Spice & Wolf II (28 page)

Though he was half trying to cheer up Holo and half being self-derisive, everything he said was certainly true.

“And anyway, if I let you help me too much, there’s no telling how much I’ll be taken advantage of later,” he said with a shrug.

After a moment, Holo looked up and smiled with a soft sigh. “And here I was thinking I’d be able to call in some favors later.”

“I certainly avoided quite a trap there,” joked Lawrence.

Holo casually put her arm to her forehead. “Indeed, you did, but you’re backing into a still larger trap. I don’t hunt a rabbit caught in a trap. ’Twould be too feeble.”

“Do you know the sort of wolf snare that uses a trapped rabbit as bait?”

“Make sure not to cower at the wolf howls when you set the trap. You’ll foul the snare else.”

It was the empty banter of familiarity.

Lawrence shook his head at the ridiculousness of it. Holo couldn’t contain herself anymore and started laughing.

“Anyway, merchants are like sabers—they’re no good if they’re not straight. They break otherwise,” said Lawrence mostly to himself, and then he cast his eyes to the sky, as if searching for the sound of the bells.

It was a beautiful blue sky with a scattering of clouds. He shifted his gaze to the east and spied a few more white clouds.

It was a fine day—and fine weather meant good business.

As Lawrence considered that, he heard a quiet knocking sound behind him—the chapel doors were opening. Lawrence and Holo backed away to the sides of the stone steps. Soon the congregation began to filter out of the church, their faces full of post prayer serenity as they descended the steps. The crowd divided into smaller groups as they dispersed to finish the day’s work—a scene that repeated itself daily.

At length, the exodus subsided.

There was once a time when it was groundlessly believed that the longer one remained in the church, the deeper one’s faith—until priests started becoming angry with anyone who lingered in the chapel. Now such things did not happen.

That said, it was not good to leave a church too quickly, lest it seem like one is trying to escape.

As a result, butchers, tanners, and other craftsmen likely to attract the Church’s baleful attention tended to leave the sanctuary more slowly.

As shepherds were counted among those suspicious professions, the shepherdess was last to leave. Her downcast eyes and reserved posture were no doubt due to the fact that the church was not a place of rest for her.

“Good day,” declared Lawrence as he stopped in front of Norah, smiling as pleasantly as he could manage. A good smile was an important part of negotiation.

“Er, L-Lawrence and...Holo, yes?” said Norah, reddening slightly and looking over at Holo, then back to Lawrence.

“It is clear that us happening to meet in front of a church is the will of God,” said Lawrence with a slightly grandiose gesture. Norah seemed to notice something and giggled in amusement.

“I won’t be fooled, Mr. Lawrence.”

“And thank heavens for that. I have heard that lately there are those at services who have drunk a bit too much of the holy blood.”

Lawrence was referring to wine. Were she drunk, he might be able to convince her to join him, but she might also lose her nerve or turn him down.

He was glad for her sobriety.

“I cannot drink much wine, so I mostly avoid it,” she said with a shy smile, then looked around nervously. Perhaps she had been contacted with an offer of escort work.

Lawrence did not hesitate to use that expectation. “Actually, I am here about some work for you.”

Norah’s face lit up so quickly you could nearly hear it.

“This place being what it is, perhaps we should away to a stall somewhere...”

The reason Lawrence didn’t suggest a bar was because nothing would be more conspicuous given the hour. Secret negotiations were best conducted in busy public spaces.

Norah nodded agreeably. Lawrence began walking with Holo at his right side and Norah to his left, trailing behind him slightly.

The three strolled along the busy, boisterous lane until they passed through the crowds and arrived at the plaza.

The plaza was as loud and festive as ever, but fortune smiled on them as the trio found a table at a beer stall where Lawrence ordered beer for the lot of them. Ale was cheaper, but as Norah was with them, he couldn’t very well order any.

The service was quick but rough as the three cups arrived; Lawrence paid a pittance in silver for them, then put his hand to his mug.

“Here’s to our reunion.”

The tankards clacked together noisily.

“So, Norah, did you say you were able to go as far as Lamtra?”

Taken off guard by the sudden broaching of the subject of work, Norah, who hadn’t touched her beer, eyed Lawrence guardedly. Holo watched the two, nursing her drink.

“Y-yes, I can go that far.”

“Even bring your flock?”

“As long as it’s not too large.”

She answered so directly that Lawrence wondered how many times she had crossed the fields and forests on the way to Lamtra.

But just to be sure, Lawrence glanced to Holo to check the truth of the statement. Holo nodded so imperceptibly that only Lawrence could tell.

Evidently Norah was not lying.

Lawrence took a deep breath to avoid arousing Norah’s suspicion. Being excessively roundabout might damage her resolve Better to plunge straight in.

“I want to hire you for a certain job. Compensation will be twenty
lumione
. Not in a cheap banknote, of course—it will he hard coin.”

Norah looked at him blankly, as though he were speaking in a foreign tongue. In fact, it took time for the words to penetrate her mind—it was as if they had been written down in some faraway land and sent to her.

To some people, twenty
lumione
was that much money.

“However, there is risk, and the compensation is only if we succeed. Failure earns us nothing.”

Looking at someone’s finger as it traced circles or x marks on a table was one way of telling if he or she was real and not a dream or hallucination.

Norah followed the movements of Lawrence’s finger, and it seemed that he was quite real.

Yet still she had trouble believing, it seemed.

“The job will be moving sheep—then moving them back again as safely as possible. That will be all we need of your services as a shepherd.”

Norah finally seemed to wrap her head around Lawrence’s proposal, and realizing that the work and the compensation he had offered were far from comparable, she began to voice her skepticism. Lawrence seemed to have been waiting for that and cut her off

“However, the work itself involves significant danger—proportional to the risk.”

Having explained the unimaginable profit, he now explained the risk. Both could inspire shock, but the first detail would leave a stronger impression.

“Nevertheless, the pay is twenty
lumione
. Even the highest guild dues are but a single
lumione
. You could rent a house and take care of your daily expenses, working without worry. With that much, you could easily buy your own business. You would be the mistress of Norah Dressmakers.”

Norah’s face was troubled and then on the verge of tears. The enormity of the amount of money seemed to be sinking in—and with it, undoubtedly, the concern over the danger.

She had taken the bait. Now the real challenge began. If he muddled his statements at all, she would clamp a shell around her like a clam.

“Oh, that’s right—had you planned to join the tailor’s guild in this city, Norah?”

She was waiting, prepared, to hear the bad news, but Lawrence seemed to have thrown her off the trail. Inside her head,

Lawrence knew thoughts raced of both the ridiculous amount of money and the fact that she had not yet heard the risk. There wasn’t much room to ponder extraneous things, so her answer should be quite honest, Lawrence thought.

“N-no, I was thinking a different town.”

“I see! Do you not like the sprawling size of this city compared with others? It can be quite hard to live in an unfamiliar city with no friends, I find.”

While her mind was occupied with other matters, she couldn't easily voice her thoughts—such was the plan.

Norah nodded, looking troubled, saying nothing.

That was enough for Lawrence, whose merchant intuition told him a person’s heart based on the expression on their face.

The shepherdess’s mind was like glass to him.

“Well, I suppose you’ll want to get away from this city and its churches, won’t you?”

The trap was set.

Holo gave Lawrence an obvious look, but the result was instantaneous.

“N-no, I mean, not at all...Well, but...”

“The harder you work for them, the better you protect the sheep they’ve entrusted you, the more they’ll suspect you of witchcraft. Am I wrong?”

She froze, her head moving neither up nor down, left not right—Lawrence was spot on the mark.

“And as they try to expose you, you’ll have to venture where other shepherds would never go—because the alternatives are already taken by those selfsame shepherds, you said.”

That instant, Norah’s eyes snapped wide open, and she looked at Lawrence. Perhaps it was something she had vaguely considered before, since even if other shepherds had their territories, if she was willing to travel far enough, there would be safe places that remained.

“The priests will keep pushing you farther away until you're attacked by wolves or maybe mercenaries. And every day you’re not, they’ll suspect you of being a pagan.”

Lawrence clenched his fist under the table, as if to crush his guilty conscience.

He had lit a fire under the small doubt that had always lingered within Norah’s heart. There was no way to take it back. Whether it was true or not was irrelevant.

Merchants are like sabers—useless unless straight.

“I’ve been in a similar situation myself. Let me say it plainly.”

He looked straight at Norah and spoke in a voice just low enough for people around not to hear.

“The Church here is lower than pigs.”

Speaking ill of the Church was a serious crime. The shocked Norah peered around, the flames of her doubt suddenly scattered. Lawrence placed his elbows on the table and leaned forward.

“But we have a plan. We’ll give the Church some trouble, make some money, and head to a different town—that kind of plan.”

The flames of her doubt turned to anger and burned hotter, but once they burned out, they would leave behind the cinders of confidence. Within Norah, the seed of justified defiance would begin to flower.

Slowly, Lawrence articulated the heart of the matter.

“We will smuggle gold.”

Norah’s eyes widened, but she soon calmed herself. Surprise could, at best, only be felt as a slightly strong wind.