Spice & Wolf Omnibus

by Isuna Hasekura

“The old?”

  As Lawrence murmured in a daze, he saw Holo’s face break into a smile.

  “Were you not to bring me to Yoitsu?”

  “R-right…”

  Even on pain of torture, he would never admit to having completely forgotten about that.

  When Holo and Lawrence met, it was under the night sky much like this: the wisewolf, quivering with loneliness and wanting to go home, and the traveling merchant, his mind occupied with counting coins and a burning dream to set up his own store, riding atop an all-too-wide driver’s seat.

  We certainly make an odd pair, he belatedly thought in hindsight.

  As Lawrence, at a loss for words, continued to watch Holo. Her expression finally softened as she looked at the moonlight coming in through the window.

  If there was any meaning to it, Lawrence thought that probably it nicely hid her blushing.

  “Besides, you have said it before.”

  “Ah?”

  As he asked back, Holo shifted her gaze back to Lawrence, grinning at him as she spoke.

  “That there is very deep meaning in bringing one’s partner home with you.”

  Certainly, Lawrence felt like he had said something like that, but he barely remembered it.

  But that Holo had remembered him saying something like that made him even happier in a strange way.

  Perhaps, just as Lawrence had been in great haste where Holo was concerned, Holo too had leaped from joy to sorrow along with every word Lawrence had spoken.

  That soft chuckle again. Under the moonlight, Holo smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

  Lawrence smiled as well, able only to sigh.

  “Yoitsu. Yoitsu, huh?”

  “Indeed. We have postponed it too long.”

  “Very well… however.”

  “Mm?” Holo asked back.

  Lawrence shifted his gaze to behind Holo as he spoke. “We can at least drink together, can’t we?”

  He waved behind Holo at the cask of wine Millike had sent over – sent for the purpose of celebration.

  “Hmm… well, not that you have the fortitude to keep up with my drinking, after all.”

  Though a definite slight, even if it did not quite hit the mark, it was not so far off, so he said nothing back.

  Holo lifted the wine cask up and placed it on top of the bed, bringing but a single cup over.

  Isn’t there another one? As Lawrence’s eyes searched the room, Holo gave his forehead a small poke.

  “You truly have no mind for subtlety…”

  Even as Holo scolded him, her tail swayed happily.

  She loves me, he realized with maddening intensity.

  “Take care not to drink too much.”

  “To think the day would come when you would warn me about that.”

  “Fool.”

  As Holo spoke, she pulled out the cask’s cork.

  And she had Lawrence hold the cup as she poured wine into it.

  That very moment, Lawrence thought that along with the moonlight, some kind of shout was coming in from the window.

  Probably, they had lit the furnace and everyone was stepping on the bellows. Here and now, in the depths of the northlands’ harsh, long winter, a new gold coin would be minted, stamped with a sun that would light the way for all people.

  Luward had said how he liked watching the dawn on a night-long march, for the sun washed all away.

  No doubt the soon-to-be-minted gold coin of the sun would become the herald of the dawn of a new age.

  However, Lawrence did not go there to join them, instead staying in the nearly empty inn.

  He felt no reluctance or regret about that.

  He had wine in his hand, poured by none other than Holo herself.

  When Lawrence looked up from the moon reflected in the wine, Holo’s smiling face was there to greet him.

  She laughed her quiet laugh.

  More radiant than any sun or any coin of gold was the smiling face of his beloved.

  Afterword

  It’s been a while. Hasekura here. Volume 16. I believe it was advertised as the final novel of the series. It’s been fifteen years since I began writing Spice and Wolf. My main laptop stayed with me until the bitter end without crashing once, but the battery’s weak and the fan and so forth are beaten up, so it overheats quickly, and the exterior finish is a mess.

  I wrote all sixteen novel manuscripts with this laptop, but just lately, I bought a new one and am using it. Old notebook, your efforts are appreciated.

  Now that the series is reaching its end, I thought it’s finally time to write an afterword with talk about the work I’ve never done before. It’s just, as I’ve already been writing Everything Spice and Wolf with each volume, I wanted something more all-inclusive.

  The title Spice and Wolf is a twist on French economist Jean Favier’s Gold and Spices: The Rise of Commerce in the Middle Ages (translated by Hidemi Uchida). Thinking back to when I read it, I recall thinking I’d love to use things from this, which gave me inspiration for the first volume.

  It has been often said that a debut to the light novel genre with an economics theme is a rare thing. Furthermore, though in the fantasy genre, neither swords nor sorcery played any role.

  I’ve been called a fairly twisted person for it, but it’s simply where my way of thinking ended up.

  In other words, from long ago, many people have used settings with nobles and kings, knights and wizards, demon kings and heroes, including a number of great classics. I wondered if I could wedge myself into all that and win on their terms. For that same reason, I hadn’t written much of anything in school.

  Even when reading textbooks, I was largely confined to academic journals, definitely not the kinds of books people oriented toward writing fantasy novels read. I wasn’t reading primers on medieval economics, either, but rather books for experts, well aware I didn’t fully understand them. For the mythos, I did not read an encyclopedia on world mythology, either, instead restricting myself to things like the Bible and The Golden Bough. Part of me was vain for reading difficult books, but the fact I was reading the same books as people with talent, not thinking I had any talent myself, was the foremost reason I didn’t think I could write more interesting novels than those people with talent.

  So Spice and Wolf, where neither swords nor sorcery played any role, was the result.

  Although I had a fairly firm feeling about what the work would revolve around, I think the books I have read indeed had a large influence on the path leading the main character and the heroine forward, the so-called theme for writing the novel.

  In particular, Schopenhauer stands out. I kept thinking, when writing about Holo and Lawrence doing business, whether this was a story that could continue to be a happy one. Schopenhauer is thought of as the incarnation of pessimism, but to me, it is the opposite: The simple fact it was possible for him to continue to be happy while asking such critical questions makes him a fundamentally forward-thinking person in my mind. After all, when Schopenhauer wrote his first book, he said to his mother, then an author, “Decades from now no one will read your book, but mine shall be the basis for a hundred others” (even though Schopenhauer’s book was not selling at all), so he was no pessimist.

  Also, a tale where the continuation of happiness falls into question seems just the right leg to stand on for the exceptionally long-lived Holo and the bad-at-giving-up merchant Lawrence.

  I think that this, the sixteenth novel, is the summation of all that, demonstrating the path that both of them must follow. I believe both Holo and Lawrence will persist in walking that path together.

  There may be people wondering, Eh? That’s it? Huh? What? and the like. My honorable editor said those things to me, too. But this is my aesthetic… philosophy… and… stuff. If there’s one thing about the series I regret, it’s that Nyohhira never emerged in a concrete way.

  Since I have such feelings remaining, I’m doing a total epilogue for the sequel.

  As
it will also include works too short to be their own books, I hope all of you who want one more little peek into the world of Spice and Wolf will read and enjoy it! It’ll probably be out in early summer.

  … But as the world of Spice and Wolf is not about viewing the world in itself, but the “Spice” and “Wolf” (Holo and Lawrence) in it, it’s actually the antithesis of that universal metaphor, so in other words… et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum.

  Now, I truly want to thank those who have been wondering, What is Isuna Hasekura going to be doing next? I’m tentatively scheduled to have a new work coming out around summer 2011. There’ll be animal ears in the next one, too. Animal ears are my philosophy, y’know. But this won’t be a medieval fantasy, or academic work, or science fiction, or a mystery. I intend to write a novel to make people say, Why is it so rare for things like this to come out?

  I think that the moon, which played a role in my debut work, will play a large and pivotal role here.

  I have a bit more work left for Ayakura-sensei, who keeps drawing those incredibly pretty illustrations, but thank you, Ayakura-sensei! Sensei and Keito Koume are doing a wonderful job drawing the splendid manga version of Spice and Wolf, too. Thanks to all the anime staff and everyone related to Media Mix. Manager T and Manager A, thank you very much. I look forward to your help in the future.

  And thank you to all of you readers who have stayed with me until now – truly, thank you all so very much!

  – Isuna Hasekura

  Epilogue

  Intermission

  “Ah, Sir Knight. You seem to be in a fine mood.”

  I heard a voice calling out to me as I lay atop a sunlit stone step.

  I have the fine name of Enek, mind you, but it was no bad thing to also be known as Knight. I made a generous sigh through my nostrils and gave a single wave of my tail.

  “By the way, is the priest inside?”

  Her head wrapped in a towel, both of her sleeves rolled up, the woman was built like a bear.

  I seem to recall that she was a cooper – a maker of barrels. By this hour, things had probably calmed down at the morning markets and she was taking a small break until lunch. Perhaps she had even come to offer up a prayer or two.

  Pondering such things, I yawned a great yawn.

  “Someone said a horse-drawn carriage arrived where the children play on the hill, so I thought, maybe it’s the one the priest mentioned.”

  “…”

  Somehow, I kept my eyelids – heavy and ready to close even now – in check as I looked at the woman.

  “Goodness,” she said, rising and returning to the church. “But you know, the children said it was a pitch-black carriage… As if it was haunted. I wonder if it’s all right…”

  It was clear that the woman’s doubt and curiosity were dueling within her as she followed the path, which I led her down.

  She may have looked like a bear, but her personality was closer to that of a cat.

  “What will you do, Sir Knight? Coming with me?” The humans of this town spoke readily to me, but I would never last if I answered them all.

  Ignoring her, I walked to the middle of the corridor as far as the scribe room. It was the room where the priest of this church wrote important books and letters.

  Though things had been busy but a short time ago with harvest festivals and saintly blessings, it was all peace and quiet.

  Having said that, there were not many people who wrote, and what few there were had a mountain of duties to fulfill. Today, too, he was surely writing up a storm in that scribe room.

  If things were as expected, that is.

  “Reverend, it seems that a horse-drawn carriage has–”

  The woman made a light knock, half opening the door and speaking as she entered the room.

  She seemed to swallow her words in a largely instinctive reaction. My master, loftily addressed as “Reverend,” was bent over her desk, fast asleep. It had recently become rather warm. It was hard work to even get out of bed.

  Even so, though her back and hair had grown somewhat, she still looked like a child as she slept.

  I cleared my throat.

  “Woof!”

  “… Hunh!?”

  As my master awoke, she sat up in a great hurry. Her eyes darted all around the area and noticed myself and the woman standing in the doorway. Though there was a mountain of papers and books atop her desk, along with clothing and the tools of a tailor placed atop it.

  “Ah, Miss Rifkin… Ah, er… Ha-ha…” Like a child she tried to push the clothing and the tailoring tools into the middle of the desk as if she meant to hide them.

  It was rather frivolous behavior for someone in the service of God. Despite the passage of some number of years, my master still had not quite been able to outgrow a certain childishness.

  “Oh, I am not upset.”

  The woman made a teasing smile. My master’s body seemed to shrink in embarrassment, but as she met my eyes, she made a somewhat resentful glare. It was highly illogical to act as if it were my fault.

  “Ah, so, what is it? If it’s preparations for the guild’s Guardian Saint Festival, I’m hiring Mr. Botz to take care of it…”

  “Oh, not that. There seems to be a horse-drawn carriage coming into town. I thought this might be the one you mentioned so I thought I’d let you know.”

  “… Carriage?”

  “Yes. You mentioned it yourself. Something about having been called to somewhere a bit far off…”

  “…” My master gazed at the woman in shock, and then, she suddenly opened her mouth wide, sucking in her breath. “I thought it’d be next w… Ah, er, sorry, if you’ll excuse me!”

  Pulling up the hem of her long outfit, she ran out of the room in decidedly unladylike fashion.

  The woman laughed heartily, holding her belly as if keeping it from dropping.

  I had the vague feeling that my master had been more reliable when she had been a shepherdess.

  Norah the Fairy.

  That had been my master’s old name when she was a shepherdess for a time, highly skilled at leading sheep.

  Now, though, she was the priest of a church in a small town leading a different kind of flock.

  One never knew what might happen in this world.

  Born the overly serious sort, she had cut her teeth in a place of solemn masses and festivals, making her a fairly sharp person.

  However, in spite of having the ability and fortitude to endure hunger and cold while splendidly protecting a flock of sheep from wolves and foxes – or perhaps, because of it – I had learned, shortly after we began to live in town, that my master was surprisingly absentminded.

  The date, math, people’s names, prayer phrases, ceremonial protocol – in spite of having an eye-popping grasp of the broad outlines, she tended to lose track of the small details.

  It was a pitiable thing that were I not by her side, no one would call her an adult.

  “Errr… clothes, food, ah, I’d better have a book of scripture, too. Also a prayer book… ah? Maybe I should bring several pairs of boots? But I haven’t worn boots since way back… I wonder why…”

  As she used her hand to comb down her blond hair, which ran down to the middle of her back, she feverishly prepared the luggage strewn about before her. My master pulled out the clothes she had worn when she came to this town, but I wondered what she intended to do with them, since it was clear it was not the right size.

  I lied on my belly at the doorway as I sighed an exasperated sigh,

  “Ahh, er, bring the letter, er, and then, and then…”

  She had never been at a loss about what to bring when leading sheep out of the pastures.

  Perhaps the Church was right to teach that one should discard one’s belongings and pass them to those who lacked their own. It was an abundance of things, which made one hesitate in the face of a journey. That was all the truer for life itself.

  I snorted another sigh, and my master noticed an
d looked at me.

  By the time I thought, Uh-oh, a rolled-up apron was already sailing toward me.

  “It must be nice to be so carefree, Enek!”

  They were words I had heard from time to time during the five years since we had come to live in this town.

  Of course, it was not so at all.

  It was just that it mattered far more to me whether I was getting a cut of meat for supper that day than whether the day’s mass had gone well or not.

  As my master scurried about the room like a human storm, I crawled out from under the apron, sniffing for my master’s scent, when my ears caught the sound of someone knocking at the entrance of the church.

  I could tell most of the townspeople apart by their knocks.

  I did not know this knock.

  A guest had arrived from the outside.

  It might have been just as well to call her an emissary from hell.

  A throng of people had formed on the street in front of the church.

  For a time, plague had reduced this town to a veritable town of the dead, but the brave few who remained, those who refused to give up, and the assistance of my master, had brought the town back to a fairly lively state.

  It was not that someone coming from outside town was all that rare a sight. There were times when a caravan of merchants would pass through, with dozens of men mounted on horses. But what had caught the attention of the crowd was the majestic appearance of the entirely too-fine black horses and the pitch-black canopied carriage they were pulling. There was a separate wagon for carrying luggage, with six stout men escorting it all.

  My master was seized by shock the moment she set foot out of the entrance of the church and saw the carriage.

  Then, she desperately tried to comb her hair into place with her hand, but it was a complete waste of time, as it had always been fairly wavy to begin with. Besides, considering the person who came out of the carriage, one could only call my master’s efforts to hand comb her own hair pathetic by comparison.

  A tall woman was not such a rare sight.

  Nonetheless, it was rare to see one possessed by such dignity.

  “Eve Bolan.”