darkness painted it a ruined, abandoned place, but even after the sun rose, that impression did not change much. The inn at which we’d been so welcomed faced the town’s main avenue, but right or left it was desolate all the same, and buildings’ windows stayed shuttered closed.

  There were few people on the street, and every one of them seemed to walk as though trying to hide the sound of their footsteps.

  I wasn’t sure if my master could tell, but I caught the scent of death in the air, and a close look at the rubbish heaps in the street corners revealed bones.

  In stark contrast to the townspeople here, on the street lounged a fat dog that watched us suspiciously as we passed. Beside it waddled a fat rat. No doubt the truth of what it was upon which they had grown so fat was something none of the townspeople wished to speak.

  I could tell my master had noticed, because she walked even closer to me than she did when we were passing through a wolf-filled forest.

  The only people on the streets we passed who showed any amount of cheer were those who seemed to be merchants who’d come from elsewhere—men who barely cared about their own lives so long as they were making profit, to say nothing of the lives of others. Small wonder, then, they were able to work in a town beset by such circumstances as though it were any other town.

  As I was mulling this over, the sounds of a commotion reached my ears.

  I looked ahead and saw a crowd of people gathered around a building with a familiar symbol adorning it. It was the town’s church.

  Of course, the assembled had all come seeking some sort of solace. Ironically, from all the pushing and shoving they were doing to get into the church, it seemed unlikely that any of them would be finding peace anytime soon.

  “Look at all the people,” said my master, sincerely surprised. She was right—given the circumstances, it would probably be difficult to meet with Giuseppe
. “I’d feel bad imposing. We’ll come later.”

  That was what I had hoped she would decide. I gave my tail a wag to indicate my agreement.

  It was not so very difficult to arrive at our next goal, the trading house. While the town was of a goodly size, the streets were so empty there was nothing to slow us down. We stopped to ask directions only twice, and after not much time at all we were there.

  My master had called it simply the “trade house,” but to be precise, it was the house of the Rowen Trade Guild. It wasn’t only horses and sheep that formed flocks—humans did the same thing. People from the same town would form a group and take reasonable actions to ensure their mutual gain.

  And then evidently, they had opened up trade houses in various towns, including this one.

  When my master abandoned her career as a shepherdess, she had evidently done a favor for another branch of this guild, so in a matter of speaking she had a connection to this flock or pack. She even had something called a “letter of introduction” tucked into her breast. And still she stood in front of the building and took three deep breaths.

  How many times had she felt near collapse during the incident that caused her to abandon shepherding?

  I prodded her forward with my snout, and my master finally knocked on the door and went inside.

  “Ah, welco—” The man did not continue, because my master hardly seemed suited to this place.

  But my master had learned all too well how important it was to smile on the occasion of a first meeting like this. To someone like me who knows what her true smile looks like, the one she gave this man was a cold and obvious fake, but it seemed to be enough to fool its recipient.

  “How might I help you?” said the man serenely, gesturing to a nearby chair. “The black-furred fellow’s your companion, I trust?” he asked as I followed her in.

  “Oh yes, er…”

  “Oh, it’s no trouble. I remember now. You arrived in the town yesterday, did you not? It’s dangerous for a woman to travel alone, after all. That fellow might be more trustworthy than a hastily hired guard, truly,” said the bearded man with a smile, which my master returned. “I asked because dogs aren’t regarded particularly auspiciously in this town at the moment.”

  When a town is beset by plague, every street and alleyway begins to overflow with corpses. If one hears a crunching sound and opens the window to see what it is, one might see any number of dogs gnawing on the bodies. This is no more pleasant a fact for me than it is for humans.

  My master sat down on the chair, and I situated myself beside her as she stroked my head, awkwardly acknowledging the man’s words.

  “So, then, might I ask what brings a traveler like you to this trade house?”

  The good thing about merchants is that they get right to the point. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who thought so.

  Having sat on the chair, my master hastily produced the letter from her breast and slid it across the counter toward the man.

  Evidently, a letter can hold a terrible power in the human world. Somehow, my master didn’t need to fear quitting her work as a shepherdess, nor providing for her living expenses, all because of that letter.

  “Ah, this is…Ah, you’re from Ruvinheigen? That’s quite a long ways away, indeed.”

  “I was in the care of a trader named Jakob.”

  “I see. Well, I’ll do what I can not to be bested by that bearded old man, eh?” said the man smiling widely, but then he seemed to notice my master’s troubled expression. He cleared his throat deliberately and shifted in his seat. “Ahem. Welcome to the Kuskov branch of the Rowen Trade Guild. My name is Aman Guwingdott. I shall do what I can to assist you, such that your memories of this town are good ones, and the name of the Rowen Trade Guild might continue to brightly shine.”

  Merchants truly were excellent actors.

  My master straightened and, bowing politely, she introduced herself. The two soon shook hands.

  “Now then, Miss Norah, you wish to become a seamstress?”

  “Yes. I have heard that this town is shorthanded right now.”

  “Indeed, that’s certainly true. This plague is not enough to crush Kuskov. It will surely recover.” My master smiled an uncomplicated smile upon hearing Aman’s firm statement, but then a shadow passed over his expression, and he continued, “However, your timing may not be ideal.”

  “…What do you mean?”

  “Yes, well, the people of Kuskov certainly ought to be grateful that you’ve braved the plague to come, but…,” said Aman uncomfortably before seeming to decide that there was nothing for it but to come right out and speak his mind. “While the plague is lifting from this town, it’s still in a wretched state, as you can plainly see. Commerce here has been dealt a terrible blow and is still in a very bad way. Far from needing new craftsmen, the ones that are already here find themselves leaving town to find work. It’s good that you came to call, though, I believe. The town will surely recover, and when it does, there will be a need for workers.”

  This was a very different reality from what we had been led to believe, but so it went with information gained from travelers. My master listened as though carefully swallowing each word, and when he finished, she gave a firm nod.

  “A seamstress, you said? I’ll write a letter of introduction to the head of the clothiers’ guild, then. It’s the very least I can do.” He followed his words with a lighthearted and clearly calculated smile.

  Still, being able to act the way Aman did, in the face of the damage the plague had done to the town, was proof of his courage. My master gratefully accepted the letter and bowed her head several times. She’d made her living by discerning the moods of others and had grasped what was expected of her.

  We put the trade guild behind us, impressed by the kindness Aman had shown us despite the difficult times.

  After we’d followed Aman’s directions, another building stood before us a short while later. In its stone walls was set an iron plate embossed with the image of a needle and thread, and even a dog like myself could tell that we had found our destination.

  My master knocked this time without any hesitation, but it seemed she just couldn’t get away from bad timing. Though she’d managed to get up the courage to promptly knock at the door, there didn’t seem to be anybody on the other side.

  “Perhaps…they’re out,” she said, crestfallen, but I couldn’t reply to everything she said.

  I scratched my neck with my hind leg and yawned a great yawn.

  My master seemed to intuit my reaction to her words from my inaction. She slumped. “I suppose there’s nothing to be done about it,” she said. I barked my agreement, but the moment we turned to leave, my master gasped.

  What was it?

  The moment I stood and began to turn, my field of vision swam wildly. I’d made a mistake. Something had taken me by surprise.

  My back hit the ground, and my forepaws paddled in the air—but not for long. I closed my hind legs and twisted my body, and they bit the earth. The only things capable of surprising me were a hawk on the wing or something using a way of fighting no animal was capable of.

  In other words, a human with a thrown weapon—and the thing that impacted my head seems to be a strange tube-shaped object.

  “Enek!” shouted my master sharply, and my body went tense—but the tension within me did not burst, because my master’s voice was not meant to set me upon my attacker, but rather to stop me from striking.

  I stumbled, and looked up. Master, I was surely attacked!

  “Wait, please!” But these words were not directed at me. “We are merely travelers, and this dog is my companion!” My master held me to make certain I didn’t leap and attack, but she could not stop me from growling.

  My growl was meant for my attacker, because having met the young woman’s eyes, I did not imagine that mere words would suffice.

  “…”

  She had dark eyes, dark like a muddy pond, and was tall and t
hin. Her sharp, unflinching gaze pierced me from behind her unkempt red hair. I could not begin to guess at what thoughts lay behind those eyes, and so I did not stop my growl.

  But as my master held me back, she hastily produced the letter from her breast, and the woman’s eyes wavered slightly.

  “I wish to speak with the master of the clothiers’ guild—.”

  I couldn’t tell whether the woman was listening to what my master said or not. She closed her eyes for a moment, then looked askance, and finally began to walk away.

  My master, too, seemed not to know what the woman’s intentions were, and her embrace of me only grew tighter.

  But the woman only went to pick up the tube-shaped object she’d hit my head with, not even glancing at us all the while. She walked past us and put her hand to the door and finally spoke.

  “So you’re the ‘girl who brought the lamp,’ are you…?” She looked my master up and down in an obviously appraising fashion, then continued, “Are you coming in?”

  Her gaze still had that ineffably muddy look to it. It was a scent I’d caught before, something like dark mud mixed with ink. It caught the legs of those who tried to stand, held the shins of those who tried to walk.

  Plague did not only claim lives; it also claimed hope.

  The young woman’s red hair was bound back like a horse’s tail, and it swayed as she entered the dark building. As she disappeared into the gloom, my ears caught the next words very distinctly.

  “I am the master of this guild.”

  I wondered if my master had heard as well.

  I looked up at her, she who stood right next to me, and it seemed that she had.

  Somehow this young woman with her strange gaze had found herself in this lofty position. That was what it meant when half a town died in a plague.

  Still, my master stood and nudged me forward, and we went into the building.

  The gloom inside the building combined with the woman’s strangeness gave it an unsettling feeling, but upon entering it was found surprisingly neat inside. The furnishings were plain but well made and were fragrant from the oil, with which they’d been carefully polished; likewise, the shelves affixed to the walls were well fitted.