Spice & Wolf Omnibus

by Isuna Hasekura

  “I brought the hot water!” echoed Col’s voice throughout the room.

  He held the door open with his back as he carried the washtub in. It had to be heavy, and the steam that rose from it had collected on his face, covering it in droplets of water. There was no question the boy had labored mightily on Lawrence and Holo’s behalf.

  What reason could there be for him to be angry at such a boy?

  Still standing beside the bed, Lawrence smiled benevolently. “Good job,” he complimented.

  Still, an unpleasant sweat ran down his back.

  The moment the knock on the door had come, Holo had made a truly vicious expression.

  Had her ears been twitching because she had heard Col’s approaching footsteps?

  “What’s the matter?” Col asked.

  While Lawrence’s serene expression had been perfect, the mood in the room could not be changed so quickly.

  Col’s face looked a bit doubtful, but Lawrence feigned ignorance as best he could.

  Holo was probably grinning atop her pillow behind him.

  But the most irritating part of all of this was not Holo’s enjoyment of Lawrence having blundered into the trap she’d set for him.

  Lawrence put his hand to his left cheek, pretending to scratch an itch.

  “I had them make it quite hot, so if it’s too warm, I’ll fetch some cold water,” said Col, putting down the tub and placing two washcloths in it.

  How much more pleasant travel would be, Lawrence mused, if he had an apprentice as thoughtful as Col.

  “I understand. Thank you, Col.”

  “No, I’m the one who forced myself along on your journey. This is the least I can do.”

  His guileless smile made Lawrence muse that it would not be a bad idea to treat him to something tasty for dinner.

  If Holo were to give Lawrence the same treatment, he reckoned he would be bankrupt within a month.

  “Well, then, I shall help myself to the hot water straightaway. I can hardly believe how well this salve worked, but still, ’tis rather hard on my poor nose,” said Holo as she climbed out of bed, at which Col seemed taken aback.

  It appeared he truly did not find the odor of the salve unpleasant at all.

  “Aye, ’tis good and hot. I’ll douse myself in it before it turns lukewarm.”

  Holo plunged her hand into the tub and swirled the water around. It was still steaming energetically, but because the room was rather cold, the water was probably not as hot as it seemed.

  “Ah, yes. If you’re not careful, you’ll catch cold,” said Lawrence, and Holo took one of the washcloths, wrung it out, and lightly tossed it in his direction.

  Catching it, he felt its damp warmth. Holo was right; it would be best to wipe himself clean sooner rather than later.

  As the thought occurred to Lawrence, he went to remove the cloth from his right cheek, when he noticed Col, a short distance away, looking down uncomfortably.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked, though there was no need to, as Col seemed to have mustered the courage to speak.

  “E-er, I’ll just… be outside,” he said, finishing his words with a forced smile.

  He was obviously apprehensive about something.

  As he was going out into the hall, he even gave Lawrence a significant look, as though Col had been entrusted with a deep and serious secret. Lawrence now knew all too well what the boy was surely thinking.

  At the klunk of the closing door, Lawrence looked at Holo, who was wringing the other washcloth out with a serious expression.

  “If he’s in such a state, your talk with the vixen must have been friendly indeed.”

  The reasoning behind Col’s serious expression went something like this.

  For Col to have mistaken Lawrence and Eve’s past conflict as a lovers’ quarrel, Lawrence and Eve must have appeared to be quite close.

  However, Lawrence knew full well that if he were to actually be involved with Eve, it would only amount to a loss for him.

  “He looked at me like he was promising to keep my secret forever.”

  Holo glanced up, her face softening. “Heh-heh-heh. When he looked at me, it was as though he felt some deep pity.” Squatting down, she brought her knees together and rested her chin atop them. “You’d have more charm if you were a bit more like him.”

  Not immediately replying to the statement, Lawrence peeled the cloth from his face.

  A ginger touch to his cheek revealed that the swelling had gone down considerably, and he felt essentially no pain.

  The medicine had been so effective that he found himself wondering if there might be a profit in it somewhere.

  “Well, you know what they say – a bit of vermilion turns everything red. I’ve spent so much time around you that all my charm’s gone.”

  Lawrence wiped his cheek vigorously with the washcloth. Wiping his face with a cloth soaked in hot water was an indescribably pleasant sensation.

  Holo followed his example, scrubbing her neck with the wrung-out washcloth and twitching her ears.

  She seemed a bit surprised upon looking at the color of the cloth after giving her neck a once-over.

  “’Tis true, and whoever said a bit of vermilion turns all red was wise indeed. After all, your face is always red.”

  Lawrence wiped his face again with what portion of the washcloth was free of the salve, and once he was clean, looked at Holo. “Not so much recently, though, no?”

  “And whose mouth would say so?” inquired Holo, seemingly taken aback. Though he knew he was being provoked, Lawrence could not help but sulk a bit.

  But when he saw Holo’s mouth curl into a smile, he knew he had fallen into a snare.

  “You claim otherwise, then? Well, since that boy’s so considerately left us alone…” said Holo, rinsing her washcloth in the tub and wringing it clean before standing up.

  Then she tossed the cloth at Lawrence and quickly stripped off the robe that covered her upper body.

  Caught unawares, Lawrence was unavoidably startled.

  Holo turned to him and put a hand on her shoulder. “Care to wash my back?” she offered flirtatiously.

  While Holo thought nothing of showing her naked body, she was aware that the experience was different for Lawrence.

  It was outrageous for her to capitalize on his sense of propriety.

  Lawrence gave that excuse to his flustering, then balled up the washcloth and tossed it back at Holo.

  The medicine Col made worked miraculously well.

  While Holo still felt a bit shy of recovered, given how little time she’d had the salve on, it was almost unbelievably effective.

  The swelling in Lawrence’s face was mostly gone, as well.

  But since Holo had reached out and pinched his cheek, asking, “And just how are you feeling?” he could not deny that the redness had increased.

  He thought he was going to see stars, but while she was being awfully spiteful, Holo also seemed frustrated and angry, so he made no counterattack.

  Evidently, she could not stomach his tossing the washcloth back at her.

  This didn’t seem to be an act, so she must have actually wanted him to wash her back.

  From that perspective, he was the one in the wrong, and so Lawrence felt himself to be in a difficult place.

  “So, what’s this? The trading company you’re about to visit is involved in some foolish scheme?”

  They had ventured out along the most obvious street and were headed for the riverside marketplace. A marketplace implied stalls, and Lawrence had been prepared for Holo’s begging.

  But he had not imagined that she would bolt for the very first stall she sniffed.

  He followed her with his eyes, feeling something like a faint headache, and saw that the stall had heated stones atop of which sea snails sizzled and frothed as they were cooked in their shells.

  “We’re going to figure out whether they are scheming, but according to Eve, there’s a good possibility that the
y are.”

  Whether or not Holo was actually listening to him, her eyes shone as she wordlessly prodded him.

  As she wasn’t going to take no for an answer, Lawrence decided to avoid a pointless struggle.

  The shopkeeper was busily shaving skewers with a knife, and when Lawrence presented him with a blackened copper coin, he adroitly took a skewer and extracted the snail meat from a shell with it, and in no time at all, he had three snails skewered.

  Lawrence ordered three servings of the same.

  Just as he was thinking it was rather cheap, it turned out the salt that gave the shellfish their delightful flavor cost extra.

  Lawrence grinned and gave some choice words of complaint to the shrewd shopkeeper, then asked where he could find the Jean Company.

  He had to get his information fee’s worth.

  “Even if we go, will they really talk to us?” asked Col after taking one of the skewers and giving his thanks.

  Naturally, Lawrence had already cleared up the boy’s misunderstanding about Eve.

  “That’s just as Eve said. It’ll depend on my skill.”

  “I do not like our chances,” mocked Holo, but given Col’s nervous smile, Lawrence decided to play the clown.

  “Still, though,” continued Holo as she looked at the opposite side of the river, “how different things can be, even in the same city.”

  The inn in which Lawrence and company were staying was situated at the mouth of the Roam River, on the north side of the port town of Kerube, which was divided into north and south by the river that ran through it.

  The marketplace and grander buildings were unsurprisingly concentrated along the river’s edges, and while they were moderately lively, this was only in comparison with the inn’s neighborhood.

  A bit past the wide avenue that ran along the river was the strikingly pebbled riverbank itself. Since this was the river’s mouth, the bank was quite broad, with the water some distance away. Looking to the right, there was the sea, and even Lawrence’s nose could smell the salt. Across the river was the south side of the town, and before it, constructed on the river’s great delta, was the largest marketplace in the great port town of Kerube.

  As to the question of which of the town’s three sections was the liveliest, it went without saying that it was the delta. And as to where the grandest buildings were, they were in the south.

  The north side of the town, where Lawrence and his companions were, seemed rather drab by comparison.

  Owing to the haze of distance, it was difficult to make out the number of ships berthed in the southern harbor and the amount of goods piled in the delta marketplace, but it was clear that across the river there was more of everything.

  It sometimes happened that different places within a town were possessed of entirely different ambiances. And when that town was divided by a river, it might well seem like two separate towns entirely.

  “If we cross over, there should be a Rowen Trade Guild house.”

  “That was where merchants from your hometown all gather, aye?”

  “Yes. However, since the place has a sort of branch office in the delta marketplace, I’ve never actually been to the central house.”

  Lawrence pointed to the delta town that lay right where the river met the sea.

  While the term town might not have been precisely accurate, to a merchant the place was a city unto itself.

  Even from this distance, the overcrowding of the salt wind-grayed two-and three-story buildings there was obvious.

  It felt like the clamor of the marketplace might be audible at any moment should the wind pick it up and carry it over the river.

  If Holo lowered her hood and listened, she would probably have been able to make out the bustle.

  “Seems rather more lively over there. Shall we go and see?”

  “I imagine you’re only interested in the food,” said Lawrence, eliciting a childish scowl from Holo.

  It had a purposefulness to it, as though Holo was saying she was wholly confident she would be able to get him to take her later anyway.

  Lawrence’s shoulders slumped as if admitting he knew she was right, and he started walking but suddenly stopped.

  This was because Col had been quiet for some time. He was staring out at the shoal.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Col spun around in response to Lawrence’s question. “Ah, er… nothing…”

  “Nothing?” queried Holo, plucking Col’s skewer away and eating one of the two remaining snails on it. “Lies are a poor reprisal.” She made as though to plunge her fangs into the last morsel, her eyes on Col. “Still you have nothing to say?”

  Lawrence had heard that many animals treated their young severely; apparently wolves were among their number.

  He couldn’t help but think it.

  However, Holo was just as bad when it came to honestly saying what she wanted.

  Lawrence still clearly remembered the town they had arrived at after they first met, where Holo had shown such unsightly lust for the apples there. Lately she had entirely ceased putting on such displays, but her persistent prodding of Col now was probably rooted in her memories of her past self.

  “Uh… um…” But Col was not only young, he was also a boy. “I’d like to go to the delta.”

  Unlike Holo, he looked smartly up at Lawrence when he said so, which was rather splendid.

  Lawrence took the skewer out of Holo’s hand and gave it back to Col. He added, “He’s better at this than you,” to Holo and got a kick for his trouble. “You’re not my apprentice, so I plan to fully repay you for the salve you made for us. Your preparedness was audacious.”

  Strange words, but the phrase fit Col perfectly.

  Maybe it was just his basic honesty or his personality, but left alone, he seemed likely to become more apprentice-like than a real apprentice.

  But Lawrence knew the world did not always reward such generosity, and that knowledge made him worry for the boy. If he wanted to take advantage of Col, how easy it would have been.

  “… I understand,” Col replied with a confused smile.

  He probably saw that Lawrence and Holo were worried, hence his answer.

  Such things happened all the time in comical tales.

  A master would set his faithful, obedient slave free, saying, “Go now, live your life free – you need no longer serve anyone.” And the slave would then faithfully keep his master’s order, living the rest of his life without ever serving another.

  So was the slave who kept his master’s last order until the very end truly free?

  Col’s confused smile may well have come from him imagining himself the same as the slave in the tale.

  “However, let me just say this. It will not be right away. Merchants are a hasty lot, and if I don’t take care of this business first, I’ll be useless.”

  “I understand. But…” said Col, scratching his head bashfully. “I’ll be looking forward to it.”

  Lawrence let himself imagine what it would be like if Holo were so honest, but he didn’t look at her.

  He could see her well enough in the corner of his field of view with her unamused smile.

  “I’ve come to this town three times, but the truth is, I’ve never been to the delta,” said Col.

  “Because of the ferryman’s fee?”

  Col nodded.

  If he couldn’t afford the ferryman’s fee to get to the delta, Lawrence wanted to know just how he had managed to cross the Roam River.

  Given Col’s persistence, he might well have bound his clothes about his head and simply swum across.

  “So, I’ve never been to the south side, but what about you?” Lawrence asked as the three of them walked, once Col had finished eating his shellfish.

  “The south side is… The town is very beautiful there.”

  The hesitation in the boy’s statement came as he looked around briefly, then lowered his voice.

  It was true, then – even a glance
at the riverbanks made the difference between the two halves very clear.

  It was probably related to pagans being more numerous on the north side, while the south had more merchants and orthodox church members.

  Among merchants, the ones from the southern side were far wealthier, and money tended to gather in places where there was already concentrated wealth.

  “But there is more almsgiving on this side,” said Col.

  “Is that so? I’d heard that the north side had more people from the north country, but still.”

  “I believe so. There are many people here who were born in Roef. But even if that weren’t so, I have the feeling that people on this side are simply kinder.”

  Lawrence scratched the tip of his nose and thought about how to reply.

  The conflict between north and south was as delicate a subject as the conflict between wolves and humans.

  “That’s because the harsher the climate, the kinder the people who live there,” Lawrence answered, at which Col smiled widely.

  Though Col was broad-minded enough to travel alone into the south to study Church law, he still took innocent pleasure in hearing northern people favorably compared to southerners.

  Lawrence was struck anew by the fact and felt as if he could understand why the biggest center of commerce in the city was situated on the river delta.

  It was a buffer zone between the north and the south.

  Alternatively, it might serve as neutral territory.

  “But–” Col spoke up as Lawrence continued walking and looking out at the delta. “The people in the south always seem very happy,” he said considerately.

  Lawrence was a bit surprised, and his expression slowly shifted to a smile. “It’s easier to make wine in warm weather, after all.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  There was no mistaking that given a few years, Col would turn into a pleasant young man.

  Lawrence could think of nothing that would refute the obvious prediction.

  Neither, he was sure, could Holo.

  As they walked, she smiled happily and held Col’s hand, which may well have been an investment on her part.

  The itchy notion was both amusing and a source of jealousy, and just as it occurred to Lawrence, Holo shot him a sidelong glance from beneath her hood.