Spice & Wolf IV (18 page)

Of course, this manner of thought was a complete anathema to the Church.

Shortly after Lawrence met Holo for the first time, the two had taken shelter from the rain in a church. Holo had some knowledge of Church beliefs and had been able to chat easily with the believers there—so this had to have occurred to her as well.

“Aye, but the God of the Church is a supreme being, is he not?

There are no other gods before him, and he created the world—people merely borrow it—is that not what they hold?”

“It is. Which is why I believe this is truly an abbey, not a church.”

Holo’s increasingly annoyed expression was no doubt because she did not follow Lawrence’s logic.

“Do you know the difference between an abbey and a church?”

Holo was not so vain as to feign knowledge when she was ignorant. She shook her head.

“An abbey is a place for prayer. A church is a place for teaching about God. Their aims are entirely separate. Abbeys are built in remote regions with no thought given to guiding people down the correct path. The reason monks may spend their whole lives within one is that there is simply no reason to leave.”

“Hm.”

“So what do you think would be the first thing a monk would do if he began to doubt the existence of God?”

Holo’s gaze drifted.

The fish within her mind were surely swimming farther through the sea of knowledge and wisdom.

“Indeed—he would seek to ascertain the existence of the God he worshipped, which means our treatment depends even more upon what that girl decides to do,” said Holo.

“I’m glad I didn’t tell her any of this during the day. Elsa’s not a nun—she’s a member of the clergy.”

Holo nodded briefly, glancing at the pile of books.

They hadn’t yet looked at even half of the volumes in the cellar. Though they did not necessarily have to look at every book, they still had not found the stories that Holo sought.

Had there been an index where they could have looked for gods of a certain region, that would have sped things up considerably, but as it was, they had no choice but to search page by page through the chronicles.

“Well, in any case, all we can do is search the books as quickly as we can. There is still the problem with Enberch, after all.”

“Mm. True, but”—Holo’s gaze turned to the hallway that led to the room where Elsa and Evan were—“first let us eat.”

A moment later, they could hear Evan’s footsteps as he came to invite them to dinner.

“We thank God for blessing us with bread this day.”

After saying the traditional prayer, the four enjoyed a fairly luxurious meal—owing, Elsa explained, to Lawrence’s overgenerous donation.

However, luxurious in a church meant bread enough for everyone, a few side dishes, and a bit of wine.

On the table was rye bread along with some fish Evan had caught in the river and some boiled eggs. Based on Lawrence’s experience, for a church with coffers that were hardly deep and rules that were not unstrict, it was quite a feast.

No doubt Holo was unsatisfied by the lack of red meat, but fortunately there were other side dishes for her.

“Come, don’t be so messy. Take a piece of bread,
then
eat it,” corrected Elsa, eliciting a shrug from Evan every time she did so. Just a moment ago Elsa had been unable to watch Evan fumbling to shell a boiled egg and had helped him with it.

Holo had watched this with a certain amount of regret, perhaps because she had already eaten her own egg. Lawrence noted this and realized it had been a close call.

“Fine, fine!” said Evan. “Anyway, Mr. Lawrence, as you were saying...” Evan’s complaining was less that he was genuinely annoyed and more that he did not want to look bad in front of Lawrence and Holo.

Though Holo was good at hiding it as she ate, she was clearly smiling.

Only Elsa seemed to be seriously concerned with Evan’s sloppiness; she sighed.

“Er, let’s see, where was I?” said Lawrence.

“The ship had left harbor and gotten past the cape where rocks lurked beneath the waves.”

“Oh yes, of course. That particular harbor was dangerous until you reached the open sea. Every merchant aboard was huddled up belowdeck, praying for their lives.”

Lawrence was telling of a time he had transported cargo by ship. Evan knew little of the ocean and was keenly interested.

“Once we learned we had safely passed the cape, we all came above deck to discover there were ships all around us.”

“Even though it was the sea?”

“Well, it’s only natural for there to be ships in the sea,” said Lawrence, chuckling in spite of himself.

Elsa sighed a long-suffering sigh.

Evan was the only one among them never to have seen the ocean, so his position was a bit unsteady.

But Lawrence understood what Evan had meant to say, and so he continued. “It was an amazing sight. The sea was dense with vessels, all hauling in great mountains of fish.”

“Wouldn’t...wouldn’t they run out of fish to catch?”

Holo shot Lawrence a glance of extreme skepticism, as though to say, “Even if he’s lying, nobody could be
that
ignorant.”

“Anyone who’s seen the sea there during that season will tell you about the black rivers of fish that run through the water.”

The herring schools were a magnificent sight. It was said that a sharpened stick thrust at random into the water would come back with three fish upon it.

It was unfortunate that short of having Evan see the sight with his own eyes, there was no way Lawrence could convey to him the truth or scale of the sea.

"Wow...I can’t really imagine it, but I guess the outside world is big place.”

"But the most surprising thing on the ship was the food,” continued Lawrence.

"Oh?” Holo was now the most interested party

"Yes, since there were merchants from so many different regions. There was a man from a place called Ebgod, which is near a salt lake. His bread was incredibly salty.”

Everyone looked at the bread in the middle of the table.

“I can understand making bread sweet, but his bread tasted as though it had salt sprinkled over it. It did not quite agree with my palate.”

“Salt, eh? He must have been a rich man to put salt upon bread!" said Evan, impressed.

Tereo was landlocked, and if there was no nearby source of rock salt, then it would have been a luxury item.

“Yes, but Ebgod has a salt lake. Imagine a salt river running through town and every field as far as the eye can see turned to salt. There’s so much salt everywhere that the people there enjoy salty bread.”

“Still, salty bread!” said Evan, disgust on his face.

“There were other strange things on the ship, too—like flat bread baked in the bottom of a bowl.”

A loaf’s value was in its rise—or at least, anyone used to baking bread in an oven would think so.

“Ha, surely not.”

Lawrence was pleased to hear the answer he had expected. “Ah, but if you make bread from oats, then it will turn out flat and even, will it not?”

“Well, I suppose
...”
said Evan.

“Would you not eat unleavened bread, then?”

Lawrence was referring to bread that had not been blessed by the bread spirits but had rather been baked immediately after kneading.

It was unlikely that Evan had never eaten it—but he probably hadn’t enjoyed it much.

“While one could hardly call oat bread delicious even as flattery, the bowl bread was quite tasty, particularly topped with beans or the like.”

“Amazing,” said Evan, impressed, his eyes staring distantly at some far-off imagined place.

By contrast, Elsa had torn off a piece of rye bread and seemed to be comparing it to the flat bread in her imagination.

The two were highly amusing.

“Anyway, the world is a vast place with much to see,” said Lawrence, wrapping things up. Next to him, Holo had finished eating and seemed to be getting restless. “My deepest thanks to you for preparing such a feast for us,” he added.

“Not at all. It is thanks to your generous donation. This is the least I could do,” said Elsa.

If only she would spare us the slightest smile when she said so, L
awrence thought ruefully.

Nonetheless, it did seem she hadn’t felt forced to make the dinner, which gave him some measure of relief.

“So, about later...”

“If you wish to read the books at night as well, I do not mind. I know your aim is the northlands, and if it starts to snow, it will make your situation difficult.”

Conversation moved quickly with Elsa. Lawrence was grateful.

“Well, then, Mr. Lawrence—you’ll have to tell me more stories later!” said Evan.

“He already said he was in a hurry. And today you have to practice writing,” said Elsa.

Evan ducked his head, looking to Lawrence with a pained expression that begged for help.

That brief instant made Elsa and Evan’s relationship crystal clear.

“When the opportunity arises, I shall. And we’ll impose upon your church’s hospitality a bit longer then, thank you.”

“Yes, feel free.”

Lawrence and Holo stood, giving their thanks for dinner one last time before leaving the living room.

He noticed Elsa giving Holo a casual glance as they went, but Holo pretended not to see it.

“Oh, that’s right.” Lawrence turned just as they were walking out the door and looked to Elsa. “About the question you asked me earlier.”

“I will consider it on my own,” she said. “‘Think before asking,' Father Franz used to say”

Elsa was not the timid, scared girl she had been earlier in the day, but instead showed the stoutness of heart she would need to support the church on her own.

“I understand. If you want to hear the thoughts of another, please do come and ask.”

“I shall, thank you.”