The Villainess.

The villainess.

《Shouldn’t we have wagered on them doing absolutely nothing all day long instead?》

Gus could tell Ugli and the young attendants were up to some odd little game, but he decided he did not particularly want to know the details.

He merely stared vaguely after the two who had disappeared.

“You prepared what as a gift?”

In the wake of their monumental first quarrel, Jack had started chattering even more than usual, as though trying to paper over the brief dispute or else forget it had happened at all.

He was rattling on without pause about everything: the true nature of his mistress’s surprise gift, the hardships of his first arrival in the north, the reason he had come looking for Ugli that day, the plan to hunt down the castle lord’s hidden lover.

“Your royal succession rights?”

“I did say it might be a bit much for a gift.”

“A bit much— no, that’s not the issue.”

Ugli was normally adept at tossing in the right little affirmations to keep a conversation moving. This time was different. Listening to Jack lay out Aspara’s circumstances and her reasoning, he was too busy being astonished at her sheer unpredictability to manage any of them.

“That woman’s way of thinking is strange.”

“You say my lady is indifferent, but she isn’t. She always gives it her very best.”

“Extreme self-sacrifice is also a trait of the apathetic.”

“I told you not to say that.”

“Sorry.”

Jack reached for some other trifling subject, still trying to smooth over the traces of the argument they had stepped around. Soon, though, he realized Ugli wasn’t really focused on the conversation.

“Ugli?”

“Hm? Ah, sorry.”

The man leaned in and pressed a light kiss to Jack’s lips, half joke and half apology, then slowly rose to his feet.

“It’s too cold to focus out here. Shall we head into the village?”

“Mm-hm.”

Ugli took Jack’s hand and pulled him up, then retrieved his own overcoat from where it had been pressed flat beneath Jack’s backside.

After the briefest, most subtle hesitation, Ugli spoke again.

“Jack.”

“Yeah?”

“You said you were on my side.”

“Hm? Yeah.”

He was already stepping off toward the village before Jack’s answer had finished. The shadows, grown long now, stretched out straight behind his back.

“Can we really head back already? You said we had to give them some space.”

“As if you’ve ever been rooting for those two.”

Jack started to object, then closed his mouth.

The houses of the north have sharply pointed roofs. If one built a high house with a gentle slope, it would be buried in snow or battered flat by the wind.

So the northerners kept their kitchens on a round ground floor and packed their tall, narrow attics tight against each other above.

The only buildings in this village with an open second story were Fang Castle — which doubled as a watchtower — and a single old tavern leaning against the rock-face.

《On a day like this, to nab a seat up on the second floor — that’s lucky.》

It was a foregone conclusion that on the day of the lantern festival the village’s lone open-second-floor eatery would be packed to the rafters. Yet the castle lord’s party, by good fortune, managed to slip into a seat that had only just emptied.

Gus hesitated in the doorway with a faintly dissatisfied expression. He was worried the shopkeeper might have recognized him and forcibly cleared a seat on his behalf.

《Not to worry, my lord. With a disguise as perfect as this, how could anyone recognize you.》

One of the maids reassured him, reaching up to adjust the hood pulled down over the castle lord’s head. The young attendant tipped precariously for a moment as she rose onto the balls of her feet to pat down a head seven cheok high.

《I suppose so….》

《We’ll go enjoy ourselves over there, so please have a good time. By the way — the cod here is superb.》

《Mm.》

Star and her friends, having completed the introduction to the eatery, withdrew to their own table. They hadn’t managed a spot on the second floor with the castle lord and his wife, but they had secured a fine window seat.

Gus briefly suspected they had used him as a means of securing themselves that window seat, but soon murmured to himself that to suspect his own confidants was a sin, and emptied his mind of it.

The proprietor led the party to a corner table on the second floor.

“—was — my — — ————.”

《He’s been trailing right behind us all day long.》

Just as they were about to sit down, a sudden, quarrelsome tone came snapping at his ear.

Gus glared at the new interpreter-attendant.

《Those aren’t my words, sir.》

Volmo answered with a tone that shrank his shoulders reflexively yet did not quite cower. Beside him, the lady was looking up at him as if awaiting a reply.

《Ah.》

Meeting Aspara’s eyes, the castle lord abruptly gathered himself and answered.

《Your hair….》

What a ridiculous display, Volmo thought, watching the bashful castle lord.

Aspara fiddled with the back of her own head and made a small ah of understanding. Her fingertips met the blue ribbon that tied her hair up high.

A ribbon of unusually fine quality for a mere hair ornament: the gift she had received at the banquet.

《…I said I found the back of you lovely to look at.》

“I truly hate having to translate this….”

《What?》

《I am translating, sir.》

Though he did not know a word of the southern tongue, Gus had the sudden feeling that he understood exactly what Volmo had just muttered.

To put the conclusion first: no one saw through Gus’s disguise.

It was not that no one recognized his identity; it was simply that no one registered that he was in disguise at present.

《It’s the castle lord.》

《Don’t acknowledge him. It’s a holiday.》

《I’ve never seen the castle lord’s wife before.》

《I’d heard southerners were small, but she’s bigger than I’d thought. Maybe about a head shorter than the castle lord.》

《That one looks like a man, though.》

《Don’t be rude.》

《No, I meant the one on the other side—》

《I said — don’t be rude!》

《No, I… sorry.》

The two of them, as though by mutual agreement, focused solely on their meal, so completely that no onlooker could have guessed they were a married couple.

Volmo, quietly scraping the seasoning off a gently steamed cod, knit his brows tighter and tighter.

It wasn’t that he was rooting for the two of them, but, with a lady seated right there who had worked up the courage to play her part, what on earth were they doing? Frustration was rising in him.

《Say something, sir.》

《What? …please, sir.》

Volmo gulped down the dry saliva in his mouth as though he were swallowing the cod still lingering there, then continued.

《They say barbarians are in rut all four seasons, but as a rule the women of civilized nations will never reach out a hand first unless a man offers his own.》

《A contemptible culture.》

Even as he said it, the castle lord shrugged uneasily and heaved a small sigh.

《…》

《…》

《…》

《If there’s nothing else to relay — well, that’s easier for m— uh, for me, but.》

《I am…》

Gus, his expression already hard-set, furrowed his brow still deeper and briefly closed his eyes before opening them again.

《…without talent for conversing with ladies.》

《With men, are you any better?》

《What?》

《Just say what you said before, and you’ll do fine… sir. That you wanted to look at her because the back of her was beautiful….》

《Like just now?》

Gus lifted his chin slightly and narrowed his eyes, as though he had no idea what was being said.

So he wasn’t angling for anything just now after all, Volmo sneered internally.

“What are you two talking about?”

Aspara set her cup down quietly and asked. The cheap dishware, its base not quite level, rattled faintly on the table.

“It’s just — he says he has nothing to say….”

“As it happens, I’ve a topic of conversation myself. Today the child isn’t with us either, so I had best speak of it before I give my gift.”

Aspara slowly arranged her utensils to the right, lightly dabbed the corners of her mouth with her napkin, folded the used napkin into a triangle, took two sips of water to confirm that no food remained in her mouth, and then calmly continued.

“Are you a eunuch?”

“Pfft.”

Volmo, who had been drinking water along with her, got it down the wrong pipe and coughed.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, pardon me.”

“Then relay it, please.”

“One moment.”

The half-blood youth, dithering, did his best to avoid meeting Aspara’s eyes.

《Well.》

《Um….》

Volmo hesitated a beat, then continued. A theatrical hesitation, as though begging her to see how embarrassing this all was.

《She’s asking… why you haven’t… bed— bed— bedded her.》

《Bed— the — your lady wife.》

《Your lady wife was asking, sir.》

Gus kept his solemn expression and silently forked the broth of his fish stew. Without lifting his gaze from the bowl, he answered.

《It was not the time for it.》

“He says it was not yet the time to lie together, but….”

“And now the time has come?”

Clenching his eyes shut, Volmo relayed the words while privately wishing his former princess would spare a thought for the outside man crammed into the middle of this conversation.

Unfortunately for Volmo, Aspara had resolved to dispatch several outstanding matters now, in the young knight’s absence. They were questions she had long put off but had been turning over continuously.

For Aspara, there was nothing embarrassing about them. Ever since leaving her homeland, she had made up her mind to cast off such empty propriety and focus on the life in front of her. But Jack was something close to a nephew to her, and in his presence there were a few lines she simply could not cross.

“For you as well, this matter… must have come as something sudden.”

When the castle lord met her with a hard-set expression and silence, Aspara went on first.

The gift, which she had been so eager to hand off as quickly as possible, was being gradually crumpled inside her bosom.

“So if perhaps, before I came, there was someone—”

Aspara hesitated a moment, searching for the right word. To hide her faltering, she took a sip of a drink she had not actually meant to drink.

The northern-style unstrained rice wine, fermented without filtering out the malt, was like sour porridge, and Aspara, who had sipped it absently expecting a beverage, screwed up her jaw. At the fermentation smell, like spoiled rice, reflexive tears pricked at her eyes.