Fig.

Fig.

Star listened quietly to the man’s explanation, her expression slowly shifting into the look one reserves for a piece of garbage.

“Jack… Jack! Back me up on this. These lewd barbarians aren’t having it.”

“What on earth did you say to get looked at like trash.”

“I asked her why on earth she’d let the two of them ride one horse, and when she said, ‘And what about it?’, I simply gave her a proper reason.”

“I’d like to ask too. What about it?”

The man’s face, jaw clenched, had now gone a full, burning red.

“If a woman rides a horse… she — ugh, it’s, it’s indecent!”

“…”

“…”

“Uhh…”

“That’s not an ‘uhh.’ If you sit on a saddle your legs — your legs… your legs, you know… not as a lady should—”

“Spreading your legs to sit down?”

“Watch your mouth!”

Volmo shouted. By now he was covering his face with his hands, peering out between his fingers just enough to see what was in front of him.

If it’s that mortifying, just turning his head away would be easier, Jack and Star privately thought.

“I remember the first time I heard that one too, when I came up to the capital. Whoever came up with that etiquette, I figured they had to be a genuine pervert of a lunatic…”

“The pervert isn’t me, it’s the culture here!”

“If you don’t ride a horse around here, your toes fall off.”

“Then at the very least, the proper thing is to press your legs together and sit sidesaddle!”

“A woman driving a horse with her legs pressed together, sitting sideways — that would be a bit terrifying in its own right…”

While the half-wit knights kept up their foolish chatter, the clatter of hooves drew nearer and nearer, and before long the horse stopped right beside the two men.

“Oh my! We had guests we weren’t expecting. How embarrassing.”

“But it was fun, wasn’t it?”

“It was!”

The chestnut-haired woman seated behind on the horse was all radiant smiles.

Volmo, to his credit, stepped forward to help the lady down from the horse himself, only to be promptly held back by his senior attendant.

《— —— —. — — —?》

“What did she say?”

Jack whispered as he helped Aspara dismount. But Volmo ignored his friend’s question and only stepped back with a sour expression.

Two women riding one horse is an outrage against all heaven and earth, but a man and a woman holding hands is fine? — he’d just been told that, and he had no rebuttal.

“What’s with the horse all of a sudden?”

“She was asking how I was finding the place, so I was answering her.”

“I’m relieved to see you enjoying yourself.”

Once the two women had dismounted and the weight was lifted from its back, the horse gave a single snort, shook out its mane, and trotted about the inner courtyard in little quick steps.

“Volmo, the two of you already know each other.”

“Ah, y-yes, we do.”

“Yes, but it’s been such a long while since I last saw that face. My, have you grown a little taller since then? What a happy coincidence.”

The young half-blood youth, who only moments ago had worn such a put-out expression, brightened at the sight of Seven’s beaming smile.

The woman was petting him the way a small child would manhandle a puppy.

“When I heard just now that you were here, I was so surprised. How is your mother doing?”

His face froze in its smile. Only his eyes darted left and right, as if tracing the meaning of the sentence he had just heard.

Clearly, she had come here not even knowing he was present.

“…That I wouldn’t know myself, my lady.”

“You’re doing well, then? Lady Aspara, you must be meeting him for the first time. He’s someone who helped me a great deal when I was little. He’s a very dear friend of my husband’s as well, so please, look after him well from here on.”

“Ah, yes. I had no idea at all.”

“He’s someone I’m truly fond of. Last time, at the banquet, we barely had a moment together before we had to part ways, and I missed him so dreadfully that I went ahead and came all the way out here.”

“Ahh, so you came to see a friend. And you didn’t know about me. I see. That’s good to hear.”

He answered with dead eyes, only the corners of his mouth turned brightly up; anyone except Seven could feel how empty of spirit the reply was. The moment the phrase please look after him well from here on left her lips, something seemed to burst with a faint pop.

“…That’s good to hear. The young lady has always treasured her bonds with others.”

“She has. Especially — Lady Aspara is no ordinary connection.”

Sebinya smoothed her dress, slightly rumpled from the ride, and approached the chair by the raised wooden ledge; since there was no one to pull it out for her, she simply stood beside it without moving.

“It’s all thanks to her that I met my current husband.”

“It’s a very rough road to travel just to visit a single friend. A letter would be quite enough.”

“Isn’t sending letters all the way out here quite an undertaking? Rather than troubling a retainer month after month with my private chatter, coming once in a while to see a face in person is better, I think.”

Unable to watch any longer, Aspara pulled out the chair herself, and only then did the young lady take her seat.

“Thank you. That aside — well, truthfully, I didn’t come today just to see your face.”

She started to speak, then faltered, glancing at the two men for their reaction.

“We’ll step away for a moment.”

“No, I asked you both here on purpose. You’re like a nephew to me — what would I have to hide from you? And Jack is…”

Sebinya looked across at the young knight.

“…Jack.”

“I’m glad to have your trust.”

She smiled back at Jack, who was beaming with pride, and went on to the reason for her visit.

As it turned out, the confession of the guest from far away was not particularly surprising.

“…I think my husband seems to have taken a liking to another woman.”

“I see.”

Making little murmuring hmms as if listening attentively, Aspara in truth already knew. She had heard it from the man’s own lips not too long ago, at a banquet.

That would be me…

Before Aspara, the very subject of the conversation, could answer, Volmo raised his voice as though he could bear it no longer.

“What utter nonsense is that! If it had been—”

—me, the man had been about to say, as if catching his breath to finish, but he managed to swallow the rest at the last moment. Aspara pushed him aside and went on.

“That’s very troubling. And yet I wonder why you’d come to me for counsel. I’m not exactly one with any affinity for romance.”

“That isn’t true at all. Seeing how well you get on with that barbarian king, you clearly have a gift for it.”

I don’t think this is really a matter of gift or talent.

To begin with, Aspara couldn’t understand why Sebinya was so confident about her relationship with a castle lord she had only briefly glimpsed at the banquet. No, she hadn’t watched properly, and so she had misunderstood.

Then again, that she’d received the scarf was rather impressive. Seven was a person who remembered indicators rather than context, so perhaps that alone was the basis for her judgment.

“I don’t know where you heard it, but the two of us aren’t particularly close. Rather than me, how about speaking to your other friends who actually married for love?”

“Oh, there are plenty of married folk around me. But…”

Sebinya firmly gripped the other woman’s hand in both of her own. Despite having been out riding a horse in the cold, her hand was warm to the touch.

“But the only woman who was ever married to my husband is you, Lady Aspara.”

“Excuse me?”

Volmo, who had been listening quietly at the side, let the cry out before he knew it. He immediately clamped his mouth shut with a hup and apologized for his rudeness.

Come to think of it — of course. He wouldn’t have known.

“We’re bosom friends, aren’t we, Lady Aspara.”

“Is that so.”

“The two of us, I think, are a truly precious connection to one another. It isn’t so uncommon to have a friend who shares your favorite music or your regular restaurant, but friends who share the same romantic partner — that, you hardly ever find.”

“It would be a serious problem if that happened very often.”

“Let us people of the same tastes be close.”

“Our tastes are not the same.”

“Especially Lady Aspara — since you yourself have experienced being rejected on the wedding night by my husband, I thought you would understand my feelings better than anyone…”

Let it be said once more: Aspara did not think so badly of this pure-white woman. On the contrary, if one were to line up the people of the world in order of goodness, she believed Sebinya would be standing quite near the front.

Boundless positivity, overflowing affection, magnanimity.

A pure woman who failed to recognize that ill will even existed in the world!

She was a person in whom negative emotions were extremely lacking, and because of this, she was simply severely dull at understanding the negative emotions of others, or so Aspara thought.

“How enviable.”

She clapped a hand over her mouth reflexively.

Did I just say “how enviable”? She hadn’t even felt her tongue move, and yet the sound of her own voice had suddenly reached her ears; it took her by surprise.

“Me, you mean?”

“Ah… ah, yes. Always having such a positive attitude, and so on.”

“To receive such praise from you, of all people, makes me happy. From the most positive person I know.”

“Me?”

“Pardon?”

Startled, she let the casual speech slip right out. Even Jack, listening from behind, let out a stunned sound of surprise.

“Just take this place. If it had been any ordinary well-born young lady, she’d have been sniveling to her husband, throwing tantrums about cutting down her attendants. I’ve felt this for a long time — you’re different from other young ladies. You’re someone who loves and understands even the lowly without any discrimination, just as I do.”

“I can’t imagine what the attendants here have done to deserve that.”

Aspara felt an inexplicable, greater-than-warranted flash of displeasure that Fang Castle had been insulted.

“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but they’re not, well — they’re not the most respectful of servants, are they.”

“Their manners are different, that’s all. They’re citizens who always work as hard as they can. Why, just Star alone—