Volmo.

Volmo.

Aspara, the one who had spoken his name, looked startled that someone had actually answered. She hesitated for a moment, then went on.

“Those attendants who slipped away just now. They’ve snuck off to play at a little romance, I gather.”

“What? In the middle of their duties?”

“The romance of youth, you know.”

Gazing off at nothing in particular, she went on.

“I’m curious. What does something like that feel like?”

“Are you speaking of youth, or…?”

“Who knows.”

Volmo opened his mouth carefully.

“If it’s playing at romance, aren’t you in the middle of it yourself?”

“What?”

Volmo tilted his chin slightly to indicate castle lord Gus, standing behind her shoulder.

“Never mind. How shameless of me to suggest it.”

“I’m not fond of that man myself, madam, but….”

He hesitated, picking his words.

“I don’t wish to pretend I know the ways of the world, but… most people spend their lives playing a role.”

“So they do.”

“And you and the castle lord… have been assigned roles where doing such things is natural. No — where you are expected to do them.”

Aspara looked at the young man with his grave expression. Watching the set line of his closed mouth, she was reminded of his mother, who had once stood doll-silent in that mansion.

“I’ve spoken out of turn.”

“No, you’re right.”

This whole charade is tedious — the gift-preparation I was subtly coerced into, the business of calculating when to hand it over, all of it’s so irksome. That was what Aspara had been thinking. But it suddenly occurred to her that perhaps the one making the situation tedious was herself.

“…Well then. What, exactly, am I supposed to do?”

“There’s no need to be nervous. In conversation between lovers, what matters isn’t the content but the gestures.”

“You know a great deal about it. Have you been in love yourself?”

“…Yes.”

“So what sort of gestures?”

Volmo glanced at the castle lord. The young man who had first turned up today was carrying on a long exchange with his wife, and Gus was glaring at the scene with visible displeasure.

“The weather… is always the same here…. Something along the lines of getting to know each other would probably be all right.”

“You ask him something, at random.”

“Pardon? Me?”

“Say it was a question from me, and ask whatever you like. After all, you’re the one who’ll be speaking.”

“Yes, madam.”

Volmo approached the man glaring at him with murderous intensity, trying not to show his fear, though his trembling hands would have given him away to anyone observant.

《The madam has a question.》

The moment his eyes met the castle lord’s, he froze stiff as a mouse before a carnivore. Even Alexandrine, slumbering in his pocket, seemed to freeze along with him.

An unremarkable question. A getting-to-know-you question….

《Um… she asks you… the — the lord…》

Gulping down a swallow, the bruise-covered young man finally opened his mouth.

《…She asks what your name is.》

Are we doing fireworks for the festival this year after all? For a moment Gus was confused. He could have sworn he’d heard something go CRASH and collapse somewhere.

After a brief silence, he spoke.

《…Gus. I have no surname.》

“…— — ——”

“— ——?”

The castle lord’s heart was not merely pounding now; he felt it surge up into his throat.

My name… she didn’t know it.

He pressed his lips tightly together and looked at the small back of his wife’s head.

Truly knowing nothing at all about me….

Imagining how coldly his wife had been sold off, Gus knitted his brow for a moment.

No — she might have simply forgotten. Even if so, there was nothing strange about it. Looking back, they had never once had any real conversation, nor had any situation called for referring to each other by name.

My pitiable lady….

How much courage it must have taken to pose such a mortifying question. Gus could only reflect with aching sympathy on the feelings of a wife who had waited for her attendant to step away before shyly asking.

“— ——….”

“— – ——.”

Watching the one-and-a-half southerners who, every time they translated a single utterance of his, exchanged three of their own, Gus felt a twinge of disappointment. Even knowing it couldn’t be helped on his wife’s side, the thought surfaced all the same: do we really need such long exchanges for trivial conversation like this?

Gus turned his head toward the street in search of something to distract himself. A familiar woodwind sound drifted to his ears.

《Ah.》

I’m done for.

The moment he heard the castle lord’s answer, Volmo realized he was done for.

“…The King of Barbarians answers—”

“He said ‘Gus’ just now. What question is that supposed to be an answer to?”

“That he — he asked whether there was anything you were fond of.”

He had strung a question onto the answer by quick wit in the moment. He felt he had only made the context stranger, but the words were out and couldn’t be taken back.

“How unexpected.”

Aspara, far from being horrified, looked intrigued.

“I like that.”

“Pardon?”

Recalling her ex-husband, she smiled faintly to herself.

Ever since being refused on her wedding night, Aspara had kept her distance from the King of Barbarians.

An unreadable man. Whenever she stood before him, she felt as though she had lost her way. No, she felt the fact of being lost itself.

But now that she caught a familiar man’s shadow flickering off of Gus, a little of the path came into view. For Aspara, who had lived through her ex-husband Flower, the narcissist was a familiar type.

Knowing what sort of beating awaits you makes enduring the punishment easier.

This time, she had confidence she could hold out a little longer.

So Aspara thought.

“You, perhaps….”

Having mustered a measure of courage, Aspara turned to look back at her indifferent husband lingering some distance off. But he was no longer behind her.

“…What is it you’re looking at?”

Gus was a few steps further back than before, gazing off into the distance. At the far end of his gaze sat something gaudy and many-colored.

In a village full of browns and greys, the splash of color stood out especially. It was ringed by children’s delighted chatter and the scent of sugared carrots.

A hand-cart for a puppet show.

“Shall we go and watch?”

Aspara approached him slowly and pointed at the cart with her fingertip. Startled, Gus caught her meaning, and with a slightly reddened face he shook his head.

《— — —— —.》

“He says it’s called a hand-puppet show.”

“I can see that.”

《——— ————— —————….》

“He says that, well, it’s something for children to watch and not quite the thing for a grown man to be seen watching in front of others….”

Aspara made a puzzled face.

“What of it. The castle lord’s still half a child himself.”

“Pardon?”

“Well, not a child, of course… but still not at the age where being seen at a puppet show would be embarrassing, surely?”

Volmo stole a glance at the man standing stock-still as a totem behind her. Gus’s head blocked the sun, and against the backlight his face looked blacker still.

The castle lord’s ears on both sides were crushed flat as dumplings, so the silhouette of his head had an unfamiliar, grotesque quality that was unsettling to look at.

My poor lord… he’s been in a place like this so long his mind has gone.

Volmo barely managed to hide his pitying expression.

“If I’d conceived a child my first year of marriage, they’d be just about that height by now.”

“That would be impossible, I think.”

“Are you making fun of my family’s short stature?”

“No, I don’t mean height, I… never mind.”

At the half-teasing retort, the novice knight clamped his mouth shut.

So the princess is older than she looks….

Volmo concluded, never having entertained the idea that Gus was much younger than he looked.

“When we speak of a date, isn’t it the theatre? A smaller one than back home, mind.”

As though even exchanging words had become tiresome, Aspara grabbed the thick arm brusquely and strode off toward the singing. The citizens of the north stole sidelong glances at the spectacle of the huge man being dragged helplessly along by a small hand, then pretended not to see.

Keeping company with someone who can’t understand a word, I feel I’m turning reckless myself.

Thinking something Jack, had he heard it, would have laughed at — My Lady, you’ve been reckless all along — Aspara settled onto a bench nearby.

《–, —… — — – —…!》

“It’s a bit far. But if the lord sat up front, he’d block the children’s view.”

As Aspara folded herself onto the children’s bench, her head and Gus’s shoulder brushed lightly.

A step behind, Volmo hurried up and made as if he too wanted to sit, then quickly gave up and struck the posture of a knight on guard.

Adjusting her seat, the southern woman observed the unfamiliar puppet show.

I’d just assumed they’d be cloth dolls — but they’re wooden.

Unlike the ones back home, the northern puppets were made of precisely carved wood. The oddly lifelike faces, unnervingly so for puppets, were faintly frightening.

Is it because textiles are too expensive? — really, I must get that flower into mass production as soon as possible. Thinking such things, Aspara studied the puppets.

[— – ——!]

In the meantime, the opening song of the children’s play began.

She followed the plot with a rather serious expression, deducing its content.

So they have a mermaid tale here too. This might even be one I know.

The play was far more polished than she had expected. It had been chosen in deference to Gus, but Aspara gradually found herself drawn into the crude little production.

Whenever she stirred with small excitement, the shoulder against hers twitched ticklishly.

Hm. Yes, it’s one I know. The mermaid falls in love with the prince on land, and to get two legs, she — oh, did they split her tail in two with an axe? That’s a new one.

Apart from the uncut depiction of brutal scenes, it was very like the fairy tale from home.