The mountains were dyed the color of fire in this busy season of preparing for winter.
The hot spring village Nyohhira, deep in the northern mountains, saw the end of the short summer and was now just waiting for winter to come.
The wind grew colder every day, and the sound of falling leaves occasionally brought about something that felt like sadness. There are those that called it depression, but it felt more like sleepiness. It was a drowsy time before the coming of a quiet winter.
He did not hate it.
“Mr. Lawrence, should I put the cheeses from Alvo in the cellar?”
“Yeah, thanks, Col. Just put them anywhere…Whoa, they’re big.”
That day, when it truly became fall, everyone was working hard in their preparations to fill the bellies of the guests who would come to this bathhouse in Nyohhira, Spice and Wolf. The two men were sorting out the goods they received from the neighboring village. The cheeses they stacked were each so large that a full grown adult could barely carry one.
“The bigger they are, the more edible parts there are…Right?”
“Because the hard, outer skin tastes terrible and is practically inedible, right? There’s less wasted in bigger cheese, but…This is huge. I think the mayor of Alvo would make more money if he quit and opened a cheese shop.”
The inside of the gleaming, amber-colored cheese also felt quite substantial.
“I’ve heard it’s hard to make them bigger. If you don’t strain the water well enough, apparently, it will get moldy inside.”
“Then…let’s pray that we don’t cut it open to find it full of mold.”
“Ha-ha. Their mayor has the heart of a craftsman, so I don’t think that’ll happen.” Lawrence, the master of Spice and Wolf, laughed. It has been ten-some years since he came to this land and started a bathhouse, and though he still could not get away from the other villagers’ newcomer treatment, he was already quite used to life here.
And after traveling through many countries, pursuing theology and finally settling here for ten-some years, Col was keenly aware of how dreadful the flow of time was.
“Then, I’ll go put these away…I’m a bit worried that the shelves might break since they’re so big, though.”
It seemed too much to bring it up onto his shoulders, so though awkward, he held onto it with both hands like a baby lamb.
As he tottered around to the back of the main building, he could hear the lively voices coming from the baths beyond the partition.
Summer and winter were Nyohhira’s peak seasons, and it was now around the time when guests for the winter were starting to arrive.
Most of the patrons were nobility or the directors of huge commercial firms or high-ranking clergy, so once they were finished managing the many festivals and events in the spring and fall, they would come to unwind.
There were already several guests at Spice and Wolf, and they were lazily spending their day in the outdoor bath.
As of yet, the number of guests were few, so the dancers and musicians who made their earnings in Nyohhira during the winter were nowhere to be seen, and it was quiet throughout town.
What he could hear beyond the partition was a rather heated commotion.
“Wa-ha-ha-ha! You can do it!”
“Here, drink, drink! Put your heart into it!”
They were rather lively for how high the sun was in the sky.
And for some reason, he could hear the clop, clop of a horse’s hooves on stone.
What on earth was going on in there?
Customers in the baths typically lost track of time once they became drunk. But that was usually when there were more people, more alcohol, and after they grew bored of staying in for a long while.
But this made him a bit uneasy, and still holding the cheese, he waddled to the partition and peeked through the crack.
“Make sure the rope doesn’t break! Did you tie it right?!”
“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Shield! The shield! The shield is…Ba-ha-ha-ha!”
“Go, goddess of ours!”
“Yes! May God watch over you!”
It was an unusual amount of excitement. It seemed that guests from other bathhouses had come, too.
The naked men were all generally holding a mug of drink in one hand, waving it around, and cheering.
He could not see well through the steam of the baths, but he knew immediately what the clopping sound was coming from.
It was a mule. A pack mule was stomping around by the side of the bath. There was a boy, a nervous expression on his face, trying to keep it calm. It was the boy who brought the goods from Alvo on his pack mule.
But why was it in the bath?
A clue to his question was the thick rope that extended from its yoke.
The people were looking at the end of the taut rope, which went to the top of the bath.
“…Wh-wha…”
He was at a loss for words. There stood a girl, raising her hands to the cheers and smiling at everybody.
She did not seem to mind that the men were naked and only wore thin linen wrapped around her chest and hips. Though since the baths were not separated by gender that in itself was not unusual, but she, for some reason, was wearing rough-looking gloves.
“…Wh-what?”
He had a fiercely unpleasant feeling.
There in the middle of the cheers was the bathhouse owner’s—Lawrence’s—only daughter, Myuri.
She would be twelve or thirteen this year, an age where it would not be unusual to be wed off early. Typically, this was around the time when she would be practicing needlework or cooking every day, preparing to support her husband as a good wife or saddling the household’s prosperity as a mother.
But for some reason, here she was half-naked, wearing roughly hewn gloves, holding the rope of a mule that had been brought into the baths. And even still, Myuri was standing atop something odd.
He remembered what the guests were saying: “Shield, shield.”
Since people of high standing mostly frequented here, they were accompanied by those who were heavily armed. Upon closer examination, there were several sturdy-looking men who watched the goings-on with obvious worry. Myuri was likely standing on one of their shields. He saw the broad shields, large enough to completely cover a tall adult, and finally understood what Myuri wanted to do.
That was when she yelled, standing atop the shields.