Free Spice & Wolf III by Hasekura Isuna Page A

anybody home?” Batos called out casually, knocking upon the door without any such fear.
    The ancient door seemed like it had gone years without being opened.
    Lawrence could hear a cat’s quiet meow from somewhere.
    A monk accused of heresy, chased out of a monastery—what kind of person would that be?
    A shriveled old frog of a man appeared briefly in Lawrence’s mind, clad in a tattered robe.
    This was no world for a traveling merchant.
    The door slowly opened.
    “Well, if it isn’t Mr. Batos!”
    The moment was so anticlimactic that Lawrence very nearly collapsed.
    “It’s been a while. You seem well!”
    “I could say the same of you! Spending all your time in the mountains of Hyoram. God must favor you indeed.”
    It was a tall, blue-eyed woman who had opened the thin wooden door. She seemed a few years older than Lawrence, but the fashionable robe draped comfortably around her body gave her a nonetheless fascinating aura.
    Her speech was lively and pleasant—she was indisputably beautiful.
    But in that instant, Lawrence thought of that which all alchemists sought—the power of immortality.
    Witch.
    The word appeared in his mind just as the woman looked at him.
    “You’re quite a handsome man, but you think me a witch—I can see it in your eyes.”
    The woman had seen right through him; Batos spoke quickly to smooth things over.
    “In that case, perhaps that’s how I should introduce you?”
    “Don’t be absurd—this place is already quite tedious enough. And in any case, is any witch as pretty as I am?”
    “I hear many women are exposed as witches because of their beauty.”
    “You never change, Mr. Batos. No doubt you’ve hideaways all over Hyoram.”
    Lawrence had no idea what was going on, so he abandoned his attempts to grasp the situation and concentrated instead on calming himself.
    He took one and a half deep breaths.
    Then he straightened himself and became Lawrence the traveling merchant.
    “So, m’dear. It’s not me that has business with you today, but Lawrence here.”
    Batos seemed to have noticed Lawrence regain his composure; at his well-timed statement, Lawrence took a step forward, put on his best merchant’s smile, and greeted the woman.
    “Please excuse my rudeness. I am Kraft Lawrence, a traveling merchant. I’ve come to call upon one Dian Rubens. Might he be in the house?”
    Lawrence rarely spoke so formally.
    The woman stood with her hand on the door, silent for a moment, before smiling, amused. “What, did Batos not tell you?”
    “Oh—” Batos lightly smacked his head with his hand as if to punish his own carelessness, and then he looked to Lawrence apologetically. “Mr. Lawrence, this is Miss Dian Rubens.”
    “Dian Rubens at your service. It’s quite a masculine name, is it not? Please call me Diana,” said the woman, her manner suddenly very elegant as she smiled. It was enough to make Lawrence feel that she must have been attached to a very well-to-do monastery Indeed.
    “Well, enough of that. Please, come in. I don’t bite,” said Diana with a mischievous smile as she gestured into the house.
     
    The inside of Diana’s home was not so very different from the outside—it called to mind the captain’s quarters in a battered vessel that had been through a bad storm.
    Wooden chests reinforced with iron bands were everywhere, piled in every corner of the room, their drawers left sloppily open, and there were sturdy, expensive-looking chairs mostly buried under clothes or books.
    Also within the room were countless quill pens, as if some great bird had done its grooming in the room.
    The only places in the room that seemed even marginally free from the chaos were the bookshelves and the large desk where Diana plied her trade.
    “So, what might your business be?” asked Diana, pulling a chair out from under her desk, on which by some miracle of planning sunlight fell. She neither put hot water on nor gestured for her guests to sit down.
    Tea or not