A Clumsy Start

But Jack, who still hadn’t confessed the truth about his northern tongue skills, couldn’t possibly relay that story to the lady.

“…That’s what happened.”

“No, what? What did you do?”

“Ah, don’t talk to me! I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You said it was a long story! I send you off to do one simple job and you — a man who can barely speak the northern tongue — what exactly were you up to? If you go seducing my husband’s lover, what am I supposed to do?!”

“I don’t know! My lady, you’re an idiot!”

Watching Jack slump rudely face-first onto the tea table, Aspara decided to let him calm down before pressing further.

At the same time, she felt a small measure of relief.

That attendant called Ugli is quite…

They were only words inside her own head, but she took her time choosing them.

…promiscuous, it seems.

Aspara felt somewhat reassured about the identity of the leading candidate for her husband’s secret lover.

Even if this Ugli person did have something going on with the castle lord, at least it couldn’t be anything serious; that much she could accept.

“Well, fine. Let’s worry about this later. More importantly, Jackie, about that trade problem I noticed in the storehouse earlier…”

“Wait, my lady? You’re really fine with this? Your most trusted confidant just got swept away by some barbarian we don’t even know!”

“You’re the one who told me not to talk to you… Of all people, you come to me lamenting about that? And sure, you are my most trusted confidant — seeing as you’re my only one.”

“Ah, forget it! Everything’s ruined.”

The maid poured another cup of tea into the empty cup.

Good eye. You’re my most trusted confidant now.

Rewinding the clock to the previous night, Gus felt his heart sinking as he stared at the framed portrait resting on the desk.

It was a small portrait that had arrived alongside the proposal when the marriage offer from the southern princess first reached him.

The healthy complexion with its faint golden undertone, the bright hair tumbling in loose curls; such things simply did not exist in this land.

When he first locked eyes with the woman in the painting, he had thought her a woman with dead eyes. But the princess he met in person, her gaze burned with an intensity that was almost unbearable.

With bright-yellow fury and resentment.

Even after learning that this marriage was, for Aspara, nothing more than an exile and a punishment devoid of her own will, his resolve toward the union had not wavered.

This is merely a political marriage — one I have no choice but to accept, for the sake of my nation. So the King of Barbarians had told himself.

“But… can I truly say I had no ulterior motives?”

He could not say so with certainty. That he had harbored no desire as a man, rather than as a king.

Gus stared at the bouquet of red flowers already beginning to wilt, having never served its purpose.

These were rather expensive flowers he had purchased with his own coin, making excuses to himself all the while, that this was absolutely not an attempt at courtship, that it was merely an investment to ease the nerves of a precious bride.

“Anyone could see that’s full of ulterior motives.”

Gus sighed, tossed aside the withering bouquet, and picked up a change of nightclothes.

The bed sitting in its awkward position bothered him.

He had hastily moved this single-person bed into what had originally been his private study, to provide a personal bedroom for Aspara, who had been shaking with fear.

That was when it happened.

Footsteps approached outside the door.

“Who is it? I believe I said I wasn’t to be disturbed tonight.”

“Aspara Bel—”

“…!”

He had never spoken with her directly, yet he recognized that voice without question.

Nor could he forget the name those lips had murmured.

The dark-clad castle lord, half-undressed in the middle of changing, panicked and stumbled about until his foot caught on the unfamiliar bed leg jutting out and he crashed to the floor.

His bruised knee hurt less than the worry that his bride must have heard the commotion.

Unable to retrieve the shirt kicked under the bed, Gus decided he couldn’t keep her waiting any longer, snatched up his cloak, and threw it over his bare torso.

“Wh-what brings you here? Is the room… is the room cold? I’ll wake the attendants right now and—”

“— — — — — —.”

Unable to understand a word of Aspara’s southern tongue, Gus spiraled further into panic.

“I… shall I wake your attendant at once? If you’ve come to ask again to be sent home, that is—”

Gus stole a glance down at what Aspara was wearing and felt his heart drop all over again.

His new bride had come to him in nothing but a thin gown that looked as though it might fall apart in the slightest cold breeze; in other words, she wore only her undergarments.

Well, in truth, by Aspara’s standards it was merely indoor loungewear. But by northern standards, it was the sort of undergarment a maiden would keep hidden beneath every other layer, never to be shown to anyone but her most cherished beloved.

Crossing the corridor in those butterfly-wing clothes to come find me— Gus thought, though in truth he had never actually seen a butterfly. He vaguely understood them to be something similar to a dusty-winged moth.

“— —. — — —.”

“M-my lady, shall I rub your feet? No, I only meant — I was worried you might get frostbite—”

Watching his wife perch on the edge of the bed and pat the spot beside her, Gus broke into a cold sweat.

Aspara’s body, having walked through the frigid corridor in that thin garment, trembled finely with the cold.

Ah! To be trembling so with fear, and yet you believe you must fawn over me. How… how desperately cornered must you have felt, for this little field-mouse of a woman to make such… such a humiliating resolution? Ah, I am a sinner. I am a traitor. I should have worn my sword — then I could have gouged out both my eyes and offered them to her on the spot.

Then, as Gus stood frozen in that silent hesitation, Aspara, who had been studying him intently, finally raised her hands to remove the last nightgown she wore.

“P-p-please, my lady, you mustn’t! My lady… you needn’t do this! I swear — I swear I will protect you!!”

His heart tearing apart with love and arousal and guilt over that arousal, Gus could bear it no longer. In his ridiculous state, bare-chested with nothing but a cloak thrown over him, he bolted from the room.

The bedroom door slammed shut with a resounding bang.

The castle lord, storming down the corridor in a frenzied walk, ended up waking one of his attendants.

“What’s the matter, my lord?”

“Forgive me. I’ve roused you from a sound sleep.”

“Sound sleep? Hardly — I was only dozing. It’s such a momentous day that sleep wouldn’t come.”

The attendant Ugli had always been a light sleeper.

A former sailor, he had spent his nights keeping watch aboard ships, and during the war, Ugli proved a dependable comrade who always volunteered for the night watch.

“My lord, if you mean to go for a stroll, please allow me to accompany you. The wild boar have been coming around the area every night this season.”

“Never mind. Go back to sleep.”

“I’d like to go for a stroll myself, but I’m too frightened to go alone, my lord. And besides…”

Ugli hesitated before speaking.

“While I’m fetching my walking clothes, let me grab something for you to wear as well, my lord.”

“…Thank you.”

After donning the coat Ugli had brought, the two began a slow walk through the castle’s rear courtyard.

“By the way, my lord — it’s the wedding night. Is it really all right for you to be out here?”

“The wedding night is only a wedding night when it’s shared between husband and wife.”

“Well, if you’re not husband and wife, then what are you? Planning to wait until the formal ceremony? How old-fashioned. That’ll take quite some time, given how things stand…”

The bold attendant’s laughter rang out.

“Am I… her husband?”

Caught off guard by the sudden question, Ugli looked up at his master.

“To be husband and wife — is that not a noble, lifelong bond forged through mutual love? Can I truly call myself husband to a woman who was dragged here like livestock, when I knowingly took her hand under those circumstances?”

“My lord…”

In the dim moonlight, his master’s expression was twisted like a beast slashed by a blade.

“I cannot stop thinking about the moment we first met. That small woman who couldn’t even bring herself to step out of the carriage — her face brimming with resentment and fury… Of course I understand better than anyone what this marriage means for all of us.”

Gus paused to catch his breath.

“And yet, knowing all that, the thought of being hated still makes me sad. What a petty man I am.”

Ugli could say nothing.

The two wandered the grounds through the night, and as the first faint halo of light appeared before sunrise, they fetched the first horse to wake in the stable and rode out for an early-morning hunt.

Gus focused solely on the bowstring, doing his best to forget the heart of the wife he had left behind alone.

When Aspara witnessed Gus and Ugli returning together on a single horse, an idea took shape in her mind.

Did they just say people ride double on one horse around here?

“Wahahaha! Jack! Come look at this! Isn’t this wonderful?!”

“My lady, you’re always giving me grief about manners, but it seems you’ve tossed your own dignity out the window after just two days.”

“Out of the way!”

“How?! We’re on the same horse!”

In the south, where flat ground was scarce, horseback riding was strictly a pastime for men, and Aspara had never learned to ride.

She had always harbored a dream of riding someday, given her strong longing for outdoor pursuits, but the only mode of transport ever permitted for a young lady was a carriage.

But things were different here, amid the culture of the north and its great, towering horses.

Aspara was currently perched atop a bay horse alongside Jack, feeling the swaying earth beneath her.

“Ha ha… ha… This is wonderful… To think they’ve been keeping something this fun all to themselves — I have yet another reason to resent Father and my brothers!”

“I’m slowing down now, my lady. Plant your legs properly! If you fall off, it’s my neck on the line.”