Letter

“That Bel woman was on her way out anyway — a relationship that had already run its course. And let’s be frank, are you really in any position to threaten me? Word’s already spread in every direction that you fell out of favor with the next head of the family and got tossed out of the house! Ha. What are you going to do, tell on me to your mother like a little child? Can you even send a letter home from out here? Oh wait — they’ve already scattered your mother’s bone dust into the sea, so you’d have better odds pouring it into a septic tank!”

In that instant, the scenery before her eyes shifted, and an unfamiliar sensation washed over her.

When she came to her senses, her head had been turned to one side. It seemed the baron had struck her across the right cheek. It was astonishing how little she felt.

“Didn’t I tell you? I said I liked this place because the petty civilization of the central kingdom doesn’t reach here. Are you going to report me to the central authorities for daring to slap someone of noble birth? Spread rumors through the northern social circuit to ruin my reputation? Oh, how terrifying.”

Deep in her chest, a familiar emotion boiled up.

It was a feeling she had not known in a very long time, not since she had left her homeland.

“Yes. I was arrogant.”

Aspara opened her mouth, one side of her lip split open. The words seemed directed less at the baron than at herself.

“All I ever did was wield power to crush power, and I believed that was justice. I was arrogant. I should have known my place — a woman living in the land of barbarians.”

Aspara kept her back straight and fought to hold her dignity, but she had no choice except to retreat step by step, one step and then another, from the baron as he slowly advanced.

Her retreating foot caught on a piece of firewood that had fallen to the floor, and she stumbled.

The blast of heat against her legs made Aspara realize she had been backed against the wall. Embers from the fireplace singed her legs, hot, while the wooden wall behind her was cold against her fingertips.

Only one thing rose in her mind.

A barbarian who had crowned himself with sword and fire.

Gus, the castle lord.

At this moment, he was on horseback, cutting across the snowfield. The horse ran faster than it had on any battlefield, carrying its master forward.

A man who abandons his betrothed in a den of beasts because he claims to be busy with work — am I not the very villain from a penny romance?

Gus leaned his upper body deep forward, as though even the horse’s speed were too sluggish for him. And then it happened.

Splashing, splashing. Over the sound of hooves churning through the snow, a crackling, popping noise reached his ears from somewhere ahead.

“This sound is…”

Gus raised his head and looked beyond the horizon. Standing tall in the distance was a great manor house, blazing so fiercely it had gone from red to white.

A tinderbox… What kind of vainglorious fool builds a house like that in a place this dry?

Vainglorious fool. In that instant, a chain reaction fired through his mind and a name surfaced.

Baron Arvelland.

He felt his head go ice-cold. The pace of his beloved horse suddenly seemed maddeningly slow. An impulse seized him: to leap down and run on his own two legs, drenched in sweat. Gus half-fell, half-leapt from the horse and sprinted toward the flames.

“My lady… my lady…!”

Before the white inferno stood over a dozen silhouettes, black against the blaze.

“My lady!”

The figure standing in the very center, the one holding a charred club, turned around. It was Aspara’s face.

“Sorry, darling…”

With the bright light behind her like a celestial halo, the bride smiled shyly.

“I think this trade deal just went up in smoke.”

Gus could not understand his wife’s language, but he felt she had said something very beautiful.

“My lady, what on earth happened!”

“Oh my, you’re safe. You’re not hurt?”

“I knew it, I just knew it! I was worried this exact thing would happen!”

This was precisely the scenario Jack had been dreading.

His mistress’s temperament: the kind that, once her temper ignited, drove her to do things no one could have predicted.

He’d worried she might grab one of the many decorative statues scattered around the villa and bring it down on the baron’s skull with a crack. But this exceeded even his expectations.

She goes and gets betrothed to a barbarian and suddenly her rampages level up too, Jack lamented.

“I merely tipped over a few fireplaces, but goodness, it spread in the blink of an eye. The man built this house for nothing but vanity.”

“— —, — — ——!”

Gus, who had been cut off by Jack, cried out once more.

It was a confused exclamation, bewilderment and admiration tangled together.

“Ah, right, the castle lord… Even I can figure out what he’s asking. He wants to know what happened here, yes?”

“Y-yes, probably something like… ah, yes, that’s right. So what actually happened? I think I have a rough idea, but still.”

“What do you mean, ‘what happened’? You can see perfectly well. The house caught fire. What else is there?”

“Well…”

“— —?”

Gus stared at the fraudulent interpreter with a baffled expression, as though urging him to translate.

Reflected in his grey eyes were the roaring flames, a bride with a split lip, and a damned knight too flustered to interpret.

His bride, the one he was supposed to protect, appeared to have suffered worse from the fire than the knight.

Disheveled hair, a hem singed by fire, shoes with the toes scuffed off as though she had kicked through a window.

For an instant, that sight struck him as the image of a fierce warrior, and Gus’s heart pounded like a boy’s.

Feeling guilty for being stirred by the sight of a woman’s injuries, he barely managed to hide his emotions.

“— — — — ——, —.”

If it pains you, there is no need to dwell on it, my lady.

Gus murmured low and reached out to brush the soot from Aspara’s shoulder.

But his extended hand faltered and stopped. There was still enemy blood on his gauntlets.

Gus thought:

Yes. The one I should hold accountable right now is the baron, not Aspara.

He swallowed bitterly and decided to leave the comforting of his wife to her escort knight.

He thought that what Aspara needed now was a knight from her homeland, not a frightening sham of a husband. A wife like a hothouse flower would surely find this shocking beyond measure.

[5.]

Having stepped away from his wife’s side, Gus surveyed the scene and checked on his retainers.

Before long, a familiar figure approached.

“Ugli.”

He frowned at the attendant, who had come running breathlessly.

“My lord!”

“Where have you been all this time?”

With the instinctive premonition that a poor answer might cost him an arm, he replied:

“I was keeping watch, my lord, but I never imagined the building itself would be compromised. I discovered the baron fleeing the scene and promptly secured him over there.”

“And the other retainers?”

“Unharmed. They were all near the front entrance, so…”

Ugli quietly led the castle lord around to the far side of the pillar of fire.

There, a heavyset man lay facedown, his body limp.

“He happened to stumble over a sharp fence post and injured his chest. It appears he lost his footing in the chaos while trying to escape.”

“An accidental death, then.”

“An accidental death indeed.”

The attendant flipped the baron’s body over with a nudge of his foot so the chest faced upward. A single dagger was buried in the center of his chest.

Ugli pulled it free, wiped the blood clean against the snow, and tucked it into his coat.

“What a shame — he happened to fall right where there was such a pointed fence post. An unlucky fellow.”

“Nnngh…”

“Still, at least he died next to a big fire, so there’s no need to worry about a cremation.”

Ugli nodded at the king’s words.

Soon, the flames, having devoured fresh fuel, climbed a little higher, but no one noticed. The snowfield was far too vast for anyone to notice such a thing.

Aspara’s debut in the north ended in a successful disaster.

In the evening twilight, shadows growing long, the returning carriage carried the acrid smell of smoke.

Inside the carriage, Aspara braced her weary body and mulled over what lay ahead.

I really need to do something about this temper of mine… There’s going to be a lot to deal with.

A great deal had happened, and the pile of things to handle going forward was mountainous. But given the severity of the situation, there were, fortunately, plenty of holes to slip through.

First: the central-style timber villa, built on that dry, windswept plain, had been the sort of structure where a fire breaking out would have surprised no one.

Second: the baron himself, the very person who should have filed a complaint and demanded compensation, had passed away.

Third: the baron had been a foul-tempered nouveau riche with no political standing.

And finally: the baron’s wife had shown a strong resolve to deal with her husband’s death swiftly and bury the matter.

In truth, the only person who had noticed the fire was intentional, at least on the surface, was Jack, who knew Aspara’s temperament well.

“Hey, Jack. Are you sulking?”

“I don’t know.”

He said that, yet his pouting lips betrayed exactly how he felt.

“How unreliable do you think I am, that a lady of your standing has to fight with her own hands? You have an escort knight sitting right there in the same building.”

“You are sulking.”

“It’s always the same thing, every single time. Have you forgotten what got you sent out here in the first place?”

“Why are you bringing up my ex-husband now?”

“Because it’s relevant, that’s why!”

The young knight seethed, unable to contain his frustration.

“No — the one most at fault is that barbarian king! What kind of husband doesn’t stay by his wife’s side! Even now, leaving you alone like this!”

“This incident is probably going to cause the most trouble for the castle lord. It wouldn’t be strange if he were angry with me. Leave him be.”

Aspara gazed out the carriage window with a worried expression.