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was good enough. That she had suffered many times at the hands of the Church was surely no lie.
    Even if she weren’t a demon, but an animal incarnation, that was little distinction as far as the Church was concerned. To the Church, all spirits besides the god it worshipped were anathema, tools of evil.
    But it was through the gates of that church that the two passed easily and rented a room, and when Lawrence returned to the room after attending to his soaked wagonload, he found Holo, naked to the waist and wringing out her hair. Water fell in great, undignified drops from her beautiful brown locks. The floor was already full of holes, so a little bit of water wouldn’t hurt—Lawrence was more concerned with the problem of averting his eyes.
    “Ha-ha, the cool water soothes my burns, it does,” said Holo, indifferent to Lawrence.
    Pleased by their lie or otherwise, Holo smiled. Brushing aside the hair that stuck to her face, she swept it up and back in a grand motion.
    The boldness of the gesture was undeniably wolf like, and it was not hard to see that the wet hair, disarrayed as it was, resembled the stiff fur of a wolf.
    “The furs will be all right, surely. They were good marten skins, and martens live in the mountains, mountains where my kind live as well.”
    “Will they sell high?”
    “I hardly know. I’m no fur merchant, am I?”
    Lawrence nodded at the entirely reasonable answer, then began to disrobe and dry his own clothes.
    “Oh, that’s right,” he said, remembering. “What shall we do with that wheat sheaf?”
    He finished wringing out his shirt and was about to do the same with his trousers when he remembered Holo’s presence; he looked to her and discovered that she was now quite naked and wringing her own clothes free of water. Feeling somehow vexed, he ventured to strip nude and do the same.
    “Mm, what do you mean, ‘what?’”
    “I mean, shall we thresh it, or shall we leave it as it is? Assuming the talk of you residing in the wheat is true, that is.”
    Lawrence was teasing Holo, but she only cracked a slight smile.
    “As long as I live, the wheat will neither rot nor wither. But should it be burned, eaten, or ground into the soil, I will likely disappear. If it’s in the way, you could thresh it and keep it safe somewhere; that might be better.”
    “I see. I’ll thresh it and put the grains in a pouch, then. You should hold it, right?”
    “ ’Twould be a boon. Still better to hang it ’round my neck,” Holo said.
    Forgetting himself for a moment, Lawrence glanced at Holo’s neckline, but hastily looked away.
    “I’d hoped to sell some of it elsewhere, though. Could we set aside a bit for sale?” Lawrence asked after he’d calmed himself.
    He heard a rustling, and turned to see that it was Holo’s tail waving wildly. The tail’s fur was very fine, and shed water readily. Lawrence frowned as his face was dampened by the flying drops, but Holo seemed not the least bit contrite.
    “Most of the crops grew well because of the region. They’ll soon wither—that’s the point. No use taking them elsewhere.”
    Holo looked thoughtfully at the clothes she’d finished wringing out, but as she had nothing else to change into, she put the wrinkled items back on.
    Since they weren’t cheap like what Lawrence wore, they shed water well. Lawrence thought the situation rather unreasonable but said nothing and changed back into his own damp, wrinkled clothes, then nodded to Holo.
    “Let’s go dry ourselves in the great room. With this rain, there should be plenty of other people gathering around the furnace.”
    “Mm, a good idea, that,” said Holo, covering her head with the thin cloak. Once covered, she giggled.
    “What’s so funny?”
    “Heh, I would never have thought to cover up my face because of burns.”
    “Oh? What would you have done?
    “The burns would become part of me, just like my ears or tail. Proof of my uniqueness.”
    Lawrence was somewhat impressed with