When Holo and Lawrence came to the field together, they saw that the harvest had progressed rather far in the fields by the fortress. People were planting stakes in the ground and gathering all the harvested wheat together to be dried.
“They only started harvesting yesterday, or the day before, but they’ve already gathered so much.”
In the distance they spotted young girls with long pigtails, deftly wielding their massive scythes. Just like when it came to grape stomping for wine-making, harvesting the wheat was the time for the local girls to shine.
“Shall we take a little look around?”
“It truly does not matter where we go,” Holo said, yet she still took Lawrence’s hand and set off with light steps.
They occasionally took walks together in Nyohhira, but the village was mostly comprised of narrow paths and a steamy haze, and a step out of the village brought them to a deep wood. It was not since their old journey that they had been able to walk the plains with such extensive vistas as this.
Holo hummed as she walked, smiling at the sight of bewildered frogs and rabbits that had been chased from their sleeping spots among the wheat.
“Should I still see if I can make that fortress ours?”
If they were to turn around on their little footpath, they would see said fortress standing dignified atop the hill. They could take leisurely walks along this path whenever they wanted if they lived there. And people would refer to them as lord and lady as a bonus, making it the peak of their progress in life.
But Holo cackled, her laugh sounding almost like a cough as her shoulders shuddered, and she brushed off some scraps of straw that clung to her shoulder as she said, “Stone buildings are much too cold for me.”
“You’re right. We’re both getting old, anyway.”
Holo gave him a dubious look and patted his back.
“But that rambunctious Myuri would be delighted if we were to make the castle ours.”
That was their only daughter, who would make swords out of sticks and eagerly pretend to play the hero.
But Lawrence found himself taking Holo’s offhand remark into serious consideration.
His daughter, who used to constantly beg for his company, now no longer wanted anything to do with him as she grew. And she was also perfectly old enough for it to be possible that she had gotten married off in a land he knew nothing about. He thought that perhaps he liked it better if they could get this stone fortress for her, so that she could indulge in playing knight to her heart’s content.
As he seriously considered it, he felt a cold stare on him, and he turned to look at the source.
“You fool,” Holo said with a sigh.
Lawrence looked reluctantly at the fortress one more time, then dropped his shoulders.
“You never know when to give up, do you?”
“…We have a lot of very nice things because of that, though.”
“You argue simply to argue.” Holo reached out with a small hand to pinch Lawrence’s cheek and a delighted smile crossed her face. “And what about here for land?”
With the opposite hand, Holo pointed to the corner of one zone.
It was beside a small hedgerow, planted there either to alleviate the wind or for firewood, or perhaps even as a way to demarcate the zone.
“You think it grows best in places like that?” Lawrence asked, impressed; he was a complete novice when it came to field work. Maybe the leaves that fell in the winter served as good fertilizer.
Holo gave a slight shrug. “’Tis simply a spot easy to find.”
“…”
Lawrence looked at Holo in mild disappointment, and his wife, once known as the wisewolf, glared at him.
“Do not underestimate places that are easy to find. The fields change more than you know. Those who till the land change, too. But markers like those stay the same for decades, centuries. When you found that old map in the castle, you must have found some markers that had not changed for a long time, though the shape of the fields themselves change.”
“Now that you mention it, we were there when people were arguing over land boundaries along our old journey. We needed your wisdom to solve that one, too.”
Even if it had been preserved in writing, differences in interpretation and boundaries blurred over the years made for the seed of future dispute.
What Holo had proposed to those villagers in order to avoid such conflict in the future was rather violent—to bring their children to the boundary line, and pinch their cheeks as hard as they could. The children would never forget that moment, and it would prove the standard for when they quarreled over the boundary again in the future.
That said, they could not drag along a poor local child and pinch their cheeks for an arm width’s amount of land, so hedgerows like these served as a good marker.
I see, of course she is the wisewolf, the one who rules over wheat, Lawrence thought, but Holo looked up at him with a hard stare.
“You made it so the wheat would be sent to Nyohhira for decades—no, centuries to come, yes?”
Lawrence had asked the church to send them wheat as part of the landowning rights that they held, not as a bit of thanks.
This was where they could use the power of tax history, an unbroken chain recorded since the beginning of the era of humanity, and the method easily kept Holo’s longevity, one that far surpassed human lives, in mind.
That methodology seemed a bit ridiculous for such a small portion of land, just an armful, but it had been necessary for Lawrence.
That was because it was the centuries-old wisewolf, the one that would live much longer than Lawrence himself, the one that looked exactly like the pretty young girl she was when he first met her.
Lawrence made it so that the memories of their journey would always reach Holo in Nyohhira in the form of wheat.
“You could have picked a better parting gift,” she said, patting her hand on his chest.
And oddly, Lawrence found comfort in how she always seemed one step ahead. “I can never win with you, can I?”
“No, you cannot,” she chuckled.
Lawrence took her hand and spun her around.
“Now then, let’s put this zone down on parchment, and help with husking and whatnot in the meanwhile.”
“Do not hurt your back again.”
“Ah.”
“Well, if that happened, I suppose I would not mind. We would have to remain in this lively town, and I will simply have to continue drinking.”
“They’re probably going to start asking you to pay if you did that.”
Holo was famous in Salonia, and her spirited drinking earned her free booze here and there, but she was dangerously close to overstaying her welcome.
“All you do is think of stingy profits.”
“When I think about how much I’ve spent on alcohol for you, I start to wonder if we should’ve made a vineyard instead of a bathhouse.”
“You fool!” Holo took the hand she had intwined with Lawrence’s and smacked his back. “Then we would be stuck drinking wine all the time!”
What she said did not exactly sound like a joke, so Lawrence had no choice but to stand down.
“And all sorts of drinks find their way to Nyohhira,” she added. “Everything tastes good whilst soaking in the baths.”
Elsa would surely scold her again if she heard that, but Lawrence knew he was partially responsible for always treating her to a drink, wanting to see her happy.
“We should see if we can find an alcohol spring instead.”
“’Twould be most ideal, yes.”
Even though their motives were likely not quite on the same page, Lawrence did not point that out; he only tugged her hand to lead her back to the fortress with a shake of his head.