Spice & Wolf Omnibus

by Isuna Hasekura

  Even so, keeping the main building construction on schedule was sometimes thanks to Holo’s power and, beyond that, to the combined aid of everyone whose trust they had gained over the course of their long journey.

  As a rival business was due to open in the summer, he wanted to be first if at all possible.

  That was why he intended to hold a grand opening for his much-yearned-for establishment in the spring.

  The plan had been to hold it a little after the festival of St. Alzeuri.

  Among the acquaintances Lawrence had gained on his journey with Holo were people of status on a completely different scale than his own. Of course, he wanted to invite them all to his grand opening, but he could not very well force them to traverse snow-covered roads, for there would still be snow in the mountains during the festival of St. Alzeuri.

  However, it was precisely the right time to invite those accustomed to snowy roads for a preopening celebration and those he was close to who did not dwell too great a distance away. It was in that sense, too, that Holo was well aware of the situation.

  She was up to something.

  Even if it was a simple prank or joke, the fees for even mere letters were hardly trivial.

  The fee for Eve’s letter was no doubt the highest. She was doing business in the great empire of the south; whatever dangerous bridges had to be crossed to get there, the town councils took care of all the preliminary duties, so the location of even a merchant in elite circles could be ascertained with certainty. Norah seemed to have headed east from Ruvinheigen to work in some town as a pastor; even getting a letter there required a nontrivial amount of money. Even though Diana and Elsa did not live quite that far away, Elsa lived in a small village, so Lawrence had his suspicions a letter would safely arrive there to begin with. In Fran’s last correspondence with Lawrence, Elsa was showing her some things at her monastery, so she might still be in Elsa’s village as well.

  As he thought back, they were all very interesting people, but when he pictured Holo’s letters bringing all of those women to meet in the same church at his very doorstep, Lawrence could not stop his face from going rigid.

  Though his breaths brought in air cold enough that he could feel it in his lungs, the sigh he breathed out between the fingers covering his lips was a hot one.

  “Gracious… What on earth is she thinking…?”

  Even though he had been with her some six years, he still did not understand Holo.

  They had had a big argument just earlier even.

  He was not aware of there being a cause, per se, but he was well aware she was an unreasonable person.

  He had the sense it was something about a tasteless meal.

  He certainly understood that someone with Holo’s personality had to blow off a little steam from time to time while living in this land in the middle of winter.

  And though he thought it was stupid of him, he did consider making up after arguments to be an important thing.

  “Ah, Mr. Lawrence?”

  When Lawrence sighed once more, brushing the snow off his head as he entered the under-construction addition, the young man laying down stone tiles lifted his head. His sudden growth spurt had made him taller than Holo; it felt like he would be taller than Lawrence, too, given another two or three years.

  But as his features had been delicate since long ago, with the length of his hair tied in a tail even now, he looked every bit like a tall young woman. Col, who had been a wandering student when Lawrence had met him, waved Lawrence off with a hand, grabbing a towel and wiping the sweat off his brow.

  “Is it lunchtime already?”

  “No, I wanted to ask you about this.”

  When Lawrence hoisted the letter he had received from Holo as he spoke, Col’s face looked like he had just swallowed a fly. It seemed she really had asked Col to write the letter. There might have been only one or two other people in the entire region who could write in multiple languages with such calligraphy.

  “She pretty much twisted my arm into writing it…”

  “Oh, I’m not criticizing you for that. I’m sure Holo asked you because she thought you’d never refuse.”

  Col’s hands were mismatched with his face, weathered from doing manual labor in summer and winter alike.

  But open at Col’s feet laid manuscripts copied and borrowed from the theologians and high-ranking clergymen who visited this land; Lawrence knew he recited and memorized them as he worked. Lawrence also knew that at night, he chewed on raw onions to fend off sleepiness as he studied.

  After Col had parted ways with Lawrence and Holo, he had spent about two years traveling between churches and abbeys in every land before finally coming to work under Lawrence, but this absolutely did not mean he had given up on his dream from back then of walking the path of the clergyman. Once he learned Lawrence was setting up his own establishment here, he joined right in, saying it would kill two birds with one stone.

  So far, Col’s plans for discourse with intellectuals coming to this town from all over the world, difficult to meet anywhere else, had been a success. Lawrence understood from his own business dealings how Col benefited from forming connections with such esteemed company.

  After all, no matter how busy such people were at home, when they came to this land, they had plenty of time to spare.

  This was a secluded land deep in the mountains, well away from civilization.

  It was said that this place, Nyohhira, was the only place war was unthinkable.

  “More than that, I want to ask you about Holo’s state when she made you write it.”

  “Miss Holo’s…?”

  “Yeah. Was she angry? Did she say anything?”

  Though he was socially embarrassed to ask this of Col, a fine adult but maybe half his own age, this was far from the first time the boy had mediated in an argument between him and Holo.

  Sometimes when Holo was being stubborn, she entrusted words to Col that she could not bring herself to say.

  For that reason, Col should have known something, but this time he made a grave face.

  “That’s…”

  “That’s?”

  “She was smiling.”

  Col said it like it was something he did not want to admit, like having seen a ghost in the mountains.

  “Smiling?”

  “Yes. Er, the addresses for these letters…”

  “Yes. They’re to the women Holo met on our journeys. Of course, you remember Elsa, but I’m sure you remember Eve, too, yes?”

  Col made a rather pained smile as he recalled Eve, who seemed more of a wolf than Holo herself. But there was no ill will present, perhaps because she had treated Col very kindly, in her own way.

  “For her to write those letters and send them against your wishes, I believe you must have done something to anger her, Mr. Lawrence, but…”

  It was something Col had said often over the years.

  Lawrence thought it exceedingly unfortunate that he had no proof to go with anything he might say in his own defense. “Err… but she’s often smiling when she’s really angry.”

  “Is that so? But I had the feeling she was genuinely smiling… I should say buoyant even…”

  “Buoyant, you say?”

  When Lawrence shot him a look of surprise, parroting back the words, Col tucked his chin in like a little girl, making a timid shrug of his shoulders as he nodded.

  “Ah… there’s no mistaking it. She’s angry.” Lawrence put a hand to his forehead and hung his head then and there.

  Where had he gone wrong?

  He always kissed her cheek before rising in the morning and coming to bed at night; he never failed to compliment the fur of her tail when she was grooming. No matter how busy his other work was, he always prepared breakfast and supper at home. This left a mountain of craftsmen guarantees, thank-you letters for future cooperation, informational notes for suppliers and traders, and other secretarial work piling upon the table in his bedroom.

 
; It should have been enough to make even Holo smile nervously and admit perhaps I am pampered a trifle too much.

  But even so there was friction. There were arguments.

  He could not think of any occasion whatsoever where he had courted such anger she would call over five acquaintances from long before – and all women at that.

  Perhaps she was still angry about that, mused Lawrence as he lifted his head.

  From the start of autumn onward, people came to Nyohhira from all over to spend the long winter partaking of its baths. Many of them were wealthy, giving rise to the necessity of arranging beautiful girls to greet them.

  Several among those girls were known to give Lawrence amorous glances.

  Here in this place away from civilization, customers who came to bathe were veritable fountains of gold for one’s business, and many flocked to the establishments with the prettiest girls. In a normal town, they would not pay the slightest heed to an ordinary merchant such as Lawrence.

  That said, as the bathers were largely raisin-like old men or middle-aged scolds who loved to complain when boiled for too long, perhaps it was not so strange for a man such as Lawrence to enter their sights. They had been chatting, in short, about how many men there were in this place and how they ought to be ranked. Most people who worked here for five years or more had found a pretty girl to marry.

  Certainly, the people who ran the bathhouses and stores all around Nyohhira were aware that Holo was with Lawrence while his establishment was under construction, but Holo had never publicly declared herself and Lawrence to be husband and wife.

  At first she might have found it embarrassing, but this being Holo, a stubborn woman who rarely took back anything once she had said it, she displayed no sign of revisiting the idea even though they had lived here for three years.

  There was no other way for him to interpret her highly literal interpretation of their agreement at Svolnel.

  He had promised to bring Holo to Yoitsu to begin with. In point of fact, that promise remained unfulfilled.

  From Nyohhira, Yoitsu was practically at the tip of her nose, and the distance was one Holo’s paws could cover as if going out for a stroll. Even so, Holo had stubbornly refused to go, becoming angry in earnest whenever the subject was raised. Perhaps she had always meant to use their agreement at Svolnel to not commit to marriage before their previous commitment had been resolved as a shield to fend the subject off.

  Lawrence himself, thinking that Holo had her own reasons, had asked about it, but had not forced the issue.

  But even though they had not exchanged vows in a church, he could put his chest out and say that they were as close as almost any husband and wife in this world. He knew that there were several aspects of Holo that she herself had a poor grasp of. Besides, from time to time she had Lawrence groom her tail, something she would have absolutely never let him do in times past.

  Given that, perhaps it was not entirely surprising that a few women – who had no doubt left plenty of men and their partners in tears long before he had arrived – had flirted with Lawrence half in jest.

  But one can put their soul into anything, in any form. If one raises up the head of a herring in prayer, even in jest, soon enough they will be doing it for real.

  In other words, at first he had simply been ambushed in womanly fashion while minding his own business relaxing at a public bath, but it escalated to home cooking before long, soon followed by the sewing of clothes for him.

  His multiple refusals had not discouraged the women whatsoever, nor could he completely ignore them; furthermore, when Lawrence showed them even the slightest bit of admiration, they were so happy that they sparkled like jewels, making his heart hurt.

  Holo angered easily, after all. And none had intervened in favor of the awkward newcomer no matter how much it put Lawrence in a bind.

  On the road, everyone was a spectator.

  In the end, it was the wordless tears welling in the back of Holo’s throat at night that hardened his resolve to settle the matter.

  After strenuously explaining to one after another that there would be no bride for him save Holo, he was finally able to get them to relent.

  It was the same explanation he had given to everyone, but when he returned from convincing them, Holo, eyes red and tail bottlebrush puffed, grabbed Lawrence and sniffed the scents all over him.

  From time to time, Holo stopped moving, and sensing why, Lawrence resigned himself to being snapped at, but in the end, Holo said nothing.

  Instead, she did not speak to him for about an entire week.

  After a week, when she finally did speak, the first thing out of her mouth was indeed, “Fool.”

  Incidentally, the women that had wooed Lawrence could still boast great popularity as musicians at baths all over Nyohhira. The one felicity was that word spread that Lawrence was a sincerely loyal man; thanks to that, the people of Nyohhira came to trust him a good deal more.

  In the time since, it felt like Holo, too, had put her various feelings about the matter behind her.

  Lawrence, still in the frigid living room of the addition under construction, hung his head deeply and sighed. As his feelings and Holo herself passed by one another, he thought back to that inn at Svolnel five years before.

  Holo had been beautiful, the moonlight shining on her face like a white bridal veil.

  He had thought everything after that would be happily ever after, but the extent of his worries had not changed. Indeed, it had only grown.

  Lawrence sighed once more, suddenly realizing that Col was standing beside him, watching with a look of concern.

  “This is coming along quite well, though.”

  “Ah yes. One more pass by the craftsmen, and it’ll be perfect. There are a few things I hope to iron out before they come, though.”

  “That’s a big help. You’re very precise, too. Bit of a waste for the splitting image of a budding theologian.”

  As Lawrence spoke, Col laughed lightly. When Col had free time, he spoke to all sorts of people, learning about the local flavor and the various visitors who came to bathe. He did not mind if he was not speaking to theologians, but to craftsmen or mercenaries instead.

  These days, it was no rare thing for a former craftsman to become a great scholar.

  What mattered was if one had the will to learn and earned enough money to cover daily expenses. One did not have to be an aristocrat to study.

  “I think architecture and theology are very similar. Each requires a blueprint, raw materials, and a logical way of putting it all together.”

  “And neither can be built in a day?”

  “Quite so.” Col made a wry smile.

  In Lawrence’s case, he had attained everything for setting up his establishment by spending two years negotiating with trusted comrades along his trading route and wrapping up various endeavors, spending another year traveling to many lands with Holo with an eye on where to set up shop, and another two years to construct it once he had decided this was where it would be.

  And his work was far from done.

  The addition had been expected to include individual rooms for the private use of affluent guests and a guest hall enabling them to have pleasant conversations without needing to worry about other boisterous guests. Here, where Col was working up a sweat laying down stone tiles, was the very place the guest hall would be.

  Stone-laid aqueducts passed under the floor’s surface, bringing the warmth of the hot spring water in.

  Col was not sweating just because it was manual labor; the floor really was rather warm.

  “Well, you can leave it like this for now and take a bath before dinner.”

  “Understood.” As Col made his reply, his gaze shifted to the letter Lawrence was holding in his hand. “Er… Ought I not to have written that?”

  He was very bright but also honest. Perhaps that was why even august, bearded bishops and scholars found themselves bound by Col’s enthusiasm and zeal.

&
nbsp; Natural talent had something to do with it, too, but even Col always faced temptation. Yet in the face of that, it was his own hard work that had brought him to this point, and he had never strayed from his path.

  “It’s quite all right. Though there were a few places where turns of phrases were used improperly.”

  “Er–”

  “I’ll correct them in a note later.”

  “Please!”

  Lawrence nodded and put the addition behind him.

  Lawrence was well aware that if he had anything to teach Col, he needed to do it while he still could.

  Even if his business went well, he could foresee the day when he would become another old man in Nyohhira, ignorant of the wider world, being unable to imagine ever leaving his business behind. The course of human life was as natural and obvious as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. There were many more odious and reckless jobs. Had things gone differently, he might have rowed his way into the ocean of large-scale trade.

  He would no doubt have made the same choice one woman in the letter, Eve, had made to go south.

  Going with Eve, profiting from one dangerous deal after another, would no doubt have been an adventure worthy of the heroes in the bards’ tales.

  In fact, Eve no doubt possessed enough financial power to employ a biographer to chronicle the latter half of her life, a life that in the years to come would surely leave behind a name as weighty as a thick tax ledger.

  Failing that, he could also have chosen to accept the invitation to go to the Debau Company back at Svolnel, where he and Holo had first sworn to live their lives together. In the end, the exiled Hilde and his former employer Debau both returned to their seats of power; like a king and his chancellor, they were managing the company to that day.

  Of late, though they were still not equal to the Ruvik Alliance, the greatest financial alliance in the whole of the world, their momentum was such that it seemed only a matter of time until the gold and silver coins bearing the mark of the sun truly did circulate throughout the entirety of the northlands.

  Even now, when he thought about how he himself had fought to protect the symbol of that great currency, his excitement was such that his heart beat faster and sweat ran down to his heels.