Spice & Wolf Omnibus

by Isuna Hasekura

  That in turn explained the sudden change in Reynolds’s attitude when Col asked if he had found the remains.

  Reynolds had been surprised and dismayed – either angry at what would have been a half-hearted attempt at reconnaissance or imagining that Lawrence and company were taking their orders from Eve and acting as scouts.

  They had been treated to a meal not because they had been sent by Eve, but rather because Reynolds probably thought of them as simple sheep that Eve was carefully leading about.

  The obvious thing for him to do, then, would not be to engage in a lot of roundabout conversation and try to merely insinuate his true intent, but rather treat them to an easily understood meal.

  So the activities at the trading company could be dismantled.

  Even the most sinewy old goat could be butchered as long as one knew where to stick the knife.

  “So then, what shall we do?” asked Holo in a very matter-of-fact tone.

  But Lawrence got the sense that her amber eyes were tinged redder than usual.

  Her anger had surely returned the instant the notion that, despite deceiving them with its poor appearance, the Jean Company was still pursuing the wolf remains began to gather real weight.

  And there was no doubt that Holo was thinking, This time for certain.

  This time, for certain, she wanted to engage a vexing situation with her own fangs, claws, and brains. She would not let them get away with it.

  This she was surely thinking.

  And so she wanted her companion Lawrence’s answer.

  “It’s obvious…” Lawrence was about to continue when he felt another gaze upon him.

  Though he was keeping his mouth tightly shut, Col’s feelings seemed not terribly different from Holo’s.

  “We’ll investigate. And if there’s nothing there, that’s fine.”

  This was not one man’s merchant journey.

  It was not even the journey of two.

  It felt quite good to see everybody’s views in alignment and thereby decide on a course of action.

  He could see why the nobility competed so as to lead their knight brigades into battle.

  Though doing such things too often would be tiring.

  Holo had once shouldered the responsibility for an entire town, and it had turned bitter.

  In the end, she was never even thanked.

  He realized this was the first time he had been in this position, and that when he had first met the crying, dejected Holo, he had barely managed to improvise any comfort for her at all.

  And yet he quite thoroughly thought of himself as Holo’s guardian, which allowed Holo to easily trip him up.

  Lawrence, who must have seemed barely older than Col to Holo, hid his smile from her.

  He then took a deep breath and straightened his expression, speaking like a military commander. “Right, let me explain each of your roles.”

  Col looked serious, and Holo feigned seriousness, as both of them turned their ears to Lawrence’s plan.

  Chapter Three

  As Lawrence finished paying the tavern bill, Col and Holo amused themselves by trying to step on each other’s feet.

  Col stopped to look up at Lawrence, and Holo mercilessly took the opportunity to slam her foot down on Col’s.

  “I win!” she exclaimed proudly while Col humbly admitted, “I suppose I lost,” making it difficult to tell exactly who was the child.

  Of course, it is said the older one gets, the more one returns to childhood, and perhaps that was not wrong.

  “Now, then,” said Lawrence, and Col and Holo, looking almost like twins thanks to their similar heights, both turned back to him. “You’ve memorized your roles, then?”

  “Yes!”

  “Aye.”

  Col’s answer was the swifter.

  Lawrence had a sudden vision of what he must have looked like as a student in the capital of learning, Aquent.

  By contrast, Holo’s answer was curt and rude, and she yawned loudly.

  “I’m a little nervous,” confessed Col.

  “Don’t worry. If there’s one piece of advice I can give, it’s that the secret to telling a lie is telling yourself that depending on how you think about it, it’s actually the truth. That way you’re not actually lying,” Lawrence advised in response to Col’s uncertain smile.

  “Er… no, I’m all right. I’ll make sure to gather all the stories.”

  The boy seemed like a young knight bracing himself for his first battle. Lawrence patted his shoulder. “I’m sure you will,” he added.

  To Lawrence’s eye, Col would mature to match as much responsibility as he was given.

  He was not a mere slate-toting, chalk-dusted boy from Aquent.

  He possessed the practical skills he had managed to gather after being deceived, expelled, and forced to travel.

  Lawrence said he was sure Col would perform well, and it was no lie.

  “So, we’ll meet again in the evening.”

  “Yes.” Col nodded, his expression entirely different from when he had been trying to step on Holo’s feet, and walked off boldly.

  Though his receding form was small, it bore a certain dignity.

  Lawrence barely had time to wonder what his own back would have looked like at that age when he felt a tug at his sleeve.

  It was Holo, and though she was hardly a working woman trying to lure in a customer, somehow she seemed even more vicious than that.

  “So, shall I be off then, too?”

  “Er, yes.”

  Holo strode off immediately, then looked back at Lawrence, whose feet were a bit slower. “Hmm?” she queried.

  She was so fond of Col, and yet when it came time to put him through hardship, she was happy to do so.

  Or was it that she simply thought that highly of him?

  Lawrence didn’t think poorly of the boy himself, but he found it harder to trust so completely.

  “Will you really be all right on your own?” Lawrence could not prevent himself from asking.

  They were on their way to the landing for the ferry headed to the south side of the town.

  Since their collective had the advantage of containing three people, it would have been the height of stupidity to move in a group, so they had decided to split up to gather information.

  Col would be posing as a traveling beggar and head to the north side to find out what the other beggars had to say about the Jean Company.

  Holo would pretend to be a nun journeying north and head for the south-side church to determine its influence in the upper regions of the Roef and Roam Rivers.

  And Lawrence would make for the Rowan Trade Guild branch in the delta marketplace to see how the Jean Company’s business and the wolf remains were connected.

  Both Holo and Col were more capable than he was, so there was probably no need for concern.

  But Holo, with her ears and tail, was the personification of pagan faith.

  Despite her being the sharpest talker and thinker of all of them, Lawrence was still uneasy at the prospect of letting her go alone.

  “Perhaps – perhaps I should go with you–”

  Holo was a few steps ahead of Lawrence as she began walking, cutting through the crowd.

  When she looked back at him, he stopped short of continuing his statement.

  “So ’tis well and good for the boy Col to go off on his own, but you haven’t the conviction to let me go alone?” Her amber eyes were narrowed and flashed red.

  Past her, Lawrence could see the landing for the ferry, livelier than its northbound counterpart.

  “That’s not what I meant, but…”

  “Aye, and what did you mean?”

  Even if he could rationalize this or that aspect of his worry for Holo, at its core the concern was irrational.

  But more importantly, Holo was angry.

  “I’m sorry,” he answered, and Holo promptly poked him in the chest.

  “You fool.”

  “–?” />
  Holo glared at him, angrier every moment, then suddenly turned away indignantly.

  Lawrence rubbed the spot on his chest she had inexplicably prodded, and after a moment, Holo sighed and looked back at him. “You truly are a terribly clumsy ruler.”

  “Ruler?”

  “A terribly clumsy one, yes,” she repeated, and Lawrence scratched his head. “Firstly, I haven’t the faintest notion why you wouldn’t let me go alone in this situation.”

  As ever, Lawrence did not understand what she was talking about. “Well, I mean… just, if something were to happen…”

  “Aye, and the same holds true for Col. Listen, you–”

  “A-all right…” Lawrence straightened himself in response to Holo’s sudden awkwardness, as if she were trying to articulate something difficult to express.

  Holo turned her gaze from the riverbank back to Lawrence, and he found her countenance accusatory.

  If his memory served, she was trying to hide her embarrassment over something.

  “You’re the general awaiting my report, are you not? And Col and I are your hands. So if you’ll only put us each to hard use, you’d better hold our reins.”

  Lawrence could see the ferry drift into view, approaching the dock as it crossed the busy river.

  At the same time, he had a vague sense of what Holo meant. “Because success and wanting me to praise you are the same?”

  Holo made a pained expression and looked away. So that had to be it.

  And it was probably true.

  He had but to praise Holo if she were more successful than Col and console her if she failed.

  But if he helped Holo with her duty, Col would be the only one praised or consoled.

  She was right about that, Lawrence knew, but there was still something he did not understand – and that was the reason why Holo, whose embarrassment was no act, would tell him this.

  The ferry had arrived at the pier, but owing to the crowd, they had to wait in line.

  Holo looked like she was making a great effort not to let her ears and tail move about too much beneath her robe. “You wish to have a shop of your own someday, do you not? If so, you’ve much to learn about using others,” she said.

  “Ah–” Lawrence couldn’t help but cover his mouth.

  She was right.

  If he had a shop, he would have to employ other people.

  Sometimes he would need to control others, and other times he would require their loyalty.

  And though Lawrence was accustomed to doing so one-on-one, when it came to larger groups of people, he had never even thought about it.

  “And yet you dare to take hold of my reins?” Holo put a hand on her hip and cocked her head in mock disbelief.

  Lawrence surrendered, though he kept his eye on the line, which had started to move. “That’s what’s so charming about me, right?” he asked with a taciturn mien, which did not appear to give Holo any great pleasure, and she replied with her head still cocked.

  “Perhaps.”

  “Well, then, I’m counting on you.”

  “I can still see the worry in your face, but I shall take your words for what they’re worth.”

  Lawrence paid the ferryman, explaining the circumstances and giving him enough for the return trip.

  “Some wheat bread would be nice for dinner.”

  “If you succeed, yes,” said Lawrence.

  At this, Holo left him with a smile, and the hem of her robe whirled as she hopped aboard the ferry.

  The town of Kerube was divided north from south by the river, and there was no church on the north side.

  That was evidence that most pagans lived on the north side, while Church adherents were more prevalent on the south side. Historically, this evidently came from the fact that orthodox merchants tended to come up from the south and thus bought land and settled on the south side of the town.

  But as the north and south sides became more distinct, it became tempting to want to look at the town as a microcosm of the world.

  On the north side, building heights and street widths were highly varied, while on the south side they were precisely regulated, the neat rows of buildings lining the streets. Lawrence was sure there were no bored-looking mules yawning in front of loading docks on the south side.

  It was hard to tell from the north side, but from the delta marketplace, he could clearly see the towering spire that the south-side church had collected sufficient tithes to build, its height all too obviously reaching for the heavens, and within it, there in the closest place in the town to God, hung a beautiful golden bell.

  Dressed as a nun, Holo was apparently going to try to collect information by claiming she was returning from the south to her homeland in the north, and asking whether her town was still under pagan control. Lawrence had carefully explained to her what sorts of questions Church people were likely to ask her, but even without that advice, Holo was more than quick tongued enough to get the information they needed.

  Still, she and Lawrence had always stayed together when investigating things or formulating plans in the past, and sending her off to do it alone was a strange sensation.

  Lawrence would undoubtedly feel the same way when he got a shop and hired people to help him.

  But then it suddenly occurred to him to wonder if, when that time came, Holo would be there.

  “…”

  Lawrence scratched his head and sighed.

  If that was the sort of thing he was worried about, then perhaps she should be the one concerned about leaving him alone, he was sure she would say.

  Lawrence smiled to himself, watching Holo cross the river along with all the other passengers before eventually turning his back and walking away.

  His destination was the delta marketplace branch of the Rowen Trade Guild.

  He was not crossing the river with Holo and visiting the main office for the simple reason that the people with whom he was acquainted were not there.

  In keeping with the delta marketplace’s status as a crucial trade link between the north and south sides of the town, every trade guild kept an office there to connect with traveling comrades and collect information on goods. Since buildings were regulated, guilds could not use them to compete with one another the way they did in town, but they were still constructed to best show off each guild’s specialties. Lawrence could look at each one and guess which trade guild it represented.

  Dozens or hundreds of merchants were attached to each trade house, all desperately competing with one another, and when Lawrence thought of this, it seemed a wonder to him.

  There was that much commerce in the world, and it had yet to run dry.

  Lawrence knocked on the door of his familiar-looking guild, feeling as if he were knocking on the cabin door of a small ship afloat upon a very large sea.

  “Oh, now, there’s a rare face.” There were several merchants on the first floor of the guild house, all of them dressed for travel.

  “It’s been too long, Kieman.”

  Within the room and directly opposite the door sat the master of the branch. The man, Kieman, with his beautiful blond hair, had been born to trade.

  His father was a prominent trader in Kerube, and thanks to that, Kieman had seen more goods from distant lands than anyone else, despite never having traveled far. His features were easily fine enough to have been a bard’s, and unlike the other merchants on the house’s first floor, who were trading wine and gossip, he bore not a single callus on his hands.

  Kieman was the prototypical rich man’s son, but while it seemed that the road-dusted merchants would inevitably hate him, their trust in him was actually rather strong.

  Although he was perhaps two years younger than Lawrence, unlike Lawrence, he made his living within a town.

  Those who did business in a town had no need to seek skills like being able to walk all day and night without collapsing or how to do business with someone whose language they did not speak.

  Kieman was
seen by the traveling merchants as someone to whom they could entrust the tiny amount of temporary residence they enjoyed at the guild house.

  “Indeed, it has, Kraft Lawrence. You’ve arrived this time by land, I take it?”

  Perhaps no sea vessels had arrived in the past few days. “No, by ship – though it was via the river and not the sea.”

  At these words, Kieman brushed his chin with the feather end of his quill pen as he looked around the room.

  It was said that he had thousands of maps’ worth of knowledge of the land in his head.

  Despite having met Lawrence but twice, he was searching his mind for the trade route by which Lawrence had arrived.

  “I’m not on my usual route. There was some trouble in Lenos.”

  “Ah, I see.”

  Kieman’s smile revealed even less than Holo’s inscrutable smile.

  Town merchants lived for decades in the same towns in which they were born, and in so doing, they learned all of one another’s facial tics and tells, the better to divine one another’s true intentions. As a result, town merchants were far craftier than traveling merchants. The fact of his youth made the young master of this branch office all the more imposing.

  With effort, Lawrence kept his composure and produced the silver coins that were the customary offering upon visiting a trade house, then spoke.

  “I saw rather an interesting show by the spring of gold.”

  “Heh. An interesting show, indeed, Mr. Lawrence – most impressive. Though it’s a rather impenetrable display, even for a traveling merchant.”

  Not so much as glancing at the five trenni that Lawrence placed there, Kieman leaned across the counter and smiled like a child let in on a secret.

  “One never knows where the sting may be laid, even in a seemingly transparent conversation. Even now Chief Jeeta at the main office is out and about, trying to protect our coin purses.”

  Of House Chief Jeeta, the man who headed the Rowen Trade Guild in Kerube, Lawrence knew nothing but his name, so there was a possibility he had been among the merchants Eve called out to.

  Which would mean that despite Eve not living in Kerube and leading a company here, she was facing off against various leaders of trade guilds in the city before they could band together as a faction.