Everything Had Changed
Lizzie clutched the coin pouch tight against her chest.
She climbed the narrow wooden stairs and went down the long corridor. The room the landlady had shown them waited at the far end. Of the rooms with two beds, she had said, this was the one that took the light best — a good thing, with a child along.
When they opened the door, two beds stood against opposite walls. Even in daylight the room was a little dim. A small wooden shelf had been fixed to the wall in the corner, the place, it seemed, for setting down one's own things. On the front wall was a single small window fitted with a wooden shutter. The window was small, but it faced the sun head-on, and through the half-open shutter a bell tower showed, far away.
"Don't leave anything important in the room. There isn't a key or anything of the sort. When you sleep, just set the bar on the inside."
The landlady said it from the doorway. The door could be locked by laying a wooden bar across it, and the bar that served as the latch hung from the door on a cord.
"Meals are downstairs. Come down in a little while. Meat stew and bread are the usual fare. There's one more dish besides, and that changes often. Today it's grilled herring. There's beer, too. Wine costs extra."
With that she gave Lizzie's shoulder a few pats.
"Chin up. My husband's an adventurer too, so he used to be away from the house a lot. A woman on her own is a little less at risk here. I'm around. Still, it's always best to be careful. Bad men are everywhere. If anything happens, you tell me."
She seemed to think Lizzie and Dorothy would be staying at the inn by themselves.
Lizzie shook her head.
"Our whole family is going to travel togeth—"
And then she wondered whether that was really so. She had not heard a single word about it yet.
She looked up at Juhwan. Her husband was smiling faintly at the landlady.
"We're in the same party, so we'll always be together. But if they should ever be left on their own, I'd be grateful if you'd look after them."
The words came in a manner of speaking that had grown fluent before she quite noticed, and surprise crossed the landlady's face.
"You mean to take a woman and a child around with you? That's very rare. Well then, how shall we do it? Will you pay a month in advance?"
"We will."
Juhwan answered her. Lizzie held out the coin pouch she had been clutching to her chest, but he did not take it. When she faltered, he smiled.
"Lizzie."
With a glance he indicated the pouch, and then the landlady, as if to say she ought to pay herself.
I'm really the one doing this. From now on, wherever we go, I'll be the one who pays.
The thought left her feeling strange. To anyone else it might have been nothing at all. But to hand over so much money with her own hands — she had never done such a thing.
Lizzie loosened the drawstring and took out a single silver coin. Spending so much all at once set her heart hammering. The fingers that held it felt terribly heavy.
Hesitant, she held out her hand.
Until the coin vanished into the pocket at the front of the landlady's clothes, Lizzie could not look away from it.
"Aigoo. Is it that precious?"
The landlady laughed aloud and left the room. Past her, Lizzie caught sight of Juhwan's face, laughing without a sound. Did she really look as strange as all that?
The door closed, and the room went quiet at once. Even Dorothy, noisy as she always was, had nothing to say, as if the place were too unfamiliar.
Bit by bit Lizzie wound the drawstring up again and tied it, then turned slowly, looking the room over once more.
It was small enough that two beds filled it. Between them there was only just room for a person to pass.
A room like this, one rina for two days.
All over again the money seemed a pity to spend. And yet she looked carefully once more — the beds, the floor, the room itself. It was worn, but it had been cleaned well. There was no strange smell, and no filthy mess.
The last time she had come to this village, Lizzie had been a bride on her way to be sold.
She had not slept at an inn then. She had passed a single night in a shabby lodging where a great many people slept packed tight together. It had been dirty, and it had stunk. Once a day she was given one bowl of stew gone cold. Her meal had been whatever the merchant left, thinned with water and handed over.
She had never eaten particularly well to begin with, but what that merchant did filled her with a deep shame. She had left the village feeling so wretched she never wanted to remember it.
Set beside that, her circumstances had changed past believing. The feeling was truly strange.
Juhwan put an arm around her shoulders.
"Next time, let's stay in a better room."
He seemed to think she found this one shabby.
Lizzie shook her head and, in a small voice, told him a little of what had happened the last time she came to this village. When she said she was only unused to it, and startled, because things were so different now, and that she liked the room, Juhwan's face hardened.
"If I ever meet that merchant bastard, I'll kill him."
He seemed furious. Strength went tight all through the arm around her.
Dorothy, who had been wandering here and there about the room, pattered over to the window. To keep the cold out, most buildings were made with small windows, and this one was no different. She climbed onto the bed, looked out through the little window, and spoke as if she had found a marvel.
"There's a pointy thing over there. It looks weird."
The village where Dorothy had lived had no bell tower. The child was probably seeing one for the first time.
"It's a bell tower. When the proper time comes, the bell-keeper strikes the bell up there."
Dorothy tilted her head.
"What's a bell?"
Of course. Dorothy had never seen a bell, so she did not know what one was. A child who had lived holding her breath in the cabin in the mountains had never had the chance to learn.
Lizzie was still explaining what a bell was — the thing that told the hours — when the tower began to ring. Dong. Dong.
Dorothy stared at the bell tower and shouted.
"That's a bell? The bell's moving! It's shaking its whole body!"
The sound itself seemed a wonder. She put her hands to her ears and listened, very still.
Watching the child, Lizzie felt her own heart begin to pound. The girl marveling at something new laid itself over her. It was as if she had become Dorothy.
Only now did it feel real.
She had changed. Her life had changed completely.
Lizzie laid a hand over her racing chest. Her heart was beating terribly fast.
"Lizzie, what's wrong?"
Juhwan asked.
She opened her mouth to answer, but her voice would not come. Her throat closed.
Until now she had been one woman among the many on the farms. From dawn until night, just as her mother had done, she drew water, worked the fields, tended the animals, or sewed. It went on from morning to night, and into tomorrow, and on again a month after that. A life like that continued even after a woman married. The only change was that a daughter became a wife. Bearing a child and raising it were added on, and the living only grew harder.
From now on it would be different. She had set her foot on a new road. Something she had never experienced was opening before her eyes. She would live a life nothing like her mother's, nor her older sister's, nor her younger sister's.
Sleeping at an inn was a first. Eating food someone else had cooked was a first. Coming to have this much money was a first. She had hardly even seen a silver coin before.
And from now on she would meet something new every single day. Firsts would keep arriving. She would not sleep and wake forever in the same house. She would go to new places and see new things, and every day she would do something side by side with her husband.
She wanted to tell Juhwan how great a thing that was, how astonishing. But even if she explained it, this man would probably not understand.
Lizzie threw her arms tight around her husband's solid body.
"Hm?"
A little startled, Juhwan stroked her back, awkward about it.
Words like those could not hold all of it. She had poured every bit of her gratitude into them, and Juhwan was silent a moment before he spoke.
"Lizzie, am I handsome?"
"...?"
Not understanding, she lifted her face and looked at her husband. Juhwan asked again, perfectly serious.
"Do I look better than I did before?"
"..."
I'm sorry, but no. It's still the same face. That slightly frightening face, exactly as it was.
He seemed to grow ashamed of what he had said. Juhwan covered his face with one hand and muttered.
"Sorry. Forget it."
His ears had gone bright red. For no reason she could name, her husband was adorable. Lizzie laughed softly and put her arms around him again.
"You are handsome, Juhwan. Always. You were the most handsome man in the village. You're the most handsome man in this village, too."
"..."
The flush spread from his ears down his neck.
She liked this man so much.
Lizzie giggled before she knew she was going to, and murmured.
"Before we go down to eat, I ought to make a coin pouch to hang at my waist. It would be terrible if someone stole the silver."
Yes. That was the most important thing just now. She stepped back from her husband, clapped her palms smartly together, and rubbed them once.
There. Her first piece of work as a member of her husband's party. She would make a coin pouch.
The meal at the inn was delicious.
Lizzie and Dorothy took the first spoonful, and their eyes went perfectly round. After that they said not a word. They only ate, in silence. The instant a mouth opened, a spoon went in, and the moment it opened again the next bite was pushed hurriedly after.
He had never seen anyone eat with such fierce devotion. It must have been extraordinarily good. He was going to have to earn a great deal of money.
They had meant to look around the village the next day, but Lizzie and Dorothy came down with a slight fever. The fright of the goblins, and the exhaustion of leaving the village as if they were being driven out, seemed to be surfacing only now. Being rattled about in the wagon had likely done its share as well.
He laid healing magic on them and the fever broke, but they spent the whole of that day sprawled about the inn. Even with the fever gone, both their faces stayed flushed like peaches. Until Lizzie and Dorothy had gone pale again, he was anxious the entire time, though he never let it show.
He poured mana into Oz, the horned rabbit, just as he had been doing every day.
It was a strange business. The wounds had healed, and still Oz pestered him for mana. Refuse, and the rabbit gnawed diligently at his fingers, or latched on with every sign of meaning to chew up every hair on his head. If only to be free of the nuisance, he had no choice but to give it. When he did, now and then the skin beneath the fur of that small forehead glowed, faint and soft.
Oz only begged after Lizzie and Dorothy had fallen asleep, so neither of them had seen the light yet. They would be startled when they did. Feeling, somehow, like a child with a prank in mind, he found himself looking forward to that day a little.
On the day they were to go to the guild, Juhwan left the inn a little early. The meeting was around noon, but he meant to arrive ahead of time and look about.
That first day had felt like nothing but the guild folk's gossip, ending in a bloody mess, and he had never had a proper chance to look over the inside of the office. Besides, Lizzie and Dorothy had been far too excited since morning. They had hardly seen the village. A walk around before the guild would do no harm.
All the way from the alley where the inn stood out to the central square, Lizzie kept glancing every which way, like a child. Even so, she had turned the coin pouch at her waist around to the front and held it fast in one hand. He could not quite bring himself to say it, but she looked for all the world like a country girl just come up to town.
Dorothy ran about with Oz like the captain of the alley. When a peddler had come to the last village, she had moved timidly, and only in front of Juhwan and Lizzie. With Oz beside her, she seemed to feel herself invincible. The child vanished from sight in an instant, and his heart jumped. He could keep quiet only because he trusted Oz. He did not know why, but the feeling was strong: if Oz was along, it would be all right.
At the end of the alley the village square came into view. A great many people were coming and going — merchants, folk dressed as adventurers — and the place was lively. Perhaps because the village was so much smaller than a city, the crowd looked larger still.
The moment the wide square opened before her, Dorothy ran off in delight. Lizzie called after her, anxious, telling her to go slowly. It did no good.
Dorothy, who had sprinted far ahead and out into the square, came running back. Her face was white. And for some reason Oz was perched on top of her head. It looked as if the child had grown a pair of rabbit ears.
"Dad! Dad! Three women are beating up a man!"
What? He thought he must have misheard. Lizzie looked just as puzzled.
Dorothy seized his hand and Lizzie's and pulled.
"Hurry! Hurry!"
He could not tell whether she was worried for the man, or whether she wanted them to come and see because it was a marvel.
"It's so cool! They're just pounding him! And they're women!"
Ah. So the women hitting the man had looked splendid to her.
He had heard a little from Lizzie of how Dorothy had been raised. To a child who had grown up watching her own father beat women, perhaps a woman had been nothing but a weak thing. To see that turned about — a man being the one who was hit — must have been the wonder. A bitter taste lingered in his mouth.
Led out into the square by the child's hand, they saw it. In a corner over there, three women were quite literally beating a man. All three had swords. One was hitting him with her fist, and one was kicking him. The last...
"He's going to die at this rate."
Juhwan muttered it before he knew he had spoken. The remaining woman was beating the man with her sword. The blade was still in its sheath, but if it struck his head wrong, he would die.
People nearby tried to pull the women off, but they were plainly in a fury. Even when the bystanders dragged the man off and put some distance between them, the women clung after him, relentless.
Lizzie, drawn along by Dorothy, caught the child's hand and pulled her back. She gathered her in close so she could not watch them striking him.
"You mustn't watch people fight like that, Dorothy."
"But! Mom! Those women, they say they're adventurers! They're stronger than the man. They're so amazing! I want to be an adventurer too."
Dorothy broke off, and her eyes went wider still.
"I'm an adventurer! I already was an adventurer!"
She pulled her hand free of Lizzie's, stared, and muttered.
"Mom, am I incredibly strong? Because I'm an adventurer? Are you strong too? Because you're an adventurer?"
Listening to Lizzie explain that it was not so, Juhwan quietly watched the women and the man. Whatever the man had done, he was covered in blood.
The gatekeeper he had seen at the village entrance a few days before stood in front of the man being beaten, trying to hold the women back. He seemed to be reasoning with them. But no one tried to arrest them. A few people were carping — women this, women that — yet they only talked. Not one of them moved to lay hold of anyone.
Fight or die, did the law simply not enter into a quarrel between one person and another? And he had heard that a woman's standing was low, yet these women seemed different. Because they were adventurers?
He looked at Dorothy, pouring out to Lizzie her passionate wish to become an adventurer.
If the way of an adventurer was the freest life a woman could have...
He set a hand on Dorothy's head.
"Yes. I hope you become a fine adventurer."
At that, Dorothy smiled, bright as anything.
"Right, Dad?"
But not like that. Don't go beating a man half to death. Hitting people is wrong.