Spice & Wolf II (32 page)

“You see, the answer is completely self-evident! Because—”

Because? Norah leaned forward as if to say.

“Because! Come nighttime, a wolf will always appear—tempted by this helpless, adorable rabbit. Surely you’ll agree that a rabbit who is devoured by a wolf every night could not fail to know something about wolves!”

Norah looked blank for a moment but soon understood what Holo meant. Her face turned beet red as she searched back and forth between Holo and Lawrence; then, embarrassed, she looked at her feet.

Holo giggled. “Ah, ’twas a lovely reaction. But no—my first answer is the one to remember,” she said delightedly, at which Norah blushed to her ears and averted her gaze as she seemed to remember something.

It then sounded like she raised her voice in a quiet “Oh.”

“In truth, it’s my companion that’s more like a rabbit. If I left him on his own, he’d likely die of loneliness.”

Holo whispered into Norah’s ear, but her voice was loud enough to reach Lawrence quite distinctly. He gave Holo a bitter smile, but it was Norah’s credulous nodding that hurt the most.

As if he really seemed that way.

“But, in any case, I just happened to notice the wolves last night.” In truth, it was not an obvious conclusion, but Norah had been sufficiently confused by Holo at this point that she seemed to accept it. She put her hands to her cheeks (the blush was now subsiding) and nodded.

Then taking a deep breath, she spoke, her nervousness evidently dispelled.

“Actually, I thought perhaps you were a shepherd, Miss Holo.”

“Oh, because I was quick to notice the wolves?”

“Well, there is that, too,” admitted Norah, pausing to look at her black-furred companion, who was content to pause in his work while his mistress had her chat. “Actually, it was because Enek seems to be very aware of you.”

“Mm, is that so?” Holo—whose nerve was such that she had no trouble exposing her tail when she knew she would not be caught—smiled, totally unperturbed as she folded her arms and regarded Enek. “It’s hard to say in front of a pet dog, but I daresay he’s smitten with me.”

As if he had heard her, Enek looked back to Holo and then struck out once again to tend to the flock of sheep.

His mistress, on the other hand, was struck dumb by Holo’s words.

“Wha-what? Er, you mean, Enek is?”

“My, it’s nothing to be sad about. Any male will get overconfident if spoiled. I’m sure he’s quite important to you, but that only makes him feel secure that he’s gained your affection. There’s no mistake; he’ll go looking for others to frolic with. No matter how delicious the bread, sometimes you want soup.”

Perhaps feeling some sympathy with Holo’s intricate argument, Norah nodded, apparently impressed.

“Put another way, sometimes you have to be cold. It’s a good leash.”

Norah nodded firmly, as if she had been told some deep truth, but then called Enek’s name and crouched down to greet him.

She caught him head-on as he streaked over to her, then looked up to Holo, and smiled.

“If he ever has an affair, I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Good.”

The wrongly accused Enek barked once, but Norah put her arms around him, and he was soon calm.

“I think I’d like to indulge him as long as I can, though,” said Norah, lightly kissing Enek behind his dangling ears.

Holo looked on, a slight smile playing about her lips.

It was a somewhat bemused smile, inappropriate to the occasion, Lawrence realized, when Holo looked at him.

“Because...whether this job goes well or fails, I’ll be giving up my work as a shepherd,” said Norah quietly as she held Enek in her arms. It was clear that she had a firmly rational grasp of the situation and was prepared to act according to that understanding.

She understood both the position she had been placed in and the likely outcomes.

Lawrence’s concern was unnecessary.

Though Norah might have looked frail, she had survived being cast out of an almshouse and lived through any number of difficulties. She was no pampered noble’s daughter.

At the same time, Lawrence had renewed respect for Holo.

She had discerned Lawrence’s misgivings and, after seizing the conversational initiative from Norah, casually drawn out evidence of how prepared the girl actually was.

That explained Holo’s bemused smile earlier.

The merchant wondered if Holo’s pronouncement that men were generally useless was not necessarily off the mark.

Lawrence covered his eyes in defeat and then sprawled out on the ground to rest.

The autumn landscape was cold with the approaching winter, but the scattered clouds in the sky looked warm.

The smuggling would succeed.

Lawrence muttered encouragement to himself as a sheep meandered over and peered down at him.

After some time, Liebert returned, riding his horse back at a leisurely pace.

When one carries a large amount of money, he will see everyone around him as a thief, but true to his position as a trusted employee of a trading company in a big city, Liebert appeared unperturbed.

He produced a bag of gold grains just large enough to be held in one hand, and after all present had confirmed the bag’s contents, Liebert tucked it into the inside of his jacket, patting it lightly.

“Now all we have to do is make it safely back with this and feed it to the sheep at an opportune time,” he said as if to emphasize that any real problems would be from here on out. “Then once we’ve gotten them through the gates, the sheep will be received as previously discussed. Are we agreed?”

“We are,” said Norah with a nod.

Liebert faced straight ahead. “Then let us go. A golden tomorrow awaits us.”

The small band headed back onto the narrow path between forest and hills.

The next morning, Lawrence opened his eyes as he felt something cold on his face.

Is a sheep licking me again?
he wondered, but he saw only the lead colored sky. Evidently there was going to be a rare autumn rain.

And it was cold. Lawrence lifted his head off the tree root he had been using as a pillow and saw that the fire had gone out. In order to have a small gap between the time Norah went to sleep and everyone awoke, one person had been tasked with having Norah awaken them early to tend the fire.

That person was supposed to have been Liebert, but he lay there snoring away, firewood clasped in his arms.

It was so foolish that Lawrence could hardly be angry with him.

“...Mmph.”

Lawrence sat up, apparently awakening Holo, with whom he had shared a blanket.

Without so much as a “good morning,” she shot him a truly withering glare and yanked the blanket away.

“If you’re awake, you don’t need it” seemed to be her logic.

If he argued the point, she would likely become genuinely angry, so although it was a bit early for him, Lawrence forced himself up. He had to toss another log on the campfire. The sheep were all huddled together from the cold, and with no work to do, Enek slept stretched out by the cinders—nestled up to his beloved mistress, of course. Lawrence stood, joints creaking, and tossed a log onto the fire to get it started, glancing wearily at the comfortable-looking Enek.

As the dry wood began to crackle in the fire, Enek yawned contentedly. Lawrence smiled; it reminded him of Holo.

Still, it was cold. It was as if winter had suddenly arrived.

The cause was obvious to Lawrence, looking at the weather, bill as they would be arriving in Ruvinheigen at midday the next day, he had wanted it to hold until then.

But the sky seemed unlikely to wait. Lawrence sniffed bitterly Rain would likely fall by the afternoon, surely by evening.

The trees were thick enough in the forest that the group could probably take shelter under them, but with the sheep along, that was hardly an option.

The forest was an ominous one, too. Lawrence was not terrified of it, but neither was he eager to spend the night there. Using the edge of the trees as a rain shelter would be quite close enough.

Lawrence thought it over as he gazed into the growing campfire, and then something suddenly loomed over his back.

He didn’t have time to turn around before a familiar face appeared directly beside him.

It was Holo with the texture of the tree root she had slept on still imprinted on her face.

“’Tis warmer over here.”

Lawrence was not so humble as to take those words purely at face value.

Holo wrapped the blanket around Lawrence’s back and deliberately huddled under it with him again. Stealing the blanket away was all well and good, but perhaps she had decided that was excessive. Hunger and cold were every traveler’s companions, after all.

But as Holo had said nothing to apologize, Lawrence said nothing by way of forgiveness.

He stirred up the embers with a stick, then tossed it into the fire.

“Oh, that’s right,” he said casually. “Didn’t you say you could predict the weather?”

“Surely. It will rain just past midday today,” she replied sleepily.

“Anyone could tell that, looking at this sky,” teased Lawrence.

Instead of scowling, Holo bumped her head against his shoulder lightly.

“Wish we could take fast horses and make it to town before the rain. Anyway, what say you to some potato soup? It’s been warming by the fire.”

“I’ve no complaints. Also—”

“Your tail grooming, right?” said Lawrence, lowering his voice still further.

Holo sighed and nodded. “I want to return to the inn as soon as we can. Though..

Her face was melancholy as she looked up at the sky.

A chill wind blew through her bangs, and she narrowed her eyes as though it had touched her long eyelashes.

“A rain is coming, though I haven’t wished it so.”

It was then that Lawrence remembered. When he had met Holo, she’d been the harvest god of a bountiful area. Farmers hated a chilly rain during the harvest months of autumn, so though she was far from the wheat fields now, such weather was not something she could welcome.