Spice & Wolf I

Prologue

In this village, when the ripened ears of wheat sway in the breeze, it is said that a wolf runs through them.

This is because one can make out the form of a running wolf in the shifting stalks of the wheat fields.

When the wind is too strong and the stalks are blown over, it is said that the wolf has trampled them. When the harvest is poor, it is said that the wolf has eaten it.

It was a nice turn of phrase, but it had a troublesome aspect that flawed it, she felt.

Still, lately it was a popular sort of expression, and there were few remaining who wielded it with the sort of familiarity or awe it had held in the past.

Although the autumn sky that was visible between the swaying stalks of wheat had not changed in hundreds of years, conditions below that sky had indeed changed.

The villagers who tended the wheat as the years passed lived for seventy years at the most.

Perhaps it would be worse for them to go centuries without changing.

Maybe that is why there is no need for them to honor the ancient agreement,
she thought.

In any case, she knew she no longer had a place here.

The mountains that rose in the east caused the clouds over the village to drift mostly north.

She thought of her homeland beyond those drifting clouds and sighed.

Returning her gaze from the sky to the fields, her eyes fell upon her magnificent tail, which twitched just past her nose.

With nothing better to do, she set to grooming it.

The autumn sky was high and clear.

Harvest time had come again.

Many wolves were running through the wheat fields.

Chapter 1

“So that’s the last, then?”

“Hmm, looks like...seventy pelts, on the nose. Always a pleasure.”

“Hey, anytime. You’re the only one who’ll come this far into the mountains, Lawrence. I should be thanking you”

“Ah, but for my trouble I get truly fine pelts. I’ll come again.” The usual pleasantries concluded, Lawrence managed to leave the village just around five o’clock. The sun was just beginning its climb when he left, and it was midday by the time he descended from the mountains and entered the plains.

The weather was good; there was no wind. It was a perfect day for dozing in the wagon as he crossed the plains. It seemed absurd t hat only recently he had felt the chill of the approaching winter.

This was Lawrence’s seventh year as a traveling merchant, and his twenty-fifth since birth. He gave a huge yawn in the driver’s box.

There were few grasses or trees of any notable height, so he had an expansive view. At the very edge of his field of vision, he could see a monastery that had been built some years earlier.