Spice and Wolf, Vol. 14

  “Yes. The question of why, when you have such power, you would choose even now to travel with a simple horse-drawn wagon.”

  It was something Lawrence had considered many times himself. If he borrowed Holo’s power, he could become incredibly wealthy in no time at all. There were any number of ways it might be done…

  But he had not done so, and even when his very life had been in danger, he had searched for ways to escape that did not involve relying on Holo’s power—even when Holo herself was ready to act.

  Partially, this was because he wanted to preserve some semblance of pride in front of Holo. But there was another thought at the root of it all.

  “I’ve become painfully aware of just how powerless I am. Borrowing the power of my companion will not make that weakness disappear. So I try to rely on my own abilities. Or…” He paused to look over at Holo, if only to disguise his own embarrassment. “…Or to ask for her help in addition to my strengths. Don’t try to fill a small bowl with a large amount—every merchant knows this,” concluded Lawrence. “Whenever I’ve embarrassed myself, it’s because I broke this rule.”

  Holo cackled.

  “They say the world is vast, and it’s true.” Elsa looked down at the contents of the cup in her hand and quietly closed her eyes. Elsa, ever as sharp as a drawn blade, seemed now deeper than she had before.

  People do not stay as they were when one met them, Holo had cried, in this very city. And it was true—people changed.

  And even as such change was unavoidable, it was also not always for the worse. Lawrence’s path since meeting Holo had, if anything, been a more optimistic one than before. But did Holo feel the same way? As she looked out the window, her ears fell the same way they did whenever she was trying to endure embarrassment.

  She might well be angry at him later.

  “I give thanks to God that we have been able to meet again.”

  At Elsa’s simple, unadorned statement, Lawrence nodded heartily.

  Travel brought with it many encounters, and likewise many discoveries. Some were reminders of the world’s vastness, while others illustrated one’s own smallness. Just as one might be struck by a breathtaking vista, one might also feel pain at seeing the aftermath of a terrible battle.

  Or—one might simply experience the shock of the fragrance of another culture.

  Elsa’s expression as she regarded what seemed for all the world to be a cut of red meat before her was the very image of this shock, no matter how clearly it was said that it was in fact a fish tail.

  The prohibition against the consumption of red meat by members of the clergy came as naturally to them as not breathing underwater did to someone who did not want to drown. But to think that there was such an obvious way around that rule…

  Sitting next to Lawrence, Holo seemed to greatly relish Elsa’s expression.

  “Miss, if you’re having trouble believing it, would you like to see the many letters of permission from successive bishops we’ve had?” asked the cheerful barmaid, again mindful of the tavern that day, as she carried cups of ale to another table of patrons.

  Most taverns fell silent the moment a true clergy member entered the establishment, but this place was special. No one paid Elsa any special mind as they caroused the day’s fatigue away.

  “No…that’s all right. The world is a large place,” said Elsa, dropping her eyes to the food before her. She clumsily pierced it with her knife, then took a massive bite, as though swallowing it down along with the reality of all the world’s disappointments.

  If Holo was surprised by this, Col was even more so, and the only one smiling was the barmaid.

  “Mm…Mmph…” Elsa chewed and swallowed and, with her eyes tightly shut, felt about on the table for her cup. Col took pity on her and handed it to her, and she mumbled her thanks before drinking the watered fruit juice.

  She drank like she was trying to wash everything away—as though she had eaten something terribly impure.

  Just as Lawrence was wondering if he had taken his teasing too far, Elsa put her empty cup down. “S-so spicy…,” she said in a strangled voice.

  Though she had drunk no wine, her cheeks were red. Her eyes, too, were red—for Elsa, whose ascetic life was a matter of course, this strongly spiced food and its strange need for wine was almost like a drug.

  “Hah, that’s because it’s meant to go with wine. Here, try this.”

  The Church had no prohibition against wine, so long as it was taken in moderation. There were more famously hard-drinking priests and preachers than one could count. And since wine always called out for food, they tended to be large men, too. There was one famous Church doctor nicknamed “The Angel Physician,” whose belly was so round and stuck out so far that his place at the table had a special cutout just so that he could fit.

  “What’s this…?”

  “Clams fried in butter. They’re from the port town downriver, hauled up still in the shell. You can even eat them raw.”

  It was rare to eat raw food, except in the far north, or if one was a pagan. Such a custom existed in Lenos because of its close trade association with Kerube.

  Naturally, Elsa reacted to the barmaid’s jest with eyes round in surprise.

  Holo watched this delightedly and was about to call out to the barmaid, but Lawrence politely moved Holo’s gaze back to the table.

  “If the tail’s too strongly spiced for you, you might find it’s just right for putting on a bit of bread. The cooking here is excellent, but the bread is, unfortunately, a tad—” Lawrence was interrupted by a plate with even more food on it hitting the table.

  He looked and saw the barmaid looking down at him with a smile.

  “The bread is unfortunately a tad…expensive,” Lawrence amended, at which the barmaid nodded, satisfied, and strode back into the kitchen. Holo snickered and heaped boiled beans atop a piece of bread.

  “The larger world does have all sorts of food,” said Elsa wondrously.

  On the table was meat, vegetables, and shellfish, some roasted, some steamed, some boiled. Some were strongly flavored, others subtly, and even the bread was different from what Elsa was used to, cut as it was into thin slices, making it convenient to top with other things.

  Not even the nearby town of Enberch, to say nothing of the tiny village of Tereo itself, conducted much in the way of trade with the outside world, so it was not well-informed about food in other places.

  Lawrence had, in fact, used that ill-informedness to save Tereo.

  “But the surprises are only so frequent when you’re just starting out. Every day dizzied me when I’d first set out from my home village, but after a month of journeying, I had the face of a seasoned traveler.”

  Truly, it was amid such monotonous days that he had had the incredible fortune to encounter Holo—one never knew what the world would bring.

  Still, Elsa smiled as though thankful for Lawrence’s consideration of her.

  “Mmph…Mm…” Holo wiped a bean crumb from the corner of her mouth with her finger, then opened her mouth between chews to lick it up. She swallowed it down hurriedly with a drink, then proceeded to her second bite. Artless in eating, drinking, and sleep: That was Holo.

  “Mm?” As she opened her mouth wide to take another bite, Holo finally noticed Elsa’s gaze and, for a moment, seemed to hesitate, as though unsure what to do. Finally, though, she took the bite anyway.

  Lawrence frantically searched for some sort of excuse to make on her behalf. But as he looked down like he was trying to convince himself of something, Elsa reached for another slice of bread. She was about to bite directly into it, but then seemed to remember Lawrence’s words from a moment earlier. Holding her sleeve back with her other hand, Elsa hesitantly reached out to the fish tail dish and dipped the piece of bread in it.

  But what stopped her hand was not the memory of how spicy the dish had been. Rather, she had spotted Col, who likewise was dipping chunks of bread into the dish, but he was letting th
e sauce drip everywhere, utterly carefree.

  “…”

  Unlike the arrogant Holo, Col took heed of the gazes of others. As soon as he noticed Elsa’s stunned, wide-eyed gaze, he immediately knew he had done something wrong and began to cast about for what it might be—except that his mouth was full of bread, so it was all he could do to chew busily away at it.

  Holo had often compared Col’s way of eating to a squirrel’s. That might have been why she shared her food with him: It was like feeding a squirrel.

  In truth, while Col’s table habits could hardly be called refined, they did have a certain charm to them.

  “Such terrible manners,” said Elsa, finally unable to contain herself.

  Col had just taken a second bite when she spoke. He froze and closed his eyes, then timidly held out the bread to return it to Elsa.

  Holo watched this, grinning, then made ready to pop the remaining bread into her mouth as though none of it was any of her concern.

  “The same goes for you,” said Elsa.

  Holo had her own reasons. While she did pause just before eating the bread, it was only to raise her chin and look Elsa in the eyes before devouring the bread anyway.

  Elsa sighed and directed her criticism at Lawrence. “In my village, in times like these, we remind people that they oughtn’t eat like thieves.”

  In other words, without any serenity and uncaring of what others might think.

  Lawrence nodded politely, but it was Holo who spoke in an unruffled tone. “This is normal for travelers.”

  Elsa shrunk back at this statement, perhaps realizing just how ignorant she was of the wider world’s ways and just how different they might be from her own common sense.

  However, Holo’s words were unfairly aimed right at Elsa’s ignorance and credulity. It did not in fact follow that all travelers abandoned their manners entirely.

  Lawrence saw Elsa flinch and smacked the nastily grinning Holo’s head in retaliation. “Apologies,” he offered. “We have a tendency toward unrefined mealtimes, I’m afraid.”

  “It—it’s all right.”

  Elsa regained her composure and straightened herself, then looked up at the ceiling, as though something had occurred to her.

  Lawrence followed her gaze, but Elsa then looked back down and slowly lowered her eyelids. She then cleared her throat quietly and spoke.

  “I give my thanks for this incredible meal. I wish that I could offer something in return, but as you can see, I am a traveler from an impoverished village. Yet I do have something.” She opened her eyes and seemed almost happy. “I could teach you better table manners.”

  Sitting next to her, Col looked at Elsa uncertainly, and then gave Lawrence the same look from across the table. It was likely he had never in his whole life been told he had poor manners.

  Of course, considering Col’s position, it might well be a good thing for him to learn at least the basics while he had the chance. At the moment, it was generous to compare his manners to a beast’s.

  Discerning Lawrence’s conclusion from his expression, Elsa then regarded Col with a kind smile. “Do not worry. There were people in my village who were quite terrible at learning things, but even they got the knack of it.”

  Lawrence remembered Evan and how his scattering of bread crumbs had so infuriated Elsa. Holo cackled, seemingly remembering the same thing, but Elsa merely sighed and repeated what she had said before. “The same goes for you.”

  “Wha…just who do you think I—”

  “It’s the same for everyone. And with that attitude, you ought to be able to behave properly. There’s simply no excuse.”

  Holo had a great ability to play the part, but it was also one of her nastier aspects. Elsa had seen right through this, and Holo turned away in irritation.

  “These dishes are so splendid, after all. If you eat them properly, they’ll be even more delicious.” Elsa smiled gently, as befit one dressed in a nun’s habit.

  When her face was stern and her tone harsh, she seemed very much like Fran, but when she was like this, she was entirely different.

  Fran had lived through her bloody life with nothing but her scriptures and her comrades to see her through it. On that count, Elsa had a somewhat unreliable but still committed partner.

  The same flower might bloom with different colors, depending on the soil and environment.

  “Ah…er…,” stammered Col, looking to Lawrence.

  While Holo once called the forest of Yoitsu her home, that was not true of Col. If he truly aimed to study Church law and attain a high rank within the clergy, his manners would be important.

  Lawrence nodded, whereupon Col made a face like a passenger who had just missed his wagon. But one could tell the value of a person by whether they gave up at such a predicament or began walking on foot.

  Col was very much the latter sort of person.

  He nodded uncertainly, chin down, looking very noble indeed.

  “I-if you please, then.”

  “Very well,” said Elsa with a smile. Beside her, Holo took a strangled gulp of wine.

  Elsa’s instructions were not so very unreasonable.

  Do not rush your eating. Take one bite at a time. Do not spill. Chew quietly. Don’t lean over your food, but bring it to your mouth. And so on and so forth. And yet it seemed that Col was hearing each of these for the very first time.

  After all, if he did not eat quickly, his food might be taken. He had never had enough for spillage to be a problem. There was never pleasant conversation such that noisy eating mattered. He had never even gotten used to washing and drying his hands.

  He had only very recently been able to take his time eating—since meeting Lawrence and Holo.

  Once Col finished his meal after minding all these new rules, he stood and addressed Lawrence with a seriousness. “When I eat that slowly, it seems like the hot food gets cold before I can finish…”

  He said this not out of childish obstinance or rebellion, but rather because Col the wandering scholar had so rarely been given hot food to eat. It was pathetic to hear.

  Lawrence put his hand on Col’s back, and his back in turn felt small. “But in exchange, you get friends to eat with. Even if it’s a little cooler, it’s still just as tasty.” He would never have spoken such words when he was just starting out as a merchant, but now they came with an ease that surprised even himself, without so much as a hint of pretension or embarrassment.

  After all, once he had met Holo, mealtimes became more than an excuse to take in nourishment and became a time of happiness. Even when the food was cold and distasteful, eating it with a friend, with whom you could complain about the cold or the bad taste, was its own sort of pleasure.

  Col seemed to have understood this. He nodded deeply, as though a rich and beautiful truth had been revealed to him.

  “Anyway, just consider that there’s nothing to lose in learning such things. After all, it was free,” Lawrence said cheerfully, giving Col a sly smile.

  “Right!” proclaimed Col. He trotted out of the tavern, following Elsa.

  Col loved to study, so no doubt he was off to review what he had just learned. By contrast there was Holo, so deeply unamused by the proceedings that she remained at the table as Lawrence paid for the meal.

  “You ought to teach him a thing or two yourself,” said Lawrence. The copper coins he had received as change had a rabbit seal on them, perhaps deliberately, given that they were used as payment for trivial jobs and could only command light fare.

  As Lawrence tossed a coin playfully in the air, Holo snatched it away. “Hardly. I’m a mere beast, after all.”

  Lawrence was about to laugh this off as yet another jest, but then he noticed that beneath her hood her face was surprisingly dour. He shut his mouth.

  “So long as he enjoys himself, I thought,” said Holo. If she had been the type to force her ways onto others, not only would the village where she had maintained the wheat harvest for all those centuries ne
ver forgotten her, she most certainly would not have been driven away from it.

  To live joyfully, freely—that was what was important to Holo. At a glance, it might seem as though she was willful and always wanted her own way, but at her core, she had an easygoing nature. Lawrence had no trouble imagining her napping among the swaying wheat stalks all day long. It would have been so very Holo-like, so delightfully peaceful.

  But such was not the way of all things in the world.

  “Col’s at that age, you know. Learning itself is fun for him.” Lawrence felt quite proud of himself for putting it so well, but Holo seemed to find the statement an unfair one. She sneered and smacked Lawrence’s shoulder.

  Once the pair exited the shop, they met up with the waiting Col and Elsa, who began to walk.

  Their conversation wandered from one topic to the next, and even from behind, it was clear that they were having a lovely time.

  “You look as though you’ve had your favorite toy taken from you,” said Lawrence teasingly, at which Holo gave a childish nod. At her unexpected honestly, Lawrence grimaced and added, “If this is how you are with Col, I dare not imagine what would happen if I were taken, too.”

  It was a practically suicidal joke. Holo could choose any number of ways to come back at it. Eventually, she looked up and smiled a small, exasperated smile.

  “I’m a wisewolf, you fool.”

  It seemed to Lawrence that she would be a bit more charming if she acted more like she was in this moment. He took her hand. It was warmer than usual.

  The next morning, Lawrence awoke to the sound of a closing door.

  He had been drifting back to consciousness up until that moment, so when he sat up he was not surprised to find there was no one else in the room.

  If his slightly foggy memory could be trusted, Holo and the rest had again gone off to morning prayers.

  Lawrence yawned and, for a moment, seriously considered going back to sleep. Despite the comparatively easy journey, they had of course camped on the way from Kerube to Lenos. Moreover, compared with the snowbound country of Winfiel or that snowy shack up in the mountains, this inn was the very lap of luxury.