Spice & Wolf Omnibus

by Isuna Hasekura

  They were certainly taking every precaution, but Lawrence still didn’t know how effective it would be.

  The delta was always full of merchants coming and going, so an unfamiliar face wandering around the town was hardly a strange sight – but everything had its limits.

  At this particular moment, a merchant wandering idly around or standing beneath the eaves of a stall, looking to and fro as though waiting for someone, would look extremely suspicious. And suspicion bred more suspicion.

  If Holo had been with him he would have been at ease, but having become used to her presence, it was frightening not to have her around. Lawrence grinned in spite of himself and made for the tavern where he had been told to receive his next reply.

  “I’m sorry, sir. We’ve no seats left! Will that be all right?”

  There were few taverns on the delta, and most of them had been rented out, so things were especially crowded.

  As a result, Lawrence was informed of such before he could enter the place.

  He could tell just by looking that the place was packed with people. It was obvious that they would run out of wine if they didn’t start diluting it with water, and anticipating that, Lawrence ordered some stronger liquor.

  Though he would be reduced to leaning against a wall to drink it, the positioning was just right to give him a good view of the tavern’s interior. He hadn’t participated in the meeting, but it would be no trouble to learn what happened there, and he wouldn’t even have to do anything in particular to do so.

  In the time it took him to receive his liquor and take three sips of the stuff – it was just right – he was able to understand the outlines of what had transpired.

  The northerners accused the southerners of stealing their ship, but the southerners contended that such had been the wish of the fisherman aboard.

  The lines of reasoning were parallel and would of course not lead to any sort of resolution.

  According to the loudest merchants in the tavern, odds were that the northerners would withdraw in the night and relinquish their claim on the narwhal in exchange for a share of the profits from its sale. Lawrence agreed with the notion.

  Had the southern elders wished to destroy the northerners, they had but to sell the narwhal to one of the landlords and, after grasping military power, threaten all of them into capitulation. Since they hadn’t done that, it meant they still hoped for a peaceful resolution. If they hoped to continue to hold the reins of the northerners, they would have to give them a reasonably generous offer, which would leave the northerners satisfied. The landlords’ resistance came from their desire to protect their own influence, as well as their simple wish to be able to bargain for some of the profits from the expansion of the delta marketplace.

  And even that would not be decided at this meeting, but rather in negotiations behind close doors.

  But those negotiations would take place unbeknownst to Lawrence, and the only people who had a full grasp of the situation were the lead characters in the farce.

  Because he stood between two people – Kieman and Eve – whose power in the town was uncommonly profound, with the narwhal at the center of events, Lawrence had the false sense that he was somehow crucial to all of this. But in truth he was a mere tributary.

  When he considered that his only role was to convey information, he could only smile. And Eve had had him under her thumb all along.

  Even the power of liquor wasn’t enough to let him calmly consider their last exchange. He felt very keenly how simple it truly was to deal in the exchange of goods for money.

  If he’d passed his days in this kind of environment, there was no telling what sort of monster he might have become. When it came to regrets and ambitions, he lived in a different world.

  He could only smile at how lucky he was that Holo wasn’t here to see him now.

  “Sir,” a voice called out to Lawrence as he was lost in thought, his cup at his lips.

  Any merchant who forgot a face or a voice was a failure. Of course, Kieman’s messenger had a rather memorable face.

  “You’re quite swift.”

  “Certainly. The boss’s work needs quick resolve.” The messenger’s face wrinkled in a proud smile.

  The more information one had, the more accurate one could be, but this required reach. That is what traveling merchants dealt in. By contrast, Kieman dealt with goods that took months to transport by ship. At distances like that, there was no way of knowing whether the information one had was reliable, and indeed, it was often impossible to have any information at all. In such situations, one still had to make trading decisions regarding goods of incredible value, and to do so, no small amount of decisiveness was necessary.

  To say nothing of the fortitude it took to wait out the months it took said goods to arrive.

  That was how Kieman possessed the pluck to come up with a plan to trade a narwhal for control of the delta, thereby shifting the balance of power in the town.

  And that was why his messenger smiled so proudly.

  “So, here.” Lawrence found a piece of paper slipped into his hand, as though it had been there all along.

  And if Lawrence himself was nearly fooled, there was no chance that any onlookers would have noticed the message change hands.

  “Indeed,” Lawrence murmured, and the messenger disappeared just as he had arrived.

  What he had been given wasn’t even in an envelope.

  Did they not think he would read it? Or did they not mind?

  Either way, Lawrence did not look at the paper. If he had, he might find himself taken in by the information it contained, and thus easier for Eve to trap. Even the sharpest-clawed cat could not find purchase on a smooth stone. The less he knew, the harder it would be for him to be drawn in.

  There was a huge difference in the amount of information each of them had, so this was the best way for him to protect himself. He needed to resist acting before things were truly within his grasp and to avoid exposing his true thoughts to anyone.

  It was a contradiction in terms, of course – being fully aware that he was trying to act naturally. But only those who could keep their minds open and their emotions fully under control could truly call themselves merchants.

  Lawrence reminded himself of that, as though he were a young boy venturing into a dark forest, telling himself that demons didn’t really exist.

  Following the same sequence he had performed not long before, Lawrence again delivered the letter to Eve and received her reply. This time she said nothing, only giving Lawrence a look that seemed to invite his pity.

  But if he could act normally, Eve could certainly do likewise, so there was no way of knowing how much of her expression was an act. Yet the tired messiness of her hair and the wrinkles here and there on her face were clear enough, and even more papers littered her desk.

  When he left the room, the image of Eve dealing with all of those letters alone at her desk somehow stayed on his mind.

  Lawrence had Holo.

  He had her both as a source of simple support, but also as a trump card – if the situation turned bad, she could wipe the slate clean.

  But Eve was alone, and she faced this conflict without anyone she could call an ally. Her situation was unquestionably dangerous, and if it were discovered she was communicating with Kieman, imagining what sort of revenge the northern landlords would exact was deeply worrisome to Lawrence, even though the risk was not his.

  He felt his resolve starting to fray.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Kieman’s messenger, when he came to deliver the reply.

  “It’s nothing,” said Lawrence, shaking his head, and the messenger asked him no further.

  Lawrence melted into the crowd on his way back to Eve’s place and realized he was running. Something was making him feel hurried.

  He was carrying mere slips of paper, and he reminded himself that nothing further was required of him, but still his anxiety rose.

  He could make no exc
uses.

  The messages he was carrying could easily decide the fates of human lives.

  “Please wait here.” Was it his fourth visit?

  When Lawrence arrived to hand over the letter, the guard only confirmed the password and accepted the letter. He did not lead Lawrence inside.

  Any torture would lose its efficacy once it was repeated enough, but Lawrence found his worry suddenly worsening.

  The guard, of course, explained nothing to Lawrence, and after handing off the letter to Eve in the room, he returned to still silence.

  The two guards exchanged no words and did not so much as look at each other. Time crawled by, and the sounds of the commotion outside only served to emphasize the silence in the inn.

  It seemed as though Eve’s replies were taking longer and longer for her to write, and Lawrence wondered if she found herself having to consider her answers more carefully.

  Was she thinking before putting pen to paper? There was no document that would tell her the correct answer and no one around who knew what it was. And yet she had to find a solution to this problem, on which her whole destiny hinged. It was no small feat. Lawrence was reminded of a time when he’d been pursued by thieves in a dark forest and happened upon a fork in the path.

  One of the forks would lead deeper into the forest and eventually to a dead end. There was no time to choose and no one to hear his cries of help, so his only choice was to press on ahead.

  The quill in Eve’s hand must have felt like it was made of lead.

  The door finally opened, and the possibly deaf old man emerged from the room bearing a letter. He looked Lawrence over, then slowly handed it to him.

  The letter itself was slightly wrinkled and had drops of sweat here and there on it. Eve’s pains were quite obvious.

  Lawrence handed the letter off to Kieman’s messenger, then received the reply.

  “The boss is getting impatient,” said the man. “He says the current is growing stronger. And that we must row faster in order to keep up with it.”

  Eve was surely not the only person that Kieman was dealing with. The current he was talking about surely involved secret dealings with dozens of merchants, with Kieman holding the rudder.

  It was a basic principle of commerce that the faster you could deliver information, the better. Perhaps the reason the most recent letters had been unsealed was that they couldn’t afford to wait for the wax to set.

  Lawrence nodded and ran to Eve.

  Yet again, the guard at the door passed only the letter on into the room, and Lawrence was unable to see Eve, which meant he couldn’t urge her to hurry.

  Although urging her on was no guarantee that she would actually write her response more quickly.

  Eve was not stupid; she must have noticed the changes in flow and had to know that regardless of whatever plans she might have, slowness to act would invite only loss.

  If the current was fast enough to make Kieman nervous, then the volume of the letters flowing toward Eve must also have been increasing. No matter how great the potential of Kieman’s plan to reverse the situation, Eve was not in an easy enough position that she could just sign on. On the contrary, secret deals had to be carefully hidden in between legitimate ones.

  Eve was surely just as desperate as everyone else.

  Lawrence reminded himself of that over and over, as he waited in the hallway and pretended to be calm.

  If it was to their own profit, good merchants would wait two or three days until their scales balanced. But waiting could also mean missed opportunities.

  When the old man finally returned with the reply, Lawrence gave a perfunctory thanks and immediately left. He no longer knew whose side he was on. Was he hurrying to help Kieman or to buy just a little bit more time for Eve to think? Or was he simply caught up in the moment? He had no idea.

  Kieman’s messenger was beginning to look grim, with sweat breaking out on his brow. In the short time it took the messenger to deliver the note to Kieman, Lawrence overheard from passing merchants on the street and in the tavern that there had been progress in the meeting.

  It seemed that there would be a conclusion more quickly than anticipated.

  The moment consensus was reached, the grand reversal Kieman was planning would turn to so much foam.

  And Lawrence doubted that such an opportunity would come again.

  The messenger began to use stronger language to speed Lawrence on, and over and over Lawrence prodded Eve’s guard.

  But Eve’s replies continued to take longer to come, and from what he could glimpse of her handwriting, it seemed to be turning messy, almost drunken. Amid the stomach-churning tension of the exchanges, Lawrence visited the inn over and over again, again, and again.

  As he was handing yet another letter to the door guard, he felt a strange unease and froze.

  “…?”

  The guard looked at him warily.

  Lawrence looked at the guard, dumbstruck, but hastily tried to smile.

  His heart was hammering in his chest.

  It couldn’t be.

  The words danced madly around in his head.

  The guard took the letter into the room with Eve.

  “… It can’t be,” Lawrence whispered to himself.

  Why were Eve’s replies taking so long? Kieman was participating in the meeting and probably even busier than she was, and yet his decisions and replies came quickly every time.

  It certainly wasn’t as simple as a difference in their personalities. Eve was the kind of person who could draw a knife on someone without a single hesitation if she needed to. She wasn’t the sort of person who would find herself assailed by indecision.

  It was when he began to wonder if Eve was somehow even busier than Kieman that Lawrence felt a pang of unease.

  When he’d been allowed into Eve’s room, there had been letters scattered everywhere. And every time he’d visited since then, there seemed to be more, such that even just reading them all would be quite a chore.

  But he had overlooked something important.

  Each time he delivered a letter, he had been made to wait outside the room for some period of time.

  And during that time, what had he seen?

  Had anyone else brought a single letter to the room?

  After being made to wait a fair amount of time, Lawrence was finally given his reply. He was able to look around with eyes as clear as the skies after a storm. When the old man opened the door, he caught again a glimpse of the room, scattered with letters as usual.

  But then he thought about things.

  What need was there to scatter them around like that after reading them? And if there was a reason to do that, what was it?

  Lawrence tucked Eve’s reply into his breast pocket and hurried out of the inn.

  This exchange had had inscrutable aspects right from the start. The oddest was Eve’s childish insistence that she simply had to monopolize all the profit. And yet the words he had exchanged with her and the general mood of the place made it seem like it was reasonable to say such a ridiculous thing.

  It wasn’t as though she had always been a merchant and ready to jump into this world of ready betrayal – Lawrence could imagine the hardships she’d weathered in getting to this place. It would hardly be surprising if she chose to walk the evil path of betrayal if she thought it would lead to her world without suffering.

  It wouldn’t be surprising, but where was the need? Choosing the path that allowed her to hurt others simply because she was also in pain was a mere excuse.

  But what if it really was all an act?

  Lawrence’s mind raced, and the blood rushed from his head. Sometimes waiting led to greater gain, but sometimes quick action brought the largest profit. And this deal most likely fell into the latter category. Once an agreement was reached at the meeting, Kieman’s turnabout plan would no longer be viable.

  If Eve wasn’t working for her own profit, but instead for someone else’s, that would explain w
hy her replies were taking so long.

  She was trying to buy time.

  In more or less any town, there were men like Kieman, who would always attempt to outwit their rivals given half a chance. How could the elders, who had gained all their experience on that very same road, fail to be reminded of their own youthful days?

  Were they using Eve as a tool to thwart Kieman’s mad plan?

  Letting him waste his time with an idle partner, the elders would skillfully avoid the spearpoint of this unavoidably inter-generational conflict.

  It was all starting to make sense.

  The letters scattered unnaturally all over the floor.

  And the existence of so many letters, despite Lawrence never once seeing anyone carrying them.

  And Eve never once giving the impression that she would waver in the face of any difficulty.

  Lawrence delivered the letter to the messenger. As the man turned to hurry back and finish the delivery, Lawrence grabbed his shoulder and spoke.

  “A message for Mr. Kieman.”

  The messenger frowned, but Lawrence didn’t care and continued.

  “There is a possibility that the wolf is a decoy.”

  That much of a hint would be more than enough for a man like Kieman to understand.

  It was even possible that Chief Jeeta had set a trap in order to teach the upstart a lesson. After all, given that Kieman had no qualms playing Lawrence as a pawn, it would hardly be surprising if the powers above him would take a similar opportunity to legally crush a troublesome subordinate.

  But if it came to that, Lawrence would suffer, too, and whether or not he could borrow Holo’s power to escape, his place in the guild would be gone.

  The messenger only made a pained face at Lawrence’s desperate words and ran off without replying. He had probably been ordered not to accept anything other than letters from Lawrence, in order to prevent Lawrence from making any decisions on his own.

  But the situation required immediate action.

  If Eve was really trying to trap them, the sooner they retreated the better. As long as this was still the entrance to the trap, they could still escape. But once the door closed, it would be too late.

  Lawrence waited anxiously in the tavern.