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“…What are you doing?”
Lawrence’s eyes widened when he saw her peculiar dress; if someone told him that she was wearing a costume for a festival, he would believe them. Holo, carrying herself in a strange fashion so that the pots on her head would not fall, jerked her chin toward the storage room.
“Do not just stand there. The spears for roasting the meat are in there. Bring them out. Put all the firewood and charcoal you can find into the tub!”
That was all Holo said to him as she followed the men carrying the large pot, making sure the ones on her head didn’t topple over.
Sitting by the door to the storage was a half-drunk mug of ale; she had likely been resting there when the men came by, and so she had jumped back into work.
The reason she was so enthused was likely because she was expecting to get a tasty meal out of it.
He had fully assumed she would be sitting by a window or in a dark corner of the storage room, so he was relieved to see that this was not the case. He did as he was told and carried as much as he could bear down the stairs.
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Merchants who came while the villagers were working, aiming to purchase this year’s wheat at its peak, also came by, and the alcohol and meat they brought made their lunch break feel just like a mini festival.
A whole pig had been skewered and was being roasted over a makeshift stove in the garden. Thick plumes of smoke billowed into the air whenever a drop of fat landed on the hot coals and wafted over the people as they sliced off thin pieces with a knife as big as an adult’s arm. The meat was then messily placed on some bread and handed around to the others. Holo, soot staining her cheek, added plenty of mustard onto one of the smoky pieces of pork before biting into it.
Her tail was fully fluffed under her clothes in her eagerness, but no one noticed in all the hubbub.
Lawrence used his own finger to wipe the soot from her cheek, and bit into his own portion.
So much meat had been shaved off the pig, yet despite the fact that it had been worked nearly down to the bone, it kept spinning above the smoldering coals.
It was then that Lawrence took his horse’s reins in hand, nudged a reluctant Holo, and they left the fortress together.
Outside the fortress were people lying in the grass, taking a break after their meal, and children chasing away the birds that had come in search of grains of wheat that had not quite made it to the fortress with peals of laughter.
Holo was lying down not on the driver’s perch, but in the cart bed. She basked in the sun as it still hung high in the sky, her ears flitting about, listening to the commotion, and patted her stomach in satisfaction.
“Don’t fall asleep yet,” Lawrence said as he drove the cart forward.
“Fool,” came the quiet reply, but her speech was already mumbled. “Yaaawn… Where are we going now?”
She was still lying down as she spoke. She was clearly ready to fall asleep.
With a shrug, Lawrence replied, “We’ll head back to the river near town and take a boat downstream.”
“Mm…”
“You can sleep once we get on the boat. Try to stay awake until we get there. I’d hate for you to fall into the river because you nodded off.”
He didn’t hear her call him a fool, so he glanced over his shoulder to see she had curled up and was sleeping soundly.
“My goodness,” he said with a small smile, readjusting the grip on the reins and urging the cart forward.
Everything had gone according to plan so far.
He hid that thought beneath his smile as they traversed the road they came in on, and when they arrived at the river port, Holo woke up in a better mood than he thought.
“Ah, what excellent horsemanship,” Holo remarked.
She spoke up after stepping on board the boat because she was impressed by the skill of the rider that would be delivering the horses of all the boat’s passengers downstream. There were about ten horses in total, and the rider had them dashing ahead.
“Will we be retrieving the cart on the way back?” She glanced back at the boat tied to the back of the boat they were presently riding on and asked Lawrence. That particular boat was filled with their belongings, not the cart itself.
“No. We’ll be hitting up a port town once we reach the end of the river, and we’ll be able to get the same kind of cart when we get there. It costs a lot of money to bring it with us, you see.”
“Mm. You are clever, as always. How convenient.”
It was likely because he had money orders in mind—something that let a person walk around without any coins in their pocket—which led him to think of something similar.
“Oh, right. I need to tell you something. Just in case the boat tips over.”
“Hmm?”
“I don’t care if we lose the sulfur and whatever else. Just don’t ever let go of this bag, okay?’
One bag, purposely separated from the others on the cart, now sat at Lawrence’s and Holo’s feet.
Inside was a pouch stuffed full of small coins they had gotten in Salonia.
“You fool. I will not sink to the bottom of the river with such a thing. If the boat tips over, we should try to save this instead,” Holo said, patting a small barrel.
It was whisky they had gotten a significant discount for in Salonia—the drink had been nicknamed fire water.
“We will be able to reach port without drowning if we drink the contents and hold onto it, no?”
“…So long as you don’t black out.”
“Water is essential for sobering up.”
Despite his exasperation, Lawrence decided he would quite enjoy seeing Holo drifting happily down the river.
“Right, well, we’re off.”
“Mm.”
After making the final loading checks, the boatman undid the rope on the docks, dipped the pole into the water, and the boat slowly parted from the riverbank. Altogether, there were six boats headed for the sea, and each one was filled with people and possessions. Lawrence and Holo had gotten special treatment for doing such good work and earning fame in Salonia, which meant they got the front boat all to themselves.
As he thought back on how different things were now compared to when he was a traveling merchant before meeting Holo, he could not help the smile that crossed his face.
“What is it?”
They sat on a thick blanket of wool, Holo nestled between Lawrence’s legs, ready to fall asleep at any moment, and she felt him laugh on her back, and so she asked.
“I was just thinking about how luxurious our journey has been.”
Holo’s reddish-amber eyes went wide before creating half-moons to complement her contented smile. “Journeys such as this one suit me best.”
“Indeed.”
He placed his hand on her head, and she rubbed her head against it, demanding that he pet her more. Her wolf’s dignity was nowhere to be found.
The weather was nice, and since it had not rained in quite a while, the river was calm and gently carried the boats downstream. The afternoon sun was warm, the faint song of the boatman filled the air around them, and the lively working sounds of those in the fields along the river were a gentle tickle in the ear.
While this indulgence was rather different from the excitement of a roaring fire, it was accompanied by a joy that came with traveling—much like eating one ripe grape at a time and savoring each bite.
Holo soon fell asleep again, her lips occasionally moving with leisure as she dreamed.
Lawrence wanted to say that everything was going as planned, but after they drifted for a while down the river, he realized that the boat was moving a lot slower than he had anticipated. He started to worry that they wouldn’t reach the coast by nightfall; when he asked the boatman, the boatman explained that they would have had to take an early-morning boat in order to reach the port by evening, and that the only boats departing after noon that could make the journey were ones during melt season, or when it had rained upstream.
The boatman suggested they get a room at an inn in the large checkpoint just before they reach the sea.
Holo would surely assume that the body of water she saw when she awoke was the ocean, meaning she might scold him for his poor judgment. But he could not change the flow of the river, and the boatman told him that the checkpoint at which they planned on mooring was a rather lively river port, so Lawrence adjusted his expectations—perhaps it was not all that bad to spend the night at a nice riverside inn.
Warmed by the sun, Lawrence took Holo, her soot smell and all, into his embrace and closed his eyes. The next thing he knew, it was sundown.