Spice & Wolf III by Hasekura Isuna Page A

they beckoned him in with gusto.
    “Hey! It's the man himself! Haschmidt the Knight has arrived!”
    Hearing the name Haschmidt, Lawrence now knew for a certainty that Mark’s apprentice had been neither jesting nor lying.
    There was a romantic tale from the country of Eleas, a passionate nation of seas and vineyards.
    The protagonist was Hendt La Haschmidt, a knight of the royal court.
    However, Lawrence was far from happy to be called a knight.
    Haschmidt the Knight fought bravely for Ilesa, the princess he loved. He challenged Prince Philip the Third to a duel for the right to her hand and died a tragic death.
    Lawrence ascended the stone steps, pushing through the jeering merchants into the trading company.
    Their gazes pierced him, spearlike, as though he was a criminal about to be crucified.
    There at the back of the room, at the counter behind which sat the master of the firm, was his Prince Philip the Third.
    “I say again!” cried a reedy, boyish voice that echoed through the lobby.
    It was Amati—not wearing the standard oiled-leather coat of the fishmonger, but rather an aristocratic formal robe. He looked every inch the young son of a nobleman.
    He leveled his gaze directly at Lawrence as the entire assemblage of merchants held their breath.
    Right then and there, Amati held up a dagger and a sheet of parchment and made his declaration.
    “I will pay the debt that now weighs upon the slender shoulders of this traveling nun—and when this goddess of loveliness does regain her freedom, I swear by Saint Lambardos, who watches over this Rowen Trade Guild, that Holo the nun will have my undying love!"
    A commotion arose in the hall, laughter mixing with cries of admiration to create a strangely feverish atmosphere.
    Amati ignored the noise. He lowered his hands and spun the dagger around, gripping it by the blade and holding the hilt out to Lawrence.
    “Miss Holo has told me of her misfortune and ill treatment. I thus propose to use my fortune and position as a free man to regain for her the feathers of freedom, and furthermore to wed her.”
    Lawrence instantly recalled Mark’s words the previous day.
    Men his age will do anything to gain the object of their obsession.
    He regarded the hilt thrust at him with a bitter gaze and then looked at the parchment.
    Amati was just far enough away that Lawrence could not make the writing out, but it surely reiterated what the boy had just said in more concrete terms. The red seal at the bottom left of the sheet was probably not wax, but blood.
    In regions without a public witness, or when one needed a contract with far more weight than a public witness could provide, there was contract law. The party who put their blood seal upon the contract would give the knife they used to the opposite party and swear an oath in God’s name.
    If the first party failed to fulfill the contract, they would be hound to kill the opposing party with that knife or else turn it to their own throat.
    As soon as Lawrence took the knife offered to him by Amati, the contract would be sealed.
    Lawrence did not move. He’d had not the slightest inkling that Amati’s infatuation would come to this.
    “Mr. Lawrence.” The words were as piercing as Amati’s gaze.
    Neither flimsy excuses nor disregard would sway the boy, Lawrence guessed.
    Desperate to buy himself some time, he said, “It is true that Holo is indebted to me and that she prays for me as we travel to repay that debt, but she will not necessarily abandon our journeying once that debt is lifted.”
    “True. But I am confident she will for my sake.”
    A murmur ran through the crowd, which was impressed at Amati’s audacity.
    He didn’t seem drunk, but he was the very image of Philip the Third.
    “Also, while she may not be perfectly devout, Holo is a nun, which makes marriage—”
    “If you are worried that I do not fully understand the situation, then your concern, sir, is misplaced. I am aware that Holo is unattached to any