Spice and Wolf, Vol. 14

  “Life has ups and downs” was not a mere figure of speech. It was reality. Not everything went smoothly, and if one did not compromise somewhere, they would never get through it.

  All heroes had to face many difficulties and countless dangers—but not everyone who faced difficulty and danger became a hero.

  Most of them just died along the way.

  Lawrence was a traveling merchant. No one would ever fault him for being extremely cautious, and cautious he ought well be.

  Lawrence quietly climbed the stairs. He heard no creaking floorboards, but given the small footfalls behind him, Elsa was following him up.

  Seen from the outside, he was surely a pathetic sight. Perhaps too pathetic to leave alone.

  But this was the way of the world.

  Lawrence allowed himself to feel at least a little self-pity as he murmured the words in his heart and smiled a sad, tired smile.

  “Can there not be a miracle?” came Elsa’s short, sharp words.

  “Can there not be a miracle?” she said again, as Lawrence looked over his shoulder.

  Elsa had stopped on the stairs, looking up at Lawrence, who was about to round the landing.

  “You and she came to our village and created a miracle, which saved us all. Can you not…” Elsa swallowed her words and seemed to be holding back tears. “If a miracle cannot save you as well, then how can I go on teaching the word of God?”

  Her honey-colored eyes looked up at Lawrence, penetrating, but there was no trace of anything like hostility in them.

  Lawrence scratched his head and averted his eyes. Elsa was wholly and completely, from the bottom of her heart, a servant of God.

  “I know it’s selfish of me to say so, I know that, but—”

  “No, you haven’t said anything wrong or mistaken. It’s simply that we, or at least I, am not a pure enough soul to be saved by a miracle,” said Lawrence, stepping down the stairs and crouching down in front of Elsa. He reached out and straightened the collar that his earlier violence had set askew.

  Elsa did not try to brush him away or show any sign of disgust. She merely watched him.

  “It turns out, the Myuri mercenaries are close to her homeland.”

  Her face turned confused, as though wondering what he was getting at. Lawrence checked her left and right lapels for evenness, then flattened them with a pat, at which Elsa did not so much as flinch.

  “Myuri, you see,” he continued, “is the name of someone my companion separated from, centuries ago in her homeland. Someone she thought long dead.” Lawrence had turned his back to her, so he did not know what happened next.

  But it seemed to Lawrence that her expression did not change very much.

  “He’s probably alive, though. She doesn’t know yet. I’m going to tell her in Kieschen, when we part ways.”

  “Why?” came the short demand from behind him.

  “Because I want her to concentrate on the journey with me until then. A mercenary band would never name themselves after a woman. It’s ridiculous, but I’m jealous. We’ve gotten this far, I may as well confess it.”

  Lawrence put his hand out to the room’s door and looked back at Elsa.

  “I wished that Myuri would have stayed dead. Horrible, aren’t I?” He sighed and pushed the door open. He wanted to take a step inside and then slam the door behind him. “I should think that if miracles kept happening to a man like me, that would be a god whose word you couldn’t spread.”

  He began unpacking bags as he searched for a change of Holo’s clothes. Once she left, he would have to sell them—the expensive clothes she had demanded.

  Behind him, Elsa too entered the room and from her bag produced a set of clothes.

  “That is indeed awful of you. No doubt God will punish you.” Her blunt words were somehow comforting.

  Lawrence stood, a smile still lingering on his face, and made ready to leave the room. But unexpectedly, Elsa’s words followed him. “And yet I still do not understand.”

  Looking over his shoulder, he saw that she was plainly angry.

  “Feeling the way you do, yet trying to act rationally, it’s—I simply don’t understand. That’s what’s unnatural. You should choose one or the other.”

  “It is none of your business,” said Lawrence flatly. He added a troubled, complicated smile as a courtesy. “This is our problem and our decision. It is not your place to say what we should do. Not even as a teacher of God’s word.”

  He added that last excuse, but it was just that: an excuse.

  Elsa had been speaking from her heart, as Lawrence was perfectly aware. But he could not let her go on.

  “You’re quite right.” Elsa took a deep breath and tears spilled from her eyes. “But I wanted to repay my debt to you both. It doesn’t seem to me that either of you are acting in your own best interests, so I wanted to at least—”

  “Me, no. But she is, I assure you.”

  Lawrence was the only one being stubborn about wanting to go with her to Yoitsu. Holo wanted to do so, if possible, but only after considering other possibilities. That was the extent of it for her.

  “Two lovers,” Elsa had so shamelessly said, but the truth was much less clear. Lawrence found it easy to think of the words as a bitter irony. So, the news about Myuri did nothing to put his heart at peace.

  But Elsa simply looked back at him. Her honey-colored eyes were noble and sharp, like the pommel jewels of a sword. “Then my question still stands. Why won’t you turn and fight back?”

  For a moment, Lawrence did not understand what he was hearing.

  “It’s like there are two Evans. Your indecision is so infuriating I can hardly stand it. Why won’t you just act the way you honestly feel? Why are you convinced that swallowing down your own opinion is best for her? God is the friend of the righteous. You have nothing to fear!” As Elsa went on, her voice rose, and with these last words, her shoulders shook.

  The content of her ranting had a logic to it but was also incoherent. She herself seemed not to know exactly what she was going on about. She was probably just speaking her thoughts as they came to mind.

  But Lawrence understood what she meant all too well. At the very least, he understood the feelings that had welled up from inside Elsa.

  But the most important thing was that Lawrence had taken all that, forced it underneath “reason,” and ascribed it to Holo.

  For trying to act so wisely, it seemed he had been quite stupid.

  “You’re right about everything,” said Lawrence in an exhausted tone. His words came without a hint of deception. “But I’m a simple merchant.”

  “So think!” Elsa seemed to have forgotten why she herself was angry. Yet she still glared up at Lawrence, continuing her verbal assault. “Don’t pray, think. If you say you’ve turned away from God and deserve no miracles, then stop praying and think like a merchant!”

  It was a strange entreaty for her to make. Elsa had nothing to gain from it, yet she was truly angry at Lawrence and Holo.

  “You merchants use all sorts of unbelievable techniques, don’t you? You have means available to you that can only be called magic, don’t you? Or if…if you’re hesitating to use such despicable methods, then be at ease.” Elsa straightened and directed her unwavering gaze right at Lawrence. “I will do all I can to assure their correctness in the face of God’s teachings.”

  This was where he should laugh her off surely.

  If a hundred merchants heard the story, then those hundred merchants and twenty of their friends would all agree that Holo’s way was the right one, while handing Elsa a glass of wine and telling her to calm down and have a drink.

  But Elsa’s view was very attractive. She was telling him to think.

  Elsa herself was no fool. She was certainly smart enough to understand there was a certain logic to Holo’s way. But she was saying all of this because she could not stand to watch them go through with it.

  So at the very least, it was worth putting his
head to work trying to find a way to respond to her with some kindness. She was, after all, offering to make excuses to God for whatever underhanded methods he might use. It would do to give the matter some thought, at least, before giving up.

  He could not very well just turn suddenly defiant toward Holo, but there was the possibility that he could claim some small business reason for him to go.

  And it was obvious what he should consider: He had to find a way to force that faraway company to sell the book without him going to Kieschen and without them learning the facts of the matter.

  Kidnap the company master’s daughter or wife and threaten him? Put a curse upon him? Or hire a band of mercenaries?

  It was rather fun just thinking of such mad possibilities.

  But in truth, merchants did not possess the magical abilities that Elsa had misunderstood them to possess. Even money orders, those mystical documents that let you move money without carrying heavy coin on your back, were not so mysterious once you understood how they worked.

  They were simply a way of moving goods down the invisible canal called credit. Money was not being magically transported. There was a principle to it. Even if one used credit backward, all they could steal was money, not life.

  Lawrence’s thoughts got that care and were suddenly caught.

  Use credit backward?

  The words struck him as strange, and for a moment he realized his cognition had gone idle.

  Elsa looked at him curiously and was about to say something, but Lawrence stopped her with a raised hand. He suddenly had the feeling there was something he had missed. As though there were keys to this problem scattered all over Lenos—golden keys that would unlock the path for him to travel to Yoitsu with Holo.

  The hope beat almost painfully in his heart as the scenes he had witnessed since arriving in the town flashed through his mind.

  Lawrence looked at Elsa.

  Elsa, who feared nothing, seemed to flinch away from him. Surely that was not his imagination.

  Then, a few moments later, Lawrence arrived at the clear realization that he was smiling.

  “Incidentally, if I really did think of a way to make a miracle happen, what would you do for me?”

  It was surely the first time he had ever asked, “What would you do for me?”

  “…I-I’d give you my blessing.”

  But even when intimidated, Elsa was a splendid clergywoman, so Lawrence kept some of his sudden self-admiration in reserve.

  What he had thought of was such a contemptible plan that he would have laughed off the very idea had it not been for her urging.

  When Lawrence and the others returned to Philon’s shop, there was no one inside. The door that led into the courtyard had been left open, and when Lawrence popped his head through and took a look around, he saw a temporary charcoal-fired stove in the middle of being set up.

  “Oh, you’re back, are you? This’ll take a bit of time yet, so you can wait inside.”

  Whether he had been hired with coin or was simply an acquaintance, there was a cook-seeming fellow expertly skinning the eels while, around him, apprentices stood expectantly.

  Lawrence nodded at Philon and ducked back into the shop, where Elsa was watching him uncertainly.

  “You’re the one who put me up to this, remember that,” said Lawrence with mischief in his voice, at which Elsa’s shoulders tensed in a flinch.

  But her gaze was unwavering and her lips tight.

  “I’m grateful, truly. I would’ve gotten old before thinking of such a thing on my own.” Lawrence smiled and took a breath. His destination was the back of the shop.

  “In my father’s letters,” said Elsa suddenly to Lawrence’s back, “he wrote to tell me to go my own way. In his books there were many stories of modest happiness borne from compromise, but that no one had ever been truly satisfied with mere compromise. And…” She grasped the hand-carved seal around her neck and put on her own mischievous smile. “…There were many stories where even when failure came, it brought satisfaction with it.”

  A business was built from successes and failures piled atop one another. Lawrence had known that for a very long time.

  “You’re quite right,” said Lawrence, and with long strides, he headed down the hallway, deeper into Philon’s shop.

  It was well cleaned, and he could tell immediately that it received fresh air daily. Interesting that despite the narrow hall and low ceiling at the back of the shop, it was brighter than the shop’s front, where customers were received.

  But bright places were also places where voices carried well. After no time at all, he heard the happy voices of Holo and Col.

  The room had originally been a kitchen, but before the earthen floor that seemed to have been lowered several times, there lay neatly folded the still-smelly clothing of Holo and Col.

  Lawrence pulled aside the curtain that hung as a partition and peered inside and was immediately greeted by the back of a stark-naked Col, who, despite trying to escape Holo, had been caught as she ladled hot water over him.

  “Aye, there you are! The water of Nyohhira is a hundred times hotter than this!” she said appropriately enough.

  Of course, Col had his own ladle to plunge into the basin, so he was giving as good as he got.

  When he noticed Lawrence, though, Col hastily hid behind the basin. Holo, meanwhile, looked at him as though a new prey animal had arrived.

  “If you play around like this, you’re going to catch cold. Here,” said Lawrence, tossing large towels at the pair, who had long since finished actually bathing.

  Col caught his with his hand; Holo, with her head.

  “I’ve put each change of clothes at the door. Col, yours are from Elsa, so make sure to thank her.”

  “I-I will!” said Col brightly, then immediately sneezed.

  Holo and Col were both completely naked. Col dried himself off, then hurried to put his clothes on.

  “You, too,” said Lawrence, at which Holo sighed an unamused sigh, shaking her tail rapidly. “Honestly,” he said. “I suppose no one saw you?”

  Her tail wagging flung a shocking amount of water around, but her hair received different treatment. Holo wrung it out with her hands, the water in it dribbling to the floor. “Just what sort of a fool do you take me for—achoo!”

  When wet like this, her delicate body and pale, translucent skin were like a polished jewel of some kind. But her sneeze made her seem so silly, and combined with her body, she suddenly seemed very childlike.

  Lawrence sighed and went to help Holo dry her hair.

  “Is lunch prepared yet?”

  “They’re making the stove now. Just a bit longer.”

  “Mm. As the men at the docks said, ‘They’re best covered in olive oil and just roasted.’” Her hair was beautiful, but for all that beauty it held a great deal of water. No matter how Lawrence brushed, there seemed to be no end to it. “This sort of bathing isn’t bad, but in Nyohhira you can have strong, snow-chilled wine brought to you. How about that, eh?”

  Holo rambled on from underneath the towel. She seemed a bit cold—perhaps the water in the basin had mostly cooled.

  “Certainly, and since everyone in the area does likewise, they all keep the prices good and high.” Lawrence took the towel off her head and wrapped it around her shoulders.

  Holo brushed aside the hair that had fallen over her forehead. “Mm,” she replied. “Come, my body’s next,” she said flirtatiously, putting her hand to her hip and looking up at him as though to say, “How about it?”

  If he flinched, the game would be over. He looked down into those amber eyes so filled with challenge, then slowly closed his own. “Hurry and dry yourself off and get dressed,” he said.

  He could practically hear her cheeks puff out in irritation at Lawrence’s failure to become flustered. Did her actions come from being simply unworried about the end of their journey, or was it an act put on precisely because of that approaching end? Lawrence did not kn
ow.

  But just as Holo was so talented at such little performances, there was a limit to how much Lawrence could hide.

  “And what shall I do once I’m changed?”

  “I want to find Mr. Le Roi. Help me.”

  Poor Le Roi would be running all over town, trying to buy provisions without any connections in a market where everyone was hoarding for their own speculation. But Lawrence did not want to find him in order to extend him any sort of helping hand.

  Holo soon realized this. She gave Lawrence a searching look. “For what purpose?”

  Rivulets of water fell from her curves.

  The hot water had cooled, and it was cold in the room.

  Holo’s wet skin was rapidly cooling, and her eyes were even more icy than usual.

  “There is a mercenary band,” said Lawrence, close enough to Holo that the droplets on her body threatened to wet him, too, as he looked down at her, “near Yoitsu.”

  “…Wha—!”

  “They call themselves…the Myuri mercenaries.” To his shocking words, Lawrence added still more shock. Mysteriously, though, it was in such times that one’s mind became strangely clear.

  “Find Mr. Le Roi for me. I need to see him.” Lawrence looked away and made as if his business was done, but Holo grabbed him by his lapel. Her face was beyond anger.

  “What’s your aim, then?”

  “I have a proposal for him.”

  Holo bared her fangs and through the gaps between them hissed a sort of sigh. But before that could gain enough mass to become an explosion, Lawrence put his hand to Holo’s left cheek. “I’m not going to break any promises.”

  He bent down so that he was even with her red-tinged amber eyes. Those clear, beautiful eyes.

  “I’m a merchant. I would never break a contract so easily.”

  His words carried a twofold meaning.

  Lawrence stood. “But I am going to propose a change in plans. So far as circumstances allow,” he added quietly.