Spice & Wolf Omnibus

by Isuna Hasekura

  Lawrence was the exception, but did not interrupt.

  “There’s talk of war. There’s talk of dangerous dealings. That place is finally gonna get it, and so forth.

  “Anyway, dangerous talk like this has been spreading among dangerous people – like us – since, oh, autumn of last year. A while after that, people who believed and people who didn’t started gathering here in twos and threes. Once the Great Northern Campaign was canceled, people who didn’t find other work and had nowhere else to go came here… and got caught up in a strange situation.”

  The mercenary, who surely had to be doggedly realistic, used the word strange.

  That fact truly was strange.

  “The Debau Company offered us lodging. Food, too.”

  “Wha–?”

  Lawrence looked all around. When he finally returned his gaze to Luward, the man nodded firmly.

  “It’s the same for pretty much all the other mercenary companies. It got us excited. If they’re being this generous, the war’s for real, we all said.”

  Merchants absolutely did not do futile things. If they paid money, there was some scheme afoot. To say nothing of giving peacetime-hating mercenaries a warm welcome; even a child could predict a fierce conflict.

  “Anyway, this situation’s continued for us for two weeks now; for the group that’s been here the longest, two months. Can you believe it? They say the Debau Company’s currently paying out twenty lumione gold pieces per day to maintain us here. And yet–” Luward cut off his words and walked to the shelf. Then, he pulled out one of the bundles of parchment and tossed it atop the table.

  Lawrence did not grasp the contents, but based on the structure, these looked like contract forms.

  “These are documents for swearing oaths to the Debau Company. ‘Under your patronage, we shall be thy sword and thy shield…’ and so forth. Normally, we exchange these documents for gold, hire some men with it, fill our bellies with meat and wine, get drunk, and sally forth to the battlefield. But the Debau Company wouldn’t accept these.”

  “Wouldn’t accept?”

  Lawrence could not understand it, either. Expediency was prized in war. If one dillydallied in making preparations, their opponent was preparing, while their expenses were climbing and their men’s morale was dropping. All the more so if one was providing food and lodging to every lout who showed up; surely as the numbers climbed, it was imperative to take command and begin proper military operations.

  Luward sighed and gazed out the window once more. He seemed sad that there was not a battlefield right outside.

  “The talk is, they don’t know how powerful nobles are going to move. That the Debau Company is closely watching which way they’ll go and won’t move until it’s sure. Well, that I can understand. In this land, if you don’t know who’s working with whom and where, you’ll make a critical mistake, and that means dying on some lonely, narrow snow-covered path.

  “There’s talk among the nobles that they’re dragging the decision out while feeding the soldiers to garrison the town with more troops than they can possibly support. That’s possible, too, and in fact, we are eating for free. The Debau Company isn’t deciding where to invade, isn’t positioning military forces, and all we have to worry about day to day is deciding what to pick from the menu.”

  It was a long speech, surely because Luward himself was annoyed at the situation. Lawrence had the feeling he was much more at home stretched and exhausted fighting around the world than spending his days in idleness.

  “So, Yoitsu is safe. Though ‘for now’ is all I can really say.”

  “I see your point…”

  “However…” Luward narrowed his eyes as he paused mid-sentence.

  It felt like he was pondering whether it was better to say this or not, finally deciding it was best to say it.

  Clearing his throat, restraining his voice, he continued.

  “The Debau Company is unusually clever. Right now, to a greater or lesser extent, the people assembled in Lesko have connections to the northlands. Among them are those, like you, who think of the northlands as most precious. We are no exception to that.”

  As he spoke, Luward walked toward a map stretched across a wall.

  That map of the northlands looked like an enlarged version of the one they had received from Fran. That probably meant the map they asked Fran for was accurate and, moreover, that the larger map was more detailed.

  Luward put his finger on one spot on the map. There was Tolkien. Its old name, Yoitsu.

  “We’re thinking of taking position here. However, we’re not foolish enough to subjugate our own homeland, especially now that we know Holo the Wisewolf truly exists.”

  He said it in jest, but it was difficult to claim he was completely joking.

  Just from what little Luward knew of Holo from legend, Holo was absolutely not one who should be angered. He had to eliminate even the possibility of a misunderstanding.

  “… To defend it, then?”

  Luward nodded. So he had been minded to do battle with the Debau Company. Lawrence had thought of it as well, but a mercenary company’s leader had to live even more realistically than a merchant.

  “In a sense. That’s to say, there are a number of paths in Tolkien used by hunters and hermits that stretch into the Sverner region to the northeast. If there is war, the Sverner outskirts are geographically and politically significant, so it’ll definitely get mixed up in the fighting. If the people there run, part of them will follow those paths straight to Tolkien. We intend to put a stop to that.”

  “… And therefore, the slave-trading Delink Company.”

  As Lawrence muttered to himself, Luward nodded.

  “Yes. Every village there is barely scraping by. There’ll be wounded soldiers, of course, but most following those paths will be fleeing civilians. The moment they arrive, those villages are finished. We were to capture them as slaves, protect the villages, and make money off it, too. The Delink Company’s legendary for good clientele, so add prisoners for ransom and we’d be fat on a bit of treasure and refinements by the time we got home.”

  Lawrence did not know if it would go exactly as described, but he felt that Luward’s way of thinking was indeed much like a merchant’s.

  “The Debau Company’s been extremely proactive in heading us off from that kind of plan.”

  “Meaning?”

  “It seems they’re assigning jobs, taking into account people not wanting to tear up their homelands.”

  “But it’s not possible for them to put everyone in defensive roles like that?”

  As Lawrence asked his question, Luward pursed his lips and looked at Lawrence for a while. He resembled a master watching a prized apprentice make a simple mistake.

  “For better or worse, the Debau Company is a mine operator. And not everyone thinks mine development is a calamity.”

  “Ah.”

  “Exactly. Shaving off mountains, cutting down the forests, making money digging up copper and silver – in the towns, there are a lot of people who think it’s great and are all for it. Of course everyone has someplace precious to them, but the rest of the world may burn. The Debau Company slips through those cracks. Take any group of people, and a bunch of them are from cold villages with good ore deposits in their homeland and want development. The Debau Company cooperates with those afraid of it. Of course, it cooperates with those who welcome it with open arms. This way it minimizes the hatred of people in the land, making taking control of the northlands go well. It’s possible that detaining so many mercenaries and knights here with food and lodging is to make that feat work all the better.”

  In the first place, the motive for employing mercenaries, supplementing one’s military forces aside, was primarily so that they would bear all the hatred of the people in the lands being invaded.

  That being the case, one should act in line with aspirations of the land from the beginning. By assembling a wide enough variety of impoverished mer
cenaries from a variety of lands, bearing the burdens of their lances day by day, one could position himself to respond to the hopes of any land in sight.

  That is what Lawrence thought, but Luward’s face showed considerable skepticism once again.

  “In the end it’s all rumor. People think of all kinds of things when they have time on their hands.”

  He brought his hands together in a light clap, as if to rub them against each other, showing his palms as if to say, “All right, that’s enough.”

  When Lawrence thought calmly about it, what Luward had presented while explaining this and that were largely his personal opinions.

  However, no doubt this was less trying to impose his views on Lawrence and closer to talking about everything he could think out. That was probably out of fear of Holo. Lawrence felt like a fox leaning on the might of the wolf, but Luward being cooperative was by no means a bad thing.

  Lawrence rose from his seat and extended a handshake as he spoke his thanks.

  “I’m sure Holo is thankful as well.”

  Luward gripped Lawrence’s hand in return while replying, “Too bad I can’t solve all your problems, though.” Surely that could only have been the case if God had placed everyone in the world purely for Lawrence and Holo’s benefit.

  But Lawrence knew too much of the world to think that way.

  “Life is too long for every problem to have a simple solution.”

  “Ha-ha. How true.”

  As Luward spoke, he poured more wine into Lawrence’s cup.

  “Well, that’s how it is. I’m still happy I fulfilled the promise in my father and grandfather’s places. Not for that reason, but by all means, I wish to ease the strains of your travels. By the way, the Debau Company’s paying for this, too.”

  Lawrence drank the fine wine poured into his cup without restraint.

  The next day, Holo’s mind seemed to be elsewhere from the moment she awoke.

  Perhaps because she had slept from crying and exhaustion the day before without waiting for the sun to set, she had woken during the night and could not have slept much since.

  Luward, who did not live the carefree life of a guest as much as he claimed, said that there was an occasion that night he could not miss, so instead of inviting Lawrence and Holo to dinner, he had an extravagant meal brought up to their room. Wheat bread. Chicken roasted with spice. Thick soup with quail. Grilled venison with beef stew. Carp served with vegetables. And after the main course, pudding and raisins, with dried raspberries. The drinks ran the gamut from beer to wine to distilled liquor. He did not think the Debau Company was paying for all this; Luward must have paid for it himself to show his respect toward Holo.

  However, Holo only ate half as much as she usually did.

  He thought that she might wake from a nap, drawn to delicious, high-end cuisine even if it was cold, and she would be back to her old self, but it was not to be. She did wait for Lawrence to rise, greeting him briefly, but nothing went beyond eating some bread and lightly moistening her lips with wine.

  Aghast at the thought of returning a plate with such an abundance of food on it, Lawrence filled his belly with as much as it could take. He took what food could be preserved and stuffed it with the rest of the luggage. Even so, when a youngster came to take the plate down, there was enough left to quietly hand the youngster some as well.

  But the good thing was, even if she was forcing it, Holo smiled at Lawrence several times.

  And even though Holo still looked fragile enough she might crack and crumble to pieces, if she would only gently draw near and close, Lawrence would have been perfectly happy with nothing more.

  The blunt truth was, Lawrence did not know what words to use to console her. Whatever he might say to her, he could not permit his own irresponsible words to cause Holo further pain.

  Lawrence realized he had not yet lost someone truly precious to him. If someone were to offer appropriate words to him after losing someone precious, in Lawrence’s case, that would no doubt be after losing Holo.

  But if he did lose Holo, he wondered if he would even want anyone by his side to console him. Try as he might, he could not imagine it. Right now Holo was the most precious person to him and surely would always be; he could say that with pride now.

  As Holo leaned her face against Lawrence’s shoulder, gazing out through the open shutter at the blue sky, he took her hand, giving her curved nails a gentle stroke. The nails were smooth as silk, with her slender fingers colder than usual, probably because of the winter air coming in through the open shutter.

  Even so, he did not feel the cold, partly thanks to both of them snuggling under a wool blanket together; mostly because while he was stroking her nails, Holo was tickling his cheek with the pointy tips of her ears.

  If one must travel together, it was best to have a partner who could rely on him as much as he relied on her.

  But after a while Holo pulled her hand back and rested her face against his arm.

  A moment after Lawrence realized this was to hold back tears suddenly welling up again, Lawrence strongly grasped Holo’s hand, largely by reflex.

  “Let’s go outside.”

  Holo’s nose crinkled, tears still pouring from her eyes.

  It would have been nice to stay in the room like this, taking advantage of Luward’s goodwill until Holo’s wounds were healed. However, Lawrence was a money-making merchant and had to act like one. Lawrence knew he had to go outside, even if Holo was against it.

  More than anything, no matter how sad or trying things were, to quietly stay here waiting for wounds to heal would be nothing short of going back to the wheat fields of Pasloe.

  He was beside her now.

  He thought that if he did not bring her outside with him, having held her hand until now would have been meaningless.

  “But it might be cold out there, so bundle up.”

  Though having said that, there was no need for rough medicine.

  They would go out bundled up, and if it was too hot, they would just take the extra layers off.

  Even now, as Holo vaguely glanced up at Lawrence, her face still looked ready to cry, but in the end she quietly nodded.

  Lawrence deliberately smiled with a “Good!” and made preparations. Though he had done so on occasions when Holo was quite drunk, he made a special effort to treat her like a princess this time. He wrapped her waistcloth, put on her shoes, got her cape on, put her robe up all the way over her head so that it hid her hair and her ears, and wrapped a fox shawl around her neck.

  She seemed gloomy when he started, but midway she was simply letting him proceed.

  Of course, when she rose from the bed, he was guiding her by the hand.

  Holo seemed a bit exasperated, but if it served as a trigger to lighten her mood even a little, all the better.

  Even if it was an irritated smile, a smiling face was a smiling face.

  And he had confidence in his ability to get under her skin.

  As she scratched and slapped herself into wakefulness several times over, Lawrence took Holo’s slender hand and led her out of the room.

  Perhaps because her eyes were tired from crying, or perhaps because she indeed had not slept much the night before, Holo squinted and turned her face away from the light when they went outside the inn. Though on cold days, travelers setting out found clear skies welcoming while they lasted, Holo seemed to resent it.

  Lawrence immediately moved to ask, “Do you want something to eat?” but as he had seen for himself, food and wine had not improved Holo’s mood, and the words stuck in his throat.

  And if she wanted to eat something while walking around town, she would no doubt say so.

  At any rate, Lawrence pulled Holo’s hand and threw himself into the lively flow of people.

  Thinking the mercenaries were surely occupying the tavern on the first floor, Lawrence asked the youngster to lead them to the back door. Even the back door had a street purely for moving around cargo. Thou
gh less congested than the main streets, there were still wagons and people constantly passing back and forth. Many traveled in carriages; there was no pause in the flow of pedestrians.

  He wondered if ingredients for the meals that mercenary bosses like Luward were procuring were among the cargo: chicken, pig, domesticated duck, and vegetables so vibrant in color for the season. When he peeked into the baggage of one stopped wagon, there was apparently a honeycomb packed with honey in a large square box. It went without saying that the northlands, with such an abundance of trees, had appropriately large beehives, but he cracked the lid open to peek anyway.

  In the forest, it was bears and wild dogs that ravaged beehives. It seemed something Holo might go for, but she made no show of interest whatsoever.

  He thought not meeting her pack mate from her homeland, Myuri, was indeed something that could not be wiped away by simply bringing her outside. It would have been better if that message had been more positive, but it was not.

  The wolf had lost his claw, split it in half, and wrote a sardonic message on it. However you thought about it, Myuri was in this world no longer. Lawrence felt that if he yet lived, there would surely be different words written upon the claw.

  “That hurts.”

  As Holo spoke, Lawrence realized for the first time how hard Lawrence’s hand was squeezing.

  “… Sorry.”

  As he apologized, he pulled his hand away, and though he hesitated, he put his hand back once more.

  He wondered if he was overdoing it. He probably was. But if overdoing it scraped that away, that was fine. Better too much than not enough. With Holo, he absolutely did not want to say to himself later, “If only I’d done such and such.”

  “Oh, there’s a square over there. Busy here in the morning.”

  Lawrence spoke while looking at the right side of an intersection where their path and another, lined with stores, crossed.

  Toward buildings that were stores on the first floor and inns or workshops on the second floor, he saw a conspicuously tall building that ran along the side of the square in the shape of an arch. And Lawrence’s ears could hear enjoyable sounds from musical instruments above the sounds of the crowd.