Spice & Wolf Omnibus

by Isuna Hasekura

  With her cunning mind and abundant pluck, she had taken every precaution, but if she dawdled in this town, the dike she had built of dangerous dealings was likely to burst. She would want to hasten far away as soon as possible.

  Also, she had to move the fur she had brought from Lenos from here to the next town.

  While the town had only just begun to rise, it was probably too slow for Eve.

  “Where did she say I should go?”

  “Er, she said she’d visit the inn after a bit.”

  “… I see.”

  Eve was a rather busy person at the moment, so that she would go out of her way to come here carried heavy implications.

  The first thing Lawrence thought was that she would want to avoid being accused of sinking the ship in the Roam River.

  “So, did you eat breakfast?”

  “Huh? Ah… er, yes.”

  While he lacked Holo’s talent for it, as a merchant, Lawrence was reasonably good at spotting lies.

  He lightly poked Col’s head, and then without saying anything, he thrust a sack of bread at him.

  Most likely he had used his breakfast money to buy the herbs with which he had brewed and made the salve.

  With the dangerous goal of using Church authority to protect a pagan village, Col had traveled to the south to study Church law – the boy was more orthodox than the orthodox.

  Col hesitated to accept the sack, but Lawrence pretended not to notice, venturing over to Holo, who was still moaning under the blanket.

  When he informed her of his plan to go out for a bit, she did not raise her head, replying instead with her ears.

  Lawrence had wondered if the odor might be enough to make her faint, but surprisingly, that appeared not to be the case.

  Lawrence, too, had begun to find the scent less off-putting. The swollen patch on his right cheek felt somehow hot, and in turn, the bruise began to feel better.

  Holo the wolf surely, he supposed, had an even clearer understanding of the medicine’s effect on her body.

  From the far side of the bed, he heard the words, “I’ll not forgive you if you lose.” From this, he concluded his guess was not incorrect.

  A bit relieved, Lawrence looked over his shoulder, whereupon Col – who had been holding the sack abashedly for some time – stood, bread in both hands.

  The bag contained both normal rye bread and rye baked with milk, but Col held only the former. Lawrence could not help but grin at the boy’s reserve.

  He wished Holo would learn a bit from it.

  “So, are you coming?” Lawrence asked, meaning if Col planned to come along to the meeting with Eve.

  Col’s eyes darted about for a moment, but then he nodded.

  Lawrence intended to ask Eve about the wolf’s leg bone that supposedly came from a spirit or god like Holo, which in turn was the god that the village of Col’s birth worshiped.

  It was to discover the truth of the stories surrounding this wolf-god’s bone that Col was traveling with Lawrence and Holo in the first place.

  All of which meant that he had every reason to want to come along.

  And yet Lawrence had the feeling that if he hadn’t invited the boy along, he would not have come.

  Despite his youth, he was of a nervously polite disposition.

  His attraction to Holo was surely rooted in his finding her casual arrogance refreshing.

  “Well, you’d best finish that bread quickly, then,” said Lawrence as he left the room, and Col hastily jammed the bread into his mouth.

  “R-right!”

  Lawrence then offered a further statement. “Once you’re finished, of course, don’t forget your ‘I just ate rye bread!’ face!”

  Though Col had enjoyed a good, cultured upbringing in the abbey, it seemed his impoverished travels had wreaked havoc on his table manners, and he was a bit wild.

  His cheeks packed squirrel-like with bread, he stood there blankly.

  He then seemed to understand what Lawrence meant, and swallowing the bread with a grin, he answered, “The Church also teaches that we should hide our mouths when we eat.”

  “But that’s to hide when you’re eating something good, is it not?”

  Lawrence closed the door and began to walk with Col following one step behind him like a faithful son.

  “Thank you for the bread. It was delicious,” said Col – and being a bright lad, he said it with a bit of a smile.

  The first floor of the inn was a dining area.

  It was generally accepted that only travelers indulged in the extravagance known as “breakfast,” so those sitting at the tables were all dressed for journeying.

  Among them was Eve at her table, looking as she always did. At a glance, she appeared every bit a traveler about to start on some journey.

  And it was entirely possible that her appearance was accurate. What most concerned Lawrence at that moment was that not only did Eve have her face mostly hidden behind the scarf she wrapped around it, but also that the scarf covered her nose.

  “… What a terrible odor.”

  The innkeeper behind the counter was giving Lawrence a dirty look, and the other customers were stunned enough that they forgot their anger.

  Lawrence remained defiantly unworried, and Col for his part seemed genuinely unconcerned.

  While the scents that people preferred differed from region to region, surely this was an extreme example, Lawrence thought to himself as he sat across from Eve.

  Whereupon Eve said something truly unexpected.

  “Still, I’ve not smelled this in a long time. Doubtless that bruise of yours will be gone by evening.”

  The right cheek to which Col’s salve had been applied was the same right cheek that Eve had struck hard with a hatchet handle during her fight with Lawrence.

  Her tone was slightly joking. “So he prepared a remedy for you, eh? Educated lad,” she said with mild exaggeration in her voice, looking past Lawrence to Col, who stood behind him. “From Roef, are you?”

  Eve quietly fixed Col in her gaze, then closed her eyes briefly.

  Lawrence could not guess at what she might have been thinking.

  “At any rate, I know the banks of the Roam River backward and forward. And it’s that knowledge that you’ve pursued me here for, yes? And with such unbelievable speed that I can’t imagine how you managed it.”

  Through the gap in the scarf with which she hid her face, her eyes narrowed.

  It was the virtue of all merchants that even if they had been prepared to kill each other yesterday, if their interests were aligned today, they’d happily shake hands. Without a contractual relationship, there would be no lingering emotional resentment.

  Even given everything that had happened in Lenos, they were now like old acquaintances.

  “My shock last night was the deepest I’ve had in many years. I wondered if there’d been some mistake with the contract.”

  Though he always found himself confused by Holo’s roundabout way of speaking, this sort of exchange was one Lawrence understood all too well.

  The buzzing in his chest was an emotion not unlike love.

  This game merchants played, each trying to sound the other out and learn the other’s true motives – it was a delight, it tickled.

  “It’s true, I seek only your knowledge – no contract of trade binds us.” Given the circumstances, Lawrence wanted to make it entirely clear that he was not after Eve’s furs.

  Eve nodded faintly, then stood from her seat. “Let’s move elsewhere. We’re only earning the ire of the innkeeper and our fellow patrons here,” she said impishly.

  But it was not necessarily a joke, so Lawrence stood and, with Col in tow, followed Eve.

  “So, what of your companion?” she asked.

  They emerged from the inn onto a narrow street – it was more of a broad alleyway, truth be told.

  The town of Kerube was divided into northern and southern halves by the river, and the inn at which Lawrence was stayin
g was on the northern part.

  Clean buildings were few and far between on the north side, and while the riverside market was a lively one, even a short distance away alleys and slumping construction were common. The overwhelming impression was one of desperation.

  Building height was far from uniform, either because the local government had generous policies on matters of scenic aesthetics, or because it simply lacked the political power to do anything about this.

  Lawrence mused on the matter as Eve headed without hesitation to the opposite side of the market.

  “My companion is quite tired from our journey. She’s in bed with this salve on her body.”

  “That’s…” Eve trailed off, then looked back to Col, and behind her scarf Lawrence could tell she was smiling. “… Well, you’ll know soon enough.”

  Even if it had not been about Holo, Lawrence could tell she had restrained herself from offering sarcastic condolences.

  Col wore a proud, if oblivious, smile.

  “Still, that may be fortunate for me. And fortunate for you, as well, I should say.”

  “For both sides, then.” Lawrence slumped and gave a tired smile.

  Holo’s anger was the reason he had not asked Eve what she knew the previous night.

  “Still, someone who will become angry on your behalf is a precious asset. You’d best value her.”

  “She thinks of me as her asset, and she was probably angry at her property being damaged.”

  Eve’s shoulders shook beneath her cloak.

  She then veered toward the edge of the street, to avoid a woman approaching them with a basketful of winter vegetables.

  They were undoubtedly bound for sale at the market, and compared to their summer counterparts, they were a deep green and looked cold. No doubt they were best used in soup rather than eaten raw or pickled.

  “If you are indeed your companion’s property, she would’ve sought compensation. But she instead sought revenge.” Lawrence thought he saw a flash of loneliness in Eve’s pale blue eyes.

  Eve’s house had fallen into poverty, and she’d been sold, name and all, to a wealthy merchant looking to purchase a noble title for himself.

  Money. Or revenge.

  Lawrence felt as though just thinking about it caused Eve pain.

  He regretted the poor choice of words his banter showed.

  “Heh. Once you’ve inspired your opponent’s guilt and sympathy, it makes dealing with them that much easier,” said Eve.

  At her words, Lawrence returned to his senses with a start.

  Techniques of seduction and false tears always trumped more honest ways of doing business.

  Despite his wariness, he’d been taken in.

  But Lawrence smiled and scratched his head abashedly, naturally with good reason. “And why would you venture to admit that?” he asked, enjoying posing the riddle as he looked at Col, who was concentrating hard as he tried to follow the conversation. “By revealing your own trap to me like that, you’re trying to get me to let my guard down.”

  “Indeed. Thus my fangs will sink in all the deeper.”

  There was no doubt that if she removed her scarf, she’d be smiling and showing her fangs at that very moment.

  He thought he understood now what Holo meant when she called Eve a “vixen.”

  As a merchant, Eve was very like a wolf, but Holo did not want to acknowledge her as a peer.

  “Ah, we’ve arrived.”

  “Where’s this?”

  As soon as they stopped, Col walked right into Lawrence. The boy had undoubtedly been concentrating on the conversation between Lawrence and Eve, trying to understand even some small piece of it.

  Lawrence remembered doing the same thing with his own master, and it made him a bit nostalgic.

  “My foothold in this town. If I told you it’s like a trading company without a sign, you’d be able to imagine what I meant, no?”

  In contrast to the surrounding buildings, the walls were blackened and the roof seemed likely to slide right down into the alley, although the stone foundation seemed sturdy enough.

  Col seemed worried by Eve’s theatrical statement and gulped nervously.

  But of course she was joking. A closer look at the black walls revealed a discolored patch where something had been removed.

  In other words, a ruined or bankrupt trading company.

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d tease us a little less,” said Lawrence to Eve’s back as she put her hand to the door, at which point he heard Col let slip a small “huh?”

  The boy seemed to have realized in that moment that he was the only one who had not understood.

  Eve turned, though surely not to confirm Col’s reaction. “Out of consideration for your adorable little apprentice?” she inquired, amused.

  “Unfortunately, he’s not my apprentice, nor is he a merchant. So I wish you’d not twist the poor lad’s mind too much.”

  At these words, Eve burst out laughing in a most un-Eve-like manner. “Ha-ha-ha! It’s true! Oh, it’s true – we merchants are a twisted lot.”

  Unconcerned with the frustration of poor Col, whose jaw clenched at this exchange that went right over his head, the two twisted merchants entered the building.

  Lawrence looked back over his shoulder at Col, who followed with an expression of displeasure on his face.

  He must have thought he was being made sport of.

  Lawrence grimaced and heaved a long-suffering sigh.

  It occurred to him that too much time around merchants would distort the boy’s pleasant disposition. Such a waste.

  They were served warm goat’s milk mixed with butter and mead.

  In Col’s case, he received plain honey in the mead’s stead.

  Perhaps owing to the butter’s quality, it made Lawrence wish for some slightly bitter rye bread to go with it.

  “So Arold has not yet arrived, then?”

  As soon as they all entered the building, silence fell in the interior.

  The only sounds were the crackling of the fire in the fireplace and the goat’s milk bubbling away in a pot directly beside it.

  There were no other sounds as Lawrence watched Eve sit in front of the fireplace and prepare their drinks with surprising efficiency.

  “Probably by this evening. Will you eat?” asked Eve, holding some rye bread that she’d cut into chunks with a knife.

  Into the earthen-rimmed wooden bowls was poured the goat’s milk, now boiled down to the point where it resembled melted cheese.

  With salt and oil added and topped with slices of herring, there was no doubt it would be delicious.

  “If this is the sort of food you eat, your next journey will be a harsh one.”

  “Quite right. A taste for fine food sends the costs of travel into the sky. But if you’re not a merchant, there’s no need to worry about such things, is there?” asked Eve, setting a piece of bread before Col. “It’s a kind of fate, being a likable person,” she added, smiling as she removed the scarf she wore, baring her face.

  Watching Col’s shocked face in that moment was rather amusing.

  “I suppose I’ve a bit of motherliness left in me after all,” declared Eve with a self-mocking smile, hiding her worry and pain. She was startlingly beautiful.

  Lawrence had often thought that women were better suited to being merchants than men, and the thought struck him afresh.

  Not even the most canny of men could compare with Eve’s ever-changing identities and faces.

  “So, you had something to ask me?” Eve broke the silence as she watched Col slowly savor the bread, unlike the way he had wolfed down the portion Lawrence had given him earlier.

  “Yes, about a cursed story.”

  “Ah, the talk of this riverside company looking for a holy relic – though I don’t know if the pagans would call it ‘holy.’”

  Lawrence nodded, and Eve’s gaze became distant.

  “Those rumors started circulating in the Roam River region about
two years ago. At the time, anybody who’d ever dirtied his hands in bad business was excited about it.”

  “And the truth?”

  A child could be heard crying far away.

  Within the town, the cries of children were more common than birdsong.

  “Just what you’d expect. As long as there was no word of the bone being found, the rumors deflated as quickly as they’d spread. It turned into a joke.”

  He doubted Eve was lying – most importantly, she had no reason to.

  And yet smoke didn’t rise without a fire at its source.

  “Does it fit that the rumor’s source would be a company in Lesko, a town up the Roef River, one of the Roam’s tributaries?”

  The company in Lesko had conducted a trade in copper coins with the Jean Company here in Kerube.

  But the copper coin trade had a strange twist. The number of cases of coin that had been imported did not match the number exported.

  Lawrence remained ignorant, but Col, whose relish in devouring the bread was enough to make even Eve’s eyes narrow in laughter, seemed to realize the reason.

  As there was no need to know the answer immediately, Lawrence still had not asked, but if it came to his inability to solve the riddle by himself, one could hardly fail to be frustrated.

  “Indeed. I believe it was called the Debau Company. A scenic place where they held the mining rights to Lesko in an iron fist.”

  “And for this town, they mainly dealt with the Jean Company, yes?”

  “Oh ho. I’d love to know where you picked up that little tidbit. You’re quite well informed.” Eve popped a bit of bread dipped in goat’s milk into her mouth.

  Lawrence watched this and realized that he could have probably brought Holo along.

  Such a delicious dish would doubtless have turned her attitude toward conciliatory.

  “Well informed about the Debau Company in Lesko and the church in Lenos that was so quarrelsome about our furs. And you know the Jean Company here in this town that makes the copper goods trade its cornerstone. The Debau Company and the Jean Company should be on rather good terms.”

  “And what would be the reason for that?” Lawrence immediately asked, at which Eve pulled one corner of her lips up in a smirk.