Surrounded on all sides by mountains in the center of the world.
The long winter was finally coming to an end in the hot spring village of Nyohhira.
Curious gazes gathered on Lawrence.
“Oh my, my. Isn’t that the owner of Spice and Wolf?”
Even though the sky was bright, it took a while for the sun to show itself in this land cradled by mountains. The village was still covered in a faint darkness, and it was difficult to see a distant person’s face. Currently, the various bathhouses’ maids gathered and quietly gossiped in a corner of the village and suddenly began to create a clamor, like pigeons that began to cry when they saw nearing crows.
Lawrence stepped into the snow and stood there, with a smile as vague as his white, wavering breath visible in the cold. He let down the firewood he was carrying.
There were several places that the maids and village women gathered in this predawn hour. There was the water mill and the well and so on, but the place that Lawrence had come to today was the communal bread oven.
“What’s happened to Hanna? Is she ill?”
“I wonder if his daughter is sleeping in.”
“Have you forgotten? His daughter has bravely gone off on an adventure. I wanted to do that a long time ago, too.”
“Oh, is that so? This was the only place I knew outside of the town I was born in.”
“But it’s a surprise to see the master himself come here. Do you think Ms. Holo is ill, too?”
“Oh, that’s terrible. We must go pay her a visit.”
Once or twice a week, these women came here to bake all the bread that each household and bathhouse required. Life here was dull, so the only thing they could do for fun was gossip about the village.
Originally, this was work for the maids or, if they could not do it, the young wives or helper girls. So if a man came, that was enough to spark chatter. Even Lawrence thought he looked silly carrying firewood on his back and the kneaded dough, wrapped in a cloth, underneath his arm.
At this rate, it’ll look as if my wife ran away from home, no?
But Lawrence’s smile did not waver before this inconsiderate pigeon flock.
Their rumors spread rapidly throughout the village. Though he had spent over ten years running a bathhouse here, he was still treated like a newcomer, and he could not let his guard down.
Instead, he cursed how he had been forced into this job, as he imagined his wife Holo, who was likely still idling away at the bathhouse.
“No, we’ve received a sudden guest. The other two have other important business to attend to, so I came today.”
When he spoke, the women’s idle chatter suddenly stopped.
“Oh…Don’t tell me that person is staying as a guest at Spice and Wolf?”
“How troublesome that must be.”
She did not seem to be simply picking at crumbs of the conversation, and in fact her expression seemed sincere.
“Do you think they first stayed at Yoseph’s?”
“Oh yes. It’s the oldest bathhouse in the village, you know.”
“Then Abel’s?”
“And then Ramaninov’s after that.”
They listed off the names of bathhouse masters one after the other. They were the children and grandchildren of various people who came to this village from all over to start bathhouses, so they all sounded unique.
“Do you think this means he’ll be staying at different places until spring?”
“He’s always making such an unhappy face, like something isn’t right.”
“Oh, I know. He has so many demands, like having his lunch made so early in the morning. It was such a fuss! But he paid so well…”
“Hey, don’t be distracted by tips. My husband thinks he’s most likely investigating the village.”
“My! Do you think our guest is from that other hot spring village they might build on the far side of the mountain?”
“But he really doesn’t use the baths very much for that.”
“True. If he were planning on building a new bathhouse, you think he’d be looking all over the village.”
Their conversation flowed as though their lines had been written beforehand, and their speaking habits were so similar it was difficult to tell who was who in the faint darkness. As they came together every week to bake their bread, their ways of thinking also began to resemble one another.
As Lawrence watched them, he finally understood why Holo had made it seem like it was so childishly difficult for her to get out of bed.
They treated her differently, especially since she was a newlywed, but more importantly, she was the young mistress of a bathhouse where none of them worked. They kept to themselves for the most part. Though this was their own way of being considerate and knowing their place as hired helpers, this treatment was the most difficult for Holo to bear.
“Well, if he’s at your place, Lawrence, then that means his tour will finally end.”
He heard his name being spoken and snapped back to the present. At the same time, even before he caught up with the conversation’s context, he automatically smiled. He had learned through experience that if he maintained a pleasant expression, any situation would turn out better.
“I’m sure he has been frowning since his arrival, but it’s best to pay it no mind. He’s been like that at every house. It hasn’t been long since you’ve started your business, so I can imagine he’s been nothing but trouble…”
“There were people like that long ago, too. Such unreasonable customers!”
“That was back when you were still young…Over twenty years ago, I think?”
“Excuse you! I’m still young!”
It made Lawrence smile to watch the two bicker like close sisters, their true thoughts and emotions plain in everything they said. His bathhouse had been around for a little over ten years so it “wasn’t that old yet.”
The first place this guest stayed at was Yoseph’s bathhouse, the oldest in the village. It then naturally followed that he chose to stay at Spice and Wolf right before leaving the village because it was the newest.
It seemed it would take even more time to fit into the village.
“Well, anyway, I think it’s about time that everyone’s gathered.”
While they chatted like lively children, one spoke up, bringing them back to reality. Since the communal oven was not in the center of town, where the church bell could be relied on, time was nothing but an estimate. And since how much bread each person needed depended on the household, there was never a reason for every villager to gather and bake bread at the same time.
“All right, then, let’s draw straws.”
One woman took a bundle of twigs that lay next to the oven and wrapped it in some cloth hanging from her waist.
But the ends of all the twigs were the same length and poked out a bit from the impromptu bundle.
“Are these new? No cheating!”
“I’m getting old, so even if I did cheat, I wouldn’t be able to see which is the short stick in this darkness!”
They all laughed together, and one by one drew a limb from the bundle. Each twig was of a different length, and the longer the twig, the happier the person. Lawrence was the last to draw, and as if planned, his was short.
“O-oh, my…”
“Hey, are you sure none of you cheated?!”
There was an awkward atmosphere among the women. This draw was to decide who used the oven first.
No one wanted to be first when using the public oven. Though each person had to prepare their own fuel and materials to use the oven, it took quite a while for it to heat up. The first person to use it had to prepare extra fuel to get the oven going since it would have gone cold overnight.
“Oh no, actually, this helps.” Flustered, Lawrence cut in. “I don’t know what complaints we would get if we made that crabby guest wait. If I were last, I would probably ask to be first.”
The women were surprised, knowing that should their process’s fairness be doubted, they would lose face, so they all smiled at once, relieved.
“Well, if you say so…”
“It’s a good thing, definitely, if you think about time. Here we have some people who use too much firewood and bake their bread into ash!”
“Hey! That’s because I was so busy talking! And that was a long time ago!”
Their brightness had returned.
Lawrence smiled, relieved. He opened the oven lid, lining the insides with his firewood and lighting it.
It seemed there was still some time before they could see the sun over the mountains.
Though the freshly baked bread was wrapped in cloth, it still gave off warm steam. On the way, he stuffed his mouth with a piece of the soft bread, and by the time he reached home, the sun had risen high in the sky.
It was quite the challenge, baking bread with women whose hands and mouths worked equally hard, but between the clear sky and the smell of freshly baked bread, it also accorded him a wisp of energy.
Thanks to that, when he returned to his bathhouse on the outskirts of the village and saw that guest, standing silently outside, he was able muster the hospitality to combat the unpleasantness.
“Sorry to have kept you waiting.”
“Hmph.”
The small old man grunted discontentedly. He held the lunch that Hanna had made for him, and he stood under the eaves as though waiting for the bread. In addition to the guests who stayed for the baths, there were also those who stayed for the mountains, such as hunters and woodcutters, so it was not unusual to see patrons go out in the morning.
However, the way this old man was dressed, it did not look like he was prepared for any trade Lawrence knew.
He wore a fur-covered conical hat that was shaped like a bowl on his head, bear fur on his feet, fox fur on his shoulders, deer leather gloves on his hand, and a rather rough-looking hatchet slung behind his back. His rucksack seemed to be filled with all sorts of things, but Lawrence could not tell what was inside. The guest’s purpose was a mystery, and he almost never used the baths.
The old man tried to grab the entire package of bread as Lawrence approached him.
He seemed confused—it was far too much bread for lunch, and as though the old man realized something, he conceded and withdrew his hand. Lawrence watched and felt a strange feeling pass through him, so he took three pieces of the fresh wheat bread and wrapped them in a separate cloth. As though carefully appraising him, Lawrence passed the bread to the old man. The elderly guest remained silent, but he nodded his head slightly and walked off without a word.
He was gruff, but it was not as though he had no manners.
Lawrence watched him leave and tilted his head. He was most likely not a bad person, but there was a brooding manner about him. The old man went off down the hill in front of the bathhouse. When Lawrence could no longer see his receding figure beyond the trees, he went inside and could smell something good coming from the dining hall.
On the long table was his breakfast, which seemed to have been served quite a while ago. Baked beans, thick-cut bacon, slices of cheese, and the last of the cured herring they had ordered last fall. It seemed to be the same as what Hanna had given that odd guest for his takeaway lunch. There was no mistaking that she had saved herself some trouble and decided to make Lawrence’s portion, as well.
And there at the table, always present wherever it smelled good, sat Holo.
“You’re late. Your poor breakfast has gone cold.”
She glared at her husband, who had just come back from baking bread in the cold outside.
“I told you, they pull straws to see who bakes when. This is what it’s like when I’m first.”
On top of that, this was a job that Holo was supposed to do as the innkeeper’s wife. As he argued against her unreasonable complaints, he gave the rest of the fresh bread to Hannah, who had just emerged from the kitchen. She took out three pieces from the cloth for Lawrence.
Not two, not four, but three? Lawrence looked at her quizzically, and she just smiled mischievously. Confused, he took the bread and sat down, and then he finally understood.
They ate breakfast not facing each other across the table, but side by side. In the middle of the two chairs sat a ceramic jug, filled with wine.
Before he could argue that it was too much for the morning, his eyes stopped at Holo’s empty cup. Finally, he realized what Hanna was planning and noticed Holo.
“If you’re going to blame me for doing poorly on a job you don’t want to do…” He pulled out a chair and sat next to her. “…Then you should have done it yourself, no?”
He set two pieces of bread down on his plate and one on Holo’s.
“They might compliment you out of jealousy since you always look so young.”
Holo had the appearance of a teenage girl, and she stared at her husband, having taken offense. But Holo was not a girl, nor was she human. Since no one else was in the bathhouse, she was not hiding the ears on her head or the tail on her behind. They were a reminder that her true form was a giant wolf that could easily swallow a person whole, a spirit who resided in wheat.
“And treat you with their well-intentioned distant formality for newcomers.”
After Lawrence spoke, Holo reached out for the ceramic jug. Her small hands gripped the handle of the jug, which was much too big for her, and sloppily poured wine into Lawrence’s cup. She always only poured for herself, so Lawrence could not help but laugh at her obvious behavior.
“If you’d gone, you definitely would have been hurt.”
Holo once lived in an area called Yoitsu, but on a whim, she traveled south and stayed at a village there for hundreds of years, watching over the growing wheat. Why she did so in the first place had been lost in the flow of time, and she had even forgotten the road home. In her solitude, she had become like a stone.
That was when Lawrence met her, and this was where they ended up.
She called herself the wisewolf, cunning and sage, but she was also vain and easily became lonely.
Had she been the one at the bread oven, while she would have managed to smile at the maids’ insensitivities, he could easily imagine her becoming quickly exhausted.
“Well, I used to be a merchant. I chatted a lot with them and gave a good account of myself.”
Lawrence spoke pointedly, but Holo said nothing. She split the bacon and placed a piece in front of him.
When she usually split it, no matter how he looked at it, her own portions were always bigger. But this time, the sizes were the same.
“So I’m not mad. It’s simply how we divide the labor.”
He took the second piece of bread on his plate and split it in two, placing the larger piece on Holo’s plate.
“And so you’ve watched our odd guest for me while I was out, haven’t you?”
Holo finally looked up at Lawrence, her lips scrunching up in a sour expression, as though she were gnashing her teeth.
Lawrence softly kissed her cheek and turned to face his food.
“But for now, breakfast.”
Holo carefully watched Lawrence for a while but finally began to eat.
Her big pointed ears and tail were flicking happily.
“I do not believe he is wicked. I can sense something like his core.”
This was new for Holo, who usually had a rough time evaluating normal people.
The guest in question had arrived suddenly a little after noon the day before. “Do you have a room?” he had asked quietly, in a way that was difficult to hear. Lawrence had heard that there were those who would spend an entire winter moving from bathhouse to bathhouse.
But when Lawrence, overpowered by his presence, nodded, the guest had silently placed a gold lumione coin on the register book. This was enough for a family of four to live modestly for a month. It was far more than enough to stay for the two weeks he had requested.
However, to make a two week’s stay worth a gold lumione required effort. Lawrence offered musicians and dancers, but the old guest shook his head and refused it all. He only asked for one thing—a packed lunch, early.
He was definitely odd, but he was too unhurried for someone who might be on the run after committing a crime in another town, and it did not feel as though he was sensitive enough to be discontent with every bathhouse he had stayed in so far. Really, he did not seem to have any interest in the baths or rooms at all.
The place this peculiar guest had stayed at before coming here was the most reliable bathhouse in the village.
There lived a boy who was the same age as his daughter, Myuri, and they had often played together as children. His name was Kalm, and just the other day he had come to Lawrence asking permission to marry Myuri. He was a good young man, and Lawrence did not mind having him as a son. His father, Cyrus, seemed grumpy, but he was not so bad once one got to know him. After that odd lodger showed up, Cyrus stopped by Lawrence’s bathhouse and told him everything he knew about the man.
Whenever that old man changed houses, the previous host would relay information to the next, and this meant that all the accumulated intelligence had safely reached Lawrence in the end. Of course, he told Holo the Wisewolf this information.
“I suspect he may be a medicine man.”
“Medicine man?” Lawrence repeated, and Holo nodded. Her gaze was trained on the fresh wheat bread.
Today, their bread was a pure-white wheat bread, as it was the least they could provide to a guest that had paid them a whole gold lumione. The loaves were sweet and soft, and it was easy to eat plenty of them.
But Holo had put a gash in the bread and filled it with beans and bacon. It reminded him of a boneheaded cat when his greedy wife suggested putting one delicious thing with another would just make the result even tastier. With a big smile, she bit into the fluffy bread.
“Hmm, nom…gulp. Aye. Because—”
Lawrence cleaned off the skin of a bean that had gotten stuck to her cheek and urged her to continue.
“There is the smell of herbs about him, as well as a metallic scent coming from the items he carries on his person. There must be a sickle or the likes.”
“If he’s a traveler, then he would definitely have herbs and a short sword on him. Maybe that’s not it?”
“’Tis easy to tell for those who are used to smelling herbs. No, since I know the smell, I have smelled it somewhere before…”
She closed her eyes, searching for something in her memory, and greedily bit into the bread with her tiny mouth. Some might consider the way she gobbled it down bad manners, but there was an innocence about it that Lawrence loved.
“And hmm. For whatever reason, he has wheat on him.”
Holo was a spirit who lived in wheat. Long ago, when she had snuck into Lawrence’s wagon, she was only able to do so by using wheat.
“It’s probably rations. Something you would want to have when you travel to a cold place. Even if you had a snow shed, you probably wouldn’t put food in there. It can keep for years if it’s not ground into powder.”
“Hmm? Well, you are more knowledgeable of the human world than I am. Also, the way he’s dressed. You can tell what a man’s trade is by the way he dresses in the human world, aye?”
An innkeeper was an innkeeper, a money changer was a money changer, a merchant was a merchant. A smith would proudly wear an apron of thick, burn-resistant hide; a baker would wear a special hat.
Like Holo said, regular people would wear special outfits that showed their profession rather than stating it outright.
“I’ve never seen such a big hat before.”
It seemed as deep as a pot, and when the old man wore it, it almost covered his entire face. It was so unique that if he knew what job required such a thing, then he would be satisfied.
“There is metal inside that fur. If he wears that by design to roam out in the mountains, then it must be because he’s always next to the mountain slopes so he needs to protect his head from falling rocks.”
“…Metal? Now that I think of it, another owner told me that he might be a speculator looking for a mine.”
However, mining would wreck the environment, and if the old man wanted to work here then he would need a special permit. Many of Nyohhira’s guests had power and money, and the inhabitants had many connections they could call on to protect the land. If it was not something that would bring at least as much gold as the waters here did, then there was no way anyone would be able to get a permit. A speculator of that age would certainly know this.
“The word from those in the mountains is that somebody has been venturing into their territory but they don’t know what to do. If he were a hunter, then they’d fight him fair and square, but he doesn’t have anything resembling a weapon, and he does not chase any prey, so they, too, are confused.”
Since Holo’s true form was a wolf, it seemed as though she could communicate with normal animals.
This bathhouse was in a village in the mountains, and even further in than the others since the Spice and Wolf establishment was situated on the outskirts of the village. Regular bathhouses would normally be attacked all the time by mountain creatures, making it nearly impossible to conduct business, but Holo had given them strict orders, and they had been able to avoid any incidents.
In exchange, sometimes a bear would come to the baths, barely escaping with its life from a hunter. It was a peaceable coexistence.
“If you say that, then I can’t imagine he’s doing anything else but searching for something in the mountains.”
“Hmm.”
Holo finished her bread and licked her slim and delicate fingers. Ever since their daughter’s birth, she had not acted like this, so for Lawrence to see it for the first time in a while made him feel as though time had turned backward.
Moreover, Myuri acted the same way.
“But we do not know if searching is all he’s doing.”
“What do you mean?”
Lawrence didn’t understand and Holo gave him an irritated look.
She sighed a bit, reached out for the jug, then poured wine only for herself.
“He moves from inn to inn, aye? And he seems to hold no interest in the baths, the rooms, singing, or dancing. So…?”
“…Oh, that’s right!”
The maids at the communal oven even spoke about how he was staying at the houses in order of oldest to newest. If he was searching for something in the village bathhouses, then that made sense.
“I feel like I’ve heard a story like that before…a rich merchant falls ill in a town during his travels. Then he secretly writes about where his hidden fortune is cloistered somewhere in the house.”
Lawrence told it like a funny story, but his expression suddenly became serious.
“What if…that was real?”
“Huh?”
“It’s how much he’s paying—all that money. I haven’t seen a gold lumione in a long time. If he were searching for something, you could understand how that would be payment for searching. Lots of our customers here have status, fame, or money, anyway.”
“Hmm. Were that true, then you think he goes from house to house, searching for the hidden message, and then takes his lunch out to look for the fortune buried in the mountain?”
“It’s possible it could be a light treasure, like a will or a charter.”
Lawrence began to think seriously, but Holo suddenly sighed and snatched his piece of bacon.
“H-hey, that’s mine!”
“’Tis too much for a fool in the morning,” Holo said and inhaled the morsel.
She licked the grease off her fingers and then looked at Lawrence, irritated.
“Have you forgotten that he has no interest in the water or the rooms?”
“…Oh.”
“Were there a clue in the walls or the ceiling, he’d be searching until his eyes ran with blood. And there could be something hidden under the rocks in the bath. If he was doing something like that, we’d know right away. He’s been moving around the village all winter, aye?”
“That’s right…Hmm…But searching for something as he goes around to each inn really makes sense.”
“He may be searching for something we can’t see.”
“Huh?” Lawrence asked and, at the same time, was shocked.
Holo was looking at him, a sad and lonely smile on her face.
“Like memories.”
“…”
Holo was embarrassed and suddenly stood from her chair.
Then, she wrapped her arm around an unmoving Lawrence’s neck in an embrace. The reason she let go so quickly was likely just a show.
“Well then, I shall go tidy the mending,” Holo said in a deliberately bright manner and hurried up the stairs. Lawrence followed her with his gaze, watching until he could no longer see the fur on her tail.
Bound by her memories, Holo had stayed in the same wheat field in the same village for hundreds of years. As she did so, she had forgotten the road home and many things disappeared in the flow of time. Even after she left the village, the places she visited on her journey were so different from how she remembered that there were times she shed tears. In the end, she was able to realize she had visited this or that place before by the smell of their traditional food.
The old guest, who wore the strange fur hat on his head, seemed much older than Lawrence. It was possible that in search of memories from days long past and long forgotten, money was no object for this man.
If he visited the bathhouse where he had stayed on a previous visit to Nyohhira so long ago that he had forgotten the establishment’s name, maybe he could recall what it was that he had left behind in these mountains.
Perhaps that is why he seemed to be thinking so hard.
Lawrence brought more beans, which had already gone cold, to his mouth and chewed. Though they were cool, the flavors had blended together and it was delicious. One or two stories would embed themselves like this into a bathhouse after a long time.
Lawrence quickly finished his meal and rose from his chair.
It was not uncommon for travelers to perish during their journeys while staying at roadside inns. Though there existed hospitals on pilgrimage roads, with monasteries as the parent building, the operating costs for these facilities mainly came from the wills of those that died there. It was often said that one could profit handsomely from a well-placed hospital on a famous route.
Though there were occasionally guests that passed away while staying in Nyohhira, they often wrote their wills before coming, and there were no rumors of anyone inheriting large sums. Since many of their guests were of old age, and Nyohhira itself was located quite far to the north, customers came prepared.
Besides, it would be distasteful to leave one’s fortune at a relaxing place such as a hot spring village.
But customer death itself was not unheard of, so everyone had to be ready for that possibility.
“By the time he moved to Ramaninov’s place, most of the other owners should have questioned it already.”
Cyrus, the owner of the bathhouse that the mysterious guest stayed in before moving on to Lawrence’s, spoke with a grim look.
It was not that he disliked Lawrence, nor was he looking down on Lawrence’s shallow thinking. Cyrus was a hard man to read, with his beard covering more than half of his square face, and his eyebrows were as thick as two fingers. Moreover, he was not very expressive, and when combined with a mild demeanor, Cyrus was often misunderstood.
Lawrence quickly found out that he was a good person, though, once he talked to him.
“But, Mr. Lawrence, the competition between bathhouses here is fierce. What do you do with the room once a guest has gone home?”
“Of course, clean every nook and cranny. They leave piles of trash, you know.”
“That’s right. Even under the roof and in the basement. Skimp on the cleaning, and suddenly there are mice and owl nests everywhere. If someone squirreled away their will somewhere, we’d have found it by now.”
“We wouldn’t know right away—it could have been left as a symbol,” Lawrence retorted, and Cyrus suddenly coughed, pouring alcohol into the cup that sat on a record book. It was bittersweet liquor made from the lingonberries gathered in the summer.
Upon closer inspection, Lawrence could see that the face across from him was smiling.
“I don’t hate notions like this. I’d enjoy some occasional drama and adventure around these parts, too.”
Lawrence was not sure if it was a compliment, but he accepted the liquor. The alcohol Cyrus kept at his place was always good. The bathhouse masters often combined their hobbies with practicality and brewed their own, but Cyrus was particularly absorbed in it. The man simply treasured truly delicious drink, and he was thankful that he could blame it on the alcohol anytime he uttered something foolish.
“But…I don’t think that guy’s looking around the insides of the houses. I think every owner would say the same, since they know at all times where even all the mice families roam.”
If that was true, then it was not as though the elderly guest would secretly be searching inside the ceiling in the middle of the night.
“Do you know where he goes during the day?” Lawrence asked, and Cyrus, unyielding, shrugged his rugged shoulders.
“It’s only recently that most guests have left and gone home for any bathhouse. No one has time to keep track of his activities during the busy daytime hours.”
Cyrus lapped his liquor and tilted his head as he closed his eyes.
“It’s a bit too sweet,” he murmured, much more aware of these things than Lawrence was.
“According to hunters and loggers, it seems he’s taking the trails that branch from the village. Sometimes, he apparently goes off them. One of the hunters complained that the hunting grounds were unbearably wrecked.”
This matched the stories that Holo heard from the animals in the mountains.
“But why now?”
Cyrus posed his question suddenly.
“What do you mean?”
“Hmm…I don’t want you to think bad of me, but he’s staying at your place, Lawrence; that means he’s probably going home soon.”
Lawrence immediately understood what Cyrus was getting at.
“Right. I also thought that nothing would really come of looking into it now.”
The more senior bathhouse owners had all racked their brains over this mystery already, so it seemed incredibly pointless for Lawrence to do anything. If he was still going to try, he would need a special reason to do so.
“It’s mostly pure curiosity. I used to be a merchant, you know.”
“Curiosity…?”
To those who spent all their time in an unchanging village where the same things happened over and over, it must have sounded foreign. The bear-like Cyrus repeated Lawrence’s words, quite interested.
“And the rest?”
“Pride, actually.”
Whatever he said was the alcohol’s fault. Lawrence took another drink, as if trying to convince himself.
“This is Nyohhira. Any and all troubles melt away in our spring water, and everyone can spend their days happily. Don’t you want them to go home happy?”
He recalled the old man’s gloomy face.
“I think it’s perfect for a newcomer like me to simply maintain that practice.”
He added that the customer in question was an excellent patron who paid in gold coins.
Cyrus’s eyes twinkled, and he scratched his head.
“That’s true, though only a newcomer could say a naive line like that.”
“Everyone else already smells like sulfur, anyway.”
Cyrus agreed, shaking his shoulders in laughter, and stretched out his back. He faced the entrance of the house, almost as though he expected to see that old man walking in right at that moment.
“I didn’t think he was a bad guest.” Cyrus spoke again, quietly. “He paid well, and he didn’t complain much.”
“What about the early-morning lunch boxes?”
“The kitchen maid complained to me, of course.”
Lawrence laughed, but Cyrus continued.
“And another thing. What I liked was that he was quite the drinker. He drank carefully, like he savored and tasted it. That’s unusual for guests here.”
“Everyone else drinks like a fish.”
Cyrus narrowed his eyes, still gazing at the entrance, and emitted a small sigh.
“He moved on with a glum face, but I was the one left smiling. I think the steam from the baths clouded my eyes and soul as a bathhouse master.”
He dropped his eyes to his hands and took a drink of his specialty liquor.
“It’s the same with the strange festival you came up with before, Mr. Lawrence. We’re worn down in our everyday lives, little by little. A stone in the river becomes nice and smooth, but the current can carry it away. It can’t stop or endure the pull anymore. But then we’re used to it, and even if we look for excitement, we end up missing everything. I was ignoring the guests who seemed grouchy, who couldn’t say what they needed to say to the ones closest to them, even though they were right here in Nyohhira.”
Cyrus spoke at length, then suddenly closed his mouth. He hung his head, his expression a bit sad, then murmured as though speaking to his reflection in the liquor.
“This is unlike me. I talked too much.”
It seemed as though he was blushing behind his beard.
Lawrence took a drink and then spoke.
“I actually like how sweet this is.”
Cyrus lifted his head and laughed in relief.
“That’s probably because your own bathhouse is so sweet.”
“My own bathhouse?”
“It’s a thing among the guests. They say watching the couple that owns Spice and Wolf interact is much more interesting than the musicians and dancers there. It’s a reflection of the bathhouses in Nyohhira.”
“…”
Lawrence tried to show his personal opinion with a feigned expression, but it did not seem to fool the other man.
Cyrus seemed to be pleased from the bottom of his heart and took another sip.
“I can see how young Myuri was raised to be such an open, innocent girl.”
All the guests at Cyrus’s bathhouse had already gone home, and all was quiet.
His gentle speech softly echoed throughout the building.
Lawrence’s face was hot due to the alcohol and nothing else. As he told himself this, Cyrus laughed.
“I’ll do what I can to help you with that guest,” Cyrus said as they parted, and he waved his hand. Lawrence ended up staying quite a while at his place. Cyrus treated him to all sorts of fruit liquor that had matured during the winter, and Lawrence departed for home a bit drunk. He had also offered some lunch before he left, but Lawrence could not bring himself to accept that on top of everything else.
They had talked about the mystery guest, and once Lawrence thanked him for the alcohol, he left.
He started feeling it as he walked back, and mastering his shaky legs, he finally reached home. There, Holo and Hanna were doing the mending together in the dining hall. The second they looked at his face, they furrowed their brows.
“You seem in good spirits, aye?”
He could not argue, since he had left the needlework to the women as he came home drunk.
Meekly, he dropped his head partly out of regret, as though she would bite off his head, but that just made him feel dizzier.
“The liquor at Cyrus’s place…hic…is really…good…”
“Honestly, you fool.”
Holo placed the hemp sheet on the long table and stood, pressing close to Lawrence.
When he thought she would give him a good punch, she lent him her shoulder.
“I cannot stand the smell of alcohol in the bedroom. Hanna, fetch water and a blanket.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
As though she already expected it, Hanna had also risen from her chair. As Lawrence watched her, Holo pulled him into the next room.
It was a carpeted room, where a hearth was carved into the floor. Hanging from the beams on the ceiling were meats and fish that they caught near the village, which were often smoked or roasted as a snack to accompany drinks for those who stayed awake at night. Occasionally, this was a place to rest for those who got drunk too early in the day and could not navigate the stairs.
She left him to lie there, and he stared absently up at the sooty ceiling.
This ceiling, which had been around for a little over ten years, looked as though it had been used for a long time, but a closer examination showed that it was still quite new.
It was said that a bathhouse would be considered seasoned when soot made the joinery in the wood invisible.
Not fighting his heavy eyelids, he murmured to himself, “From now on, from now on…”
“You shan’t sleep yet.”
Just as his consciousness was about to blink out, he could feel someone tugging his head up and something shoved into his mouth.
“You must drink some water.”
Holo looked down at him, a serious expression on her face. She’s worried about me, he thought and smiled in happiness.
“Don’t laugh, you drunk. Drink!”
She scolded him, and he swallowed the cool water. It must have been snow melted in the hot baths. It was trouble to draw water from the river every day, so most bathhouses used snow this way.
When he first drank it, after tamping snow into a jug and boiling it into barely potable water, it tasted too much like sulfur, as though the steam had dissolved in it. But now, he thought of it as the unique taste of Nyohhira’s water.
“Honestly, ’tis much too early for you to smell like such delicious liquor…Lingonberries, currants…Mm, oh, is that blackberry?”
Holo sniffed him, as though discerning which smell was which, and complained bitterly.
“It was…good. He’s particular about…the water, right?” Lawrence said, laughing, and Holo smacked him on the forehead. Then Hanna soon covered him in a blanket and took the time to place burning charcoal in the hearth and added a bit of wood.
“You fool. You owe me, aye?”
Holo admonished him and secured her own future right to get brazenly drunk during the daytime.
Lawrence smiled and closed his eyes and heard a sigh.
Suddenly, she picked up his head and something was placed between that and the floor.
“…?”
He opened one eye to find that a cloth had been placed on his face.
“Wha—? What is it?”
“Mm?”