The Villainess.

The villainess.

Yes — perhaps he was worrying about it too much. After all, whatever was scribbled on the scrap of paper, the one who’d ultimately be delivering it was…

“Volmo!”

Jack was so startled by the sudden shout that he dropped the fig he’d been pushing between Ugli’s lips. One of the maids, who at some point had planted her forehead on the table to doze, jerked her head up, then let it drop again.

“Sorry… I won’t make you eat it anymore.”

“I’ll step away for a moment.”

“Where are you going?”

Jack half-rose from his chair, posture already shifting to follow.

Ugli, regarding him with a put-out expression, let a few seconds pass before speaking.

“Figs — if you eat them with the seeds, they sprout out of your navel.”

“Huh?”

“So strip mine before giving it to me.”

Jack, face drained of color, nodded and set about tearing apart the fig he’d been saving for his sweetheart with a cocktail fork.

That ought to keep him still for an hour or so.

Leaving the imbecile behind, picking fig seeds out with a fork, Ugli moved quickly toward the second floor.

There was something the drunkards on the ground floor, the one attendant lost in her own thoughts, and the one fool had all failed to notice.

The view beyond the window.

“The sun hasn’t even set, and it’s already starting up.”

“Any later and the sun would be down in an instant, so…”

Beyond the second-floor window, a bright light was spreading. Silhouetted against the sun, a long purple glow fell hazily across the tablecloth.

It was the light of the festival lanterns, beginning to rise one by one.

“How lovely.”

《— —.》

“The barbarian agreed — ‘Indeed it is,’ he said.”

He said as much, but the castle lord looked as though he had no particular interest in this sort of event.

He hadn’t so much as glanced properly out the window; his gaze stayed fixed on the table in front of him as he spoke.

“If you’re going to compliment it, at least pretend to look at the scenery while you do.”

《— — —…》

“That last remark, I won’t bother relaying.”

A soft, warm light drifted through the sky, illuminating the snow-covered landscape like a starry night.

The swaying lanterns were still few in number, but the shadows of their lights reflecting one by one off the snowfield made for quite the spectacle.

“Back home, you know, we’d write wish-papers, put them inside those, and float them up to the sky. Do people do that here too?”

“Well, something like that, yes…”

Watching those great paper fireflies, a strange tide of emotion rose in her: a slight ache, a flicker of joy, a trace of sorrow.

For a moment the word homesickness surfaced in Aspara’s mind. She shook her head briskly to cast it out.

“…Blue, and pretty.”

If there was one thing different from home, it was the color of the flame.

The northern lanterns, to prevent fires, burned a special fuel with a very low ignition point. Because of that, the flames took on a curiously bluish cast.

“I don’t know much about romance, but…”

Aspara, who had kept silent a while, opened her mouth.

He, too, had now turned his face from the window and was looking across the table.

“If someone’s going to give a romantic gift, isn’t this about the time for it?”

Within the softly blinking lights, she pushed a fine parchment envelope across the table.

Neither of them said anything. There was only one who hoped her intentions would be understood, and one who hoped to understand them.

Volmo, who had hesitated for a moment, reached out toward the paper envelope as though fulfilling his duty as interpreter-attendant. A pair of glances from the two, the look of a couple wishing to be left alone, arrested his hand.

“Do you intend to read out a love letter to my husband right in front of me?”

“For a love letter, it’s rather on the thick side.”

The foreigner-interpreter, so abruptly drafted into the role, said it with an expression and tone that suggested he sensed something was off.

But Aspara had not the least intention of revealing its contents to a man she could not yet trust. All the less so to a man who was more or less the adopted son of the seven-character lady.

“There’s nothing in there for you to read.”

“Is the content something that would be a problem for me to read?”

“Yes.”

“What is it, exactly?”

“…Indecent content.”

He let his hand drop from the envelope as though flinging it off.

The second floor of the eatery was a little more humid, and a little brighter, than the floor below.

Humid, because the hot kitchen air rose up through the spiral staircase and pooled there; bright, because of the light seeping in from beyond the window.

Too late.

So thought Ugli, who had half-reflexively bolted upstairs. Seated in the corner opposite the staircase were two familiar faces and one not-so-familiar one. In the hand of the largest man, an envelope was clasped with great care.

Not that I had any actual plan for stopping it, even if I’d been faster…

Only then did he realize just how quickly he’d been walking. His breath had gone a touch ragged.

Into Ugli’s emptied lungs, now that he’d caught his breath, a sense of unease began to seep.

Why didn’t she ask Jack to do it, that woman…

Slouching clumsily as if to hide himself behind the banister post, he thought on.

If she’d idiotically entrusted it to the official “interpreter” knight, he could have intercepted it.

Ugli’s quiet survey of the table snagged on the exile-man’s face, and his expression twisted.

With that man’s appearance, the channel by which a foreign-language document might be delivered had now split in two. Which meant his own ability to control the situation had been halved.

As for what to do about that fellow —

As Ugli glared at Volmo, he was startled into giving a jolt.

“Kyaaa!”

The foolish foreigner had let out a shriek. It was a high pitch, like a little girl’s.

The man, seemingly surprised himself by the shrill noise he’d just emitted, cleared his throat twice, took a sip of warm liquor, and once again, in a lower voice, said:

“Ahem. Jack.”

Is our castle under some sort of curse that collects only idiots…

Ugli thought.

What had startled the man was an object that had streaked past the window beside the table.

“Are you bored?”

“Win— ahem, something just now fell rapidly past the window. I thought it was an ambush, so, briefly, I was going to raise a battle cry…”

“Oh, an assassination? Might we die?”

《They’re trying to catch a lantern.》

The castle lord, noticing the confusion of the two foreigners, spoke evenly. Volmo made a stupid face.

《Catch one?》

《I wasn’t speaking to you. Relay it.》

《Aren’t holiday lanterns usually — you know, ma’am — the kind you write wish-slips on and send skyward…?》

《That’s right.》

《And they crash them back to the ground?》

《Why would anyone throw their wishes into the sky.》

《I mean — because if they reach the stars or the moon, they’re granted… isn’t that what the festival’s usually about.》

《Reach the moon?》

Gus let out a dry ha — something like a scoffing laugh — and answered in a displeased tone.

《What have the stars or the moon ever done for us. If there’s something you want to achieve, you’re better off trusting your own muscles.》

Still — he does say “Lord Star” and “Lady Moon”…

《Entrusting your own desires to the sky is an irresponsible culture.》

《We call that “refined taste.” I doubt you’d understand.》

The small tug-of-war between the castle lord and the interpreter-attendant was cut short by an offhand remark from Aspara.

“A wish-hunt, then? How interesting. Back in my homeland we simply let them float up into the sky.”

《— so says Lady Aspara.》

《Ah — so that’s refined paste.》

“…”

Volmo cursed quietly to himself and narrowed his eyes.

《Is there one you like the look of.》

Ignoring the fledgling attendant, Gus spoke to his wife with the gentlest pronunciation he could manage.

He gestured at the drunkards around them stretching hands out the window, and at a few young folk out on the ground picking up fallen papers, and looked to his wife invitingly.

“Ah. Are you saying you’ll catch one for me too?”

“You need not indulge me. Drawing lots from someone else’s wish — unthinkable.”

“That one has a nice feel to it. 《That one.》”

Aspara pointed at a fellow bobbing about half a yard away, glowing with unusual brightness.

The castle lord rose to his feet and bent one leg up onto the window frame. His head, lowered, was gauging the distance, with a gravity that seemed unbelievable for someone tracking a floating paper toy.

Watching the castle lord sight in on his prey without so much as a stone or a stick, Aspara said, puzzled,

“A stick or something from somewhere—”

But the castle lord, with remarkable deftness, thrust his body out the window and snatched the lantern out of the air. A pebble clipped his forearm, but he brushed it off as though it didn’t even itch.

“Oh.”

Aspara let out an exclamation quieter than a whisper. At that single-syllable exclamation, the King of Barbarians grinned. Or rather, one must suppose he grinned, thought Volmo. At any rate, the facial muscles corresponding to the corners of his mouth went up. That would surely count as a smile.

“Is your arm all right?”

《She asks whether your arm is all right.》

《It’s fine. I’m tougher than a stone.》

《That last line I won’t be relaying.》

《Why not.》

《It’s corny.》

The castle lord ignored him and held out the crumpled lantern. He wore a slightly dissatisfied expression; it had, presumably, been a line he thought rather dashing.

Still, the fact that he accepted the advice without a word suggested he had at least some awareness that his taste in lines was poor.

The lantern, which had been clenched tight in a grip that was half callus, half knuckle-bone, had already been reduced to half-tatters. Aspara reached a fingertip for the bottom of the lantern, somehow still unbroken.

The paper, yellowed by the heat, smelled of wood and cheap oil.

“What’s written on it.”

“Um…”

[May I make up with my friend!]

Volmo recited the text with some hesitation. To a kidnapped princess, he thought, it was the sort of wish so hollow it would actually drag the mood down.