Her gaze stuck to Col, and he shivered.
“You’ve heard about the cathedral, and judging by your personality, I have a feeling you would demand we stop our evil acts out of your sense of justice, but that’s too much. You probably want me to mediate between the cathedral, who are totally unapproachable, and the tax collectors, or something like that. A private reconciliation is still possible, after all. The people in the cathedral want to keep their familial relationship with the tax collectors a secret, and since the collectors are all drifters, I doubt they would care about their public face. Right. I guess that’s your point of compromise.”
Hyland’s, Sharon’s, and his motivations were all clear. It was a given that Eve also knew what sort of situation Sharon was in. Not only that, they were well behaved.
That is why if Col took the time to think about each and every detail, it would not be too difficult for him to come to that conclusion.
What made Eve terrifying was how she got there in an instant.
She was a beast of the woods, one who would catch up to him as though he was standing still, no matter how fast he ran.
“Now, is that all you have in your hand?”
Eve clapped her hands together.
“I’m switching the offensive onto you, Twilight Cardinal.”
The wolf coming up behind him opened her mouth.
“You can officially accuse us of smuggling or not. If you don’t, then we’ll move straight into talks of making money. You might’ve already suspected it, but we’ve sent men to hide among the tax collector association, who will then attack the cathedral and give the Church an excuse to start a war. On top of that, we will make a smuggling deal with the Kingdom, who will need to secure goods. Lord Hyland may not like it, but the king will not refuse.”
Eve took a step back for the moment, as if she had bitten on to one of his feet and was playing with him.
“If you do accuse us, then I don’t mind, of course. Once I see to it that Arugo and company are burned at the stake for conspiring against the Church, I’ll return to the south and raise a glass with the real merchants there. Of course, if the Church has an eye out for any possibility of smuggling after that, then no one will be able to help the Kingdom. If they get in the way of my trade, then that goes without saying. If that happens, then the Church will surely go ahead with the advantage in war. You…”
And the wolf who was Eve Bolan dug her fangs into his throat.
“…will have to fight this battle on your own.”
Threats had power because they backed the other into a corner.
But accusing Eve of smuggling put no pressure on her and would only lead her to other ways of making money.
The one being cornered here was Col.
“Well, take your pick. I’ll let you choose. You escaped from the collar I almost put on you back at the Golden Fern.”
Eve’s gaze turned away from Col and rested on Myuri.
While Myuri demonstrated hostility toward Eve, her mouth was twisted in regret. She must have understood that all the logic was on Eve’s side.
“I understand it’s a hard choice. I had to excuse myself from making it, too. That is why I very carefully made all my plans beforehand so I wouldn’t end up like this. And sure enough…” Eve’s gaze came back to Col. “Here you are. Did you very carefully examine all the things you’re trying to do?”
He did not have the skills to argue, nor did he have any index for what path he should choose.
Neither of the two options Eve presented to him was ideal. Both of them were bad; it was only a choice of the lesser of two evils. And the impact of both would surely have great influence on the Kingdom in the future.
As he stood there unable to move, Eve took a step toward him. It was so natural and so innocent that even Myuri was delayed in her reaction.
By the time he realized it, Eve was embracing him.
“Why don’t you leave it all to me, Col?”
Her voice was quiet, barely a whisper, somewhat considerate, and even seemed as though she was begging him.
“You’re not suited for things like this, so much that it almost pains me to watch you. But this is not about relative merits. It’s the difference between gold and gems; you’re in pain because you’re trying to fight a battle you’re not suited for.”
Myuri had said that if he were like Luward, then he would not be her older brother anymore. Eve whispered in his ear like a loving mother.
“You can just choose to let me support you. Theologists long ago also had the backing of us merchants in order to get closer to God.”
And then, just as suddenly as she embraced him, Eve let go and put distance between them. She gave Myuri a mischievous grin, which likely meant that Myuri had been keeping a sharp eye to see through Eve as best she could.
“I’ll wait two days. Worry about it all you want. That’ll help build character.”
It was impossible for Col to tell if it was an act or not. All it looked like to him was a gentle smile.
“Well, this conversation is over,” Eve said, clinking the glass on the table against the jug, and the umbrella girl appeared from the hall.
“Our guests are leaving.”
The girl bowed respectfully, then signaled silently to the guard.
Col of course doubted there was anything he could gain from being insistent now.
Eve was unknowable.
“Brother.”
But unlike with Clark, Myuri did not discard their last choice. She was openly considering the option of baring her teeth and making Eve obey with her real power.
They could probably throw the guards around, but all the power in the world would likely not convince Eve to agree with them. There was no way her constitution was so fragile that she would be frightened by the sight of fangs, and Col and Myuri did not have the heart to torture her.
Col turned and shook his head at Myuri, who then regrettably let go of her pouch of wheat.
All Col could do was take Myuri’s hand and leave the room as he thought about how this was the opposite of what happened with Clark, that this must be an allotment of roles.
Eve did not say anything else to them.
They left the building, which was once a loading dock and measuring place for wheat, and he staggered down the road as if he was in the middle of a bad daydream.
Hyland and the others, who appeared on their horses, could tell at a glance that talks had not gone well.
But it did not seem like they knew exactly how it all went wrong.
“Is she a demon from the scripture?” Hyland murmured from atop her horse, gripping the reins and gazing in Eve’s direction.
Even though they had two days left, Col knew that not much would change even if he had a month. He would rack his brain until the very last moment and painfully regret any answer he would choose.
Rather, he would not be surprised if he was told this was Eve’s kind consideration for him by freeing him from this torture in only two short days.
“Let me just say first that you are not at fault here.”
It was the time of day that a red tint covered the sky, and the townspeople were headed home with sighs of relief when Hyland was on her horse again.
“If I was fighting on my own, I would not have noticed anybody’s plot by now; I would just be swept away like a leaf on a muddy stream.”
Behind her, servants were handing lit torches to her knights, who were also on horseback.
“You chased them to the very edges of the scheme. This is our territory from here on out. It’s our decision as lay-nobles to decide if it is a plan where two or three people will have to die. We’re at least going to choose the past with the least bloodshed.”
They returned to Hyland’s manor from Eve’s place and discussed remedial measures. But the most they could ascertain was there was no way to avoid the two options she had given Col, and since there was no way to control Eve, the least they could do was be sure not to put her
in a bad mood.
Before the Church had spread their teachings, all people could do was grovel and beg before rampaging nature and plague. That was the class in which Eve lived.
As a result, Hyland mounted her horse in order to report to the king about these bitter options as the very problems of the Kingdom itself. Not only was that her decision as the commanding officer, but there was plenty of evidence of consideration for Col as well. Even though he would normally accompany her as the concerned party to explain the situation, she told him to stay behind.
Just as Col was about to protest, Hyland said as such:
“You are a valuable piece of mine, so if you were to be by my side when I bring bad news to the king, your worth would only go down.”
It was certainly a coolheaded opinion, and Col did not think she was lying, but it was clear that she was arranging to separate him from such a difficult decision.
“Hans, take care of the house while we’re gone.”
“I shall.”
“Now, you lot, we’ll be marching through the night for the first time in a long time. I don’t want to hear how rusty you’ve gotten because we’ve been in town.”
Hyland spoke cheerfully before kicking her horse into a canter. The hooves rattled their feet, and they were in the distance in the blink of an eye. Even after they vanished from view, Col found it hard to move from the spot or even take his eyes away from where they disappeared; there, Hans, who was in charge of the house while they were gone, spoke to him.
“Please return to your room. It is still rather chilly at night at this time of year.”
Col wanted to stand there all night and wait for Hyland to return, but he knew it was pointless. And if he stayed there, then Myuri would be out there with him.
They all returned to the manor. Col looked at the closed gate behind him and sighed.
“Would you like something to eat?”
Col almost said no, but he was not traveling alone.
“Just something small. Could you bring it to our room?”
“Absolutely.”
It was probably too much effort for Hans to serve them in the dining hall, and Col doubted his food would go down if it was only Myuri and him in such a large space. They could relax in their room, and the others would not find out if he ended up giving all his food to Myuri.
As he thought about that on their way to the room, Myuri called out to him.
“Brother?”
“…What is it?”
When he sat on the corner of the bed, Myuri sat beside him.
“I never lost a fight in Nyohhira,” she said suddenly. “But I definitely don’t think I’m the strongest out of all the people who go there.”
Royalty and titled nobility came to Nyohhira from all over the world, and their selected bodyguards supported them on their long journey.
And there was someone in the bathhouse who could easily defeat a whole army of those sturdy soldiers.
But Col understood right away what Myuri wanted to say.
“Thinking everything will go well is just the same as praying to become a god, isn’t it?”
Myuri’s mother, Holo, was once called and revered as a god in reality.
But even Holo could not fight back against the flow of the ages, and she had a pessimistic air about her. Even though she looked exactly the same as Myuri besides the color of her hair, that was also the reason why she seemed so much older.
And he had thought that Myuri had not realized it, for better or for worse.
“I never thought the day would come that you told me to be more modest…I am a very happy older brother.”
Col spoke with a tired smile, and Myuri flapped her ears and tail as though she was about to cry before headbutting him to cling to him.
“We can’t win against that. What even is she?”
She scrubbed her face against his shoulder, not because she was crying but likely because she was trying to erase Eve’s scent.
“But.” She stopped moving and said, “I don’t even know if she’s a friend or enemy. Even though she’s plotting something so evil.”
She is a sharp girl after all, Col thought.
“Miss Eve…feels just like the wind or the rain. We can do nothing about her, and while she sometimes brings disaster, she also sometimes helps us.”
Eve treated everything equally in the face of gold.
She had no other intentions; she was impartial and cruel.
“…What’ll happen to the chicken and friends?”
Myuri’s question let Col know he was a single powerless creature on this earth.
“If we can take the option of letting the cathedral know about the smuggling, they might get the option to talk with the priests in the cathedral. They won’t have any more allies in the city of Rausbourne, so they might search for a way to improve the situation but just feel like they’re grasping at straws. If that happens, then they might listen to us.”
“Yeah.”
“But I don’t know if that would have them honestly regret their past actions and reconcile with Sharon and the others.”
Those more world-wise, rather, might try to cut them out by pretending to go along with it and then secretly betraying them.
He did not know if Sharon would end up duped by that or take it as truth.
“And do you remember what Miss Eve said? By taking that option, the possibility of the Kingdom going to war without any help from the merchants gets higher. The Kingdom would not take on such a dangerous bet for the small possibility of reconciliation for Sharon and the others.”
Yet, if Eve had not readied a way for her to play her cards right once her plot of smuggling was discovered, then she would have used that as threatening material.
In the end, they lost to her thoroughness.
“In that case, we would just take the option of not saying anything about the smuggling, but…in the current situation, that means war. The people from the cathedral would escape to the mainland to avoid being taken hostage by the Kingdom.”
Sharon and the others would get to keep their permits for tax collection, but the targets for their anger would be gone.
They would simply be left behind, possibly to fall into a trap of their hatred in the future.
Myuri stayed silent, either ruminating over the explanation she’d heard countless times from the talks with Hyland or because she did not want to believe what she saw before them.
Then, after stirring restlessly, she spoke.
“…What about you, Brother?”
He looked to her, but she was looking straight ahead, her eyes trained downward.
“…Me? Well, of course there’s only so much I…”
When he gave the beginning of his answer, Myuri shook her head.
“Not that. I mean in the bigger picture.”
She finally looked at him.
“Because I thought about how there will be so many foxes like that on the path you’re trying to take.”
Unlike him, she could see from beginning to end for the whole.
She was likely much closer than he was to the truth of how big the world was and how high the sky was.
“I thought about how so many nuisances like her are going to try and use you. That fox was unbiased in a bad way, but that just means there are truly evil people out there who are unfair in a bad way.”
When Col imagined Eve Bolan appearing filled with spite, he understood everything she wanted to say.
“Even if you tried to act by hiding your name, would you be confident enough to not use it when that Blondie gets in trouble?”
The true function of Myuri’s intelligence was not in witty comebacks or arguing for argument’s sake, nor was it in how she manipulated the human psyche in order to get her way. It was how she could stop in a deep, dark forest and ponder far beyond the scope of what any normal human could foresee.
“…The sheepdog can see far beyond what the sheep themselves can see.”
; Right after he murmured that, Myuri’s eyes widened in anger.
“Brother, you dummy! I’m a wolf!”
“Oh, I’m sorry. There’s a passage that says that in the scripture. Please don’t be angry with me.”
Still frowning, Myuri looked away in a huff.
He was too mild. He never thought about his actions, and times like that were when it showed.
“…You don’t think I’m much suited for this, either, do you?”
Strengths and weaknesses.
Myuri looked at him with a frown and then shrugged.
“It’s true you’re not suited for it, sure, but I can still picture you pretending like it doesn’t bother you and you putting on a brave face even if we went back to Nyohhira.”
Myuri’s fangs had only grown sharper since starting their journey.
“And…I want you to fight the Church, Brother.”
“What?”
That was unexpected.
“They’re pieces of shit. I don’t want to see you lose to people like that and go home disappointed.”
“You shouldn’t say that word.”
When he admonished her, she rammed her head into his shoulder as though in protest.
But he earnestly thought that Myuri was going to try and encourage him to give up.
“I just can’t forgive them about the chicken. Because that’s like…”
Her red eyes turned to him, and he flinched.
She stayed silent, her eyes beginning to swim.
“That’s just like if you were to toss me aside, isn’t it?”
When he saw her on the verge of tears, he was ashamed by his lack of insight. Not only had Myuri sympathized with Sharon, she had placed herself in her shoes. And finally, he saw the real reason why she was telling him to fight with the Church.
His dream was to become a priest.
But while he was fighting with the Church, he at least would not be able to become a priest, and as a result of the fight, he might not even be able to join any holy work again. If that happened, then Myuri’s worst fears would not come true.
There was no point in explaining to her that unilaterally casting her away after becoming romantically involved was not the same as removing himself from worldly affairs after joining the clergy. It was all the same to the one left behind.
Wolf & Parchment: New Theory Spice & Wolf, Vol. 4 Page 21