Spice and Wolf, Vol. 14

  “I do not believe they’ve eaten. That hardhead is so tiresomely dutiful about such things, after all.”

  It was hard to tell if Holo was complimenting her or not.

  But if them having delayed eating was in fact the case…Lawrence nudged Holo over toward the source of the faint light, changing their direction.

  “Mm?”

  “This way’s shorter. We’ll stop by a tavern on the way and get some food. I’m fairly sure if we follow this street, we’ll come out near the Beast and Fish Tail.”

  “Aye. Make sure to buy me some more strong wine.”

  At this Lawrence realized that Holo was still holding the cup. Damn, he thought, but it would be such trouble to go back to return it. Tomorrow would suffice.

  Thus resolved, down the street they walked. It was well lit simply from the light that leaked through the window cracks of the houses along it. Houses on both sides were quite tall, which gave the street a mysterious atmosphere.

  Looking ahead the passage seemed to grow quite narrow, but as they walked along, it was not indeed so. As they eclipsed doors and windows, the sounds and smells of people’s lives flowed out, almost as though they were walking through the homes themselves. And then, abruptly, both sides of the street would be stone wall again, and there would be silence.

  At their feet, too, earth would be replaced by stone, then earth again, the footing ever uncertain.

  The scenes that appeared and disappeared were but tiny glimpses of lives, the overheard voices faint after traversing so many walls.

  On and on they walked, reality becoming less and less certain.

  It was like a world out of a dream.

  The map was finally in their hands; the location of Yoitsu had been given to them. Aided by that euphoria, Lawrence felt a strange comfort in the seemingly endless nature of the street.

  Perhaps that was why. For a moment his merchant’s caution was left behind, and he murmured thoughtless words.

  “Why did I choose Le Roi?”

  He had only just been roundly mocked for being sentimental. If she had laughed at him once, she would do it twice, three times. And just as being drunk on wine made him so, the atmosphere of the street was itself intoxicating, and he spoke the words as though accusing himself.

  “You wish to come to Yoitsu with me so much, do you?”

  The most compelling argument would not calm a crying infant.

  Holo smiled an exasperated smile and adjusted her grip on his arm, as though to soothe him.

  And then, just as he was about to say something else, Lawrence interrupted himself. “I do.”

  His tone was so firm it surprised even him. He then looked to the still more surprised Holo and finally came to his senses. He hid his mouth with the map and letter, and looked aside.

  Holo’s gaze pierced his cheek. At length, though, he heard her muffled laugh. “Heh. We’ve just terrible timing, you and I.”

  “…?” Like a stray cat being tempted with food, Lawrence’s caution was overcome by his curiosity, and he looked back at Holo—whereupon the malicious trap he expected to see had been replaced by her serene profile.

  “I’ve given it much thought, and I believe you must go after the book. I said it, did I not? We must take the fruitful path.”

  If all went well, he would be three hundred silver pieces richer, and it might well contribute at least a little to avoiding the ruin of the north. Lawrence understood that much. And yet, the three hundred silvers was profit for Lawrence. The protection of the northlands was Holo’s gain.

  Considered thus, going together to Yoitsu would be profit for the pair of them, Lawrence and Holo together. It was not entirely unsentimental.

  What Lawrence could not bring himself to accept was the reasoning behind throwing away the profit they stood to share together in order to pursue the more realistic profits separately.

  “Come, now. How many of us are traveling?” Holo’s words were brief, but the question was very clear. Her amber eyes flicked in his direction.

  “…Three of us.”

  “And what does the lad stand to gain from going to Yoitsu?”

  Lawrence found himself momentarily dizzy at the question. “W-well…but…”

  “Col came upon us in the course of his own travels. He even set aside his own goals for that. He’s a stronghearted pup, but a pup is still a pup. There is no deep reason for him to be traveling with us. He just needed to rest his injured wings. That’s all.”

  They were desolate words and not ones that had simply come to her from nowhere. Holo must have talked to Col about what was truly in his heart, while both Lawrence and Elsa were away.

  Just as Lawrence knew that his own decisions affected many others in the world of commerce around him, Holo understood the effects her decisions had on her own small pack.

  “It was back in Winfiel, perhaps. Ever since seeing that fool Huskins, he’s been thinking about it, it seems.”

  “Huskins?”

  “Aye. Thinking about what he ought to do for the sake of his own town. The pup remembered how he’d set that thinking aside, in order to give himself time to rest and heal.”

  Lawrence had been paying less attention than he realized, at least outside of the marketplace. Not only to Holo, it seemed, but also to Col.

  Holo smiled a sad smile at Lawrence’s expression of surprise. “I’m hardly one to talk, but your face tells me you never even noticed, did you?”

  “Ugh…,” Lawrence moaned and nodded. There was no point in trying to hide it.

  “Honestly…And then there was this last adventure up in the snowy mountains. He saw how Fran lived, and it woke him from his slumber. She seemed ridiculous to a wisewolf like me, but her straightforward way of living must have been so refreshing to him. Huskins was so old that even his methods were gloomy, but then there was the girl Fran, as beautiful and sharp as ice.”

  It was unusual to hear Holo describe her that way. And yet a moment’s thought on Holo’s disposition made it seem entirely appropriate. How could Holo fail to admire someone who would go to such lengths? Who put everything they had at stake in order to reach their goal?

  And as the thought came to him, Holo glared at him with displeasure in her eyes. “Hmph. And then along came that hardheaded girl.”

  A boy who wanted to study Church law, and a hardworking girl trying to ensure the continued existence of her church in a town that revered a pagan god. As a final blow, it could hardly be more decisive.

  “And the Church in this town plays a role in this, too. For this was the first time he saw a grand cathedral. An organization powerful enough to build such a thing could surely protect his home, he realized,” said Holo and finished with a small sigh.

  Lawrence could understand why Col had never opened up to Holo, to whom he had become so attached. Holo, who was called the Wisewolf of Yoitsu, whose true form would without any doubt see her called a pagan god.

  How could he possibly confess his feelings to Holo, of all people?

  Just as Philon could not approach the Delink Company, and just as an apothecary cannot patronize a tavern, just as a scale maker could not be friends with a money changer, so too could Col not confide in Holo.

  More than she was an elder sister figure to him, she was, by the slimmest of margins, a wisewolf.

  Even though he had seen her true form and been unafraid, even though he had clung to her tail—no, because of those things—Col could never forget that Holo was a wisewolf.

  And given all this, Lawrence, too, could understand why Holo had given up on his going to Yoitsu with her, and why, too, she had chosen to go to Kieschen.

  They had to choose the most fruitful path: Rather than joint profit for two, separate profit for all three. As a reason for the three of them to make for Kieschen and end their travels as a trio, it was good and proper.

  Holo had not chosen Kieschen as their place of parting, but rather as a place to begin a new journey.

  “At the ver
y least there’s profit in it, and that dumpling head will go south, aye? She ought to take the lad with her. As much as her hardheadedness makes me ill, she’s perfect for Col. Perhaps he’ll even end up settling down in that village church of hers.”

  This last suggestion was of course a joke. But she did not suggest, even jokingly, that he ought to come with her.

  “I’ve a thought,” said Holo quietly, after several moments of silence. “Live long enough and you realize time is terribly long, and one’s hopes so rarely come true. Just look at the girl who made that map for us, Fran. Even with all her resolve, it doesn’t seem likely she’ll die with a smile on her face.”

  Holo had lived so long and witnessed so many lives that her words had more weight than any easily understood platitude could ever have had.

  “We should live with smiles on our faces, I think. That way when we meet again, we’ll be smiling.”

  To do that, one had to abide by reason and realism, without a moment of sentimentality.

  “It’s the same in business.”

  “Hm?”

  “‘Profit even from loss,’ they say,” said Lawrence.

  “Ah,” said Holo, impressed, and her face twisted in a smile made awkward by the frustration she surely felt.

  He could not just let her do all the explaining, and he could not very well forget what he himself had said. They would cooperate with Holo’s decision.

  The narrow street became still narrower, and Lawrence let Holo walk in front of him.

  From behind, her form seemed terribly small, and though she was close enough for him to reach out and touch, it felt as though she might disappear at any moment.

  And in Kieschen, he would truly see her off.

  It would be nice if they could meet again, smiling. It was not their final parting, not a deathbed good-bye, so there was nothing to fear. They would part ways the same way they had so many times before, over and over again.

  Though he understood this in his head, the unease did not fade from his heart. If he were to let slip these worries, the wisewolf would surely either laugh or rage at him.

  Lawrence put the question to himself: Was his trust in Holo insufficient? She was not a coldhearted girl. He was painfully aware of that much.

  So what was it, then?

  Lawrence watched Holo’s small form ahead of him.

  He wanted to embrace her with all his might, and never let go.

  Even knowing how ridiculous that was, it seemed the only possible way to calm his worried heart.

  The terrible self-loathing he felt was no figment of his imagination.

  Lawrence took a deep, slow breath and exhaled it still more slowly.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The next morning, the four of them took breakfast together.

  While it was quite normal for travelers to have a meal before setting out for the day, for Elsa it was a wild luxury.

  As a compromise, they ate dark rye bread and a few beans. To slake their thirst, she permitted some watery wine.

  “Now then, about what we’ll do next,” started Lawrence, and everyone’s gaze focused on him, save Holo. “We’ll make preparations today and tomorrow, and so leave the day after tomorrow at the earliest. Today, I’ll first go to Mr. Philon’s place and work some details out with him and Mr. Le Roi.”

  Col nodded to prove that he was listening, and Lawrence directed his next words to Elsa. “It would be good if you came along, too, Miss Elsa, and talked about your own plans for what’s to come.”

  Elsa cut even the hard rye bread up, rather than tearing into it, and brought bites politely to her mouth without dropping a single crumb. She treated it as though it were some sort of ritual practice in the concentration of her mind, but amazingly, she had no trouble listening to the conversation around her as she did so. “Very well. I need to send a letter to the village as well, so I’ll ask their help in that.”

  Lawrence nodded and turned to Holo, who, like a child, was tossing beans up one by one into the air and catching them in her mouth. “And what will you do?”

  Holo had just tossed aloft another bean, and her fangs showed as she opened her mouth to catch it. Her gaze moved from the bean to Lawrence, but moments later, the bean still landed perfectly in her mouth. She chewed it up, crunching, and washed it down with the thinned wine. “So long as you don’t mind me creating new legends about a giant wolf, I’ve nothing much else to do.”

  Now that she knew the direction and location, it would be safer and faster for Holo to travel as a wolf. There was no reason for her to go all the way over to Philon’s to hear about the conditions on the human road.

  “So long as you don’t mind me speaking as though I know the truth of the legend,” said Elsa, smiling with only her mouth. She returned to her meal, earning a wrinkled nose from Holo.

  Lawrence sighed and looked over at the table, whereupon was neatly spread the map.

  “Still, ’twould be boring to stay here alone.”

  “Then it’s settled.”

  Thereafter, each of them finished their breakfast. Elsa cleared her throat and began to teach Col about some finer point of scripture, Holo tended to her tail grooming, and Lawrence decided he might as well trim his beard while he was in a town.

  There would likely be trouble upon arriving in Kieschen and difficult preparations in the meantime.

  In light of that, the quiet serenity of the water well in the inn’s courtyard, lit by the morning sun, was a precious thing indeed. The far-off sounds of the busy town gave the quiet a different feeling than the silence of a forest or field.

  Lawrence had loved this quiet when he had traveled alone and had come to appreciate it even more since that time had ended.

  Would he be able to continue on like this? He smiled a self-reproaching smile at the thought. He would probably abide. He would have to—and anyway, as he told himself before, this was not their final parting.

  His worry was purely of his own creation.

  “…Well, then.” He brushed his hands free of crumbs.

  The day had begun.

  Lawrence had assumed that a shop catering to mercenaries would be mostly idle in the morning, but he was mistaken.

  While the mercenaries themselves were certainly snoring loudly away in their wagon beds, the men around them were hurriedly buying up supplies. By their aura and manner of speaking, Lawrence at first took them as musicians, but apparently they were merchants who had spent their entire lives running their shops on the world’s battlefields. Their cheerful demeanor came from their having long ago lost any fear of death whatsoever.

  “Today I’ve only got one more troop coming by. When things are bad, it’ll be ten or twenty in a single day,” said Philon, shamelessly draining the contents of a cup that had been left on the table.

  When the merchants had left, it was terribly quiet, like a storm had passed through the shop.

  “So, many mercenaries come through?” asked Lawrence, surprised, and the general store owner chuckled knowingly.

  “The bills are always made out to some big lord somewhere. If you’re well-known and have a lot of territory, you can turn a hefty profit buying in one place and selling it off elsewhere.”

  It seemed likely that Philon had taken advantage of the situation in Lenos and done some speculation himself, but Lawrence said nothing.

  No matter who was making what profit, as long as things were moving, there was no problem.

  “So, then, what can I do for my extended family here.”

  “The map from Miss Fran has arrived,” said Lawrence, and Philon’s face lit up with excitement that was obvious even in the dim shop.

  “Oh, that’s wonderful!”

  He held out his hand in anticipation of Lawrence giving it to him. But Lawrence had very purposefully not brought it with him.

  In the silence that fell over Philon’s own, Holo chuckled.

  “So about the Tolkien region.”

  “Ah, there’s a nice place,”
said Philon, sitting in a chair he produced from somewhere and taking up a quill pen. “Bit large, though.”

  Even on the map, Yoitsu had only been one small part of Tolkien. But once she made it to the region, Holo’s sense of smell would surely lead her the rest of the way.

  “There was a little village there. Less a village, really, than a group of shelters for woodsmen and hunters to stay in.”

  “And the name?” It was Holo who asked.

  Elsa and Col were gazing at the swords on the walls and the parchment bundles on the shelves with intense interest, respectively, but simultaneously looked over at Holo when she spoke.

  “It didn’t have a name. Isn’t really the kind of place you give a name. Did someone tell you they were born in Tolkien?”

  Yoitsu, Holo was about to reply, but after a moment’s movement of her lips, she said nothing and merely nodded.

  “For people from around here, the name Tolkien doesn’t mean much more than deep forests and mountains. Whoever it was ought to be proud they were born in such grand wilderness, I’d say.”

  Philon’s tone was light, as though trying to emphasize that it was not worth thinking too deeply over.

  But far from relaxing, Holo’s face became even sharper. “Are the forests and mountains there yet bountiful?” She spoke slowly and distinctly, as though emphasizing each word.

  Philon tapped his quill pen in his opened ledger, then rested his chin in his palm and regarded Holo. “Absurdly so. The word is that the deer are huge.”

  “And wolves?”

  “Wolves?”

  Holo looked intently at Philon. The silence that followed was unnerving for those who knew her true form.

  Philon suddenly looked up to the ceiling, drawing Lawrence’s gaze with it. “The area’s thick with fierce wolves.”

  Holo drew a long breath, and her small body grew larger with it.

  If Lawrence had dared to point out that she seemed about to cry, she would have surely denied it with fangs bared.

  “Many of the mercenaries imagine themselves to be descended from wolves. And if you did have an ancestor among the wolves of Tolkien, I’m sure it would make you braver on the battlefield.”