Spice & Wolf Omnibus

by Isuna Hasekura

  “What do you think?” he finally asked. Holo yawned at this, wiping at the corners of her eyes with her tail.

  “I find no fault with your explanation itself. It all more or less makes sense.”

  Lawrence was about to ask whether that meant he should go ahead with the deal or not but stopped himself short.

  He was the merchant; he would be the one to decide.

  Holo chuckled. “I’m a wisewolf, not a god. If you start to think me an oracle, I’ll vanish.”

  “Before a big deal, I always start to feel like I want to ask someone’s opinion.”

  “Hah, even though you’ve already come to a decision? Would you change your mind if I tearfully begged you to?” Holo grinned.

  Lawrence knew how he needed to answer. “Even if I did brush it off, you’ll still be there at the inn. I’ll complete the deal, then return. That is all there is to it.”

  Holo chuckled throatily, scratching at her neck as though Lawrence’s words were difficult to listen to. “Aye, and once you can say those words without blushing, then you’ll be a proper man.”

  Lawrence had grown used to Holo’s japes.

  He shrugged them off. They were no more than a greeting by now.

  “I must say, though, that you were certainly energetic during your explanation there. Of course” – continued Holo, cutting Lawrence off – “I’m not saying that is a bad thing. Males are at their best when chasing their prey.”

  Now it was Lawrence’s turn to scratch his nose in awkward embarrassment, but if he didn’t find some retort for Holo, she would surely become angry.

  He gave a deliberate sigh, then reminded himself that he was going along with her joke. “But you just want me to pay attention to you once in a while, too, yes?”

  “Got it in one,” said Holo, smiling happily. “However, what will become of me should the deal fall through?”

  “Well, you’re collateral. So if we can’t return the money, you’ll be sold off somewhere.”

  “Oh ho.” Holo lay facedown on the bed, her head resting on her folded arms, her tail and legs pointed up and waving lazily in the air. “So that was what gave you such nightmares?”

  “… That, too.”

  If their deal failed and they were unable to pay back what they owed, Holo would become the property of the trade firm.

  However, she would hardly sit there meekly and allow herself to be sold.

  That gave Lawrence some measure of relief, but he was not so optimistic as to think that once she bit through the ropes that bound her and escaped, she would come running back to him.

  “Should it come to that, I’ll have to pick someone a bit cleverer as my next partner,” said Holo, her red-amber eyes narrowed maliciously.

  “Indeed. It’d be best to cover such a fool in the dirt kicked up as you left him,” Lawrence quickly replied to Holo’s teasing.

  The wisewolf did not seem pleased. “Big words from the brat who practically cried when I nearly left before.”

  Lawrence made a face as though he had swallowed a walnut, shell and all.

  Holo grinned, satisfied, the pat-patting of her tail audible.

  It was after she ceased wagging it that her expression shifted and she spoke again. “But I shall cooperate because I trust you.”

  Her smile was genuine.

  Lawrence scratched his chin, then stroked his beard. “Naturally.”

  It was twilight.

  The sunset was red, and here and there shone the first lamplights of the evening, as though they were lingering fragments of the vanishing sunshine. As the chill of night settled in, people hurried home, their faces buried in their warm mufflers.

  Lawrence gazed out on the town for a moment; then once the sun was fully set and the town streets emptied, he closed the wooden window of their inn room. Holo continued to read her books by the light of a tallow lamp.

  The books seemed to have been organized chronologically, and Holo read the most recent chronicles first.

  Considering what they had learned in the village of Pasloe, Lawrence felt that she would find what she was looking for faster if she started from the oldest records, but he suspected that she avoided doing so in order to preserve some measure of composure in her heart.

  In any case, only two volumes remained, so the probability that she would soon find the accounts she sought was very high. Holo seemed to be very concerned about what would happen after that, and even after darkness fell, she said she wanted to read. Thus Lawrence gave her permission to read by lamplight, provided she was careful to keep soot – and especially flame – away from the pages.

  Holo did not wear her normal indoor robes when reading. She was fully dressed to leave at a moment’s notice.

  This was not because of the cold, but rather because they would soon be going to negotiate with Eve.

  “Well then, shall we go?” Lawrence asked.

  The time of the negotiation had not been set precisely, but Lawrence could be reasonably certain, since “at night” was a generally agreed-upon range among merchants. Once he headed downstairs with Holo and waited, it was hard not to feel like a small-time merchant who was overexcited by the notion of profit.

  But Eve was late – very late – which was rude.

  Perhaps this was her idea of a test.

  She hadn’t said to meet at sunset because merchants preferred to write their figures during the day, when no candles were necessary, and because it would take them a bit of time to return to the inn.

  So presumably she had wanted to wait until after that wave of merchants had returned to the inn and settled down.

  If he listened carefully, Lawrence could tell which occupants had returned to which rooms.

  Weighing that against the number of rooms in the inn, he expected Eve to arrive soon.

  “You merchants are a troublesome lot indeed,” said Holo, closing the book with a thud and sitting up on the bed, stretching.

  Even a normal girl would have been able to tell that Lawrence was fidgeting over when would be the best time.

  “If I must put on an act even in my own inn room, when am I to relax?” asked Lawrence, half joking.

  Holo got off the bed, seeming to think something over as she adjusted her ears and tail beneath her cloak. “For some time after we met… no, even recently, you’ve seemed to always put on a bit of an act around me.”

  “It’s the first time I’ve ever traveled with a girl. Took time to get used to.”

  It was also the first time he had let himself go this much around anyone else.

  He’d never felt so comfortable around anyone before.

  “And yet when we’d just met, your nostrils would puff just from walking about with me,” said Holo.

  “Aye, and would your tail puff up if you saw me with another woman?” Lawrence shot back.

  Holo looked up and regarded him as if to say, “You’ve got a lot of nerve.” She then said, “But just like that, a male will gradually reveal his true colors, and eventually turn into someone you never would have expected.”

  “Isn’t that true for more or less anyone as you become close to them?”

  “Fool. Don’t you humans have a saying, ‘Feed not the fish you catch?’”

  “That doesn’t apply here. I didn’t catch the fish, it snuck into my wagon bed on its own, didn’t it? Forget about giving it food; I should be charging it for transport.”

  But no sooner had he said it, than Lawrence flinched away.

  Holo’s keen gaze was illuminated by the faintly flickering light of the lamp. She was not joking.

  Had he treated her poorly? Or had his agitated state been even more irritating than he’d guessed? Perhaps she hadn’t liked his comeback.

  “Hmph… What I meant was, don’t forget your original intention.”

  Lawrence didn’t know what had triggered this, but he nodded meekly.

  Holo could be strangely childish at times, so perhaps she was annoyed at the fact that not only had La
wrence failed to be flustered but had actually counterattacked.

  Perhaps realizing her own fault, she backed off.

  Lawrence gave her a thin, tired smile and sighed.

  “There’s something irritating about that,” said Holo.

  “It’s your imagination… No, perhaps you’re right.” Lawrence cleared his throat, then looked back at Holo. “Can you see into my mind?” He asked the question he had put to her seriously when they first met.

  Holo grinned, then came in close. “Fool.”

  “Ouch!”

  She had kicked his shin.

  Holo’s smile remained undisturbed as she smoothly walked past Lawrence and put her hand to the door.

  “Are you coming?”

  Lawrence swallowed the remark that came to mind – that Holo would never have treated him like this when they had first met – and followed her out the door.

  She had told him not to forget his original intention, but that was truly impossible.

  The words carried heavy significance. Time could never be turned back, and everybody knew there was no such thing as a person who never changed.

  Lawrence knew that, so there was no doubt that Holo knew it as well.

  “Of course, it’s also true that I can easily take your hand only because we’ve been traveling for so long together. But” – Holo’s face was suddenly sad – “do not poets speak of wishing to stay always as they were upon first meeting a lover?”

  It was for only the barest moment that Lawrence thought she was being her usual teasing self.

  He found himself surprised at Holo’s words, at how obviously she wished to turn back time as she became more conscious of the journey’s approaching end.

  Holo seemed to be always looking far to the future, but that was not actually true.

  And yet, Lawrence was touched that it wasn’t to the happy times centuries earlier when she first arrived at her village that she wanted to return, nor was it to the time before then, before she began her journey at all.

  She had taken hold of him with her left hand. Though it embarrassed him, he curled his fingers around hers as he spoke. “You might be well returning to that time, but for my part, I’d collapse from overwork.”

  Holo drew closer to him as they descended the stairs. “Worry not, for I would be there at your deathbed,” she said with a malicious smile, which Lawrence could only answer with a tired smile of his own.

  It was on the way to the first floor that Lawrence realized her words were not entirely a joke.

  If Holo was to say that the search for her homeland could be postponed, Lawrence would certainly die before she did. If Holo’s journey didn’t end, their journey as a pair surely would.

  Lawrence suddenly felt like he understood her reasons for not answering when, back in Tereo, he’d asked what her plans were after they reached her homeland.

  Such thoughts occupied his mind when they reached the first floor, and Holo let go of his hand. Lawrence was not bold enough to feel comfortable entering a room while holding a girl’s hand, even if that girl was Holo. At the same time, though, he did not want to be the one that let go. Her accommodation for his feelings warmed his heart.

  It was as though she was answering the question of what would happen when they reached her homeland.

  The feeling helped him muster more than his usual amount of gravitas when he greeted Eve and Arold, who were already there. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

  “Well then, shall we begin?” asked Eve in her hoarse voice.

  “So, what did you learn from your poking about?” Eve asked.

  There was no need to introduce Holo.

  What was visible of her face beneath the cloak and her posture and movements on the chair spoke volumes.

  Eve’s somewhat utilitarian manner was not unreasonable. Selling Holo was not, after all, their ultimate objective, but her affectation was a bit miserly nonetheless.

  “I learned that you did indeed sell statues to the Church, that you parted on bad terms, and that fur sales are going to be restricted to cash,” said Lawrence, watching Eve carefully for her response. This was a fundamental negotiation tactic.

  But on that count, Eve was skilled enough at hiding her face that Lawrence’s eyes could not discern much, and he did not expect to learn anything. It was like warming up before hard exercise.

  “Based on my experience and intuition as a merchant, I believe that what you’ve told me is all true, Eve.”

  “Oh?” came her disinterested, hoarse voice. She seemed to be well accustomed to negotiation.

  “But there is one thing I am worried about.”

  “Which would be?”

  “The reason for your angry split with the Church.”

  There was nothing more pointless than asking that of her, but Lawrence had decided he would try to compare Eve’s answer to the information he had already gathered. If it wasn’t consistent, he’d know she was lying.

  Holo, sitting next to him, could probably also tell whether she was being honest, but relying on Holo to do this was no different than treating her as an oracle. No, if Eve’s answer didn’t agree with what he was thinking, cutting her off would be the best course.

  After all, they would be selling Holo off based on Lawrence’s judgment, so the responsibility to make that judgment fell wholly to him, he felt.

  “The reason for my split? I suppose you would wonder about that,” said Eve, clearing her throat.

  He knew her mind would be racing.

  Whatever the undesirable outcome of Lawrence withdrawing from the deal might be, it would most certainly mean the failure of the plan.

  She was surely trying to guess at what he had seen and heard around town today.

  If she was going to lie, her chances of matching up with whatever information Lawrence had gathered today were almost nil.

  “The bishop of the church here is a relic of the good old days, a past he can’t forget,” began Eve. “He’s ambitious. In his younger days, he came here as a missionary, enduring hellish hardship, and what got him through it was his goal of becoming powerful and influential. He wants to establish a cathedral here. In other words, he wants to be an archbishop.”

  “An archbishop–” The word was practically synonymous with power.

  Eve nodded and continued. “As I said before, I may have fallen into disgrace, but I’m nobility. When I began searching this area for good business opportunities, I heard tell of a bishop turning an untoward profit. It was the bishop here. At the time, he was using a trade company as a front and using tithes to get in on the fur trade, but in the end, he just shut himself up in his church and counted figures. He was getting deeper and deeper in the red. So I proposed a way to kill two birds with one stone.”

  “And that would be the statue trade.”

  “Exactly. And I didn’t just sell him statues. I’m nobility of the kingdom of Winfiel, after all. I can still speak to those in power. I put him in contact with the archbishop there, whose power base is unshakable.”

  Lawrence found himself nodding internally.

  If that was true, then the statues were probably made by the same traveling stonemasons that the archbishop brought together to maintain his cathedral. Once the repairs to the intricate masonry of a cathedral were complete, they would normally either move on to another town or do piecemeal work.

  But even so, the amount of certain types of work is limited, which can be a source of friction between groups of masons in an area. And ironically, it was the itinerant stonemasons, who spent time polishing their skills, who were by far the most capable, and they were the only ones who could handle the maintenance on the intricate stonework of the cathedrals.

  So in towns that had a cathedral, whenever it required repair, the local stoneworkers worried about having their business stolen and being made superfluous.

  Which was how Eve’s business, based as it was on stonework, helped ease that concern.

  It was a bridge between th
e cathedral that wanted to hire traveling masons only when they were needed, the town, and the traveling masons themselves. Eve was then able to tell the archbishop there that the bishop in Lenos wanted to make his acquaintance and then ultimately make a profit moving stone statues from one town to another.

  It was an ideal situation; one in which all parties profited.

  “I’m glad you understand. That will make this easier to explain. It’s as you’ve said. The reason I contented myself with the thin margins I made by selling statues was because I was counting on the bishop here to become an archbishop. But then–”

  Lawrence could not tell whether the edge that crept into Eve’s voice was an act or a result of her suppressed anger.

  But so far all the facts fit; Eve’s story was all too plausible.

  “As the bishop profited from his deal with me and solidified his position, people around him started to divine what his goal was, and the bishop set about eliminating obstacles. The current affair was just a convenient excuse for him to cut me off. He owed me. He probably thought that the longer I was around, the more unfavorable demands I would make of him. And of course, I had planned to do exactly that. It was my right. But he decided he’d rather deal with an already-established trade firm instead of a single merchant just trying to establish herself. Even I can understand the reasoning, but that doesn’t mean I agree with it.”

  Lawrence mused to himself that anger burned as visibly as any flame.

  “So we argued, and we split,” finished Eve.

  Sitting next to Lawrence, Holo was so quiet that it was easy to forget she was there.

  Lawrence went over Eve’s story again in his head.

  It seemed to be entirely consistent. So consistent, in fact, that it made him suspicious.

  If it was a lie, it was a good enough one that he almost wouldn’t mind working with her anyway.

  “I see. So that’s what made it hard for you to turn your statues into cash and why you can’t very well just wait for next year’s northern campaign.”

  Eve’s silence beneath her cowl contrasted starkly with her previous garrulity.

  Lawrence took a slow, quiet breath.

  He closed his eyes.