Usually, when Holo was drunk and lay down once, she never rose again till noon the next day, so this was a rare sight.
“I spoke too much… My face is hot. There’s a brook near here, yes?”
Certainly, after having been sandwiched by that large a crowd and drinking wine, it was good to at least wash one’s face.
Lawrence lent Holo his shoulder as they left the barn.
“Whew…”
As they went outside, Holo sighed, as if finally being able to breathe again.
In the first place, Holo was the type of person who could merrily brush off a request, calling it troublesome or something like that.
Yes, she had been passed quite a bit of wine, but she had given the villagers a lavish performance.
“Well, looked like you had fun.”
Though Holo sometimes seemed in danger of tripping, she did not seem to be quite that drunk and walked properly on her own two feet.
Or perhaps Holo could walk on her own two feet just fine, but she wanted to pretend she was drunk.
Holo always seemed embarrassed when she had done her best for something, so it was entirely possible she was trying to conceal a blush.
“… Pwah!”
The two went as far as the brook that crossed the quiet village’s road; there, Holo washed her face in the cold spring water.
Until the princess finished washing her face and moistening her throat, her servant Lawrence put Holo’s hair in order from behind with one hand, supporting Holo’s body with the other.
After drinking a fair amount, Holo suddenly had had enough; she lifted her face and pulled her body back up.
Then, Holo used the hand towel she had hung from her waist to wipe off her face, nonchalantly wiping both hands off as well.
There were no words of thanks, but when Holo stood up, she grasped Lawrence’s hand.
“Is this not enough?” she might have said, but he wondered if it really meant there was no complaint for her to make.
“What is with this, though?”
“Mm?”
The path extended in a perfectly straight line from the brook to the barn, precisely wide enough for two people walking side by side.
Holo spoke softly as the two of them walked together under the moonlight.
“I did not think they would be that insistent. I wanted to slip out somehow, but…”
Pausing to take a breath, she made an embarrassed-sounding laugh.
“I got scared midway.”
Lawrence was a little surprised that Holo had had the same thought.
“People are more frightening. Once wolves and bears’ bellies are full, there is nothing to fear from them. But people are not limited by such concerns; when abstract things are concerned, all the more so.”
She spoke as if out of pique, but the side of her face looked mildly amused.
It was probably something she thought she, too, should reflect upon.
“It would be nice if you always remembered that…”
“Mmm.”
Holo pouted, but she did not move away from Lawrence; to the contrary, she butted her head against his arm.
“But I must wonder.”
“Mmm?”
“What did they expect from me?”
Judging from the side of her face, it was not a joke, so Lawrence thought for a while before parroting her words.
“What… you ask?”
“I know they wanted amusing tales. That is not what I mean.”
Apparently annoyed, the tone of her voice became prickly.
It seemed the wine had made her a fair bit moodier.
“That is not what I mean… Surely my stories were not amusing enough to listen to them so seriously? Or were they so fascinating? A number of them were lies, and obvious ones at that, yet even so?”
So she really did mix lies in, he thought with a somewhat strained smile, but he somehow understood what Holo was getting at.
After all, the villagers had truly been desperate.
It was as if they felt it was more important to hear as many stories as was possible than to enjoy them.
There was no mistaking that this had thrown Holo off her stride.
Perhaps the reason she had not gotten up when drunk from her wine and running out of stories to tell was because the desperation of the villagers was so incomprehensible, her legs just would not move.
But the answer Lawrence immediately prepared within himself was a very simple one.
Indeed, it was so simple an answer that Holo might be upset once he told her.
Hence, he thought he should dress it up somehow, but nothing came to mind.
Giving up, he spoke. “To put it bluntly… Because they’re villagers.”
It must have sounded like the sort of ill-tempered reply one would get from a hermit.
Holo made a pout as she looked up at Lawrence.
Really, he did not mind seeing Holo a little angry and a bit sullen like this.
But the straw bed the friendly villagers had prepared beckoned just beyond.
Since he did not want to sleep on the hard ground, Lawrence spoke.
“This path…”
And he pointed to the path they were currently walking upon.
It was a pretty path that stretched from the brook past several houses, right past the front of the village headman’s house, and right in front of the barn.
“It’s probably the prettiest path in the village.”
Holo looked behind her, then ahead, then finally back at Lawrence.
“What of it?” her skeptical eyes seemed to say.
“Haven’t you noticed something since we started walking?”
As Lawrence asked, Holo’s face grew even more dubious. Her eyebrows were scowling so much that she really did look angry.
As Lawrence did not think Holo would arrive at the correct answer by herself, he laid it out before she became genuinely angry.
“This path is just wide enough for two adults to walk along it, holding hands.”
“… Mm?”
“No doubt it’s like this from the brook till it ends.”
Since Holo was a little too small to be adult sized and was snuggled up to Lawrence like this, there was a bit of room to spare.
Even so, Holo displayed tentative agreement with Lawrence’s words.
“But since it’s too narrow for two horse-drawn wagons to pass by each other, the path through the field over there is probably wider.”
It was precisely because this was a remote village that a wide path was needed for transporting bundles of straw, produce, and livestock.
“And yet, this path, connecting most of the houses in the village, is only this wide. There’s a reason for that.”
“Aye…?”
Though her sourness had vanished, it felt like she might say at any moment, If this answer is not interesting, you shall regret it.
But paying little heed, Lawrence made a small smile as he spoke.
“If we walk to the end, you’ll see. And, it’ll serve as the answer to your own question, too.”
“Aye…”
If you put it that way, let us walk.
Making a sigh that seemed to express that, Holo leisurely walked with Lawrence along the path.
As the season was winter, there were no frogs, nor the sounds of birds or insects.
Having been silent this far, one would think it would remain silent the rest of the way.
The only warmth rested between their palms as they walked straight down the simple path.
The village, which Lawrence did not even know the name of, did not reach very far.
They soon arrived at the end of the path.
And when they arrived at that place, Holo squeezed Lawrence’s hand just a little harder.
“This is the answer.”
As Lawrence spoke, he looked at Holo beside him.
Holo stood silently in place, staring squarely at where the path ended.
“
This village begins at the brook, but for other villages it can be a well. Anyway, it begins where there is water, and here is where it ends. You understand why the path is so narrow now, don’t you?”
Even though the moon was out, it was nowhere anyone wanted to go to in the middle of the night.
This was the village’s graveyard, the final destination at the end of the villagers’ lives.
“Wide enough to carry a casket?”
“Yes. The brook is used for baptism, and when you die, you reach the end of this path. If the sun was out, you could see this place straight from the brook. The villagers’ lives have no twists or turns. There are no detours. Where they were born and where they shall die were determined long ago. That’s why they want to know about the outside world.”
The stories being interesting was of secondary importance.
Holo patted a stake of the fence surrounding the graveyard and let out a long, narrow, white breath.
“You see what I mean?”
Holo nodded.
And after she nodded, she made a vexed smile.
“It would have been nice to speak with them more.”
It was kindness typical of her, he thought.
“But ah yes…”
Holo lifted her chin and looked over all of the graveyard, which was not all that large, and tilted her head ever so slightly.
“This is the natural order for many people, is it not?”
“I suppose so. If it wasn’t, there wouldn’t be any business for traveling merchants.”
As Lawrence spoke, Holo said, “Quite true,” and laughed.
“Well, the world is full of many things. Now I have become wiser about one more.”
As Holo spoke with an intentionally comedic tone, she let go of Lawrence’s hand and spun around on the spot.
“Now that the mystery is solved, shall we go back? My hotness from the wine seems to be cooling.”
“I’m all for that. After all, tomorrow…”
Lawrence closed the gap between them, took firm hold of Holo’s hand once more, and spoke.
“… we’ll be back on the road again.”
So long as one journeyed, anything could happen.
Some things would be joyous, others would be sad, and still others, painful.
But so long as their hands were joined and they had a road to follow, they could keep moving forward.
Holo glanced up at Lawrence, her refined lips tapered ever so slightly in a smile.
After that, she raised her chin, saying, “Aye,” and made a satisfied-sounding laugh.
End
Afterword
It’s the last afterward, but actually, I didn’t want to write it.
I truly have written all in the Spice and Wolf series that I wanted to.
This volume is centered on an episode taking place a while after the events in volume sixteen, but midway, it became harder to write than anything before it. I really didn’t want to write it.
But rather mysteriously, this brought me no anguish. Indeed, it made me very happy.
Really, really – really, I’ve done this, I’ve done that, I’ve done it all, there’s no more!
I was able to think such a thought for the first time in my life. My personality has tended to make me get tired of anything, discarding things midway as soon as I get used to them, over and over again.
Besides, in the beginning, not having anything left to write was my nightmare. Fearing this, I read a great many books. But it seems that the true meaning of not having anything left to write laid elsewhere. So there are things like this, I thought in exasperation; I slumped and grinned at pained grin.
(Bit of a Spice and Wolf joke there.)
Even so, having written these characters for a whole five years, I was able to gather the vestiges of my memories and commit them to paper, but this is a method permitted only once, at the very, very end.
The “intermission” and “conclusion” comprise that one last time. When I reread the short stories I’d jotted down during the same time, made with the sense that I was finishing somewhere, I really surprised myself.
I’m happy that I was able to have fun with the series Spice and Wolf until the final seventeenth volume.
Now then, even though I just said I’ve written everything I wanted to, I have a bunch of other things I already want to do. Volume sixteenish in… you might blame me for writing “summerish” as too optimistic, but it’ll be within the year! I’m sure of it!
After that, I’m picking at some private creative activities, so if you see me somewhere else, please take a look!
And so, the long journey of Spice and Wolf comes to an end.
To all who participated in this series, and to all the readers who read to the very end, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart as I lower the curtain.
– Isuna Hasekura
Spice & Wolf Omnibus Page 319