Seeing Her Off.

Seeing her off.

Aspara pointed to another drawing beneath the numeral. Two stick figures stood with their hands overlapped.

“I came to receive one of the portions you promised. Do you know what this is?”

《Thr— —… one— ——?》

Aspara sensed, by instinct, that her companion had roughly understood. The woman nodded, and then, as if to say now it’s my turn, gave her own chest a couple of light thumps.

“That’s…”

Aspara turned the matter over in her head and produced the most romantic date-invitation line she could muster.

“I shall attend upon you properly.”

《— — ——?》

“He can’t make it out. Right, then — shall you use drawings too? …Ah, no, that won’t do. If I draw any more, I’ll end up trespassing on this adorable rabbit picture.”

Gus gazed quietly at his wife as she chattered on in words that made no sense. Her pink crown of hair wiggled, squirm-squirm, every time she spoke.

《—… I understand.》

The reason he had, until now, avoided active conversation was not simply a matter of language. The largest obstacle had been his doubt over whether his wife, who surely must be terrified of him, could ever speak her honest mind to him at all.

And yet, here she was at this close a distance, meeting his eyes and thumping her own chest. The sight of her was more than enough to set him at ease.

“Ah, that much I know. You’re saying you understand, yes?”

Watching his wife laugh as if to confirm it, the castle lord nodded. With no interpreter attached, it was now that Gus was having the easiest time of his life understanding his wife’s meaning. Ironically.

《Madam.》

“Yes?”

“My lady!”

Bang. The quieting mood was abruptly shattered by the sound of wall and door colliding.

This room of mine, honestly — is it a stable or something. The door keeps flying open at every opportunity.

“Oh, so you are here!”

“So I am.”

“Pardon the intrusion. I was looking for you, and the door was slightly ajar, and what I glimpsed inside was an utter mess, and I got a terrible fright…”

“The children who were with Miss Seven earlier must have played very roughly before they left.”

“Ah, speaking of her—”

Catching his breath as he scanned the room, Jack’s eyes met Gus’s. His look suggested the wariness, which had eased a little recently, had just flared back up.

“This the castle lord’s doing?”

“I told you, it wasn’t. Probably.”

“Then what is that man doing here?”

“This happens to be his castle, you know.”

Her tone was faintly chiding. But once Jack had confirmed that his mistress wasn’t cowering, he smiled in relief instead. He even set his shoulders a little more squarely and glared right back at the castle lord.

The moment Gus’s brow twitched, Jack immediately shrank back. Still, the fist Jack had clenched no longer trembled the way it once had.

《…Hmm, — — ——.》

“What?”

Their brief staring contest ended, and Gus rose to his feet. With each step he took closer, Jack lowered his body’s center of gravity without thinking.

“Wh— what is it, come on!”

《Pardon the interruption.》

Gus moved on past Jack, or more precisely, toward the doorway Jack was blocking.

《Knight.》

“What.”

《To the madam — the time — — ——.》

“Hm? Ah, yes.”

With a short, silent bow to his wife, the castle lord left the room. The heavy door rattled shut once more with a firm thud.

“…”

“What did he just say?”

“Eh? Y-yes? Uh, I think he was asking about the time…”

“You think?”

“Ah — he was asking about the time!”

“So he was. We hadn’t fixed it yet, had we. I’ll let you know the time later, so pass it along for me.”

“Yes.”

Aspara had risen and begun to tidy up the chair and the picture frame and whatever else had fallen to the floor. Jack pattered over to help and spoke as he worked.

“My lady, nothing really happened, right?”

“He was only asking about something we’d planned.”

“Still, something about this…”

What Jack was really worried about was not the close posture the two had been sharing. He had noticed that, as the excitement hormones subsided, a belated tension was creeping back into Aspara’s expression.

“If you decide later that you don’t want to go, cancel. I’ll take responsibility and pass the word.”

“It isn’t like that, so don’t fret.”

“That’s the face you make when something is bothering you, though.”

Aspara knew perfectly well what her knight was circling around in his concern. She put on another excuse instead and said,

“…It’s only that I was put out earlier, because the castle lord tried to climb onto the bed with his shoes on.”

“Ah, yes — people here do that.”

“I understand it, but it’s quite hard to get used to. Honestly, I half wonder if they don’t keep them on during their nightly business too, these people.”

“Ah, they take them off for that.”

“Do they.”

“Yes. …Ah.”

A while later, when Star came to help tidy the room, the two of them continued putting it back together in silence.

There is a single-story stone building in the rear garden of the castle. Like so many things in this haphazardly-run castle, it was put to various uses as the occasion called for.

When a house collapsed under heavy snow it became lodgings; during the southerly-wind season it became a shed for drying foodstuffs; and until not long ago it had been the space where bundles of purple flowers were hung in great quantities.

《So we just clean the whole place out?》

《A rough sweep’ll do. We’re only turning it into a makeshift storehouse anyway.》

A makeshift storehouse. That was the latest new name bestowed upon the old building. The main storehouse had been filled to bursting with the gifts an unexpected southern visitor had left behind in heaps.

《This was where we’d been keeping the dried flowers, so there’s not much to clear out… but the floor wants a bit of washing. There’s some sort of stain worked into it.》

《Huh, you’re right. Mold, maybe?》

The workers who had come in to clean the storehouse stood looking down at the floor. Across the pale-grey flagstones, a vivid purple had spread. A mark like crushed bilberries.

《Damn it, seriously. Figured it might be mold or water-scale.》

《We’d been drying and binding the frostbloom herb here until just recently. The place must’ve taken on some damp.》

Water-scale, though. That wasn’t something one commonly saw on this dry land. So the workers, uncertain, grumbled back and forth and put their heads together over how to get the deep mark out.

《Is water-scale really supposed to look like this? Imagine — a stain this pretty exists.》

Star, who had been hauling a powdered pest-killer for bedbugs, cut in. She wasn’t a worker normally assigned to jobs in this section. But on the exceedingly forced pretext of “We’re cleaning out the storehouse Aspara used, so her dedicated attendant Star is responsible for cleaning it too,” she had been dragged out.

《Pretty, my foot. This is driving me mad — it won’t come off at all. It’s not even dried; it’s like the stone itself has changed color.》

《Go fetch the madam and have her clean it herself.》

《Shall we? Star, you go and tell her.》

The workers scrubbing away at the floor snickered as they spoke.

《Why do you have to put it like that.》

The only one seriously throwing herself into the stubborn stain was Star. She pressed the floor, hard, with a dry cloth and then a wet one, and before long she settled in and gazed quietly at the mark.

《Does it really have to come out? It’s pretty.》

《What?》

《I’ve never seen such a deep purple before.》

《That’s what I’m saying. What kind of stain soaks in this deeply.》

《Isn’t it vivid, really? Even frostbloom-herb petals have a bit of yellow mixed in, but — to think a purple like this exists in the world.》

The senior attendant, looking faintly displeased, brushed it off with a laugh. He figured that Star, Aspara’s close attendant, was taking up unreasonable sides just to keep the madam from being criticized.

《If it’s so pretty, why don’t you just peel it off and take it to your own room.》

《Ah — really?》

《Yeah, because if we don’t do at least that, it’s clearly never coming off. That’s my point.》

《Wah, thank you!》

Rejoicing in the senior’s sneering benevolence, Star flipped the handle of the mop she’d stood by the floor and held it upside down. Both hands gripping the old-pinewood shaft, the girl drew in a breath, hup, and brought it down hard against the floor.

Bang, bang — with only two downstrokes, the limestone floor split with a sharp crack.

Star wedged her fingers into the crack and bore down again.

Little by little, the seam between the stone chunks widened with a creak, creak, until at last, with a sound like the end of an earthquake, the slab broke free of the floor and rose lightly into the air.

《Oh dear, I put a bit too much into it.》

The girl bent her knees slightly, spread her shoulders, and settled into a stance to catch the falling rock.

《Huup…!》

The boulder plunging toward her head was, thankfully, caught in Star’s hands and came to rest on her shoulder. Hoisting a stone lump the size of a crouched calf onto her shoulder, Star broke into a bright smile.

《Thank you so much! Honestly, it came off cleanly. It’ll look so pretty hung on a wall, won’t it?》

《Yeah… take it on, then.》

The senior worker answered with noticeably less snideness in his voice.

《I really love it. I’m awfully fond of purple, you see. But purple things are hard to come by, aren’t they?》

《Ah, yes. Now that you mention it.》

《The rude young lady who came the other day was wearing purple clothes, but apart from that, I don’t think I’ve seen it anywhere.》

《That was really pretty, wasn’t it! The south must truly have everything.》

Star thought, suddenly.

Of the hair color of Aspara and her bumbling knight, of the deep color of their skin and their gaudy ornaments. They were surely wearing colors that did not belong on these snowfields. Those must be the colors of the south. Just like that pretty purple skirt…