Guest.

Guest.

《What an ill-matched carriage.》

《Good grief!》

Ugli flinched and turned toward the voice. Hidden in the shadows was none other than his superior, Gus, standing there and taking in the gleaming carriage parked on the ground floor.

《What are you doing here.》

《And you?》

《The main house was making too much of a racket, so I’ve been hiding out.》

《All the way up here?》

Ugli did not answer. Gus, for his part, did not seem to be expecting one, and only leaned against the railing and kept looking down at the carriage.

《What about you, castle lord.》

《Everything in the south is so gaudy.》

The castle lord, at long last, pulled his eyes from the carriage and faced his old friend.

《No doubt they’ve arrived at the farthest reaches of every other happiness. Everything is so perfect, there’s nothing more to pursue — and so they pour their efforts into pointless things like this…》

It wasn’t an answer to Ugli’s question. But it was enough to make him understand. He had noticed, of late, that the castle lord was taking an excessive interest in southern culture; specifically, in aristocratic culture.

《…I hear the madam’s guest has arrived.》

《She’ll be on her way soon.》

The castle lord answered with his eyes gently closed, as if exhaling a sigh. His voice sounded weary.

《Now, come — one ought to at least say hello.》

《Since when have we bothered with the manners of other neighborhoods. If anything, she’s the one who ought to come to you.》

《It isn’t manners. It’s courtesy.》

The castle lord casually brushed aside a strip of rag drooping in front of the rooftop window. Sunlight poured in brighter, and the ornaments on the carriage glinted and sparkled.

《…Is something like that really necessary.》

《Pardon?》

《Last time I went down, everyone had one hanging from their carriages.》

Ugli followed Gus’s thick finger with his gaze. What he saw was the large banner mounted on top of the carriage. The family crest.

To the people of the north, who had neither house nor even surnames, it was a thing of little relevance. If one insisted on finding an equivalent, they hung bright red flags from their carriages, but those served more as markers, so one would not be lost in the snowfields.

Even those had no set standard, so each was a different color and shape, and every last one worn ragged from long use. Next to a lily banner, it wouldn’t have been strange to call them outright rags.

《Aah, yes, well, of course. The sort who love their symbols. Nobles, for as long as anyone can remember, have loved having tokens. They take patterns and colors that mean nothing at all, assign meaning to them, and stamp them on every sort of object. That’s the only way they feel at ease.》

He grinned with evident amusement.

《They do their level best to play the chosen-people act, but fundamentally they’re no different from commoners. The only difference is in what they own. That’s why they have to put some mark on their possessions to feel at ease, like so.》

《What if we made one, then.》

Ugli furrowed his brow. Surely he had just been making it plenty obvious that he didn’t approve.

He would have preferred to look the other way, but it was the truth. What preoccupied the castle lord of late was not merely aristocratic culture. This young leader was straining himself, whimpering like a new-weaned puppy, to be the same as the people of the south.

《…It isn’t that we can’t make one. As far as embroidery goes, we’re no less skilled.》

《What would be good.》

《There’s no need to complicate it. They attach this meaning and that to theirs, but if you cut all the way down to it… well, they’ve only drawn in the most precious creature of their domain, or something the head of the house was fond of. That’s all.》

《Hmm… I’ll give it some thought, myself.》

《Just so you know — a human face is really, really not it.》

《…I wasn’t thinking of that.》

《Then what were you thinking of.》

《…》

《…》

From outside the window came the sound of snowflakes falling.

《…Haven’t you got work to do.》

《What about you, castle lord.》

《Shut it.》

My husband seems to have taken a fancy to somebody else — what in the world am I to do. The number of participants in the discussion session kept swelling. In the beginning, only three or four people had gathered for idle chatter, but now six or seven were huddled together. A few of the attendants had come looking for colleagues who had skipped out on their duties to loaf around, and had sat right down to join in themselves; truly, one could call it the magic of Sebinya.

Aspara’s room, among the largest of the castle’s private rooms, had filled right up.

《Quiet, quiet. Let’s take stock of the proposals we’ve got so far.》

At the center of the throng was Volmo, waving his arms like a moderator and raising his voice.

《Now, once more from the top. This is the last time I’ll run through it — so please, if you plan to offer a new proposal, bear these in mind first.》

With exaggerated gravity, he cleared his throat and began to read down the slip of paper in his hand.

《First of all — murder is off the table.》

《What a tight leash.》

《It isn’t a tight leash.》

《Can’t be helped. Apparently it’s illegal in the south.》

《It’s illegal here too.》

《You sure?》

《Quiet — I’m continuing — from now on, raise your hand to ask a question—》

《I raised my hand.》

《Assault is also off the table.》

The young woman who had been waving her arm with such enthusiasm lowered it, looking crestfallen.

《Is that illegal in the south, too?》

《It’s illegal here too.》

《It’s not illegal. I’ve never once been sued for it to this day.》

Volmo opened his mouth to say, “That’s just because you’ve been lucky — assault is illegal everywhere,” and then shut it again. Thinking it over carefully, he wasn’t so sure it wouldn’t, in fact, be legal around here.

As his enthusiastic proposals were beaten down one after another, grumbling complaints rose.

《Why’s it all no-go.》

《Because every proposal ends up going down the same branch — you, you… uncivilized bunch!》

Fortunately, nobody was wounded by this discriminatory remark. First and foremost, because nobody present grasped that “uncivilized” was meant as an insulting slur.

《Why’re we worrying about this in the first place? It’s not like he’s actually done anything wrong yet. He hasn’t cheated, he hasn’t abandoned a child, he’s just taken a liking to somebody else, you said.》

《How can it not be wrong to have thoughts about somebody else when you have a perfectly good wife like this one right here!》

《A heart cooling isn’t a crime.》

《The world has these things called social contracts.》

Volmo spoke, huffing through his nose.

《If you’ve tied the bond of husband and wife, then even if it’s only playacting, you’ve got to see your assigned role through. A heart cooling isn’t a crime, but letting it show is a sin! That’s how everybody in the world lives, originally. Every one of them taking the role assigned to them.》

《What a complicated way to live.》

Caught up in the chatter along with everyone else, Volmo had forgotten for a long while to interpret and relay any of it to Seven. And yet, the more they debated, the more indifferent the crowd’s reactions became.

He’d have done better to leave the podium to that comet of society herself, but he fumed that he could not properly take the side of the woman he held dear, and strove, somehow or other, to persuade these barbarians on his own.

《But— I mean— it’s just…》

Volmo stomped his feet in frustration, his vocabulary failing to keep pace with his temper. After some time of that, he finally cried out. The sentence he had wanted to say from the very first, but could not bring himself to voice because the argument was far too childish.

《Marrying a person who doesn’t even like you is… it’s… just too sad, isn’t it.》

And as he said it, without thinking, Volmo stole a glance at Aspara.

Volmo turned his gaze toward the owner of the room he had briefly forgotten. But the chair Aspara had been sitting in only a moment ago was now being used as a backrest by two of the cleaners.

To think he hadn’t even known where the lady of the house had slipped off to.

He felt a twinge of guilt, wondering whether he shouldn’t give chase at once. But the ‘world’s most capable senior knight’ who had been sitting beside her had vanished along with her, so for now he set himself at ease and decided to concentrate on Sebinya.

“Excuse me, my lady…”

Jack knew well enough that he had little talent for delicate turns of phrase. When a conversation turned emotional, his only fallback was to change the subject.

Maybe it’s my fault — because I’ve been hiding it.

Seven grew close to foreigners she had met for the first time today with remarkable ease. And he knew that was exactly what was unsettling my lady’s mood.

The reason my lady hasn’t been able to make friends to that degree is that I haven’t been relaying her words properly. Wouldn’t it be better to just come clean now? Come to think of it, there’s no reason to hide it anymore, is there? She has a junior now, too—

Jack raised his hand to tap the back of Aspara, who was walking ahead of him.

But still…

Yet the raised hand would not move any further.

If not for this task… would there be any reason for me to remain at my lady’s side?

“Jackie.”

An instant before his fingertips could touch Aspara’s back, the owner of the back whipped around.

“Y-yes?”

“Where’s your room?”

Aspara asked as if retrieving something she had left in his keeping.

“…You aren’t trying to go to my room, are you?”

“I am trying to go to your room.”

“I’d rather not…”

Aspara’s longtime faithful retainer grumbled, but without another word he set off in front of his mistress and led the way.

“Listening to the talk just now gave me a little something to think about. Back when Miss Seven and my ex-husband and I were all living together, there was something we used to talk about…”

Living together, if you could even call it that — it was more that that woman went ahead and moved into your husband’s room of her own accord — Jack swallowed the words back down.