Villa

“I’m afraid that’s not a question for me to answer. My husband will be arriving this afternoon, so perhaps you could discuss it with him directly then, Baron Arrrlyuhing.”

She wasn’t simply deflecting the conversation. The man’s proposal was, in truth, not all that uncommon within the central kingdom’s social circles. Aspara was quite certain that at least one of her older sisters had taken a lover under similar arrangements.

It was not a welcome suggestion, of course. But given the state of the north’s finances and the fact that Aspara’s political marriage involved virtually no private intimacy, it was not an entirely unreasonable one either.

But still… Baron Arrrlyuhing is…

However, Aspara’s true hesitation came from somewhere else entirely.

He’s ugly.

Deal with this conger eel before Gus arrives, and get the contract signed.

Aspara set that as her goal and began turning the gears in her head.

“Pardon?”

“He may be slightly delayed, but he did say he would arrive before sundown, so…”

“Ha ha, it seems you’ve picked up the barbarians’ pronunciation. My name is pronounced ‘Arvelland.’”

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Jack flinching at the next table, where he’d been eavesdropping on the conversation. That idiot.

“Ah, my apologies, Baron Arvelland.”

Aspara’s thoughts stopped short.

Baron Arvelland.

Huh?

Baron Arvelland?

Jack paced the corridor with a restless air.

After the meal, the baron and my lady had retired to a meeting room to discuss the trade deal.

Since the Fang Castle party had been invited as guests to the baron’s table, their numbers were quite small to begin with, and even those few had been shooed out once the business talk began. The baron had placed the northern castle’s visitors in a guest room adjoining the entrance hall, where the temperature was scarcely different from the outdoors.

Hey, Jackie, since it’s come to this anyway, why don’t we sneak out together?

Ugli had suggested with a grin.

The two slipped quietly out of the room. But Jack only paced the corridor, glancing repeatedly in the direction where my lady would be.

It was perfectly normal for nobles to conduct important discussions among themselves. But having witnessed the baron’s wandering hands, Jack could not help feeling uneasy.

“I don’t know if she’ll be all right. Leaving my lady alone with a man like that.”

“I brought my dagger. If it looks like there’s trouble, we’ll storm in together.”

“Star was right earlier. Your lord doesn’t know the first thing about staying by his wife’s side.”

“Weren’t you the one who didn’t want the castle lord near Madam? You’ve been especially good at getting in the way lately.”

“Well…”

Jack shot Ugli a sidelong glare. After a moment of reluctant hesitation, he answered as though spitting out something he didn’t want to say.

“He’s scary. What am I supposed to do about that?”

“The castle lord is a bit scary, I’ll admit. But still, Lady Aspara — he truly—”

“I know he likes her.”

Ugli looked at Jack in mild surprise. He had assumed Jack was misunderstanding his lord because he didn’t truly know him.

“But the only person in this castle holding a sword is that man. My lady and I — we have nothing. Do you think someone can be happy just being cared for like a dog, with empty hands? Do you think the baron’s wife here looks happy to you?”

“Don’t compare the castle lord to that pig.”

“But even if the castle lord turned into that pig someday, my lady wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it.”

Jack’s lip jutted out in a pout.

“The happiness of a marriage contract was never something that kindness or love could fix. My lady says she’s content to be here, but… still, isn’t the real meaning of love staying even when you could leave if you wanted to? I also got kind of half-forced into dat— into going out with you, but at least I’m stronger than you, my sword is bigger than yours, and it’s not like you’re the master of the castle. But my lady’s situation is different.”

I’m actually a former soldier, so I’d probably be stronger than you.

Swallowing those words, Ugli listened carefully to what he had to say.

“So even if my lady comes to like that man someday, I’m going to keep my guard up. Until my lady and that man stand on completely equal ground.”

The cold corridor fell silent for a moment.

“I understand.”

It was not a pleasant conversation from the perspective of an attendant who served Gus.

But Ugli accepted Jack’s words. Because he looked as though he were about to cry.

“…By the way, what’s ‘Arrrlyuwheng’?”

“It’s the pig’s own fault for having a name longer than five syllables. And it starts with ‘Ar,’ same as my lady, so I got them mixed up.”

“Your lady’s name doesn’t start with ‘Ar.’”

Having heard the baron’s real name, Aspara was able to dredge up the man’s information from her memory.

Arvelland.

Arvelland… the fellow with the absurdly long string of middle names.

He’s the one the Fourth was spending her allowance to keep as a pet…!

That was right.

As the youngest of House Bel, Aspara had a great many older siblings above her. The number of sisters alone exceeded five, so it was only natural that at least one among them would have rather eccentric tastes.

That would be the Fourth Princess.

Even the cutthroat House Bel had one beloved family pastime: savaging each other’s big and small blemishes over the dinner table and at every social gathering. And so, when the Fourth Daughter had embezzled family funds to sponsor a lover who resembled a walking catfish, that name had been dragged across the chopping block at every single mealtime for quite a while.

That name was Arvelland.

Baron Arvelland had amassed his fortune through exactly this kind of sweet-talking, and had gone on to inflict the same scheme he’d run on the Fourth Sister upon woman after woman.

That walking catfish was keeping three separate households? And he had the nerve to use the funding he squeezed out of the Fourth to harass me.

The baron pushed the frostbloom herb sales contract aside and dragged his chair closer.

“So… it seems your husband is running quite late. Shall we continue discussing what we were talking about earlier?”

“the Baron, there is something I must tell you first.”

“I hope it’s a short story.”

“the Baron—”

In her mind, Aspara painted a satisfying scenario in which she put the revolting baron in his place. I’ll draw up a contract so lopsided it would make a swindler faint.

“Does my sister know about all this as well?”

At that same hour, farther to the east, a small skirmish that had erupted without warning was reaching its conclusion.

It was yesterday that intruders had crossed into a village near the border. It was this afternoon that the soldiers, led by Gus, finished routing them.

A fight that had seemed likely to drag on all day was over before the sun had even begun to set.

“You’ve worked remarkably hard, my lord. It’s late, so perhaps you should—”

“No. It’s fine.”

Gus tore off his outer armor, the blood on it not yet fully dried. His helm struck the ground with a clang.

“Have a change of clothes brought for me. The rest of you, return home as soon as the remaining work is done. I’m heading west.”

“Will you be all right? I understand it will be quite late by the time you reach that place.”

“I said it’s fine.”

Gus was burning with anxiety.

Ever since the day they’d gone to see the flower field, the castle lord had not been in his right mind.

First he’d been overjoyed to learn that Aspara didn’t actually miss her homeland; then crushed when he realized he’d mistaken a business outing for a date and gotten excited all on his own; then his heart had raced watching Aspara beam with anticipation; and then it had leapt right out of his chest.

[So, this is the briefing material for the upcoming social engagement… my lord, are you listening?]

Forgive me, Ugli, my dear comrade-in-arms. I was not listening. I had stopped listening entirely after you said, “Madam was delighted, calling it their first couple’s outing.”

It was because of that inattention that he’d only belatedly realized who the man they were about to meet actually was.

Baron Arvelland.

The man who had built a lavish villa near the border and pulled every manner of audacious trick to pay as little tax as possible. His antics had been remarkable enough that even Gus, who was not one for gossip, remembered the name faintly.

The border region was treated by wealthy southerners as a sort of extraterritorial playground where unethical pleasures could be indulged with impunity. As a result, the rich who built villas there never enjoyed a favorable reputation.

If I’d known it was that man, I would have assigned more guards and ordered them never to leave her side.

Gus urged his horse to gallop faster.

CRACK—

A piece of firewood sitting by the hearth smashed against the wall and shattered.

“Are you threatening me right now? A barbarian’s bride?”

Aspara was rattled.

Just moments ago, she had revealed that Baron Arvelland, who had been posing as a free-spirited soul, was in fact the kept man of her Fourth Sister, and had made clear her intention to report to her family if the baron did not comply. The only development that should have followed was the baron cringing out something like “Grrk…!” and surrendering.

But there was something Aspara had forgotten.

Aspara had thought of herself as a veteran of the social circuit, someone who’d seen just about everything there was to see. But all of that experience had been accumulated within a society firmly girded by law and common sense, sheltered beneath the illustrious name of House Bel.

The social skirmishes she had fought, the ones where she’d believed her clever stratagems had brought haughty nobles to heel. In truth, those had been nothing more than arrogant battles waged under the borrowed authority of the Bel name.