Spice & Wolf Omnibus

by Isuna Hasekura

  The woman spoke her name. Her back was straight and tall; her body was slender. But thin was not the most accurate word; rather, it was as if a sculptor had thoroughly scraped away everything unnecessary. The fragrance about her was decidedly feminine, but for the first time in quite a while, my nose caught the scent of a beast that roamed the plains.

  “Ah… err…”

  Though my master was still flustered, she was someone who had had a certain amount of success as a priest, and as such, apparently refocused her wits. Clearing her throat to set things straight, she stretched her back straight up and put a smile on her face. “Ahem. I am Norah Arendt.”

  Though my master had straightened her posture appreciably, this Eve was clearly an entire hand taller than her, Besides, she was overwhelmed for a number of reasons other than height. Though my master had put a fair bit of meat on her in the last five years, the woman before her came off like a wolf in her prime. Perhaps it was the combined effect of the swell of her bust and the curve of her back.

  Eve, seeming like a noble who adorned herself with a fur coat regardless of the weather, looked over my master from head to toe and made a small sigh. “So she really…”

  “Huh?”

  As my master murmured back, Eve blinked her eyelashes, which were so long I expected to actually hear them. “Nothing. It seems best if I take care of all the necessities. If you get lonely at night, all you need bring is a book of scripture. There are other places we’re stopping at, just like the letter said. We’re leaving today.”

  Upon finishing her statement, the woman calling herself Eve returned to the carriage.

  Left behind, my master stood still for a while, then looked at me.

  As it was too much trouble for me to bark, I snorted a sigh.

  Apparently Eve did business in a country to the south.

  Though I could only venture to guess as to the size of her business, my experience suggested it was considerable.

  The horse-drawn carriage was wide enough to comfortably seat three adults, with two seats of that width facing each other. The seats and their backs had many lines on them and had been adorned with fabrics and delicate ornaments. In spite of my master’s resolve to live for the sake of the townspeople, she had retained a lingering affection for sewing and so took great interest in those details.

  For my part, I had rarely laid eyes upon clothing such as that in which Eve clothed herself. A very comfortable-seeming piece of clothing, it resembled a robe, but differed in many of the fine details. Perhaps responding to my master’s furtive glances, the reticent Eve said only, “It’s from a desert country.”

  From there, it was a peaceful trip.

  Eve was a woman of few words by nature; my master was not the type to make proactive conversation, either. As my master had procured Eve’s permission, I rose up onto the seat and gazed out the window, with her hand stroking my head the whole time.

  When she had been a shepherd, even once we left the town gates, it was not a vast, borderless expanse that greeted us. Indeed, the land was more like a fearsome prison, for no matter where we went, nothing would change.

  I would have been content living in the forest.

  But my master, a human being, could only live among others of her kind; as a dog, I was painfully aware of just how difficult it was to live in that world.

  With no help from anyone, one’s days were filled only with getting the food before one’s eyes into one’s own mouth, and there was scant likelihood of anything changing until one last drew breath.

  When my master slept upon bales of straw at the sheep pen, gazing up at the moon as mice and insects scurried about her, she may not have voiced such thoughts, but she had no doubt had them.

  And then a single chance meeting changed everything.

  From that alone, my master’s life was changed forever.

  There are many who run with all their might. However, many see their legs fail them. And yet, if only there was someone to give them a little push from behind, that is all it would take for them to move forward, too,

  And so my fortunate master was able to run until she arrived in a new land.

  “Anxious to be heading out?”

  It was the second day since we had left.

  “Hm?”

  “It’s not often that a town priest leaves on a journey, after all.”

  Making a flourish with her pen at the end, she double-checked the text before extending the letter out of the open wooden shutter. As she did so, a human standing and waiting outside took it, folded it, sealed it, and began riding in a direction different from our own.

  The woman returned to the same subject.

  “Quite a decision for you to make. Nyohhira is at the far end of the world. Even I hesitated.”

  It was often said that even though one might be at the ends of the world or under the ground, if one could keep a calm face, had wine to drink, and could write letters, one was not doing so poorly.

  But this Eve was underestimating my master. She was no small-town priest ignorant of the world. Though she undeniably had some fairly foolish aspects to her, she was a fine person who had never surrendered to hardship or deprivation.

  I looked up at my master from her lap.

  So say something, I thought at her.

  My master laughed quietly. “Certainly, I was a little nervous about leaving town,” my master finally said with a pleasant smile. When I made a small bark, my master stroked my head, as if to soothe me. “Even though in the past, I wanted to go out, out, when I couldn’t…”

  “…”

  As my master spoke while looking outside, Eve put her elbow on the windowsill, resting her chin on her hand in a very unladylike pose as she watched.

  In the forest, this was behavior reserved for predators.

  “Did you meet her in that town?”

  There was something of a pause before Eve, now gazing out the window as well, asked as if she had no great interest in it.

  “No, it was in Ruvinheigen.”

  “Oh? You’re a former nun?”

  “No…” my master replied bashfully as she lowered her gaze to me. She looked like someone who had peeked into a chest full of precious treasure. “The Church took care of me, but that is all. I was like a scared little lamb.”

  I laughed at my master’s self-deprecation.

  It was only because she had escaped that place that she could smile about it now.

  “I was a shepherdess.”

  Eve raised her head up from her palms in surprise, looking over my master once more, this time with a long, hard look.

  “That’s how I met both of them… Or I should say, I was saved by them… or perhaps dragged by them into conflict?” She giggled. “The latter is likely more accurate.”

  Even my painfully overserious master had finally become able to speak in such a manner. Certainly, that wolf and that sheep had tried to aid us, but in the end had merely entangled us up in their chaos.

  “Miss Bolan, where did you meet those two?”

  A predator asks only one question. Would you prefer to be eaten starting from the head or the tail?

  Perhaps that was why she frowned a fair amount at my master’s question.

  “Eve is fine.”

  My master grinned and nodded, correcting herself. “Miss Eve.”

  “It was farther north. They dropped in to visit along their way, as it turned out.”

  “Is that so?”

  My master could persevere in conversation with congregants for hours.

  She laughed softly; she nodded; sometimes she urged conversation forward, and others, she gently rebuked, as if with a soft pat from her palm.

  That was why she did not say anything at that particular time. But her collected experience of talking to people none the less loosened Eve’s tongue.

  “So you were a timid lamb.”

  “Hm?” My master echoed back before making an embarrassed-looking smile and a nod.

 
“I was a wounded wolf.”

  Eve gazed far into the distance, but surely it was an old memory she stared at.

  When my master first became accustomed to this town and permitted herself the luxury of reminiscing, she often had such a look.

  “That’s why…”

  “…”

  Without prompting, my master gazed across at Eve. “… I make a poor cat burglar.”

  My master’s eyes widened a little.

  For her part, Eve slowly reeled in her gaze from the outside, glancing sidelong at my master.

  There was a very faint smile on her lips, but it looked like she was laughing at herself.

  It seemed that man was on her mind a fair bit.

  Furthermore, though her gaze seemed to suggest my master as being of a piece with her, if my memory served correctly, my master thought nothing of men whatsoever. Even since she had settled down to live in this town, though no small number had approached my master, she had gently refused them all.

  My master told them it was because she was in service to God, but that was not why.

  So long as l was by her side, it was enough.

  I whuffled a short sigh as my master, stroking me from head to neck, spoke to Eve. “You see, once a sheep’s attention is taken by something, all else flies out of her head.”

  As my master spoke, Eve made what was clearly a strained smile.

  “Hmph. Quite some nerve she has, calling us here like this.”

  Eve gazed outside once more, but this time she seemed to be actually looking outside.

  “Using me as an errand girl for them takes no small amount of courage in itself. Can you believe it? There’s going to be three more women riding that wagon to Nyohhira with us.”

  “Oh!”

  “Shocking, isn’t it? I’m quite wrathful over it. That horse-drawn wagon behind me is full of valuable clothing and jewels. You’re Norah, right? You can borrow whatever you like and dress up however you please.”

  Eve made a sadistic smile that seemed to suit her very well as she spoke.

  It was no surprise my master’s smile seemed a little conflicted. After all, my master has no interest in any male besides myself.

  However, after seeming to think about it a while, she stared at the tip of my nose before lifting up her gaze to speak. “Even sheep must not be pampered all the time, you see.”

  The wolflike woman gave my master a grin.

  I was rather taken aback with shock, thinking back to that sheep while atop my master’s lap, and made a guffaw with a sigh.

  “…”

  Though the old uncertainties of travel presented themselves, the carriage and clothing Eve had prepared were extravagant indeed, napping in the carriage might have been more comfortable than that drafty old church.

  My master is constitutionally hardier than she looks; Eve seemed to admire that as well.

  Though there was no conversation to speak of, the atmosphere was not particularly ill, and I was able to nap on my master’s lap quite a bit, too.

  This was how it went until we arrived at another town. It seemed that here, another woman would be coming aboard.

  However, first came a hot meal and a good night’s sleep at the inn; later, we greeted the next day’s morn.

  In the middle of the morning, as I wondered what sort of person this new passenger would turn out to be, I caught a strange scent inside the moving coach.

  “… I wonder what this scent is?”

  “Medicine.”

  “Medicine…?”

  “Numerous alchemists live in this town. Apparently the woman we’re picking up collects them.”

  Miller, executioner, shepherd – she used all these words with the same tone she used for witch and alchemist.

  Eve spoke in a jesting tone as if she was frightening a child, but when I saw my master make a sound of admiration through her nose, I was a bit disappointed.

  “Rare or not, there’ll be enough of those scents in Nyohhira to make you sick of them.”

  “Eh, is that so?”

  “Nyohhira is a famous land of springs. In those mountains, there are baths everywhere the eye can see. Just picture a bathtub as large as a lake. The whole place smells much like this.”

  Of course, I found this a rather dubious claim, but my master seemed to take it in as the honest truth.

  This time, just as Eve desired, I held my tongue and let my thoughts wander.

  However, if there was a bathtub as large as a lake, who on earth would bathe in it…?

  Naturally I thought it had to be an exaggeration.

  And as the carriage came to a large turn in the road, it gently came to a stop.

  The driver descended from his seat, checking someone’s name outside. With things apparently cleared up without delay, there was a gentle knock on the wooden door of the carriage.

  “Aye.” Eve made a curt reply and respectfully opened the door.

  There stood the woman who seemed to be a legendary witch.

  “I am Dian Rubens. You may call me Diana.” She smiled as her glossy black hair swayed slightly.

  This woman had a different air about her than Eve or my master.

  She sat on the same side as my master, keeping that faint smile on her face as she directed her radiant gaze out the window.

  Reluctantly, I curled around my master’s feet, but I continued to glance up at the woman intermittently, taking notice of matters overhead.

  My master was sneaking sideways glances at Diana, as was Eve.

  I could somehow understand why. It was an obvious question: What relationship did a woman who gave off an air like this have with that thickheaded sheep?

  “Incidentally…” It was Diana, who seemed like a pitch-black raven, who lit the spark.

  “Are the two of you friends, I wonder?”

  At first glance, her calm, smiling face and demeanor displayed what looked like a gentle personality.

  However, my nose told me that this bird was closer to Eve than my master.

  Eve, making a bored face and giving Diana a characteristically ill-mannered look, rested her chin upon her hand as she spoke. “Does it look like that to you?”

  “Not really.” Diana’s expression did not falter whatsoever as she turned her still-smiling face toward my master. “It’s just, I could hardly believe that man capable enough to handle more than one more liaison, so you must be friends, I thought.”

  Those words made my master nearly smile. Somehow she suppressed it, but one threatened to break out at any moment as she turned toward Eve.

  “I must agree on that point.”

  “But of course.” As Diana tilted her head with a mirthful smile, her hair, so dark that it shimmered, made a sound as she brushed it. Both Eve’s hair and my master’s was splendid gold in color, but neither made the slightest move to copy her. Pitiably, though I have black hair myself, I have no skills to compare.

  “I myself found it rather mysterious seeing you, I should say,” said Eve.

  Diana chuckled. “You could say that… I am their elder in terms of life experience, perhaps.”

  “…?”

  Eve raised an eyebrow a little as she looked at Diana. One might say she was intensively scrutinizing the other party’s words, but even while thinking of something, she did not show a single opening.

  For her part, my master tucked her chin a bit, just like when sensing the wind coming from an odd direction across a meadow.

  “Are either of you married?”

  Eve made a small laugh at the question, sitting up and raising both hands up to shoulder level.

  “I’m busy with financial matters.”

  “Heh.” Diana expressed no surprise as she made a small laugh that seemed very typical of her, shifting her gaze to my master, who made a nervous smile.

  “People in town have made advances, but…”

  “Really?” As Diana spoke, she shifted her gaze onto me. “Not because you got in the way?”

&nbs
p; Why – this woman! I made a short cry and met my master’s eyes.

  “Certainly he’s always been protecting me.” My master petted my head, then cradled it with both hands. “Right, Enek?”

  “Woof.” Of course, I answered, but my master made a somewhat lonely face.

  Yes, of course I understood why.

  My master was vibrant and full of life each and every day, but I was the opposite.

  My prime as a sheepdog was probably five years ago now. I would have liked to say I had a mountain of time left, but indeed, it was all too brief.

  “So, you do have a husband, then?”

  Diana lifted her gaze from me in response to Eve’s words. “I did once.”

  The curt reply, given without hesitation, seemed to be as far as she would look back and scratch at the old memory.

  And yet, when Diana, who had a particularly dubious air all about her, placed her snow-white hand on her chest, she made a face like a girl reminiscing about secrets from the night before as she spoke.

  “So, when they came to my town, I had more excitement than I’d had in years. Was it like that for you?”

  With that, her gaze moved to both Eve and my master. Both glanced at each other’s face, making strained smiles together.

  “Does annoyance count as part of excitement?” said Eve.

  “If excitement includes envy enough to dazzle the eyes,” said my master.

  Diana’s face showed a bit of surprise at both of their answers, finally breaking into a pleasant smile. This was not the resolute mask of before, but something more natural. “Heh-heh. So in the end, you got called over here, too. That’s just, oh…”

  “Annoying.”

  “I’m envious.”

  As both finished the sentence, like a ripple, all three of them smiled.

  “But I think that innocent charm might put them in a tough spot.”

  “Only one of them will be in a tough spot, I assure you.” Eve made a knowing smile as she spoke, and the two others indeed giggled and smiled.

  Even though their ages, origins, and upbringings all differed, somehow they all shared the same estimation of that foolish sheep. As I largely agreed with them, I was certainly not going to jump to his defense.

  “But that’s why I find their having a proper ceremony to be rather unexpected.” Diana pulled a sealed letter out of a purse.