Visit.

Visit.

“…It is not for such a complicated reason that I cannot go.”

Aspara beckoned Gus closer, as though she had something to share. Following his wife’s gesture, Gus leaned down and, out of long habit, parted his feet slightly so his head would drop lower. No matter how hard he strained, he could never catch a single word; and yet he still brought his ear as close to his wife’s lips as he could. His body had learned the habit without his noticing, from the very first day, when he had realized his wife was smaller than a squirrel.

And then—

Peck.

For an instant, neither Flower nor Gus grasped what had just happened. It was something no one had foreseen, utterly outside the context of the moment.

Aspara had leaned in and brushed her lips lightly against Gus’s cheek. It was the briefest of kisses. And yet, at the same time, it was a wordless declaration about the nature of their relationship.

Startled by the unforeseen gesture, the castle lord’s eyes flew wide, and for a moment he froze in place.

“We happen to be in the middle of a date at present, so I cannot leave.”

《— ——?!!》

The castle lord’s weathered skin flushed red.

But the instant he grasped his wife’s meaning, a small smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

“Uh…”

“That is how it stands with us. Since you’ve come all this way, do take in the sights while you’re here. This country is prettier than you might have thought. Pay your inn bill in full.”

Aspara gestured toward the table as she spoke. Only then did Flower look down at the spread and realize the plates had been scraped clean.

And all through that, he just kept on eating.

“Come now, let us go, husband.”

《Yes, —, —…》

“Voli— Moli, will you be staying behind?”

“Ah, no! I’m coming now!”

The party from the north slipped out of the inn in haste, before Flower and his servants could make sense of the situation.

It was not a terribly difficult thing to manage. It was, after all, a situation that would take them some considerable time to grasp.

“Haa… haa…”

Having all but sprinted out of the inn, Aspara steadied her breath. When she came back to herself, her legs were trembling uncontrollably.

“What on earth was that?!”

“Good question. What on earth is with that fellow.”

To Volmo’s reproach, Aspara answered in her usual unflappable tone. Or tried to, at any rate.

But for all the blandness of its delivery, her voice shook without her permission.

《—, are you all right?》

“I am fine. That man lives off his pride and nothing else.”

Aspara cleared her throat and went on.

“A southern war is a war of face. If word got out that he was taking revenge for a slap from a woman, he’d be a laughingstock for the rest of his life — and Flower hasn’t the stomach to shoulder a risk like that.”

《— ——, you— —— — —.》

The castle lord spoke in a voice that sounded as though he were holding back a little anger. Until Volmo’s interpretation came through, Aspara had thought Gus was angry at her recklessness.

“—That is not what he means. The castle lord is asking whether you are all right.”

“Me?”

Aspara’s eyes went round with surprise.

“I…”

Am I all right?

It was the first time Aspara had ever posed the question to herself.

Hers was a heart that had been all right through every humiliation, through every bewilderment. She was not a person who would be undone by something of this size.

Yet her legs were still trembling, faintly.

Am I really all right? Once more, Aspara put the question to herself.

“I…”

But she could not tell. She could not tell what emotion she was feeling.

Even so, since difficulty in discerning one’s own feelings meant the feelings were quiet, and quiet feelings meant there was nothing particularly wrong, Aspara soon nodded.

“I am all right. Though it may not be all right that the highlight of our date was cut so short.”

The castle lord, who had been watching his wife’s composed, smiling face with a trace of concern, listened to Volmo’s translation and awkwardly turned up the corners of his mouth.

“Still, just to be safe, let us walk a little along the outskirts of the village for a stroll. It will also give us a chance to make sure those fellows haven’t been up to anything strange here.”

Gus nodded.

“Then please lead the way. You there, Volmo!”

At the lady’s call, Volmo gave a startled flinch and turned around. He had been staring back at the inn, fiddling with something inside his breast pocket.

“Let us be on our way. There’s nothing to be gained by lingering here.”

“Ah, yes.”

“Did you perhaps leave something at the inn?”

“No, no. It’s nothing. I’m coming now!”

He glanced back at the inn with an uneasy look before hurrying after his two masters.

Upon the black road, three people are walking. A man and a woman ahead, and a man following behind.

Having left the inn, Aspara set out along the outskirts of the small village. The pace was a touch brisk for an outing.

In truth, they had not so much begun walking as fled. Still, the party held firm against the unease and simply walked on.

She glanced back over her shoulder now and again with every hurried step, but once they had passed into a place where the inn was no longer in sight, she began, little by little, to settle.

Until Aspara’s finely trembling hands came to a complete stop, the castle lord, through Volmo, kept up small talk about trivial things.

《…— —.》

“—So, he says next time you ought to strike here, and here.”

“I see.”

《Here is — – — the most —— — ——.》

“He says that spot is the most painful place to strike without leaving any lasting damage.”

“Then where is the most painful place that does leave lasting damage?”

Volmo relayed the question to the castle lord, and the castle lord answered with exactly one syllable. But because Volmo could not bring himself to say such a word in front of a lady, he refused to translate it.

It was an unremarkable stroll. For an outing between husband and wife, it was dry; yet compared to the atmosphere of not long ago, it was an intimate time, or something close to it.

The village was, as expected, small and quiet. To call it beautiful would have been a stretch. The ground was black with half-slushed snow, and patches of moss sprouting up here and there cast a yellowish tint over the walls.

But that was the north’s spring. If one shut one’s eyes and concentrated, the air carried a faint but unmistakable scent of spring. The smell of the eastern wind, the smell of moss spores, the smell of the fungi in the earth beginning to stir busily about their work.

“…”

“…”

How incredibly awkward.

So thought Volmo.

For two people of so few words, topics for conversation had run dry in no time at all.

But for Gus, the moment he had been waiting for had at last drawn near. He sensed that the time had finally come to broach the subject he had long wanted to raise.

《— ——.》

“About the knight.”

From behind the two, Volmo delivered the words with careful enunciation.

《…He’s a good man, your knight, madam.》

“Hm? Well, yes, he is.”

《…》

Gus hesitated, then went on.

《How do you regard him?》

“He is a fellow who has been with me a very long time — to me he is a dear friend and family both. He says something strange every once in a while, but at his core he is a good person.”

《Is that so…》

The castle lord gave a faintly bitter smile.

《I wonder if I have not come between the two of you.》

Aspara thought: So this man has been worrying, all this time, about having treated Jack badly when they first met.

Well, back then the two of them really did hate each other.

She found the cautious way the castle lord was bringing up the old matter endearing. Even now it would be hard to call the two men close, but compared with the beginning, they had certainly become something like comrades.

“Please don’t trouble yourself about it. You are doing very well.”

《…That is a relief.》

As Volmo translated, he added, “—or so the castle lord said, in a rather grudging tone of voice.”

《Your past is of no concern to me. It is enough for me simply to share the present with you.》

“Exactly. What does the past matter.”

This is a man clumsy at apologies. All this mood-setting just to apologize for something from long ago. Aspara looked at her unsocial husband and gave a small laugh.

Only the interpreter, caught in the middle, sensed that some sort of misunderstanding was taking place, but he could not bring himself to cut in.

《The things of the past can be forgotten. But in the future… in the future that lies ahead of you, is there a place for me?》

“What an obvious thing to ask.”

Aspara answered with a smile, as if it were indeed the most obvious thing in the world.

On receiving the answer, Gus’s expression remained, as ever, solemn and stolid. But Volmo saw it. The castle lord’s left fist, clenched tight as if in a silent Yes!

《Madam…》

“Neither in my present nor in my future will I ever give anyone up. Not you. And not Jack.”

Gus’s face took on a somewhat bewildered expression.

《Er… you mean, together with the knight.》

“Yes. All of us together, on good terms.”

《…The three of us? Is that what you mean?》

“Do you still dislike Jack, even now?”

《…》

These people — the conversation seems to have slipped off the rails somewhere….

But since Volmo himself could not quite tell where exactly it had slipped, he did not meddle in the exchange.

He merely resolved to himself that once they were back at the castle, he would have to pass on the content of this conversation to Jack.

“…Oh my, what a cute mushroom. We had this back home, too. Hey, Volmo, will you pass something along for me? This—”

Assuming the castle lord was simply awkward about apologies, Aspara exercised her considerate streak and shifted the topic.

The conversation skipped right along into idle chatter, and Gus had neither the verbal dexterity nor the social grace to steer it back to where it had been.

“So, when we cook mushrooms back home—”

Grrowwwl—

A small but unmistakable growl of a stomach interrupted the conversation. It was the sound of Aspara’s belly.