Spice & Wolf IV (33 page)

Darkness lay but a step ahead, and none could say where human malice might be hidden.

Lawrence sighed slowly.

He lay prone atop the hill watching the proceedings, and Holo reassumed her human form and quickly put her clothes back on.

Then the four of them took the long way around the village to Truyeo’s den.

While it was possible that Iima had locked the cellar door,
it
was also just as possible that she had merely closed it, leaving it unlocked.

They were betting on the latter.

“Is this what you meant by God’s blessing?” Holo asked.

They had won the bet.

“Is there anyone inside?”

“Nay. It’s deserted,” said Holo.

Since Elsa and Evan had escaped, the villagers had no further business with the church, and it was empty.

Lawrence pushed up against the pedestal. The statue of
the
Holy Mother tipped over and onto the floor with a clunk. The sound gave him a thrill of fear, but it was followed only by silence. He gave the pedestal a firm shove. Evan slipped through the
gap
that opened, and lifted the door properly open from the outside.

“Right, now...Yes, we’ll need a sickle and a chalice," said Lawrence.

These were the tools needed for the plan the group was about
to
execute.

Now out of the cellar, Elsa gave a quick nod and ran off with Evan in tow.

Lawrence gave Holo, who remained in the basement, a small smile. “If everything goes well, you’ll have all the time you want to read."

Holo seemed to give up and finally climbed the steps out of the cellar. “So...how does it look outside?”

“The window wasn’t broken fortunately. We’ll be able to see clearly.”

Once Lawrence and company had made their escape, Iima had found an opportunity to open the front door.

The bar that had hung on the tightly closed door now leaned against a wall, unbroken.

Lawrence peered out through a crack in the window and saw that the procession had already arrived in the village square, where a man in the garments of a high-ranking clergyman—surely Bishop Van—and Riendott, the flour merchant, both confronted Elder Sem.

“Mr. Lawrence,” said Elsa. She and Evan approached from behind him as quietly as they could.

They brought a chalice that on its best day hadn’t been made of pure silver, along with a rusty old sickle.

But for demonstrating a miracle, the older and dingier the instruments, the better.

“Good. Now we just wait for the right moment.”

Elsa and Evan swallowed nervously and nodded.

Lawrence couldn’t hear what the men were saying, but given Sem’s frantic gestures, it looked like he was desperately trying to explain something to Bishop Van.

Sem would occasionally point at the church, causing everyone gathered in the square to look in its direction, which Lawrence found unnerving.

But no one approached the church since they seemed to assume it was completely empty.

Bishop Van responded to Sem calmly, occasionally pausing to consult with the elderly assistant priest at his side.

It seemed as though he considered the feelings of Elder Sem and the assembled villagers to be no more important than the wings of a fly that buzzed around his head.

When Bishop Van produced a few sheets of parchment,
Elder
Sem was stunned into silence.

“Can you hear what they’re saying?” Lawrence asked Holo.

“They are demanding money,” came the answer.

Just then a great clamor arose—Lawrence could see a spear-man subduing a villager who had charged the proceedings.

Seeing this, several other villagers charged, though the
out
come was no different.

Though their clothes were not uniform and they seemed little more than an impromptu militia, the spearmen seemed to
have
some discipline. They formed a ragged circle, spears out and
at
the ready.

“Mm. The man Sem has stopped resisting. He is beginning to yield.”

If he gave an inch, Bishop Van and Riendott would take a
mile.

Bishop Van would corner Sem until nothing could help him.

“Who’s that?”

Another villager had joined the discussion. He exchanged some words with Riendott, then soon became enraged and had
to be restrained by Sem.

Evan answered Lawrence’s question. “That’s the baker.
He
speaks ill of me the most.”

Riendott, like Bishop Van, produced a sheet of parchment
from
his pocket and held it up proudly, causing the villagers to fall
silent.

He seemed quite happy to have silenced them so.

“I suppose Father Franz was just too good,” said Lawrence vaguely, which elicited a slight nod from Elsa.

Finally Sem fell to his knees on the stone. The villager, who had been glaring at Bishop Van now hurried to help him.

Watching this, Lawrence heard a fist being clenched.

When he looked, he saw it was Elsa.

Though her face was calm, her feelings were all too evident.

No villager had ever reached out to help her.

“They are finished. A final decision has been given,” said Holo suddenly. Lawrence knew immediately what she meant.

All at once, Sem and the other villagers looked at the building opposite the church—Sem’s house.

Lawrence needed only to look at their backs to know what they were thinking.

Next, two guards climbed atop the large, flat meeting stone.

In their hands, they held the idol of Truyeo that Lawrence had seen in Sem’s house.

“If you but burn this abomination and embrace the true faith, all shall be resolved. If not, Tereo will be guilty of heresy,” Holo said—no doubt repeating Bishop Van’s words.

Sem and the rest of the people looked at the church, as though they could hear her speak.

“Humans—always depending on others in times of need,” said Holo with a sigh, stepping back from the window. “Still, I have depended on humans in my time. Shall we?”

Evan’s face made it plain that he could barely stand to forgive the selfishness of the villagers.

But he swallowed his anger and looked at Elsa.

Elsa stood quickly. “As a servant of righteousness, I cannot abandon the village,” she said shortly.

Lawrence nodded. “Let’s go.”

On that cue, the four of them opened the church’s front door.

Apparently silence could indeed descend.

That was what struck Lawrence about this particular silence.

He would never forget the imploring look that Sem gave him as he stood before the stuffed snakeskin totem of Truyeo.

“Elsa!” It was Iima who broke the silence. Iima was not standing on the meeting stone perhaps
because
she had aided Elsa—but instead watched the
proceedings with
the rest of the villagers. Unconcerned with the villagers'
questioning
glances, she ran toward the people she had tried to protect. “Elsa, why—”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Iima.”

Iima turned to Lawrence, her face uncomprehending.

Before Lawrence could reply, Bishop Van spoke from his
place
on the stone. “Goodness, what have we here? None other
than
Miss Elsa, the successor to Father Franz!”

“It has been some time, Bishop Van,” said Elsa.

“I was led to believe that you had snuck out of Tereo.
Was the
weight of your sin too much for your conscience to bear?"

“God is always forgiving.”

Bishop Van seemed momentarily cowed by Elsa’s firm
answer
, but he composed himself quickly and whispered something into the ear of the priest who stood next to him.

The priest cleared his throat, then produced a sheet of
parchment
, and holding it up, read it aloud.

“We, the Enberch Church of St. Rio, believe and declare
that
the village of Tereo has prayed to pagan deities and has moreover added the liquor of Khepas to their wheat in order to harm the believers of the one true faith. While believers of the one true faith suffer and die, not a single citizen of Tereo has fallen ill.
As
they eat of the same wheat, this can be nothing but proof that the village is protected by the evil deities they worship.”

When the priest finished his pronouncement, Bishop Van continued. “As stipulated in the contract signed with Father Franz, we will first return this wheat. Moreover, we shall reestablish
a
righteous holy church. As for the false servant of God, who wears the skin of a lamb but underneath is a lying serpent, she shall face the judgment of the most high God.”

When he finished, the soldiers with shields drew their swords and pointed them at Lawrence and company.

But Elsa did not take so much as a single step back. “That will not be necessary,” she said coldly. “It is true that my faith has at times been misplaced. But almighty God has shown me the true path. I have met one of His divine messengers!”

Bishop Van flinched, then glanced to the priest at his side, his brow furrowed.

The priest said something to him quietly and briefly

Van raised one hand. “That you would claim so readily to have encountered a divine messenger is merely proof of your heresy! If I am wrong, then bring the proof before me!”

The fish had swallowed the bait.

Elsa looked first at Evan, then Holo.

The miller and the wolf girl both nodded.

“If you have doubts, let us show you!”

Evan and Holo headed straight for the wagons that were loaded with wheat, but as they approached, the spearmen prepared to stave them off.

Van gave a derisive snort. “Let them through!” he said.

Evan held in his hand a grain of wheat he had received from Holo.

Elsa watch the two of them go, then made her way to the gathering stone, ignoring Iima’s protests.

“Worship of Truyeo the serpent god is indeed a mistake,” she said.