Spice & Wolf IV (36 page)

Epilogue

After finishing the packing of their traveling gear and returning to the church’s living quarters, Lawrence could hear a loud crunching sound.

The sound, like footsteps upon a gravel path, was probably Holo eating.

He didn’t know how many times he had told her not to eat while reading, but she never listened.

Elsa, too, would scold Evan any time she caught him eating and dropping crumbs everywhere, shaking her head with a sigh.

Occasionally during such times, Elsa and Lawrence’s eyes would meet, and they would share a long-suffering smile.

It had been three days since the conflict between Enberch and Tereo ended.

Given the outcome, the deal Lawrence had struck was a great success.

Tereo had wound up owing Enberch thirty-seven
Iima
r
—over seven hundred
trenni
pieces. However, with the agreement that Lawrence had arranged with Riendott, Tereo would not only pay the debt off, but also stood to make money from Riendott.

Lawrence had used the village’s wheat and the baker’s assistance to make cookies.

They were not dissimilar to unleavened bread, which was made with flour and water but without the yeast that caused regular bread to rise. Adding butter and eggs to this unleavened bread mixture, however, created something surprisingly delicious,

Cookies were common in the south, but for whatever reason, Lawrence had never seen them in the north.

Having discovered during a dinner with Elsa and Evan that they were unfamiliar with the different types of bread in the world, Lawrence had been convinced that the villagers would not know of cookies—and he had been right.

Cookies looked nothing like bread. While the baker’s guild strictly prohibited other businesses from baking and selling bread, foodstuffs aside from bread fell outside the scope of its rule.

Though the baker’s guild would surely protest, as long as the villagers had the support of Riendott and Bishop Van, theirs would remain a mutually beneficial relationship.

Cookies being a rare and delicious product, they sold well in Enberch. They sold so well that it seemed possible for the purported surplus of rye wheat to be insufficient for demand.

However, business of this sort could easily be copied, so it was only in the beginning that large profits would come with relative ease.

So it was that Lawrence had not demanded a share of the profits. Instead he had asked the villagers to buy the wheat he carried in his cart with a bit of extra coin included by way of apology.

If the people of Tereo planned to turn the cookies into a local specialty, they had a lot of hard work before them.

But the cookies’ deliciousness, at least, was guaranteed.

After all, in the three days since the end of the dispute, Holo had eaten nothing else.

To any who ate the cookies for the first time, their taste and texture could be addictive.

“Well then, it’s about time to be off,” said Lawrence.

Holo was happily spilling crumbs all over the pages of one of Father Franz’s books. She looked up, annoyed at the light tap Lawrence had given her.

Elsa was right outside the church, praying intensely over Lawrence’s cart for a safe journey while Elder Sem and the villagers had decided on their own to pray to Truyeo that Lawrence’s business would thrive.

The villagers’ attitude toward the church had changed. Some had even begun attending services out of gratitude.

No doubt in the future, Tereo would worship two gods.

Holo stood up from the chair in which she sat, grabbing a cookie from a mountain of the same on the table and holding it between her teeth.

“You know we have piles of those things in the cart. If this is like when you bought so many apples we could hardly eat them all, you’ll have naught but cookies for every meal,” warned Lawrence.

Holo took a bite out of the cookie with a loud crunch, regarding Lawrence with irritation. “Uh, just who was it, I wonder, that separated the good wheat from the bad and created that miracle? Had I not been there, you would’ve been tossed naked into a cauldron and boiled alive.”

It pained Lawrence to hear it, but Holo had been eating cookies at an absurd rate—even the villagers, who felt they owed her a great debt, were stunned into silence by the sight of her devouring the treats.

He felt he could warn her a bit without risking retribution.

“Mmph,” Holo continued. “We surely met with calamity this time around.”

It was a forced change of subject, but she was not wrong.

“Well, at least we turned a profit in the end.”

“Is that all you care about?” laughed Holo, her cheeks stuffed with cookie. “For my part, I cannot say that my hopes were met, but I did well enough. I suppose it was worth the effort.”

She looked at the book that recorded the tales of the Moon-Hunting Bear—which she had now read fully three times—
and
sighed. “So, where are we going next?”

“Lenos. There’s a legend there in which you personally appear."

“Mm. I suppose it would be a bother to get caught in snow because we dragged our feet. We’d best get on with it.”

Lawrence knew that Holo’s true desire was to head north
as
soon as possible, but when he considered the journey that lay ahead, it was no wonder that the idea of lounging about in a suddenly comfortable village was appealing.

He was somewhat surprised that she was ready to go after just three days.

“Shall we?” she said.

“Quite.”

As soon as Lawrence and Holo emerged from the church, the villagers gathered to send them off. Gloomy apologies like “Sorry we doubted you” were long since done with.

All that remained were happy wishes for safe travel.

“May God’s blessing go with you,” said Elsa, a gentle smile on her face.

This was enough to make a man happy—which Lawrence was despite the foot stomp he received from Holo.

“Mr. Lawrence,” said Evan, holding Elsa’s hand. “Thank you for teaching me so much. I’ll work hard here.”

It was the constant suspicion of the villagers that had made Evan want to leave the village to become a merchant.

Things had changed now, though, and Evan chose to stay in the village and take responsibility for future negotiations with Enberch.

Elsa and Evan’s hands were tightly clasped together. His decision to stay had obviously been the right one as anyone could tell.

“A traveler does not leave regret behind in a village, but good memories. Farewell!”

Lawrence gripped the reins, and the horse began its amble.

Wrapped in the faint sunlight of winter, the wagon clattered its way out of the small village of Tereo.

Elsa, Evan, and Sem all waved from where they stood in front of the church, and even Lawrence looked back twice to wave.

But their forms soon shrank and disappeared.

Lawrence’s travels with Holo had begun again.

Their destination was Lenos.

From there, they would head northeast.

It would be just around the end of spring at the opening of summer, Lawrence mused, when they would finally arrive in Yoitsu.

As Lawrence thought this over, Holo immediately took a bag of cookies out and dug in.

The solemn, contemplative atmosphere that came with newly begun travel was shattered by the crunching of cookies.

“Hm?” Holo looked up questioningly, her mouth full of cookies, and Lawrence decided her blank face had its own charms.

The smile he had upon seeing her innocent face soon evaporated. “Summer,” he murmured to himself.

Immediately thereafter, he noticed something approaching his face. He looked to find it was a cookie. “Don’t look at me so desirously,” she said sourly.

“I’ve had plenty, thanks,” said Lawrence.

Holo did not relent. “Your face says otherwise.” She shoved the cookie at him again.

Lawrence gave up and accepted it, taking a bite.

A particularly large amount of honey had been added to the cookies that the village had given Holo so they were quite sweet. Such things were not at all bad once in a while, he mused.

Yet Holo still looked at him, somehow dissatisfied.

“What?”

“Nothing,” said Holo, looking ahead and taking another bite
of
her cookie.

She obviously wanted to say something—but what?

Lawrence thought this over, and it came to him.

Oh, but that—that was too unfair.

She wanted to make him say it—it was a trap.

And yet if he did not fall into the trap, she was sure to be angry. There was nothing to be done.

Lawrence made his decision, popped the last piece of cookie into his mouth, and spoke.

“Hey.”

“Mm?”

Holo turned toward him, the picture of innocence.

Her tail swished expectantly beneath her robes.

Lawrence played along with her ridiculous farce.

“There’s some business where there’s good money to be made," he said.

“Oh?”

“It’ll take us out of our way, though.”

Holo made an exaggeratedly irritated face and sighed.

Yet she did not ask for any further details, simply smiling in
a
vaguely resigned fashion. “I suppose it cannot be helped. I shall accompany you.”

Holo did not want their journey to end.

Lawrence believed this—and it was precisely because she didn’t want it to end that she affected this attitude.

She would never have admitted this, though.

What a charmless girl.

“So, tell me about this business,” she said with a happy smile. Lawrence chewed his last piece of cookie and thanked whatever god had given him this bittersweet sensation.