Spice & Wolf I (3 page)

Thus he didn’t bat an eye at traditions that true believers or Church officials would’ve found outrageous.

But it was inconvenient that Yarei was this year’s Holo. Now Yarei would be locked in a granary stocked with treats until the festival was over—close to a week—and would be impossible to talk to.

“Nothing for it, I suppose...”said Lawrence, sighing as he returned to his wagon and made for the village heads residence.

He had wanted to enjoy some drinks with Yarei and report on the events at the monastery, but if he didn’t sell the furs that were piled high in his wagon bed, he wouldn’t be able to pay for goods purchased elsewhere when the bills came due. He also wanted to sell the wheat he’d brought from the other village and couldn’t wait around for the festival to end.

Lawrence talked briefly of the midday happenings at the monastery to the village head, who was busy with festival preparation. He politely declined the offer to stay the night and put the village behind him.

Years before the Count began to manage the region, it had suffered under heavy taxes that drove up the prices of its exports. Lawrence had bought some of this unfavorably priced wheat and sold it for but a meager profit. He hadn’t done it to win favor with the village, but rather because he simply didn’t have the resources to compete with the other merchants for the cheaper, finer grain. Nevertheless, the village was still grateful for his business then, and Yarei had been the middleman for the deal.

It was unfortunate that he couldn’t enjoy a drink with Yarei, but once Holo appeared Lawrence would soon be chased out of the village as the festival came to its climax. If he’d stayed the night, he wouldn’t have been able to stay long. As he sat on his wagon, Lawrence felt a sense of loneliness at being excluded thus.

Nibbling on some vegetables he’d been given as a souvenir, he took the road west, passing cheerful farmers returning from their day’s work.

Having returned to his lonely travel, Lawrence envied the farmers with their friends.

Lawrence was a traveling merchant and twenty-five years old. At twelve he’d apprenticed under a relative, and at eighteen he set out on his own.

There were many places he had yet to visit, and he felt that the true test of his mettle as a trader was yet to come.

Like any number of traveling merchants, his dream was to save enough money to open a shop in a town, but the dream still seemed distant. If he could seize upon a good opportunity it might not be so, but unfortunately the larger traders seized such opportunities with their money.

Nevertheless, he hauled loads of goods across the countryside in order to pay his debts in a timely fashion. Even if he saw a good opportunity, he lacked the wherewithal to seize it. To a traveling merchant, such a thing was as unreachable as the moon in the sky.

Lawrence looked up at the moon and sighed. He realized such sighs were more frequent lately, whether as a reaction to years of frantic trading simply to make ends meet, or because recently he’d gotten slightly ahead and was thinking more about the future.

Additionally, when he should have been thinking about little else besides creditors, payment deadlines, and getting to the next town as quickly as possible, thoughts chased one another through his head.

Specifically, he thought of the people he’d met in his travels.

He thought of the merchants he had come to know when visiting a town repeatedly on business and the villagers he had become acquainted with at his destinations. The maidservant he’d fallen for during a long stay at an inn, waiting for a blizzard to pass. And on and on.

In short, he longed for company more and more frequently.

Such longing was an occupational hazard for merchants who spent the better part of a year alone in a wagon, but Lawrence had only recently begun to feel it. Until now, he’d always boasted that it would never happen to him.

Still, having spent so many days alone with a horse, he started to feel that it would be nice if the horse could speak.

Stories of carthorses becoming human were not uncommon among traveling merchants, and Lawrence had since the beginning laughed off such yarns as ridiculous, but lately he wondered if they could be true.

When a young merchant went to buy a horse from a horse trader, some would even recommend a mare with a completely straight face, “just in case she turns human on you.”

This had happened to Lawrence, who’d ignored the advice and bought a sturdy stallion.

That same horse was working steadily in front of him even now, but as time passed and Lawrence grew lonely, he wondered if he mightn’t have been better off with a mare after all.

On the other hand, that horse hauled heavy loads day in and day out. Even if it were to become a human, it seemed impossible that it would fall in love with its master or use its mysterious powers to bring them good fortune.

It would probably want to be paid and given rest, Lawrence mused.

As soon as this occurred to him, he felt that it was best if a horse stayed a horse, even if it did make him selfish. Lawrence smiled bitterly and sighed as if tired of himself.

Presently he came to a river and decided to make camp for the night. The full moon was bright, but that did not guarantee that he wouldn’t fall into the river—and if that happened, calling it a “disaster” would be an understatement. He’d have to hang himself. That kind of trouble he didn’t need.

Lawrence pulled back on the reins, and the horse stopped at the signal, heaving two or three sighs as it realized its long-anticipated rest was here.

Giving the rest of his vegetables to the horse, Lawrence took a bucket out of the wagon bed and drew some water from the river, setting it before the animal. As it happily slurped at the bucket, Lawrence drank some of the water he’d gotten from the village.

Wine would’ve been nicer, but drinking without a partner only made the loneliness worse. There was no guarantee he wouldn’t get staggering drunk, either, so Lawrence decided to go to bed.

He’d halfheartedly nibbled on vegetables most of the way, so he had only a bit of beef before hopping back in the wagon bed. Normally he slept in the hempen tarp that covered the bed, but tonight he had a wagonload of marten pelts, so it would be a waste not to sleep in them. They might make him smell a bit beastly in the morning, but it was better than freezing.

But jumping right into the pelts would crush the wheat sheaf, so in order to move them aside, he whisked the tarp off the wagon bed.

The only reason he didn’t shout was because the sight that greeted him was flatly unbelievable.

"..."

Apparently, he had a guest.

“Hey.”

Lawrence wasn’t sure his voice actually made a sound. He was shocked and wondered if the loneliness had finally broken him and he was hallucinating.

But after he shook his head and rubbed his eyes, his guest had not disappeared.

The beautiful girl was sleeping so soundly it seemed a shame to wake her.

“Hey, you there,” said Lawrence nonetheless, returning to his senses. He meant to inquire what exactly would motivate someone to sleep in a wagon bed. In the worse case, it might be a village runaway. He didn’t want that kind of trouble.

“…hrm?” came the girls defenseless response to Lawrence, her eyes still closed, her voice so sweet that it would make a poor traveling merchant—accustomed only to the brothels of the cities—lightheaded.

She had a terrifying allure despite her obvious youth, nestled there in the furs and illuminated by the moonlight.

Lawrence gulped once before returning to reason.

Given that she was so beautiful, if she was a prostitute, there was no telling how much he could be taken for if he was to so much as touch her.

Considering the economics of the situation was a tonic far more effective than any prayer. Lawrence regained his composure and raised his voice once again.

“Hey, you there. What are you playing at, sleeping in someone’s cart?”

The girl did not awaken.

Fed up with this girl who slept so obstinately, Lawrence grabbed the pelt that supported her head and jerked it out from under her. The girl’s head flopped into the gap left by the pelt, and finally he heard her irritated squawk.

He was about to raise his voice at her again, but then he froze.

The girl had dog ears on her head.

“Mm...hah...”

Now that the girl seemed to be finally awake, Lawrence summoned his courage and spoke again.

“You there, what are you doing, climbing in my wagon bed?”

Lawrence had been robbed more than once by thieves and bandits as he crossed the countryside. He considered himself bolder and more courageous than the average person. He wasn’t one to quail just because the girl in front of him happened to have the ears of an animal.

Despite the fact that the girl hadn’t answered his questions, Lawrence did not pose them again.

This was because the girl, slowly awakening before him and entirely naked, was unspeakably beautiful.

Her hair, illuminated by the moonlight in the wagon, looked as soft as silk and fell over her shoulders like the finest cloak. The strands that fell down her neck to her collarbone drew a line so beautiful it put the finest painting of the Virgin Mary to shame; her supple arms were so fine they seemed carved from ice.

And exposed now in the middle of her body were her two small breasts, so beautiful they gave the impression of being carved from some inorganic material. They gave off a strangely vital scent, as if housed within her arresting charm was a warmth.

But such a fascinating spectacle could just as soon go awry.

The girl slowly opened her mouth and looked skyward. Closing her eyes, she howled.

“Auwoooooooooooo!”

Lawrence felt a sudden fear—it blew through his body like a wind.

The howl was the song a wolf would use to call its comrades, to chase and corner a human.

This was no howl like Yarei had uttered earlier. It was a true howl. Lawrence dropped the bite of beef from his mouth; his horse reared, startled.

Then he realized something.

The moonlit girl’s form—with the ears on her head. The ears of a beast.

“… Hmph. ’Tis a good moon. Have you no wine?” she said, letting the howl fade away, drawing her chin up, and smiling slightly. Lawrence came back to himself at the sound of her voice.

What was before him was neither dog nor wolf. It was a beautiful girl with the ears of such an animal, though.

“I have none. And what are you? Why do you sleep in my cart? Were you to be sold in town? Did you escape?” Lawrence meant to ask as authoritatively as he could, but the girl did not so much as move.

“What, so you have no wine? Food, then …? My, such waste,” said the girl unconcernedly, her nose twitching. She spied the bit of beef Lawrence had almost eaten earlier, snapping it up and popping it into her mouth.

As she chewed it, Lawrence did not fail to note the two sharp fangs behind the girl’s lips.

“Are you some kind of demon?” he asked, his hand falling to the dagger at his waist.

As traveling merchants often needed to convert large amounts of currency, they often carried their money in the form of items. The silver dagger was one such item, and silver was known as a holy metal, strong against evil.

However, when Lawrence put his hand to the dagger and posed his question, the girl looked blankly at him, then laughed heartily.