Spice & Wolf IV (24 page)

“I can’t believe it has come to this,” said Sem finally.

“Elder Sem, surely you saw the potential for this to happen, did you not?” asked Lawrence bluntly.

Sem’s face went blank, and he closed his eyes, sighing. "I suppose...I did. But to think that Khepas liquor would turn »

up...

“Khepas liquor?”

“Ah, yes, that is what we call the poison wheat. It is made from rye, and we all know of it—I cannot imagine that any from the village would be so careless as to mix it with wheat at sufficient purity to kill a man.”

Lawrence agreed. “So it will be assumed that someone did it intentionally,” he said.

“The villagers will blame the traveler since outsiders are always the subject of suspicion,” said Sem.

“And after that, Evan the miller.”

Sem nodded and then nodded again. “I spoke with Elsa a moment ago, and she believes Enberch to be responsible. I am pathetic. I believed that so long as we could raise wheat and sell it easily, we would have peace. I thought of nothing else.”

“When the messenger from Enberch arrives, it will be clear whether this is all their doing or not. If possible, I would like to speak to Elsa before then,” said Lawrence.

All of the advice Lawrence had given Sem was simply a setup to deliver this line.

“Understood.” Sem stood and opened the door, giving the villager there some brief instructions. He then turned to Lawrence. “This man will take you to her.”

Sem clung to his staff as he moved aside for Lawrence and Holo to pass.

“Embarrassingly this has taken...a toll on this old body of mine. Please tell me what you learn later.”

The villager hastily pushed forth from the chair he had been sitting on. Sem sat on it now, pain in his features.

Though it was convenient that Sem would not be following them to the church, he was also the one who could protect Holo and Lawrence from the ire of the villagers.

Lawrence certainly hoped that this would all be resolved peacefully.

He would feel bad if Sem were to collapse now, so he left the man with some kind words before leaving his house.

The fire in the village square still burned brightly with small groups of villagers gathered here and there talking.

As soon as Lawrence and Holo emerged from the elder’s house, the villagers’ eyes all fell upon them.

“Well,
that’s
certainly unpleasant,” muttered Holo.

If the villager leading them to the Church was to betray them. Lawrence and Holo would almost certainly be beaten and hanged by the angry mob.

It was an incredibly delicate situation.

Though the church was but a short distance away, it seemed very far indeed now.

“Iima—the elder sent us.” They had finally reached the church, whereupon the villager knocked on the door and announced himself quite loudly.

No doubt the loud voice was also to announce to the surrounding villagers that he was leading the two travelers on the elder’s orders.

What a villager feared above all was to be singled out by his fellow villagers.

Soon the church door opened, and Iima invited Lawrence and Holo inside. The villager that was their escort seemed visibly relieved, his shoulders sagging.

The hate-filled gazes that Lawrence and Holo endured were dyed red by the firelight, but now the closing church door blocked them out.

It was a magnificent door, but Lawrence was not sure how it would hold up against anything but hateful gazes.

“The elder sent you, then? What is it?” Though she had let them into the church, Iima blocked their path, not letting them enter any farther.

“I need to speak with Miss Elsa.”

“With Elsa?” asked Iima, her eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“Sem guaranteed my safety in exchange for my wisdom and coin. But to make that wisdom and coin as effective as possible, I need accurate information. I believe Miss Elsa has a better understanding of the situation than Sem does.”

Lawrence expected that Iima, who had lived and traveled alone, would have some sympathy for him and Holo and the unreasonable situation they now found themselves in.

Whether or not that hope was clear to her, she gestured with her chin in the direction of the living room. “She’s in there; follow me,” said Iima, heading into the church.

Holo was still looking into the sanctuary.

Had Lawrence not been there, she would have long since forced her way into the church, and once she had the book clenched between her wolf teeth, Holo would have run for the horizon.

To the left of the sanctuary were the priestly offices and study.

Candlelight shone from around the corner at the end of the hallway, and when the group rounded it, they found Evan.

He stood there before the door to the living room, ax in hand. It was not hard to guess why he was there.

When he noticed Lawrence and Holo, he was at first surprised before his face settled into a more complicated expression.

There were two people in the village who were suspected of poisoning the wheat. Evan, of course, knew it wasn’t himself, so that left only one person to suspect. He was, though, one of the few people who could see the path that all the village’s wheat took.

Perhaps he knew there was no chance Lawrence could have poisoned it.

“Elsa is here, correct?”

“Ah, yes, but—”

“The elder’s already given permission. Elsa! Elsa!” said Iima as she shoved past Evan.

The blade of the ax Evan held was rusted, and the handle looked as though it had been eaten away by termites.

Lawrence could understand what would make Evan grab such a weapon and stand in front of the door like that.

After all, Lawrence himself had stood in front of Holo, exhausted and beaten up, to protect her in the sewers beneath Pazzio.

“What is it?” asked Elsa.

“You’ve got guests.”

“Huh? Oh—”

“We’ve come to speak with you,” said Lawrence.

Elsa’s expression was somehow even more neutral than it had been when he’d visited the church before. “Very well, come in—“

Iima raised her voice. “Elsa.”

Elsa was just about to retreat into the room when she turned around at Iima’s voice.

“Is it really all right?” Iima asked.

No doubt she was referring to Lawrence and Holo.

Lawrence was not at all confident in his ability to best Iima in a scuffle. He considered it as she gave him an unintimidated glance.

Evan swallowed hard and looked on.

“We cannot depend upon them, but we can trust them,” said Elsa. “After all, they do at least know how to pray.”

This was just the kind of sarcasm that Holo liked. Lawrence noticed that Elsa herself wore a slight smile.

Beneath her hood, Holo’s expression suggested that she had no time for dealing with unimportant people—but what actually irritated her was no doubt that she wished to retort but could not.

“Fine. Evan, boy—you protect her, you hear?” ordered Iima slapping Evan’s shoulder and walking back down the hallway.

It spoke well of Iima that she did not insist upon being included in the conversation.

So long as she was around, Evan and Elsa would feel secure.

“I apologize for the interruption,” said Lawrence, entering the room with Holo behind him.

Evan, ax in hand, was about to follow them, but Elsa stopped him. “You wait outside.”

“What? Why?”

“Please.”

Evan’s reluctance was understandable. He nodded grudgingly after Elsa asked again but still seemed dissatisfied.

Lawrence untied the coin purse that was fixed at his waist and held it out to Evan. “Any merchant would weep if he lost his coin purse. I’m leaving it with you. Think of it as proof that you can trust me.”

The coin purse contained only his cash on hand, so it was not a great deal of money to Lawrence, but Evan took hold of the bag like it was glowing hot, looking back and forth between the purse and Lawrence’s face, his expression on the verge of tears.

“I’ll leave it in your care, then,” finished Lawrence.

Evan nodded and took a step back.

Elsa closed the door, then looked back into the room.

“Quite an excellent performance. If Enberch was as skilled as you, we would have no choice but to surrender,” she said with a sigh.

“Do you doubt us?”

“If you were from Enberch, then it would be Church elders coming to the village, not a wagon loaded with wheat.”

Elsa stepped away from the door and sat in a chair, gesturing perfunctorily for Lawrence and Holo to do the same. She massaged her temples, as though suffering from a truly awful headache.

She continued. “Besides, it’s even harder to believe you came here to poison the wheat than it is to believe you’ve come in search of heresy.”

“By which you mean...?”

“Hmph. While Elder Sem still doubts you, all this...all this is clearly Enberch’s doing. I just never imagined it would come to this.”

“Father Franz passed away this past summer, correct? It’s hard to have poison wheat ready in a mere six months. Anywhere you go, Ridelius’s Hellfire—er, I mean Khepas liquor—is hidden and disposed of as soon as it appears,” said Lawrence.

If Enberch had prepared the poison wheat long ago and never put the plan into action, it was probably because no conveniently unseasonable travelers to foist the blame on had come through Enberch into Tereo until now.

Thinking about this rationally, the townspeople had probably also feared Father Franz.

By the same token, however, they had likewise no doubt decided that they could safely act against Elsa.

“The village’s financial state is hopeless. I would very much like to ask for aid from my supporters, but they are all of them only supporting me because of my father’s legacy. It is all I can do to convince them to continue that support. If I ask for more, I
risk
losing what I have,” said Elsa.

“...Undoubtedly.” Lawrence cleared his throat. “So, Miss Elsa—what do you think will become of us now?”

A typical clergyman would tell him that as long as he trusted in God’s grace, there was no need to worry, that God knew the truth. A smile played at the corners of Elsa’s mouth. “Are you asking me?” she inquired quietly.

“The ones who can best tell me how Enberch’s play will end are you and Iima.”

“As well as the two of you, don’t you agree?”

Elsa clearly did not want to say it herself.

On the matter of what sorts of demands Enberch’s messenger would bring and who would be taken back to Enberch in exchange for the wheat, Lawrence and Elsa were likely of one mind.

Lawrence nodded, then looked at Holo next to him.