The snowy path that Lawrence walked had been trampled by countless sheep and was as easy to walk as a street paved in stones. He reached the place called Sulieri Hill without much effort.
From there one could circle the hilltop’s crest and very clearly see the path of the road that wrapped around the hill from the northeast. There was no better vantage point from which to witness the utter failure of the abbey’s schemes.
“Swords and bows would’ve been useless.”
Here and there were splotches of red on the path, the proof of the few who had used their weapons out of panic.
But just as whatever powers Holo or Huskins might possess were useless in the face of humanity, so too did weapons have little effect on such a vast flock of sheep.
Surrounded by the flock and trampled into unconsciousness, the monks had all been loaded on a sleigh and taken off. They must have been waiting for the alliance men to come and demand to see the coins, which would make them easy targets for the blame the monks would place on them.
They carried too much arms and armor for anything else, even if they had been transporting actual money. If it had come to an actual battle, there was no doubt that the casualties would have been significant.
Lawrence looked the scene over when Huskins, who was collecting his flock on the path, took notice of him and began walking over.
“Ho, there.” Such a carefree greeting.
“I’m glad to see you unhurt.”
“Hah… well, of course. Never would have thought I would be able to end this with my own hands.”
“It was the decisive blow.”
“I suppose so… My kind stands above humans. And humans stand above sheep. But times change. It’s natural for that order to be reversed.”
The abbey had never imagined that the alliance would use a flock of sheep. Even Lawrence, if he had not had Huskins on his side, would never have conceived of a plan like this.
“Ah, by the way, where’d that young wolf get off to?”
“Ah, Holo? I expect she’s in the abbey’s treasure vault as we speak.”
“Hah! Hah. Is that so?” Huskins chuckled for a moment and then dropped his gaze.
“Is something the matter?”
“Hmm? Ah, no, it’s nothing. I treated that wolf like a child, but it seems that I’m the childish one.” He narrowed his eyes and looked into the distance. Beneath his beard was a happy smile. “Hardship forges strong friendships. I have the sense that I’ve found myself a member of a different flock entirely.”
“… Do you mean–?”
“I see you take my meaning. Wolf and sheep are wolf and sheep. That’s only the natural order of things.”
Huskins exhaled a large breath, almost sighing. He then inhaled and rang his staff’s bell.
His sheepdog ran off, quickly gathering the sheep that were beginning to stray in various directions. Huskins watched this for a while, then turned to Lawrence and spoke again.
“How long do you plan to ignore natural order?”
Lawrence looked at him out of the corner of his eye and saw Huskins watching his sheepdog past squinting eyes. He scratched his head and did not immediately answer.
“I’m a merchant – so I’ll do it as long as there’s more profit to be had.”
Practical answers often sounded like jokes. After a moment of silence, Huskins laughed aloud. “It was a foolish question. I’m no different – I’m a sheep, yet I’ve become quite fond of my sheepdog.”
“Why would you ask me such a thing?”
Huskins gave a deliberate grin. His profile made him look like an old soldier who had seen many battles.
“I can’t decide which side to tell.”
“Tell what?”
“This is a place where people gather, so information naturally collects here, too.”
Huskins was a sheep. He had told Lawrence that his companions were still scattered across the landscape, which meant that information from a vast area would collect here.
He looked Lawrence straight in the eyes, his gaze belying a depth of experience that only someone like him could have.
“The wolf told me that you’re bound for an ancient place called Yoitsu, yes?”
“Th-that’s right.”
“I’ve heard that name and recently, too.”
Lawrence did not reply, but with his eyes urged Huskins to continue. Huskins know Holo was searching for her homeland, so he could hardly be ignorant of how important this information was.
And yet if he had hesitated to give that information to Holo, there had to be a good reason for that.
“It came up among some disturbing news my comrades brought to me.”
Lawrence’s heart quickened. He could guess at what the news might be.
“Our king’s tax and the wolf bones you deduced that Brondel Abbey purchased – they may have a connection to this news. You see–”
As Huskins spoke, a gust of wind rose, blowing up the fallen snow and briefly obscuring his face. Lawrence was in that moment unable to see what sort of expression he had made.
But given the news, he could guess.
When Huskins was done speaking, he began walking down the hill to retrieve his flock but stopped long enough to turn and say one last thing.
“Good fortune to you.” His face was quiet and calm as he regarded Lawrence as though looking at something very bright. His gaze then flicked off in another direction, his expression belatedly showing a smile. “And my thanks.”
He then began walking again. The old shepherd began tending his flock as though Lawrence was not there at all.
Lawrence watched Huskins’s form recede and heaved a deep sigh. Then, turning on his heel, he too began to walk.
“Good fortune to you.” It was a farewell one gave to a friend setting out on a journey. Huskins’s words were more than enough to set Lawrence back on his travels, and he would not have been surprised to learn that the news Huskins had given him was true.
Such things did happen, after all, but usually in far-off lands, and news of them was treated as being good for little more than fodder for tavern gossip.
What should he think of the idea that someone so important to him was involved in such a thing?
The sunlight reflecting off the snow was very bright, and Lawrence could not help but tend to squint – but there was another reason he narrowed his eyes.
There were two figures walking back in the direction of the annex, at a slight remove from the sheep-trampled path.
“Any luck?”
At Lawrence’s question the two figures paused in their labored walking through the snow, then began moving again. They stayed off the easier-to-tread path, kicking snow up childishly as they went, which accounted for their slow progress.
As they approached Lawrence, he could see that both Holo’s and Col’s cheeks were bright red from the cold.
“So, how did it go?”
Holo kicked snow up into the air as she took great shuffling steps with Col behind her. She paused for a moment and then answered, “What do you think?”
“Fake,” Lawrence answered – too quickly, given the irritated look Holo gave him.
“What makes you think that?”
“Because I can’t have you crying again.”
Holo’s lips curled into a smile as she gave a purposeful shrug, then kicked snow high into the air. “’Twouldn’t bother me so much either way. I’m Holo the Wisewolf, after all.”
She finally moved over to the sheep-trod path and nearer to Lawrence, having either satisfied her snow-kicking desires or tired of getting the hem of her robe wet. As Holo knelt and patted off the snow that stuck to that robe, Lawrence quickly flipped her hood back and touched her exposed neck.
“Your clothes. They’re inside out.” He was referring to the clothes she wore beneath her robe.
Lawrence sighed and then held Col’s hand, who was standing next to them. It was as cold as ice, and Lawrence knew perfectly well they would be
numb and tingling.
“They were fake, weren’t they?”
If Holo’s clothes were inside out, she must have returned from the abbey in her wolf form. If she had been sad, her ears and tail would have betrayed her true feelings.
She had been upset enough to take her wolf form and dashed through the cold with Col on her back.
Lawrence realized all his worry was for nothing. He had been tricked.
“They were fake,” said Holo, looking up at the sky.
No matter how considerate a lad he was, it was strange that Col was not angry at having been put in danger of frostbite. Doubtless, Holo had been equivalently terrified until they had learned the truth of the bones.
“They were probably from a stag, from the thickest part of the hind leg. Surely it was buried for a long time.”
“I wish I could’ve been next to you when they opened the box,” said Lawrence, getting a laugh from Col and a stomp to the foot from Holo.
The moment was very peaceful. One could not help but wish it would stay.
“And just what do you think you are grinning at? How vulgar.”
“It’s nothing. Come, let’s hurry back. We’ll need to make a fire in the hearth.”
Holo wore a dubious expression, but when she saw Lawrence begin walking, she did not press her question. Instead she took Col’s hand and called out in a high voice, “Aye, to make stew with plenty of salt and meat!”
Smiling at her constant self-interest, Lawrence did not see what his gaze pointed out. He was preoccupied with what Huskins had told him.
If true, Lawrence had glimpsed something frightening indeed. And yet Huskins had chosen to tell him and not Holo.
This was the place Huskins had chosen to protect.
So what, then, of Lawrence?
An image rose up in Lawrence’s mind – Huskins leading his flock, staff in hand, as he protected his land and the land of his kind.
The sky spread out, vast and clear and blue.
Lawrence took the hands of his two precious companions as they started the walk back to the dormitory.
Afterword
Hello again. This is Isuna Hasekura. And somehow, this is the tenth volume.
The first volume of Spice and Wolf went on sale in February 2006, so this makes an even three years. It feels somehow both short and long, but I suppose it really is not much time at all. It went by in a flash.
But when I slowly pick up the first volume and open it, I see a mountain of mistakes that I want to get a red pen out and start fixing, so maybe I have grown up a bit.
Although I have no idea what will change in another three years…
Speaking of which, one thing that hasn’t changed the past three years is that I’m super into online gaming. Not a new one, but getting back into an old one. I hadn’t played it for a really long time, but just around the time I was finishing this tenth volume, I had a little time, so I was lucky enough to get to play a little. The era when I could while away whole days without a care in the world is long gone, and these days every minute, every second I’m logged in is precious. (Incidentally, I started writing this afterword when I tried to log in and the game servers were down for maintenance.)
A bunch of retired players in the guild I play in have come back, and I was seeing famous player names as I wandered around the in-game town for the first time in years, so it sort of felt like the past had come back to life.
A few days ago, I had the chance to get some food with some friends who play the same game, and even though they supposedly quit because of their jobs, they’d all recently come back to .the game for some reason.
But what made me really think about the passage of time was that although after midnight was just when I would start really getting into my gameplay, nowadays when that time rolls around, the number of players drops way off. I think most of the players have shifted from being students to being employed. Even when we have real-life meet-ups, we’ve stopped going to places aimed at students and started going to joints that cater to a slightly older crowd. It’s sort of interesting.
It’s going to be fun to see how things turn out in another three years.
And with that I think I’ve just about filled up the space I have, so we’ll leave it at that.
I will see you in the next volume.
– Isuna Hasekura
The Wolf and the Golden Promise
Plop a soft lump of bread dough down on the table.
Carve a winding groove through it with your finger, and then let water flow through the groove. Let a few trees grow here and there.
Doing all that would result in the scene that lay before him, he was sure.
Such thoughts ran through Lawrence’s mind as he sat in the driver’s seat of the wagon, musing on the taste of baked bread – a taste he had not enjoyed in several days. He could not help but swallow hungrily.
They’d left town some three days earlier, so it was too soon to be thinking so fondly of hot food. In the past, he had crossed entire mountains on nothing but a moldy crust of oat bread and a bit of salt. When he thought of that, these travels with bread, wine, and even a side dish of some kind seemed disturbingly luxurious.
And while he often told himself as much, his purse strings had been rather loose on this journey, with his mood similarly so.
In his seven years’ travel since starting out at the age of eighteen, this was easily the most luxurious trip he had taken.
“Poultry legs.” Perhaps having heard his gulp, Lawrence’s traveling companion spoke up as she sat next to him in the driver’s seat.
Her face was buried in her fox fur muffler, and she busied herself by combing more fur in her lap – but this was not the pelt of a dog nor a fox, but the unmistakable fur of a wolf.
Normally a wolf’s fur would be a bit shorter, scruffier, and generally shabbier. But the fur that his companion now tended to was without exaggeration of the finest quality, its warmth at night nearly miraculous. It was neatly combed, thanks to her periodic nibbling of its roots.
Lawrence wondered how much it would cost to buy it were the fur for sale – but soon thought better of the notion. Far more relevant than how much it would take to buy was the question of how much it could be sold for.
Because after all, the fur in question was no pelt, but rather was still attached to the flesh-and-blood tail of its wolf owner.
“I assume that’s something you’d like to eat?” said Lawrence, to which his traveling companion Holo flicked her ears – her proudly pointed ears, their fur the same color as that of her tail. They sat regally atop the flowing chestnut brown of her hair and were unquestionably not human.
The seemingly teenaged girl sitting next to him in the driver’s seat of the wagon was not simply a human with wolf ears and a tail, but in fact, a great wolf who dwelled within wheat and ensured good harvests.
“And a hen would be best rather than a cock,” she said.
“A hen gives eggs, too.”
Lawrence thought of eggs beaten until fluffy and perfectly fried. Conversations with this particular wolf always turned to food. Though she proclaimed herself the Wisewolf of Yoitsu, her interest in worldly pleasures was greater than that of any human.
“Poultry… I tell you, the peculiar spring of raw chicken meat is truly irresistible. Though the feathers can be a bit of a bother…”
If she had been joking she would have had a strained smile, but unfortunately Holo was quite serious. Her lips concealed very sharp fangs.
“I’ve never eaten one raw, but they’re worth the trouble of cooking, that’s for sure.”
“Oh?”
“Pluck the feathers, remove the organs, debone the meat, then steam it with seasoning, boil the meat with vegetables, fill the bird with stuffing, then crisp the skin with hot oil, then roast it one more time with fragrant spices… Hey, you’re drooling.”
“Muh… mmph.”
Lawrence had heard of this particular luxury dish, though he had never
actually eaten it. But for Holo’s active imagination, a second-hand description was more than enough. These were the only times she forgot her wisewolf’s pride and stared up at him, her eyes imploring.
He had managed to become accustomed to this, having traveled with her long enough. And no amount of her begging on the road truly frightened him – because one could not buy what was not being sold.
Given his overwhelming advantage, Lawrence cleared his throat and answered, “Wait a moment. Cooking is all well and good, but there are other places where a special effort results in a more delicious meat.”
“… Other places?” Holo looked up at him with her red-tinged amber eyes.
“There are fowl that are neither cock nor hen, you know.”
“Oh?” Despite her centuries of life, it seemed there were subjects not covered by the wisewolf’s memory. But rather than finding this frustrating, she merely urged him on out of pure, simple curiosity. “Go on, go on!”
Lawrence cleared his throat again, this time for a rather different reason than before, and continued. “They take the males and castrate them.”
“Ho. And that…”
“It yields an even tastier meat than a hen’s. It’s not tough like a cock’s, but their energy doesn’t go into making eggs like a hen’s does.”
“Mm…” Holo’s gaze moved purposefully, and she grinned a bare-fanged grin. “That does indeed sound tasty.”
Her true form was as a huge wolf that could swallow Lawrence in a single bite. But more importantly, he got the feeling that she was making sport of his most important parts – as a man, that is.
He cleared his throat, and then again more loudly, and lightly flicked the cart horse’s reins.
Holo chuckled, amused, and didn’t press her attack any further. Her tail swished to and fro.
“Do not worry. I’m well aware you’re a capable male when there’s need of it.” She smiled, flashing white fangs, and if he didn’t laugh her jest off, he’d have been no man at all. She had him dancing in the palm of her hand and he knew it, but there was nothing he could do about it.
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