Volmo.

Volmo.

With no way the man could haul himself out of that storehouse on his own, the two of them had no reason to hurry. The only reason they were bothering to look in on him at all just now was a faint concern that the foreigner might end up frozen solid in there.

In the middle of that leisurely conversation, Ugli caught an unexpected piece of news.

“…They’re just migrants who wandered over the border, aren’t they? Does the castle lord really need to go out there himself and rough them up?”

“It isn’t about those particular ones. It’s a warning. To put it out there that from here on we’ll come down hard, so don’t bother crossing….”

“Even in this castle, one in every three people is probably someone who crossed over the same way.”

“True, but a fair share of the ones who come that way are a bit on the dangerous side, aren’t they?”

Star started prattling on about how hard the castle lord had been working lately for the sake of the nation.

Ugli, in a rare moment, kept his face hard and his mouth shut.

“…Is it because of that woman?”

“Ah — right? Feels like it, doesn’t it? Ever since he got back from that banquet, something in him seems to have started burning.”

Star beamed at the discovery that she wasn’t the only one who had thought so. Then she caught sight of Ugli still sitting silent with that hard face, when he normally would have met her chatter with glib quips, and she swiftly shut her mouth.

That had all happened about an hour earlier.

Now Ugli stood at the day’s main spot, the village center. Structurally it was something like a plaza, though calling it a “plaza” would be more than a little embarrassing; it was just the patch of ground where two main roads crossed. Nothing gaudy about it, but compared to the year before there were a few more stalls, the banners looked a shade cleaner, and that small, hard-won touch of prosperity was genuinely pleasing to see.

But the most eye-catching thing was something else entirely.

“Truly, not a day goes by that doesn’t bring something new.”

“Quiet, you.”

What was jabbing repeatedly at Ugli’s nerves was not his own castle lord, whose six-foot-plus frame was “disguised” by a single pressed-down hat, nor the common folk desperately pretending not to notice him, nor Aspara, who was strolling through the square admiring the sights without sparing so much as a speck of concern for any of it.

“A man who looks nothing at all like his father.”

“He looks plenty like him, I’d say.”

What had caught Ugli’s eye was the stranger with the bruised face he had never seen before. The man carried himself with proper decorum, yet there was a strange hunch to his neck that made him look unconfident, and on the back of his neck and along his collarbones the yellowish marks of fresh bruises were just beginning to show.

“What on earth is he looking at, standing there like that.”

While Jack and his mistress were inspecting a stall hung with trinkets, Ugli and the castle lord were watching them from a few paces behind.

Standing in an awkward position roughly between the two groups was Volmo. Like a new student who doesn’t know where he’s supposed to stand, the soles of his feet twitched every few seconds; he looked genuinely unsettled.

“Are you going to drag that man around with you all day long?”

“Is there any other way?”

“Shall I take him back down to the cellar? Just until you’ve finished your business for the day.”

“A subject cannot be imprisoned without trial.”

“He hasn’t even got his papers yet, has he?”

“Even so, he is my subject.”

Waiting for Aspara as she examined ornaments at the stall, the two large men stood with their arms folded, conversing in low voices.

“While the two of you are having your cozy time together, I’d gladly take the fellow off your hands — but today of all days, even I can’t. I’ve a prior engagement.”

“…Is Star busy?”

“Most likely. We were together up until partway through, but some of her seniors called her off and that was that. Shall I summon some other retainer?”

“No need.”

“There’s time enough to bring someone in. I know how long my lord has been looking forward to today. Do spend it cozily, the two of you.”

“No need.”

“Don’t be bashful, my lord—”

“Who do you take me for?”

Gus kept his face fixed on his wife and, dropping his gaze downward, shot Ugli a glare.

“I am the King of the North, who has made the central kingdom tremble in fear — master of the Snowfield of Death and of Fang Castle.”

“Indeed you are.”

“And an order from such a man—”

Ugli consciously stooped his shoulders and stepped back half a pace. Of late he had grown used to seeing an uncommonly dazed side of his castle lord; ah, he’d misjudged the distance, and a flash of regret passed through him.

With a solemn face, Gus lifted his chin and spoke to the empty air.

“As for something I would ask of someone… unless it were a person on the order of Star, or of yourself… even on a holiday they would do it whether they wished to or not, unable to refuse even if they disliked it….”

There was a faintly dejected note in the castle lord’s voice.

Ugli, his expression stunned, was thinking, No, my lord, I’m plenty afraid of you too. Is that why Star and I are always the ones who end up so particularly run ragged? — but, conceding it wasn’t an incorrect observation, he kept his mouth shut.

“So that’s how it was….”

“Mm….”

There was one person eavesdropping on this dazed conversation between the King of the Northern Realm and his highest-ranking minister. It was Volmo, standing there in that awkward half-there posture, with no idea what an attendant was actually supposed to be doing.

Finding that the two southerners weren’t paying him any mind, this time he had come over and was loitering on this side.

“For barbarians, it seems ‘holiday’ is the day on which one follows, from a single step behind, one’s wife going on a date with another man… is that so.”

“Hold your tongue.”

To this sniping from the would-be-conversational new subject, Gus answered without so much as a glance in his direction.

He did, however, spare a single brief sidelong moment to glare at the hamster sleeping in the man’s pocket. Gus was still unable to bring himself to admit that it was the same little rat creature he himself had been looking after.

And not an hour earlier he had been knocked sprawling and wishing for death over it, no less. His spine stiffening, the half-blood youth this time turned his glare on Ugli’s face.

“…You’re his close attendant, then. Hmm.”

“Have you got something to say?”

“So that was nonsense after all, was it.”

“What?”

“The eyes. The eyes.”

Volmo tapped his own eye area with a little pointing motion as he spoke.

“I heard it often enough growing up. That purple heterochromia is proof of mixed blood.”

Ugli glanced over at Volmo’s eyeballs, and sure enough, there did seem to be a mottled, purplish haze drifting across the iris.

“Now that I look closely, you have it too. So that’s not a trait of mixed blood after all — it was just a trait of northerners.”

“…I don’t have anything of the sort.”

He made no effort to hide his displeasure, knitting his brow.

“No, it’s fainter than mine, but it’s definitely there. Go into your room later and take a look in a mirror.”

“What do I care.”

“Right, it’s not particularly important.”

Ugli answered curtly, but the baron’s son, rather than being put off, seemed pleased with that response; his favor-meter ticked up, as it were. Watching the man beaming like that, Ugli’s face only grew more irritated.

“King of the North, look closely. It’s there, isn’t it? In the left eye especially—”

“My lord! On this long-awaited day you have no end of interlopers. This fellow is one thing, but that knight over there — I’ll move him elsewhere myself, so do go over and help the madam choose her things.”

“Didn’t you say you had a prior engagement?”

“Jack’s no trouble at all. If I take him off to a field somewhere and let him chase a butterfly or something, that’ll do.”

“That would be a stretch, surely — he isn’t a dog.”

Not waiting for so much as a chance to answer the castle lord, Ugli left the spot as though fleeing from something.

“You’ve got no sense, either — when you should be pushing their backs so the two of them can have their time alone, why are you stuck to that woman instead.”

“That’s exactly why I was sticking to her.”

The two attendants who had slipped out at just the right moment put enough distance between themselves and the main road to make sure no one was around before they began their conversation.

Though it was a festival, the handful of actual events were concentrated in one small pocket of the city center, so the pair, whose first priority was putting distance between themselves and their masters, were simply walking down a hushed street. The quiet alley carried the faint smell of oil.

Jack chewed on an apple candy he’d bought along the way as he spoke.

“It’s strange here — how does the price of food go down on a holiday?”

“Of course it goes down on a holiday, doesn’t it?”

“Of course it goes up on a holiday. Lots of people come out and mill about.”

“What are you talking about — if the number of buyers goes up, you can sell cheaper, can’t you? Small margin, high volume.”

Bickering over the price of apple candy, the two of them registered once again that the other had grown up in a genuinely strange part of the world.

“…Still, it’s a relief that a servant who understands the local culture has come along.”

“Hm?”

“I hear you’ve got yourself a junior.”

Jack answered, crunching through the apple.

“I guess? I honestly didn’t fully get what was going on.”

“That’s what I heard. That the baron’s son is going to live at the castle. Capable people are scarce in these parts.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“It’s a good thing.”

“It’s a good thing, then.”

Watching his sweetheart smile brightly as he spoke in that firm voice, Jack murmured “It’s a good thing, then.” once more and nodded slowly.

“Because from here on you and I will be spending more time together.”

“You and me? Why?”

“Your place is going to be filled by that new recruit from now on, isn’t it?”

Jack answered with a startled look.

“What? You said it was a good thing!”

“Of course it’s a good thing. From the madam’s point of view, she’s gained a better pair of hands than yours, and since you’ll have less work, your rest time will increase.”

As though relaying some very welcome news, he leaned in close to Jack with a bright expression and spoke.

“Or — is it that you don’t want to have more time to spend with me?”

“Do you really think the madam would replace me?”

“I didn’t say that was my own opinion — I just reasoned it out as a matter of course. Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Uhhh….”