Spice & Wolf Omnibus

by Isuna Hasekura

  Holo spoke lazily with fish still in her mouth.

  She was probably asking, “So what is written on it?”

  As Holo sat beside him, Lawrence handed her the dagger.

  “God grant me mercy.”

  Holo’s look of surprise might have been because she expected something more magnificent to be engraved on a weapon like this. In fact, chariots, rams, and the great swords and lances knights used on horseback all had phrases etched upon them. Yet among them, only a knight’s dagger had something as seemingly banal as “God grant me mercy” engraved upon it.

  In the past, Lawrence, too, had found it curious but thought it simply a matter of custom. He had only learned of its significance when he came to this very stone fort.

  “Among the elderly, there are those who call these daggers ‘misericordes,’ meaning acts of mercy in an older tongue.”

  Holo nodded with deep interest; the moment she raised the dagger over the fire, the finely polished blade reflected the fire’s light so brightly that she closed her eyes.

  “Ha-ha. So you see, this dagger was handed down to me by just one such old man.”

  As he retrieved the dagger from Holo, his gaze fell to the well-used hilt.

  The story was from three years prior.

  It was a time when something like Lawrence meeting Holo was as yet unthinkable.

  Though by good fortune he had reached it while having lost his way, truly this was the house of the devil.

  The story of a merchant who wasted his profits on a daily basis was not an amusing one.

  Furthermore, having set eyes upon it amid a plain that continued seemingly for all eternity, even though he thought it an ill omen, it simply could not have been helped.

  The bare hill appearing smack in the middle of the plain had posts sticking out of it like the spines of a sea urchin. The grand, dignified stone fort at the summit of the hill gave off an atmosphere like an execution ground straight out of hell where the sins of man would be judged.

  The feeling that a demon or Grim Reaper might show up at any moment was not based upon that atmosphere alone.

  Having cut food down to the minimum to reduce traveling expenses, his last provisions had run out the night before. Horses could live off eating the poor, wild grasses while on the road, but men could not. Though he could choose to sacrifice his horse as a last resort, it would bring about bankruptcy, which meant much the same as death to a merchant.

  Finally, he had received divine punishment for being too obsessed with turning a profit.

  The circumstances were more than sufficient to make a man think that way.

  Aided by his empty stomach, Lawrence was on the verge of losing his spirit and giving up.

  However, it was an all too realistic welcoming ceremony that suddenly brought Lawrence back to his senses.

  He heard a high-pitched sound, making him think that a large insect had buzzed past his ear. After, a sound like the shaking of wood instantly alerted him to just what had flown at him.

  Lawrence instantly leaped down from the driver’s seat and hid under his horse.

  Someone had shot an arrow at him.

  “I’m a traveling merchant who got lost! Just a traveling merchant!”

  And even after yelling with all his strength, two more arrows thrust into the earth. They neatly avoided the horse, one falling to the left, one to the right; the shooter must have been rather skilled.

  Whether as a result of Lawrence’s shouts or not, no other arrows came flying, or perhaps the shooter was simply waiting for him to stick his head up before shooting again. Thinking of that, Lawrence stayed put for a while; finally, he heard the sound of footsteps. It seemed he had not been shot at from the fort; the shooter was apparently hidden on some slope somewhere.

  When Lawrence, pathetically between the legs of his horse, looked in the direction of the sound, he saw the silhouette of a man.

  The man stood still and spoke.

  “A traveling merchant, you say?”

  The voice was rather coarse; even if it was for show, Lawrence thought the man had to have been fairly old.

  As Lawrence answered yes, the man swiftly crouched down.

  The man, as small and aged as his voice had made him seem, had a very frank look about him.

  “By the grace of God. Good thing I didn’t shoot you to death.”

  The leering grin on his face made it hard to dismiss as a joke.

  But the man stood up and made an about-face on his heel.

  Is he letting me live? wondered Lawrence, staying put under his horse, when the old man suddenly looked back.

  “Well, what are you doing? You got lost, didn’t you?”

  When Lawrence slowly poked his head out, the old man was pointing to the fort atop the hill as he spoke.

  “At least let me treat you to a meal for your journey ahead, young man. Also, I have a favor to ask you.”

  It was quite a line, coming from someone defending his fortress by bowshot.

  He behaved as though he was the master of this fort, but the old man, showing a perfect set of teeth in spite of his age as he smiled, introduced himself in this manner:

  “I am called Fried, entrusted with Rumut Fort by the command of Count Zenfel, honored lord of this castle.”

  Spoken like a king, or someone who thought he was one in his own mind, but as Fried finished speaking, he looked up at the fort, his face suddenly breaking into an embarrassed-looking smile.

  “Having said so, it’s been quite a while since I shot an arrow at someone. I’m thankful I didn’t hit you.”

  And as he made a chuckle, he walked up the hill.

  For a while, Lawrence stayed where he was, watching Fried’s backside from under his horse, his face a mix of a bit of surprise and bewilderment. He had heard of Count Zenfel. He was famous in this region for his trivial pursuits, though one would no doubt only hear such talk about the ruler from travelers on the side of the road.

  After all, it had been over a decade since that ruler had governed these lands.

  What was Fried doing in a fort that no longer had a lord?

  Bandits were fond of setting up shop in forts abandoned by soldiers, but was it really that?

  Furthermore, he had no sense the man was going to plunder his cargo.

  Courting unprofitable danger would make him a poor merchant, but lack of curiosity would make him an even poorer one.

  After thinking it over for a while, Lawrence finally crawled out from under his horse, picked up the arrows Fried had left on the ground, and tossed them on top of the roof rack, and gripping the reins, he followed after Fried.

  The road winding its way to the fort was in good repair, with tapered stakes all over the place embedded into the slope at an angle. They looked like defenses one would put up against an army about to invade at any moment, yet it all seemed to be lacking somehow.

  It was only when they entered through the open stone gateway that he realized that somehow it was far too quiet.

  “… Goodness, it’s hard getting up the hill at my age.”

  As the wagon entered the courtyard, Fried spoke while slapping his hip with his bow.

  Inside the finely set stone walls, life on the inside of the fort was just as finely maintained.

  There was a cattle pen, a vegetable garden, and a stable, plus a graveyard and a small chapel, with flowers blooming all around.

  It was immediately clear that the second floor of the building was kept in impressive repair as well; it seemed like someone’s face might suddenly poke out from the shadows made by the open windows and doors.

  But as Lawrence tethered his horse as Fried told him to, no faces poked out, nor was there even the slightest sign that they might.

  He heard pigs, chickens, and even the faint baa of a sheep.

  To be blunt, it was as quiet as if all the soldiers had turned tail and run.

  “Hmm. I thought it might be my imagination, but you really don’t look so good.”<
br />
  Fried suddenly spoke like that as he took note of Lawrence’s state while walking with him and leading him inside.

  There was no point hiding it, so Lawrence made an honest reply.

  “Actually, my last proper meal was two nights ago.”

  “Hmph. That would do it. I must treat you to a feast, then. I have freshly ground pork and… Oh, come to think of it, Paule aid an egg by the ditch just this morning,” Fried murmured to himself as he went into the building.

  Many people spoke to themselves as the years advanced, but if Lawrence’s assessment was correct, Fried was likely doing it out of having lived on his own for too long.

  Thinking such thoughts, Lawrence followed along, entering a neat and tidy galley.

  “Over here.”

  They passed by a cooking stove that still had red embers in it, arriving at the middle of the room.

  There stood a well-used table and chair.

  As Lawrence sat, the chair made an uneasy creak, but there was not a speck of dust on it.

  “Yes, yes. Still fine for you to sit in, is it? It seems my skills haven’t dulled yet.”

  Though he spoke like a noble, he apparently did not shy away from manual labor.

  In the first place, if he was the lord of the castle, he would not go out of his way to personally take up arms against guests. Moreover, leaving one’s fort meant it had no value as a fortress.

  “Well, you can rest easy. You and I are the only ones in this fort, after all.”

  There were tales of women living in small cottages in the middle of the forest.

  Whether the woman be witch, devil, or spirit, the possibility she brought good fortune was overwhelmingly low.

  But did that go for an old man who greeted visitors with shots from his bow?

  Whatever the case, Lawrence certainly could not think of him as some sort of monster.

  “Have you always been here by yourself?”

  Fried smiled at Lawrence’s question.

  It seemed the chagrined smile on his face was not just Lawrence’s imagination.

  “When this place was entrusted to me, I had five bold men under me. I was down one, then another, and finally, only I remained.”

  “Was that from battle?”

  As Lawrence questioned further, Fried turned toward him with a very forthright look.

  Right around the moment Lawrence wondered if it was a bad question, Fried raised his face toward the ceiling and let out a hearty laugh.

  “Ha-ha-ha! If only! It’s been ten years since this was entrusted to me. The only visitors are the ones who get lost!”

  Speaking as he laughed loudly, he stopped on a dime and closed his mouth, glaring at Lawrence.

  “Do be careful about supper. If you eat too much, you won’t be able to leave.”

  And smiling once more, he immediately walked toward the kitchen.

  I’m sure this is not some demon-built gateway to hell, at least, but I have entered a very odd place indeed, murmured Lawrence within his own thoughts.

  It did not take much time before pork added to runny eggs and rough-cut vegetables stir-fried in tallow were all done; the outside was still dyed dark red.

  Bread seemed to have been recently baked inside the fort, for the wheat bread he was served was still soft, coming with ale that itself had been brewed in the fort. His mouth was full of herbs he had seen in the vegetable garden outside. In most respects it was a feast indeed.

  Furthermore, before Lawrence could worry about it being poisoned, Fried himself toasted him in good cheer, displaying a healthy appetite one would not expect from someone his age.

  “Aye. It’s indeed tastier than when you’re by yourself. Oh, don’t hold back. You’re young! Eat up! You’ve barely touched your ale.”

  He was hungry, of course.

  Once he first stretched out his hand, he wolfed down everything in no time, to the point Fried’s eyes went wide.

  “My, my, you certainly ate that,” Fried remarked while putting toothpicks whittled from a branch with a small knife through scraps of meat and bread. Indeed, though he spoke as if he was a nobleman, he looked like an old man in a village happily heading out to his fields and certainly nothing like a noble or knight at all.

  In the middle of their meal, Fried asked Lawrence some very probing questions, such as “Where did you come from?” “What are you trading?” “Where were you born?” and “Do you have a wife?” As Lawrence had to answer such questions or do without such a delicious meal, he had no time to ask questions of his own at all.

  “That was truly a splendid feast. No doubt I’d have needed a gold coin to eat like that at a traveler’s inn.”

  He spoke very merchant-like words of thanks.

  “I see, I see. Ha-ha-ha.”

  Fried, his face red from drinking ale, made an amiable laugh and nodded along.

  “The wheat bread was splendid. The pork was of exceptional quality. But there’s no land here to grow wheat, and you can’t have enough feed for pigs and sheep on your own. What do you do about it all?”

  Fried kept the smile on his face as he looked over some bread that had absorbed a lot of grease while being used in lieu of a plate.

  There was a smile on his face, but Lawrence knew well the look of someone in thought.

  In general, he found that if one was in a normal conversation with an elderly person, even if they were reluctant, they would speak even of troubles and conflicts of the past if a person insisted on asking.

  “And… it has been several years since Count Zenfel…”

  “Aye.”

  Fried promptly made his decision.

  As he nodded, he took hold of the bread acting as a plate, and as if ripping the caution in his heart, he tore it into four large, roughly similar pieces.

  “It’s been… six years, perhaps, since the last letter came? It came from a knight calling himself the count’s nephew. Apparently the count was campaigning in distant lands, fell ill, and passed away. What a shame to lose him.”

  So it was largely as Lawrence had remembered.

  “The letter contained a will by the count, stating that he was entrusting this fort to me, to defend well this dominion. It also said the Duller Monastery would no doubt send whatever supplies I might lack. There are many who claim that the count was as upbeat as a poet singing a song, but he was very reliable in such matters.”

  He had probably made donations there when it was harvest time in the territory.

  So this was the reason Fried was living alone in a fort on a hill in the middle of a barren prairie.

  “I left a village withering away to begin with. Over twenty years ago, I was a would-be mercenary while the fever of a great war laid waste to the world. I gained a fief from the count during that time. He truly was a fine man to serve.”

  “They say… it is only in a time of war that one can dream of going from a shoemaker to a shepherd, yes?”

  As Lawrence spoke while getting further along with his ale, Fried made an “Ohh” with a suitable expression, nodding in satisfaction.

  “Yes. It was an age when princes strove to gain lands by force of arms, however barren they might be.”

  Like an elder, Fried spoke of the past with nostalgia and some measure of pride.

  But Lawrence knew. In truth, war took place in but limited regions, though based on the all-too-heroic tales that were topics of conversations in this town and that, one would think the entire world had been plunged in mayhem.

  Of course, Lawrence kept his peace, not wanting to pour cold water upon the matter, but Fried gazed at him with amusement as Lawrence casually brought more ale to his lips.

  “Ha-ha. You are quite reserved for one so young, not telling me I’m an ignorant old man.”

  Surprised at those words, Lawrence made a pained smile.

  Even in a place like this, Fried was well aware of the goings-on in the world.

  “It’s fairly often that far-off disputes are taken for storie
s of conflicts in nearby lands by mistake at some point. The sparks of war and chaos fly out of the mouths of men. Neither those who live in towns nor those who till the soil in villages travel outside them very often. Furthermore, travelers like you don’t pour cold water on the tales of villagers, either. Before long, people get the notion that war is a whirlwind spanning the entire world.”

  Lawrence wondered if it was a magnanimous era.

  Many real conflicts erupted over mere rumor; in many cases, both armies stuck their noses into something in the name of justice, with different ideas about how that was to be defined.

  The stories left behind seemed like bad jokes.

  “Because things are like that, I was as surprised as a hen when I heard the tale at a tavern… that Count Zenfel, known not only in his own lands but outside them, had declared he was building a fort here.”

  As Fried spoke, he tossed broken pieces of bread out through the window.

  “Stöckengurt!”

  And as shouted outside the window like so, Lawrence heard a sound like hooves; the whine that followed established that it was that which bore the exaggerated name of Stöckengurt.

  Apparently it was a pig.

  “But building this fort did give plenty of people work to do. Count Zenfel was a very generous man. Thus, the fort was completed, but…”

  “So no enemies came, then?”

  As if Lawrence’s words had awoken Fried from a dream he had not wanted to wake from, he slowly nodded.

  “I have no recollection of any in the last ten-odd years. I’ve aided many lost souls, and once some bandits came down from the mountains looking for this place, or at least I heard rumors to that effect. In the end, there has not been a single battle.”

  It was pointless to invade a barren land with nothing but dry, open prairie, after all. There was no value in defending such land. The fort could not support itself if besieged and would be forced to surrender in a very short time.

  A worthless place to attack and completely unsuited to defense.

  So that was why an abandoned fort like this had not fallen even once in spite of the passage of over a decade.

  “In the first place, I never heard one word about anyone invading this region after the count passed away. I suppose other groups didn’t want the place because it’s too barren. It’s like a teaching of the Church, is it not? Blessed are the meek.”