Spice & Wolf Omnibus

by Isuna Hasekura

  He’d be able to pick her dusty, multilayered robe out of a crowd of a hundred people with no problem.

  After all, no matter how many layers she wore, he’d recognize the movements of her swishing tail anywhere.

  Smiling to himself, Lawrence guided the horse into the barn, wherein there were two beggars doing lookout duty. They gave Lawrence an appraising glance.

  The lookouts never forgot a face, so naturally they remembered Lawrence, and with a gesture of their chins, pointed to where they wanted him to leave his horse. With no reason to refuse, Lawrence complied. In doing so, he noticed that next to his space was a wide-hooved mountain horse, which gave him a flinty glare from beneath its long, shaggy hair. No doubt it had hauled furs into town from the northlands.

  “You two get along now,” said Lawrence, patting his own horse on its flank as he climbed down from the wagon, leaving the two beggars with two copper coins before gathering his belongings and heading into the inn.

  This particular inn had once been the living quarters of a tannery. The first floor had been the leather strap makers’ workshop, and so it was mostly open with few walls and a stone floor. Now it was used to store things, and here and there were goods that various merchants had the inn keep under long-term storage.

  Slipping past the jumbled piles of goods that were taller than he was, Lawrence arrived at the only orderly place on the first floor – the innkeeper’s room.

  On a small table was an iron bowl held up in a three-legged iron brace. The innkeeper burned charcoal in the bowl and drank mulled wine all day, daydreaming of far-off lands. “Next year, I’m going south on pilgrimage,” he would frequently say.

  The innkeeper noticed Lawrence, looking at him with keen blue eyes beneath bushy brows. “Third floor. Window side.”

  “Right, third floor – wait, window side?”

  Though inn patrons could either pay in advance or at the end of their stay, the stoic innkeeper’s mood was improved by pay in advance. Lawrence had thus placed a moderately generous fee on the table, but the innkeeper’s words came as a surprise, making him turn around.

  “Window side,” said the innkeeper again in a low voice, closing his eyes.

  The old man did not want to discuss the matter.

  Lawrence nodded his head. Oh well, he thought to himself as he left the room.

  Holding the handrails stained with age and use, he went up the stairs.

  Just like the living quarters of any other workshop, on the second floor was a living room with a fireplace, a kitchen, and the master’s bedroom. This building was a bit different in that the fireplace was in the center of the living room, and the rooms on the third and fourth floors were built to get as much heat as possible from the chimney that led upwards through the inn.

  In addition to the somewhat strange layout that this necessitated, the maintenance necessary to ensure that smoke didn’t leak from the chimney and into the rooms was often troublesome. The master of this building, however, had chosen the comfort of the apprentices that would live on the third and fourth floors.

  The current innkeeper was a kind, if quiet man. His name was Arold Ecklund, and he had been the head craftsman of the tannery.

  When night fell, the odd downstairs living room would be filled with friendly chatter as the guests each came bearing various wines. Now, though, all that could be heard was the quietly crackling fire.

  There were four rooms on the third floor.

  Back when the building had been a workshop, the fourth floor was used for new apprentices and as storage for odds and ends, so the third-floor rooms were larger.

  But not all of those rooms received the benefit of the warmth from the chimney. Only one of the third-floor rooms faced the street, and in order to accommodate a window to let in light, it sacrificed access to the chimney.

  In other words, having a window meant sacrificing heat.

  Lawrence was sure that Holo had said she preferred a warm room. As he entered their quarters, he saw that she’d already taken off and scattered all her wet clothes everywhere and was huddled beneath the covers of her bed.

  He wondered if she was crying from the indignity of it all, but looking at the way she lay curled up in the blanket, she seemed to have fallen asleep.

  Staying angry for so long must have tired her out, Lawrence supposed.

  He gathered up her discarded clothes, draping them temporarily over the back of a chair, and he removed his own traveling garb. This was the most relieving part of any journey – the moment when he could remove his wet things at an inn. They felt like damp clay as he peeled them off, set them aside, and changed into his normal clothes, which hadn’t yet been soaked with rain.

  His standard outfit was admittedly cold, but it was still better than staying wet.

  Without a fireplace, the room would be no warmer than a campsite once night fell.

  A mere blanket wouldn’t be enough to stave off the chill. He realized this as he bundled up Holo’s heavy, rain-soaked clothing like a manservant.

  Holo’s tail stuck out from underneath the blanket, which otherwise looked as if it had been thrown over a pile of bread, cheese, or bacon.

  She really didn’t play fair, thought Lawrence.

  It wasn’t quite the same thing as a nobleman’s daughter flashing her long, beautiful hair out the window of her chamber to catch the eye of a passing knight – but nonetheless, Lawrence felt compelled to respond.

  “I think your tail is lovely; it’s warm with fine fur.”

  A moment passed, and Holo pulled her tail in underneath the blanket.

  Lawrence could only heave a sigh.

  Holo was hardly the sort of sensitive girl whose wounded feelings could be soothed with a single compliment from him. Even at this very moment, she surely still harbored a smoldering grudge.

  And yet she had gotten Lawrence to praise her tail.

  Lawrence smiled ruefully to himself as he descended the stairs, sighing again. In her own way, Holo relied on him. That was all the reason he needed.

  It could be one of her clever traps, but being caught in them wasn’t such a bad feeling.

  He took advantage of the fact that a mind-reading wolf wasn’t planted next to him to mull over such thoughts as he entered the living room, which housed the fireplace.

  There was no one there. His only company was the echoes of the crackling firewood.

  Furniture was scarce. A single chair was illuminated by the flickering light of the fire. That chair alone wouldn’t be enough to dry the bundle of clothes Lawrence held in both arms, but he was unconcerned.

  Here and there on the walls of the living room were nails that had been only half pounded in, their heads turned up to act as hooks. A leather strap dangled from one of them, long enough to be connected to a hook on the opposite wall. On rainy days, this was excellent for drying the clothes of sodden travelers, and on clear days, it worked well for drying vegetables and meat to serve as supplies for people resuming their journeys.

  Lawrence quickly set up the line and hung the wet clothes across it.

  The robes were larger than he’d reckoned, and he wound up having to use the entirety of the line.

  “Just so long as no one else comes to dry their clothes,” Lawrence murmured to himself as he sat down on the single chair before the fireplace.

  The next moment, he heard the creaking sound of the staircase.

  “…”

  Apparently the creak had actually come from the hallway.

  Lawrence turned his gaze toward the sound and met the eyes of a figure who had climbed up the stairs and now peered into the living room.

  His head was wrapped in a cowl, which also covered most of his face, obscuring whatever expression he might have had, but his gaze was keen and steady. He was not especially tall, but neither short – perhaps a bit taller than Holo.

  His traveling clothes were heavy and squared his figure. The most outstanding feature of the fellow’s attire were his leather
boots with thick, leather strap work that bound them to his calves. They were proof of a traveler who eschewed horseback in favor of his own two feet, and the tightness with which the straps were tied was evidence of the severity of the season.

  The pale blue eyes that regarded Lawrence through the gap in those heavy layers of clothing were pure and keen – and unsympathetic.

  After giving Lawrence a long, appraising look, the figure continued wordlessly up the stairs.

  Despite carrying a heavy load, his footsteps were nearly silent.

  The stranger also seemed to have secured a third-floor room. From above his head, Lawrence heard a door open, then close.

  Arold mostly left his guests alone, which made his inn particularly prized among those who weren’t interested in being sociable. Even among merchants, not all of them were extroverts.

  Lawrence used this inn when he was in Lenos because the price and facilities were good and because Arold had been a member of the Rowen Trade Guild. Once Arold had been a traveling fur merchant, but he’d married into the tannery and taken over as its master.

  Since the town didn’t have a Rowen guild house, many guild members used this inn when passing through.

  Arold’s tendency to leave his guests alone was especially convenient now with Holo along.

  In reality, the foremost issue on Lawrence’s mind was securing the meat stew that would hopefully improve Holo’s mood. If it would make her feel better, a bowl or two of stew was nothing, but the total cost of staying in this town could skyrocket if he let his guard down.

  The fatigue of his long journey crept up on him as he pondered the problem there before the fireplace, and soon he dozed off.

  He woke once when Arold came to add fuel to the fire, but Arold of course said nothing and in fact was rather generous in his use of firewood, prompting Lawrence to decide to enjoy the old man’s courtesy.

  Lawrence woke again after the sun had set, when but for the firelight, the darkness in the room was so thick it seemed one could easily ladle cupfuls of it.

  Realizing he had overslept, Lawrence scrambled to his feet, but he could not turn back time. No doubt the selfish Holo had long since awoken and was nursing a fine temper back in their room, unable to leave until Lawrence returned with her clothes.

  Lawrence sighed, and after checking to see that the clothes were in fact dry, he quickly collected them and returned to the third-floor room.

  It went without saying that Holo was fit to be tied.

  The stew Lawrence finally ordered at the tavern he chose at random was a luxuriously meaty one indeed.

  The next morning, Lawrence awoke to sunny weather. Warm slivers of light found their way in through the cracks in the wooden window. Despite their room not receiving the benefit of the fireplace, the morning chill was not so bad as it might have been, thanks either to the sunlight or to the merchant having grown accustomed to freezing cold nights on the road.

  Either way, given this warmth, Lawrence could understand why Holo had chosen the brighter room.

  The morning sun certainly earned its adoration.

  In a rare turn of events, Lawrence was awake before Holo, whose head protruded from the blanket under which she slept. Normally she slept curled up like a proper wolf, so to see her slumbering more like the maiden she appeared to be was novel.

  The few previous occasions when Holo had overslept were all the results of hangovers, but her complexion looked healthy this morning.

  Given the guileless expression on her exposed face, Lawrence supposed she was simply sleeping late.

  “Well then,” he murmured.

  It was all well and good to stare at Holo’s face for a while, but if the irritable wisewolf noticed him, he would hear no end of it.

  What he needed to be doing was preparing to venture out into the town. He stroked his beard.

  Naturally longer beards were commonplace in the north country, but his was still a bit too long, and a self-indulgently long beard was hardly attractive. As he retrieved a washcloth and blade from his things in preparation for borrowing some hot water from Arold, the keen-eared wolf on the bed stirred, seemingly wakened by the sound.

  After hearing her utter a displeased groan, Lawrence became aware of her gaze upon his back.

  “I’m off to tend to my pelt,” said Lawrence, putting the sheathed blade to his chin.

  Holo yawned, then smiled wordlessly, narrowing her eyes. She seemed to be in a good temper.

  “Have to make sure it’ll fetch a good price, after all,” Lawrence added.

  Holo hid her mouth behind the blanket. “I’m sure ’tis worth a king’s ransom.”

  Perhaps it was because she had just woken. Her eyes were gentle despite their drowsiness.

  No doubt she was at least half teasing him, but he couldn’t help but be a little pleased at her honest, straightforward words. He shrugged to hide his embarrassment.

  Holo continued. “Aye, a price so high none will buy it,” she said with a glitter of malice in her eyes now as she shifted from lying on her stomach to her back. “Has anyone so far?”

  She certainly had a talent for luring people into premature happiness, Lawrence thought to himself.

  He waggled the tip of the blade he held to signal his surrender, at which Holo giggled, snuggling back underneath the blanket and rolling over as if going back to sleep.

  Lawrence sighed.

  It was both frustrating and strangely amusing to be constantly toyed with like this.

  He left the room and headed down the stairs, hand on the banister, as he smiled ruefully to himself.

  But that smile vanished when he noticed someone else there before him.

  “Good morning,” said Lawrence pleasantly to the fellow lodger who appeared at the bottom of the stairs.

  It was the same hooded stranger he’d glimpsed briefly while drying his clothes the previous night.

  The stranger wore the same cowl, but his robes were somewhat looser now, and his feet were shod in sandals. Having perhaps bought a pastry for breakfast, he held a faintly steaming package in his right hand.

  “… Aye,” replied the stranger in a near whisper as they passed, glancing at Lawrence with blue eyes through the gap in his cowl.

  The voice was hoarse, the voice of a traveler well suited to dry sand and rocky terrain.

  Despite the stranger’s unsociability, Lawrence felt a certain kinship.

  In any case, once he smelled the scent of the meat pie that issued up from the lodger’s package, he knew for a certainty that Holo would soon be demanding one for herself.

  “What comes next, then?” asked Holo, a scrap of meat clinging to the corner of her mouth and a meat pie in one hand.

  “Well, first we’ve got to collect whatever stories about you we can find.”

  “Mm. Stories of me and of the whereabouts of Yoitsu…”

  Munch, munch, munch. Three bites were all it took to polish off the hand-sized remnants of the meat pie. They were swallowed and gone in a twinkling.

  “Just like in Kumersun, we need to find a chronicler,” said Lawrence.

  “I’ll just leave that to you. You know better than me how to accomplish the thing… What? What is it?”

  Lawrence waved his hand lightly at Holo’s questioning look, smiling. “So if I know how to accomplish the thing, what do you know?” He returned her blank gaze. “There’s a saying that goes: ‘He who knows how to do something is the servant of he who knows why that thing must be done.’”

  “Mm. I see. And I do know why it is that you work so gallantly.”

  “The men of old spoke true,” said Lawrence, biting into his own pie.

  Holo sat cross-legged on the bed and continued. “If I’m your master, then I suppose I should give you a reward.”

  “A reward?”

  “Aye. Such as, hmm…” began Holo with a smile that felt to Lawrence as if fairly painted with something bewitching. “What is it you desire?”

  The room was sedu
ctively dim, and Lawrence would have felt his heart skip a beat but for the scrap of meat that still clung to the corner of Holo’s mouth.

  Lawrence finished his own meat pie, then pointed at the corner of his own mouth. “Nothing in particular,” he told Holo.

  “Hmph,” said Holo, vaguely frustrated as she plucked the meat scrap from her mouth.

  “It would be nice if you were a bit more pleasant,” added Lawrence.

  Holo’s hand froze and her lip twitched. She flicked her finger, sending the scrap of food flying. “So now you treat me like a child?”

  “Not at all. Children actually do as they’re told, for one.” Lawrence took hold of a jug of chilled water, taking a swig, then paused. “Anyway, first I suppose we’ll ask the innkeeper here. He may be old, but he’s still the master of an inn.”

  Lawrence stood and put on his coat by way of preparation. For Holo’s part, she crawled off the bed.

  “You’re coming along, right?” asked Lawrence.

  “Aye, even if you slapped my wrist,” said Holo. As she bantered, she quickly put on her waistcloth, robe, and cape with such practiced ease that Lawrence looked on as though enchanted. The wolf twirled theatrically and spoke. “Should I clap my hands now, the spell I’ve cast upon you may well be broken!”

  So that’s what she was doing.

  Lawrence decided to play along.

  “Huh? What am I doing here? Oh, that’s right – this is Lenos, city of lumber and fur. I should stock up on furs and head to the next town,” he said, using exaggerated gesticulations. He’d seen his share of traveling theatrical troupes.

  Holo put her hands to her midriff and laughed as though watching a grand comedy.

  After giggling for a moment, she scampered over to Lawrence, whose hand was on the room’s door, ready to open it. “Oh, la, are you a traveling merchant? I’ve a good eye, me, for judging the quality of furs,” she said.

  Lawrence took her hand, then opened the door, answering, “Oh ho! You’ve a discerning eye, ’tis true. But can you judge the quality of a person?”