Volmo.

Volmo.

“What did you say your name was?”

“I am Volmo.”

The man who had set this whole mess in motion placed a hand formally over his chest as he spoke.

“Huh? You came as a hostage?”

“No — Volmo. Starting with V.”

“And you. Why are you here?”

“As eldest son of the noble House Monstro, I was seized by the hand of that cruel barbarian, yet through fearsome dungeons I tamed ferocious winged beasts and effected a miraculous escape — and straightaway, to rescue the Princess—”

“Right.”

She turned her head to the other side.

“You?”

“Ah, I was just running around over there, and it looked like the barbarian was threatening my lady, so I came running.”

“Running around where— no, never mind. Then—”

Aspara set aside her habitually languid tone and continued, enunciating each word with precision.

“You?”

Three pairs of eyes swung toward the largest man of the lot.

Having caught a carp meaning to make soup of it as a gift for one’s wife, suppose the wife ended up becoming friends with the carp — did that count as the gift having succeeded, or failed?

A disaster.

The castle lord of the north had been observing this stupid conversation of the southerners from the sidelines.

From Gus’s vantage, the scene was rather like the carp on the stew plate exchanging introductions with the dinner guests.

“You—?”

Three pairs of eyes turned back toward him.

Every one of them a dark color quite unlike his own.

《…I do not know the intent of your question.》

Gus tucked the short sword back into the inner pocket over his chest.

《My honest answer, I suspect, will not please you.》

Aspara, who hadn’t understood the sentence to begin with, was instead thinking, So the blade goes there, under the chest…, and was not paying particular attention to the conversation.

Watching his wife’s blank expression with that faint trace of surprise underneath, the castle lord reproached himself; he really ought to have ignored Ugli’s advice and gone with the very first gift he’d thought of.

《…He is….》

“—.”

《…a gift.》

“— ——?”

The castle lord pointed to the ribbon tied round the man’s neck, struggling to convey that this strange man’s neck was, in fact, a holiday gift being presented to his wife.

《That….》

But now that he had to explain with his own mouth the meaning of a gift he had prepared so earnestly, fresh embarrassment surged up in him.

He glanced repeatedly at his wife’s knight, but the knight, who loathed him so terribly, stood there in his usual blockheaded way.

《For the holiday, to you….》

The castle lord clenched his fist and knit his brow. Just then, from an unexpected direction, a fluent northern-tongue sentence came through.

《Me, as a gift — for this kidnappee of yours?》

Turning his eyes toward the source of the voice, he found the baron’s bastard son, the man he resented, calmly prattling away in his own language.

《…That is so.》

《You’re madder than the rumors say.》

The castle lord wasn’t the only one caught off guard by the unexpected language.

“— —? You — —— —— can —.”

“Yes, —— – father ——.”

The resumed conversation between carp and human Gus could only watch, brows drawn into a single straight line.

“— ——?”

“——.”

For a carp, this one was putting on a rather impressive show of explaining the situation.

Aspara’s face bloomed for a moment like dawnlight clover.

“—? ——?”

His wife, pointing her finger back and forth between the carp-man and herself, pressed him with short sentences for something. It felt for all the world as though she were asking, Is this really my gift?

Even a castle lord as socially oblivious as he could tell. It was unmistakably the face of someone misunderstanding the intended use of the gift.

My wife….

She looked pleased.

Inwardly, Gus weighed the urge to simply blurt out, Yes, it is indeed a gift. No, this is not an ornamental fish — it is meant to have its head lopped off and be made into soup, against the monetary cost of commissioning a glass fishbowl for his wife’s barren room.

《No….》

Honestly speaking, the urge to just carry out his original intention was stronger. But looking at his wife’s cheeks, flushed faintly — whether from the cold or from some mild excitement — he had no willpower left to utter words of refusal.

《…That—》

“——?”

Gus hesitated for about the length of time it took a ripe apple to fall to the ground, and finally moved his tongue.

《…That is so.》

“He said yes— ——.”

The unpleasant man’s son relayed the words, his mouth flapping open and shut.

“And that ——, —.”

“— —.”

What did he say—

To ask that directly was something Gus’s pride would not allow. Instead, he merely glared at the man as if demanding he cough up whatever had just been said.

《…For a barbarian, you have decent taste.》

The reply was drenched in sarcasm, but even so, it was plain that Aspara was pleased.

Gus clenched one hand into a small fist of quiet victory.

《However, do not imagine I will bow to such humiliation. Attempting to rescue a princess is a gentleman’s virtue, which I have merely performed as a matter of course — my obligation does not extend to disgracing my family name for the sake of pleasing a foreign royal.》

《Hm.》

Whatever he rattled on about was of no consequence to Gus, and so the castle lord let the hostage prattle on as he pleased.

《Sooner than serve as retainer in a barbarian’s castle, I shall choose an honorable suicide.》

The castle lord looked the hostage over as though scanning him up and down. He stood with both fists clenched tight, head held exaggeratedly high and straight.

Though not in the way I intended, my wife seems to have taken a liking to this one as a servant.

So he thought.

Gus had noticed that the hostage’s tightly clenched fists held not strong conviction but tension trying to hide its own trembling.

Even so, he still looked as though, the moment he could lay a hand on an edged object, he would stab himself through the heart.

《You barbarian — you may be able to break my neck, but you will never break a nobleman’s honor!》

Gus reflected, unimpressed.

If it were just to attend on my wife, rather than do castle scut-work, he could probably manage fine even without his wrists.

Into the taut standoff between the two men, Jack cut in.

“—, — —— ——?”

[12.]

“Oh, am I getting a junior?”

“This man’s proposal is an insult. To dare order a knight to serve a barbarian’s castle — there is a limit to how lightly one may be regarded…!”

Jack flinched slightly.

“I have no wish to insult the Princess. It is merely that, for me, preserving my family’s honor brings greater joy.”

“You don’t look joyful.”

Aspara took hold of the man’s arm.

Her grip was strong enough to suggest she knew perfectly well that the arm had been trembling faintly.

“Is serving me so humiliating to you?”

“No, it is not that. It is simply that, within this castle….”

“That’s also rude to my boy.”

She jerked her chin toward Jack, who was standing off to one side with a faintly bruised-pride expression.

At the sight of that splendid knight looking so crestfallen, the man gave a clattering sort of start.

“That is….”

“What my knight serves is his liege — that being myself — not a castle.”

“Excuse me? No. Well, if I am being honest, my lady, to me House Bel still matters more than—”

“Shut it.”

Aspara raised a hand to signal Jack to be quiet.

“The choice is yours. But remember—”

Like a noblewoman bestowing a title at an investiture, the bride of the north laid her hand firmly upon the man’s shoulder.

“This House Monstro you so wish to protect — in the end, once you die, isn’t that the end of it?”

The hostage closed his eyes and thought.

Serving a foreign royal was, in truth, not a bad offer for the bastard son of a fallen noble house. In fact, there were plenty of illegitimate sons who stitched themselves into the succession of minor foreign royals precisely this way.

If it went that far, this would not be a blot on the family name but rather a lifeline — something that might even revive House Monstro, indeed bring it back into prominence, the hostage thought.

That’s the face of a man spinning a nice, hopeful little fantasy.

Watching the man’s eyes dart busily about, Aspara smiled a mocking smile inside.

People who, crushed by an honor-centered society, made self-sacrificing choices — this southern lady had seen plenty of them. She also knew that steering the route of their thinking wherever she liked was not difficult.

Perpetuating the family — as if. And you’re not even the eldest son. If it’s that baron, he’s probably scattered seed in more places than just yours.

All she had to do was toss them another option that made a decent show of satisfying their ethical standards. It didn’t matter how flimsy the pretense was. What they needed was simply a justification with which to overcome their reluctant pride.

Honor, dignity — all of it, in the end, is pretense. There’s no way any human actually throws away his life gladly for that sort of thing.

“If that is the case, then I wish to… join in serving you.”

There you have it.

“That is kind of you. But tell that to him, not to me.”

Aspara gestured toward the castle lord as she spoke.

With an air of still having failed to fully bend his pride, the hostage conveyed his wishes to the King of Barbarians. Gus, who had been watching the conversation among the three foreigners with his hands clasped behind his back, gave a nod.

Convenient. Not that I wanted or particularly needed a new attendant.

Aspara looked at Gus’s hands behind his back and thought. Inside his great palm, the hilt of an edged blade glinted and slipped away up his sleeve.

《A subjugation?》

《Yeah — but there was nothing to move into storage. They didn’t bring anything back in the carriage. As a warning, they left the bodies and the belongings all laid out right there on the road.》

Left behind, Star and Ugli were ambling toward the food storehouse, chatting idly.