Not Lonely Anymore

The savoury smell of frying oil and the warmth steaming off hot water tickled the tip of his nose. Keith dragged his eyelids open, and for a moment he had no idea where he was.

“…Did I sleep?”

After she’d left the room, he had slept badly, too busy fending off the lone butterfly that kept turning somersaults in his stomach. He’d even started to regret asking to be tied up at all, if he wasn’t going to sleep anyway.

“…”

And yet, without ever noticing it himself, he had drifted off. He’d glimpsed the sky thinning far off as dawn broke, so it couldn’t have been long. He stretched hard and pulled open the top drawer of the bedside table. Inside lay the dagger he always kept on him. Taking hold of the well-worn blade, he cut the rope away.

Only a short sleep, and yet how refreshed he felt. He had run three days and three nights on hearing of the death, and the fatigue that had knotted thick and heavy inside him only now felt as though it were melting away.

He washed his face and went down to find Pai and Ardine partway through breakfast, both already dressed to go out and chatting easily with the innkeeper. Pai turned as if she’d sensed him there and gave a light wave.

“Good morning.”

Ardine and the innkeeper turned to look at him as well. Keith answered with a small nod and sat down at the end of the rectangular table. The innkeeper poured him a cup of tea, then rose to fetch him another portion of breakfast. He wetted his mouth with the warm tea and began.

“I’ll go over the route. We should reach the nearest hub village we can travel out from by scroll by evening. Call it six o’clock, to be generous, and after a light bite we teleport to the southern hub village, which puts us there at seven. Once we’ve found an inn and had our dinner, then—”

“Waaait! A minute.”

“Yes. If there’s any part you don’t follow, say so. Ardine, that goes for you too.”

Pai shook her head.

“Anyone listening would think this was a mercenary company being briefed for a demon hunt!”

“But there aren’t any demons anymore.”

When Ardine raised her objection, Pai explained in a soft, coaxing tone.

“It’s a figure of speech, my lady. It means something every bit as strong and as wicked.”

“Hmmm.”

“Six o’clock this evening, arriving at the hub village. That much is fine. But to my mind, that’s where the day’s schedule ends.”

“Pardon?”

Keith’s eyes went round with disbelief.

Pai tapped the rim of her plate with her fork and spoke sternly.

“Don’t make that face.”

“That…?”

“That handsome face.”

“…”

Keith’s earlobes reddened, and Ardine, drinking her warmed milk with great dignity, nodded as though in agreement.

“Using your face when you’re losing is cheating. Ari’s never had an uncle that petty.”

The child had the handling of ‘people who claim to be uncles’ down to a fine art. Keith mumbled a small, stunned ‘Petty…’

But to argue back against a child—

“We aren’t mercenaries, and we aren’t being chased. And there’s a child with us.”

Pai talked on, flipping over the filling of a meat pie with her fork.

“We’re going to need a great deal of rest.”

“Understood.”

Having answered so decisively, Keith looked down for a moment at the plate the innkeeper had set before him and ordered his thoughts.

“Then let’s do it this way.”

He was, as ever, a man who could only settle once a plan was in place.

“Plan B is as follows.”

“Plan B…?”

“After arriving by six at the nearest hub village we can travel out from by scroll, we insert one hour for dinner and rest. While the two of you rest, I’ll deal with the scroll. Then I ask the child what she’d like, and depending on her answer there are two possible options…”

Pai and Ardine stopped eating and looked at each other. In the same instant, each of them recognized the other as an ‘it’ll work out somehow,’ ‘let it be what it’ll be’ sort of person. Giggling together, they decided to let the man afflicted with the make-a-plan-or-die disease do exactly as he pleased.

It would be a nuisance if he died, after all.

The southern hub city was a port town, and Mareni’s home town of Jurgia lay to the south-west of it, another three hours or so by carriage.

“Woooow, a snake! The snake’s dancing!”

Rather than press straight on, they decided to look around the city. ‘Sightseeing’ was, of course, something Keith had not anticipated in the slightest.

He revised his plan for roughly the twenty-somethingth time. The fortunate thing was that he was a flexible man, quick on his feet. Instead of chivvying the child, who was bouncing about with excitement, he only said, ‘Ardine, be careful,’ and kept his eyes wide open for fear of losing her in the crowd.

Pai too kept a close watch on the child, who might spring off in any direction.

“Damn. I’ve lost her.”

“I have her. One o’clock. She’s watching a camel spit.”

“The camel, where…”

“She’s moved already. Three o’clock, the spice stall.”

“Ah, found her.”

Sticking together like that, it really did begin to feel as though they were a married couple.

Pai in fact had no idea at all what a real married couple was like, but she thought this sort of thing was rather fun in its way.

“Pai, Pai!”

Ardine’s violet eyes glittered like amethyst. The excited child seized her cuff and dragged her off somewhere.

“Look at this! It’s a doggy!”

Ardine had pulled her to a street lined with stalls, and there she squatted down before a box walled off with iron bars. Inside the mottled, rust-eaten bars huddled a dog small enough to fit snugly into two cupped palms, its grey fur grubby, all the strength gone out of it.

The merchant, listless until then, broke into a wide, beaming smile the moment Keith stepped up, looking every inch a man with a fair bit of money to spend.

“That is no ordinary dog, Princess.”

“I’m not a princess. I’m a duke’s daughter.”

“Ah ha ha. Of course, my lady. This little fellow is nothing less than a snow wolf, from the very northernmost reach of the North.”

“Where is the mother.”

Keith asked stiffly.

The merchant failed to read the displeasure in the words and only laid the patter on thicker.

“Reborn as a splendid scarf, sir! Snow wolf fur is all the fashion in the south these days.”

“I know. And their capture is restricted to preserve the population.”

“Heh heh heh, here’s a customer who knows the worth of a thing! Duke Paragon banned the hunting of them outright, and didn’t the price shoot up all the higher for it. Gone rare, you see. The rich folk of the south are beside themselves that they can’t get hold of one.”

“…”

Word of Duke Paragon’s death, it seemed, had not yet reached this far south. That much was only to be expected, and still Keith’s face darkened.

Reading his mood, Pai cut in with a deliberately bright voice.

“A pup parted from its mother… the poor thing. How much is it?”

“It’s no mongrel, it’s a snow wolf, so by rights I ought to be asking fifty silver, but… ahem, for you, specially, I’ll let it go at twenty silver!”

“Pfft.”

A snort of laughter had escaped her despite herself.

Twenty silver this, fifty silver that. Swindling little rat.

If the pup really were a snow wolf, then even as a pup it would go for seventy or eighty silver. Even on a good deal from a licensed hunter it would have cost fifty, and here it was, being sold at twenty as though the seller were doing her a kindness. What tradesman anywhere in the world did business at a loss?

“I’ll buy it.”

Pai took out her purse. Ardine marvelled a ‘Woooow’ and bounced up and down on the spot.

She was rummaging in the purse to pay when Keith gave the sleeve at her elbow a slight tug. Their bodies pressed close. The heat of him reached her, and a scent that was his alone melted into the air.

“…That one is a swindler.”

He whispered it by her ear. His warm breath grazed the rim of it, and gooseflesh prickled up the back of her neck.

“If it were really a snow wolf, there’s no chance of it being sold for twenty silver.”

“I know.”

“If you buy what that sort are selling—”

“It isn’t goods, it’s a life, Keith.”

She patted Keith’s forearm as though to reassure him, then raised her voice to the merchant.

“Twenty silver. Here you are.”

“Thank you kindly, missus!”

Keith flinched at the word ‘missus’. Regardless, Pai took the mongrel the swindler lifted out of the iron cage and handed it to Ardine. Ardine gathered the grubby puppy up into her arms as though it were something precious. It kept its eyes shut as though it were ill, letting out nothing but faint, wheezing little breaths.

Ardine murmured, so that only the puppy could hear.

“Doggy, you’re not lonely anymore…”

“My lady, you have gained a darling little sibling.”

“A-a sibling!”

“You’ll have to be good to it. It’s still a baby, after all.”

“Mm!”

By Keith’s plan, they were to take an early lunch and set out for Jurgia. But Pai said there was somewhere she had to stop by for a moment.

“Five minutes will do it.”

She cut across the stalls and went into the ‘Licensing Office’ building that faced the harbour, then made for the window with the ‘Reports’ sign above it.

“I’d like to report the illegal capture and trade of snow wolves.”

She named the stall where she’d just bought the puppy and stated that the merchant had obtained and sold snow wolf pelts by an illegal route. The clerk thanked her for her trouble and set out to confirm it on site.

“Right, now let’s go and eat something good. They say the steamed crab here is marvellous!”

Keith hesitated, then lowered his voice and spoke to Pai, who looked thoroughly unburdened.

“…Pai. The truth is, that dog is not a d…”

“I know.”

“…”

Pai looked at Ardine, who was holding the filthy ‘puppy’ tight against her, and smiled.

“Stupid, isn’t it. Not even able to tell an ordinary dog from a snow wolf. Trying to cheat someone and getting punished for it. Though of course the pelts really were come by illegally.”

“…”

“Let’s go. Ah, my lady! You mustn’t run!”

Pai chased after the child, who went pelting off towards the street of eating houses. Keith, who had been standing rooted to the spot as though nailed there, swallowed a great sigh of his own and quickened his step.

The lukewarm wind of the south stirred lightly between them.