Uninvited Guest.

Uninvited guest.

“You… you…! Ugli! You…!”

《— — ——? —— — – ——.》

“Don’t pretend you can’t understand me! Come down this instant!”

Sebinya’s face had gone red with fury, and she was shouting at the top of her lungs. Any of her acquaintances who had seen her in that moment would have been stunned silent by the raw anger in her voice alone.

Ugli, like a man waiting for a barking dog to wander past, loafed along pretending not to notice — but once it became clear the young lady had no intention of disappearing, he finally vaulted lightly over the railing and came down. Despite the considerable drop, he bent his knees to absorb the impact with practiced ease.

“Oh, that southern talk. Donna know it.”

“I’m being serious. I really am furious!”

He watched Sebinya huff and puff with a lazy grin on his face, then, as if he’d understood every word, heaved one long sigh.

“What do you want me to do about it.”

“You told me Castle Lord Gus was a decent man! I trusted you, and only you… I trusted you, and I sent my dearest friend all the way out here to this godforsaken place…!”

“Your dearest friend?”

“Don’t play dumb with me!”

“I’m not playing dumb. I genuinely don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ugli muttered.

“I never said anything of the sort. What I said was that the castle lord was a better man than that flower-of-yours — or flowerpot, or whatever his name is — that boyfriend of yours.”

“That still means he’s a good man, doesn’t it!”

“Ninety percent of the men in the world are better than your husband, you know?”

“They are not!”

“Your husband’s trash.”

The adrenaline that had been exploding inside her only moments before still lingered, and Sebinya’s tone grew louder and sharper than ever.

“Lord Flower is a good husband!”

“How exactly do you figure.”

“…Going by his face!”

“Our castle lord’s good-looking too.”

“He is not! His face is all craggy!!”

Sebinya, still huffing and puffing, was startled by the sound of her own voice; she cleared her throat and drew in a deep breath. The torn folds of her coat fluttered in time with her breathing.

“I… I thought, because you were always praising him as a quiet, good sort of person… I thought that if it was here, Lady Aspara could live in quiet and happiness too. She’s always been someone who preferred being alone in a quiet place…”

“Really now. How very kindhearted of you.”

Ugli’s lazy grin was still in place, but his eyes had gone cold.

“And as a little bonus on the side, you went and married your ‘dearest friend’s’ ex-husband, didn’t you. Never one to leave leftovers on your plate, are you. Such a good girl, really.”

“Don’t touch my hair.”

“I was only tidying it for you. It’s a mess, you know, right now.”

“In any case… Lady Aspara can’t even recognize the love Lord Flower has for her, so I thought — better that she go off to a town ruled by a good castle lord, be with a man she liked, and live quietly and… happily. I arranged it out of consideration for her… If I’d known that man was a savage barbarian like that, I never would have. Oh, poor Lady Aspara.”

Out of nowhere, the chestnut-haired young lady had begun sniffling and weeping.

“…I’m sorry. Shouting at you like that — it was dreadfully rude of me too. Whenever I’m with you I seem to turn into someone strange.”

“You only show your true colors when you’re with me, I’d say.”

“Are you all right, yourself? Living with a man as savage as that…”

“Far better than in the old days.”

Wiping her streaming tears with a handkerchief, Sebinya composed her posture. Each time her shoulders shook with soft weeping, the torn pieces of her coat fluttered.

“So then — what on earth happened.”

“I don’t know, we were just talking and then suddenly he got angry and told me to… to get lost…!”

“I can well imagine.”

Ugli let out a deep sigh. No doubt she’d said something thoughtless. Still, if it meant the woman would leave the castle sooner, it was nothing but a boon to him.

《Volmo.》

“…”

《Volmo.》

《Ah.》

《Track down my wife’s friend’s coachman and her servant and see them to the carriage. Help them leave as quickly as possible.》

The young man, not yet fully recovered from his panic, hesitated as though trying to say something, then left the room without a bow.

Alone now in the bedroom, Gus surveyed the ruin of it. Torn wallpaper, gouges scoring the window frames, shards of shattered porcelain strewn across the floor… the room was a disaster.

This was supposed to be our bridal chamber.

Running his hand over the deeply gouged wall, the castle lord recalled it now. On a closer look, the slightly rough wallpaper bore a pattern of small white-eyes printed across it — birds that symbolized peace and harmony.

The castle lord tried pressing the torn wallpaper back against the wall with his hand, but once paper had been ripped, it only sagged limply. Still, with fresh paste and enough pressure held long enough, it could perhaps be repaired.

…It wasn’t really all that unpleasant, honestly.

In the north there is no king. King of Barbarians, the man who stole a throne with sword and fire — the epithets were many, but strictly speaking he was not a king. He was no more than a “castle lord.”

Since putting down the disputes between the original inhabitants and the refugees by force, he had come to be treated as something like a leader, but in this sparsely populated, barren land, centralized authority carried no real meaning and no real power. Most northerners still lived on a village-by-village, subsistence basis; the border was porous; and of the privileges recognized for leaders by foreign states, he held none.

Because he had neither history nor legitimacy.

“That’s precisely why we have to put on a show of having legitimacy.”

Ugli had once said so.

“Blue-blooded types are nobles even when they’re living like beggars, and cultured people even when they carry on like farmhands. But we aren’t. Look down on us and we really do become the low sort. We must never — ever — let ourselves be looked down on.”

“Hmm, I don’t know about that.”

“For starters, watch your words. You — so long as you keep your mouth shut, you look pretty fearsome.”

“Doesn’t a leader have to talk a lot. Give speeches and so on…”

“The hard parts like that, I’ll handle. All you need to be is the symbolic rallying point. To be frank with you, when you open your mouth you spoil things somewhat.”

“Hm…”

He let out a small, wry laugh. It had stung a bit, but he couldn’t think of anything to say in rebuttal, so he had simply sat there and listened.

His was a body that had done nothing but fight from the moment his limbs stiffened at birth. After the conflict ended, he hadn’t particularly known what to do with himself, so he had accepted the post his old war comrade had proposed to him. There was nothing else he had to do, nothing else he wanted to do.

If I’m forced to say what I want now…

The man glared at the backs of his eyelids and thought about it carefully.

…Something like a housekeeper-husband, maybe.

That would be impossible, of course. He couldn’t even cook…

In that case, the second thing he wanted most was, after all, to become a “real king.” No — to put it precisely, to be “the queen’s husband.”

She is, after all, a princess.

And by coming to me, she is the one who fell to being “the barbarian’s wife.”

The least thing I can do for her…

His mind was a tangle. The nonsense the madam’s friend had spouted only moments before was weighing on him, and having wrecked his wife’s room without permission stung sharply at his chest. Come to think of it, he’d have to silence those attendants too. Since he himself had caused the commotion, they wouldn’t spread it around lightly, but there was no fully stopping rumors.

Rumors. They were only groundless rumors. Once his mind had calmed, he would call for Volmo and confirm exactly what had been said. Surely something must have been miscommunicated somewhere. Letting such nonsense into his heart would—

The smell of the bed he was leaning against was unusually nice, and his head, held tense for so long, was heavy, and so before he knew it the castle lord had slipped off into sleep.

When Gus opened his eyes, for a moment he thought he was dreaming. The madam, seated at his bedside, looking down at him. It was not an unfamiliar dream.

“Um, —.”

Yet the sensation of an angel in a dream poking his cheek was far too real for any dream. The castle lord startled upright like a cat caught off guard.

《—— —!!》

“Oh. ——.”

《Madam, why are you…》

Here, he meant to go on — and then he realized. Here — this was her room.

“— — ——. — —— there. — now ——?”

《The room… ah, the room is… I’m very sorry.》

“—? Ah, — —— —. I — — ——. This — – — — —— — — — ——.”

That even, composed tone. How could she sound so calm about it. Gus looked around, wondering whether perhaps the room had been tidied up entirely while he slept, or whether the whole thing hadn’t been a dream. But the room was still in a state no better than a battlefield.

How long had he been asleep? Did she know what kind of offense he had committed against her friend?

“Um, this —— ——.”

Only then did the castle lord notice what was in the madam’s hand. The crumpled rag with his own bootprint stamped onto it. The draft of the banner.

Yes — he had come to show her this drawing. Except when he arrived the madam hadn’t been in the room, and then—

Gus’s face went abruptly hot. Seen now in her fine, delicate hand, the drawing looked miserably shabby. What on earth had he been thinking, bringing that crude scribble to show off as though it were something worth bragging about.

He reached to snatch the rag from her, and was stopped.

“—’s lovely.”

《Pardon?》

“[Rabbit]? This—”

She pointed to the rabbit drawing as she spoke. With slightly too-pointed ears, eyes just a touch too big, a few too many legs — a black thing that honestly looked less like a rabbit and more like some creature out of the underworld — but a rabbit drawing he had drawn in dead earnest. Aspara beamed at it as though she rather liked it.

“[Rabbit]?”

《Pardon?》

“[Rabbit].”

Aspara pressed her fingers tightly together and bent them slightly, then placed both hands above her head to make the shape of rabbit ears. Giving her upper body a little shake, she even added the sound effects of a hopping bounce.