Spring Log IV

by Isuna Hasekura

  Sitting beside Lawrence was Holo, the avatar of a wolf who resided in wheat, a being who had lived for hundreds of years and was Lawrence’s dear companion for life.

  “I get chills thinking about how I used to travel alone,” Lawrence said as he pulled the reins to turn the horse around and put them back on the correct path. Holo emitted an annoyed sigh.

  “That is because the only asset you have to your name is your good fortune.”

  The outline of Holo’s fluffy and carefully groomed tail shimmered gold in the autumn sun. And since she always used rose oil to polish the fur, it was as beautiful as anything that could decorate a nobleman’s villa.

  “That’s very true. I mean, I met you along the way, didn’t I?”

  Lawrence took her by surprise, saying those words in such a casual way. Holo’s eyes immediately shot open before she went back to grooming her tail with a chuckle, but the way her ears flitted about showed that she was not as detached as she would have him believe.

  She was crafty, kept plenty of things to herself, and often demonstrated her deep store of wisdom and knowledge of the world—but she also found joy in things as obvious as this.

  Lawrence thought about how he could always stay by her side and never grow tired of her company because of things like this.

  “We really should’ve taken a boat down.”

  They could occasionally see the river from the twisting and turning path. It led all the way up to the hot spring village of Nyohhira, so there was quite a lot of boat traffic on the river. If they were willing to splurge, they could load their cart onto a ship and reach the sea in merely two days while they quietly gazed up at the sky and dozed off.

  The reason they did not was simply for frugality’s sake.

  And the other reason was because Lawrence felt it would be a waste if they went so quickly.

  This was a journey alone with Holo for the first time in years, and he wanted to take his time and enjoy it.

  “But man…my back aches…”

  Lawrence stood on the spot, still holding the reins, and stretched his back.

  While it may be in part because he had not ridden on a cart for a long time, one of the reasons was his age.

  “You exert the horse too much. Trust in it more,” Holo scolded him as he stretched, cracked his neck, and sat back down on the driver’s perch.

  “Am I really using that much force on it?”

  “Aye. ’Tis almost like when I first sat beside you.”

  Holo cast him a sidelong glance with an impish smile on her face.

  Ten or so years ago, before he traveled with Holo, Lawrence was not used to being around women, so he used to constantly become flustered whenever she teased him.

  “But I guess that hasn’t changed much now, either. I’m holding the strings to my coin purse shut as tightly as I can so that none of the coins inside get wasted.”

  When he chased his response with a smile, Holo stomped on his foot.

  “You fool.”

  Holo butted him on the shoulder with her head, and that only made him smile even more.

  “Honestly, what am I to do with you…?”

  As Holo was about to return to minding her tail as she muttered, her ears suddenly perked up.

  “What is it?”

  Just as Lawrence was about to turn to her, Holo lightly leaped from the driver’s perch.

  His eyes followed her as she walked along the crunching fallen leaves, but then she vanished behind a giant root that reared up from the ground. The moment he thought that his beloved maiden had run off to pick some flowers, she returned.

  Her arms were full of large mushrooms that resembled opened umbrellas, and they practically hid her face.

  “This forest is open and breezy. Mushrooms are easy pickings here.”

  She had been like this for the entire trip, and the cart bed was overflowing with foodstuffs. Lawrence could not help but smile as she leaned over the cart bed to file the mushrooms away into their respective sacks, her tail wagging all the while.

  The sky was clear, and the weather was comfortable.

  He sincerely thought that the only people who were enjoying such a lovely journey had to be them.

  “This is fun.”

  The words slipped from his mouth before he could catch them.

  Once Holo finished squirreling away the food, her ears and tail stood up straight in a reproving manner. The moment she turned around, though, the tension vanished, leaving her fur soft and relaxed again.

  “Mm-hmm.”

  Holo took her place on the driver’s perch again and smiled with delight.

  When they first left Nyohhira, he had found it difficult to light a simple fire, and later got them lost, which made both of them doubtful about how the rest of their journey would turn out, but it seemed like they could continue to have an enjoyable trip.

  As Lawrence took a deep breath, savoring the serene moment, Holo’s tail nestled closer to join him under the blanket covering his lap. There was nothing warmer than carefully tended fur.

  Befitting a merchant, Lawrence made the inexpensive wish that this time would last forever. Perhaps that was to blame for what happened next.

  Holo spoke slowly.

  “Listen, dear.”

  “Hmm?”

  “I would like to write my memories down so that I will never forget how enjoyable this time is.”

  With a smile, Holo snuggled up to Lawrence’s shoulder.

  “I have used up all my ink…When might I expect to receive a new batch?”

  Whenever she smiled innocently, that usually meant she had ulterior motives.

  Holo had been sweetening him up only so she could try to get something from him.

  Just like how there was no such thing as a journey that consisted of only good times, there was no journey without its expenses.

  Holo was trying to win over Lawrence to buy her more stationery supplies because ever since they embarked on their trip, she had gotten carried away by her good mood and taken advantage of all the free time she had on her hands by writing and then writing some more.

  Holo might live for hundreds of years yet, but Lawrence would not. He had suggested for her sake and because of their differing life spans that she should write down what happened every day. That way, she could forever enjoy these blissful days, as long as she wrote so much that she would forget what she wrote at the beginning by the time she reached the end.

  Lawrence was not entirely sure if that would truly be a good thing, but Holo, at the very least, had been delighted by the idea. It was even fair to say that she had become obsessed. Ultimately, he was happy to spend money on her paper, pens, and precious ink—which did not come cheap. It wasn’t like he could bring coins with him to the afterlife.

  He was satisfied with that line of thought, but at the end of the day, Lawrence was a merchant at heart.

  He could not help but recoil at how she had used up all her writing supplies jotting down whatever she pleased in the few, scant days since their journey began.

  “Why don’t you peel a bit of bark off a tree and write on that with a nail?”

  Holo’s true form was a massive wolf, so she could acquire as much bark as she wanted with a single swipe of her claw.

  “You fool, tree bark does not last long.”

  “Well…I don’t think we’re going to get any writing material unless we make it out to sea and go all the way up the coast to the port town of Atiph.”

  “Do they not have sheep and cows wandering about up there?”

  It sounded like she was planning on butchering them with her massive claws, skinning their remains, and fashioning parchment from their hides.

  “And we would secure some meat from them as well, so two birds with one stone. No ink, but…Oh well, ’tis the same either way.”

  “I’ll tell you up front that I don’t know how to make parchment.”

  “How useless.”

  Lawrence came incredibly clo
se to saying, Who’s the one who wasted it all? before he swallowed those words. Holo had written a tremendous amount while her tail floated about only because so many fun things had happened.

  They had several large hemp sacks full of cargo lying in the cart bed. Alongside the bounty of the autumn woods that Holo had been constantly harvesting on the road, there was one bundle that made a buzzing sound that anyone listening carefully could hear. There had actually been an incident earlier involving some of this bag’s occupants suddenly escaping through gaps in the lining before whizzing around Holo and Lawrence.

  In that bag was a massive beehive, one Lawrence had obtained only after enduring several stings to various places on his body.

  “Good grief…Well, it’ll take us a little out of the way, but we can make a detour.”

  “Oh?”

  Lawrence offered a suggestion as he unfolded the map, and Holo’s interest was piqued.

  “There’s a branch in the road right here. I think there should be an inn nearby…Yep, there it is. People on their way to Nyohhira stop by there, so I think they might have a store of some paper and ink.”

  The guests of honor who patronized the hot spring village of Nyohhira included nobles and royalty, as well as archbishops from cathedrals, abbots from great monasteries that owned massive swathes of land, and more of the same. For this class of people, their job was to write, so it would not be surprising if the inn had all the tools they needed to do so.

  “Then, we shall head that way. And what praises they shall receive if they offer hot stew as well.”

  Lawrence had thought that Holo had been collecting food on the road because it was her way of showing consideration after using up all her paper and ink, but when he saw her licking her lips over what might be in the stew, it became clear that she was just amusing her appetite.

  Either way, as long as she was having fun, then that was enough.

  “All right, let’s check it out.”

  “Indeed.”

  Lawrence watched Holo from the corner of his eye as she agreed with a satisfied nod. He let out a resigned sigh, then diverted the horse from their original westward course to head north.

  The inn was not very far away.

  It appeared to have once been a gathering place for woodcutters, so as a holdover from that, there was a pile of several logs nearby, left to the moss and rot. The inn’s sign, which resembled an ax, sat above it.

  The inn itself was covered in more ivy and moss than the logs were.

  “Mm. This is a good inn,” Holo said, sniffing. Since the inn was located deep in the woods and the building itself seemed very old, their first impression was that it was like they had stumbled upon a dwelling for forest spirits.

  However, the beams and pillars supporting the eaves were made from lumber that looked freshly cut, the fenced garden had vegetables growing in it, and there were goats and pigs lazily munching on sunny patches of grass.

  It was readily apparent that the place was well maintained.

  That said, Holo was admiring something else entirely—the scent of bread that wafted from the inn’s chimney.

  “Shall we be staying here tonight?”

  “If they have any beds open.”

  The reason Lawrence gave such a tentative response was not because he was hoping to save on lodging by sleeping in a shed.

  He had noticed three magnificent-looking horses tethered to stalls in the stables, as well as several people who were already enjoying some drinks who were most likely the horse guards.

  There was a good chance people of considerable status were rooming here.

  “Well, I’ll at least ask if we can sleep someplace with a roof.”

  “Shall I pretend to be ill?”

  “They might let you sit in front of the fire, but I don’t know if you can expect meat and drink like that.”

  “Ooooh.”

  Lawrence smiled wryly as Holo sincerely fretted over the possibility of no meat or alcohol with an earnest expression. After he found a spot to park the cart, he decided to first open the door to the inn.

  “Excuse me, coming in.”

  The staff must have been in the middle of preparing dinner because he was immediately greeted by the sweet fragrance of bread. The unmistakable smell of garlic and fat tickled his appetite.

  Holo followed in after him, her stomach grumbling loudly.

  “Well now, we don’t often see people like you around here. A traveling merchant, is it?”

  Someone who appeared to be the innkeeper stood from a table where he had been in the middle of a lively conversation. There were white streaks in his beard, and he looked exactly like the kind of person who would live in the forest.

  “No, I—”

  Just as Lawrence was about to introduce himself, someone who had been sitting at the same table as the innkeeper spoke up.

  “Well, if it isn’t Sir Lawrence!”

  Lawrence looked and saw a monastery abbot who had come to stay as a guest at his bathhouse several times.

  “What a pleasant surprise, Father Abbot. This must be God’s guidance.”

  “What a coincidence. Oh, and your wife.”

  When the abbot greeted Holo after noticing her presence, she gracefully nodded—she was always a skilled actor at times like this.

  “Sir, this is the owner of Spice and Wolf in Nyohhira.”

  “Well, well. Don’t tell me you have plans to open a bathhouse in this area, do you?”

  Everyone laughed at the innkeeper’s joke, and after shaking hands with Lawrence, he offered them a seat.

  There was a person of rather high standing there who had stayed seated.

  “Ah, Sir Lawrence, this is Lord Beavery, ruler of the neighboring land. Lord Beavery, this is Sir Lawrence, owner of a prominent bathhouse in Nyohhira.”

  “Ah, a bathhouse. I’ve heard of it. A bathhouse of endless smiles, is it?”

  Though he was apparently a neighboring lord, he had no attendants with him, and he readily offered a hand to Lawrence. Lawrence introduced himself, exchanged a handshake, and, after introducing Holo, took the seats they were offered. This Beavery did not seem to be the sort to say too much about his position.

  “But, Sir Lawrence, shouldn’t you be busy working to prepare for the winter right about now? Or perhaps you are on your way to pick up an order?”

  The question was out of the blue, but there was nothing in particular he needed to hide about Col and Myuri. So as Lawrence relaxed, he announced that they were on their way to see the two, and the abbot gave a deep nod.

  “I see. My word, we’ve been hearing about Sir Col’s activities. It feels like hearing about a war hero to us, but I’m sure you must be worried.”

  Col had struck out from Nyohhira, saying that he would give his all to reform the Church that had become so deeply corrupted. Their only daughter, Myuri, had gone after him, and by all accounts, the two of them were accomplishing great things.

  “Father Abbot, are you on your way to Nyohhira now?”

  “Yes. It is because of Sir Col’s influence that things were so dizzying this spring and summer. Things have finally calmed down some, so I decided that I should take a break as soon as the chance presented itself.”

  Right now, the owners of churches and monasteries were being forced to reevaluate their assets because of Col’s and Myuri’s influence. They were busy getting piles of permits and property in order to avoid being turned into scapegoats.

  “Gosh…I’m sorry Col has been causing you so much trouble.”

  “Oh, no, he’s not any trouble at all. This is a fantastic opportunity. It’s hard to get started on a thorough cleaning without some sort of catalyst.”

  And as someone who was being asked to help with that cleaning by the clergy who patronized the bathhouse, Lawrence found his cordial smile drawn taut.

  As they chatted about this and that, Holo suddenly lightly tugged on his sleeve.

  She was asking if they could cut to the c
hase and request what they had originally come for.

  “Oh, that’s right, if I may inquire about something,” Lawrence began. “Would you happen to have any spare writing implements?”

  It was not just the abbot but also the innkeeper, who had brought him his drink, who stared at Lawrence blankly.

  “Writing implements?”

  “We are writing down what we see along the road in order to add to our stock of knowledge, but we have run out of paper and ink. We were hoping that we might borrow some, if you had any left over.”

  When Lawrence spoke, the abbot and the innkeeper exchanged glances, then both looked at him in tandem with troubled smiles.

  “Well, we were just talking about this very thing.”

  “Sorry?”

  The abbot cleared his throat.

  “Thanks to everything Sir Col has done, all the vaults of the world are in the middle of literally turning themselves inside out right at this moment. And Sir Col is also working on a common-language translation of the scripture so that anyone may read it, yes? That has quite the impact—quills, ink, and everything else fly off the shelves as soon as they arrive.”

  There were not many people who could read and write, so there were typically only a limited number of people who needed pens and ink.

  “I have also asked around in the towns I’ve stopped in and they’ve been hard to find, leaving any leftover stock at a terribly high price. Lord Beavery here”—the abbot gestured to the lord—“he bought and stockpiled quite a bit last year, so we were just discussing how much he might share with me.”

  The word lord evoked an image of someone with a dignified beard and features, but while Beavery did have a magnificent beard, his eyes were serene, which perhaps made him seem somewhat sleepy.

  Since he had easily offered his hand in greeting, perhaps he really was a serene man.

  “I simply bought them from a minstrel who just happened to stay in my village last year. He said he was marrying a dancing girl he met in Nyohhira and was returning to his hometown. He said that what he needed were no longer pens but ploughs.”

  Minstreling and dancing were not jobs that someone could keep up forever. Lawrence had wondered before what people in those professions did once they were done offering bath-side entertainment, and now he knew an example.