A Dispatch.

A dispatch.

Volmo made a face as if to say oh — right, and then, in that same urgent voice, spoke again.

《Yes. I came back in a hurry because we need to send a messenger bird to the border. There’s a related matter I must relay, so I’d like Ugli to come with me.》

Ugli nodded, his face grave.

《Right. Then, uh…》

Volmo left one last word as he pulled the door shut behind him.

《Put… something on.》

《…And that is how the situation stands.》

Gathered in the castle lord’s office were Aspara, Ugli, Volmo, Gus, and Star, the maid who knew the identity of the purple cloth.

Volmo suggested that, for the sake of smooth communication, the second interpreter Jack ought to be called in as well; but Ugli objected furiously on grounds of secrecy, and the idea came to nothing.

《So then — the chance the messenger bird arrives in time is low, is it?》

《On the low side. For the present, we must plan on the assumption of failure.》

《And what happens if we can’t stop them?》

《Any number of things. Information could leak, and parties with a stake in the dyeing trade might stir themselves up to invade the north…》

Volmo looked dejected as he explained, as though the whole thing were his own fault.

《The one saving grace, for the moment, is that all the other side knows is that we have a mysteriously high-caliber purple-dye technology. If they learned that a dye of that caliber could be made from plants growing wild in the north, they would burn every grassland we have to the ground and still have fury to spare.》

《All because of a little scrap of cloth? I like purple too, but not that much.》

《For southerners, the color purple is not simply a color. It is a commodity — something closer to gold, or to a bond-note.》

Star didn’t quite understand what he was talking about, but for the time being she nodded along with a grave expression.

《But.》

Ugli raised his hand and spoke.

《So in the end — that purple cloth: where did it come from?》

《That is… Star, you explain it to him… please. I have to interpret for Lady Aspara.》

The girl nodded, then explained: where she had discovered it, why Volmo had come to have it, and even her reasoning on how it had come into being in the first place.

《For you to have happened upon it by chance like that — impressive. If only it hadn’t been taken from us, it could have become an economic weapon.》

《But it was taken.》

At the castle lord’s words, Volmo bowed his head again as if stricken with guilt. Just then, Aspara opened her mouth for the first time.

“— — —— — — —.”

《She says: if we can only buy a little time, there is in fact another way.》

《Another way?》

“— ——— — —— — ———.”

The woman looked at the interpreter as she continued with her second sentence. But he hesitated to translate it.

《Hey — what did the madam say?》

《…She says it is a matter that will require my mother’s cooperation.》

《Your mother?》

《The plan would be that—》

At that moment, a knock sounded at the office door. Soon an attendant came rushing into the room, breath heaving as though he had run the whole way.

《Castle lord, a messenger bird has come!》

《Already?》

《It is not a reply to the one we sent. No — that is, it could serve as a reply, in terms of what it contains, but…》

Cupping a grey pigeon carefully in both hands, he spoke.

A messenger bird is only a flying creature that goes where it has been trained to go. For that reason, Fang Castle had no way to send a letter to Flower’s party, who were still on the move. However, depending on the bird’s training, a private individual could send a letter to a large building.

At Gus’s nod, the attendant nodded in turn, unfolded the paper he had been holding, and read.

《This is a letter from a man named Flower.》

《What does it say.》

《He says he wishes to… invite the madam — Lady Aspara — down to the south.》

A sharp intake of breath rang through the room; no one could tell whose.

《She may bring up to two attendants, provided they are unarmed; however, he says, the castle lord may not accompany her…》

《…Is there a deadline stated?》

《No, that is everything.》

Crunch.

Metal crunched. The pen shaft in Gus’s hand had snapped in two.

Like men awaiting the jaws of an angry beast to open, the people in the room could not bring themselves to be the first to speak.

“Then—.”

It was Aspara who broke the silence.

“Then if we — — — how about—.”

“Yes?”

“—— —— ———.”

Volmo hemmed and hawed, as though thinking how on earth to convey this, before finally managing to open his mouth.

《Er… Lady Aspara has said, ‘Then how about going right away, tomorrow morning.’…》

《Going?》

“— — —.”

《“We have to go,” she says.》

The castle lord did not hide his displeased expression.

Seeing that, Aspara thought to herself.

To be forced to send your own wife off to her own ex-husband so helplessly — of course, that would injure a man’s pride a great deal. And yet, is he not the leader of a nation? For a matter where, to any onlooker, the weight of gain and loss is self-evident, to show displeasure this openly, out in the open—

She reached out a hand and wrapped it around Gus’s large one.

“—, — — —.”

《…I will translate at once.》

Volmo relayed the conversation between the two of them calmly, in a low and measured voice.

“Castle lord, I know that this is an unpleasant business.”

《Madam, I am not certain that you truly must go.》

“Why is that?”

《…Where is there a husband who can send his wife off to another man so easily?》

Aspara saw that something in his heart had been deeply wounded, and concluded privately that what had been hurt was a man’s pride.

“Which of the two carries more weight? The leader as an individual — or the safety of the nation?”

《That is…》

“The petty feelings of one man in leadership — or the people?”

《…The people.》

Only then did Aspara smile.

“Gus, do not worry.”

The castle lord gazed into his wife’s deep eyes. And in them he saw, reflected, the face of a man who looked powerless.

“I will come back.”

On the way back to her room after the meeting, Jack came pattering along behind Aspara. It seemed he had been eavesdropping on the meeting from outside the shutter of the room.

“Um — are you really going?”

Jack spoke while chewing on his snack of pickled cherries, popping one into Aspara’s mouth as he did.

“I have to go… Oh, this is good.”

“Right? But — what if you go there and end up not being able to come back…”

“It’s all right.”

Aspara swallowed the crushed cherry pulp and said,

“That is not what I came here for, to begin with.”

“You mean, going back?”

“No. I came here in the first place as a symbol of southern-northern harmony — a political marriage, for what that’s worth. In name, at any rate. If I am to be used as a tool of negotiation, how glad, how proper a thing that would be.”

“It isn’t proper. You aren’t a tool, my lady.”

“Being a tool is better than being a villainess.”

“What?”

“There’s a story behind that.”

The woman smiled only at the corners of her mouth, as if even she did not quite know what she was saying.

“They said I may bring as many as two attendants… Should I bring one northerner-attendant along? If only the two of us go, the odds are high that both of us end up stuck in the south. With one foreigner in the mix, that one, at least, can be sent back to the north. That way, we wouldn’t be entirely cut off.”

Jack felt something oddly off about a mistress who could say so matter-of-factly that she might not be coming back to the north for a while. No, that she might never return to the north at all. But Aspara’s eyes were so calm he couldn’t bring himself to point it out.

“Then who should we… Shall I call for Star? She’s my lady’s own personal attendant.”

“Star won’t do. Shouldn’t you be recommending Ugli? Hmm?”

“I may be close with Ugli, but in a matter this important, I wouldn’t put forward someone I know personally.”

Jack added lightly, with a laugh, “Do you really think that in a crisis like this I’d try to spend time with my sweetheart — am I that much of a hedonist?”

But Aspara did not laugh back; her expression stayed serious as she answered.

“No, that is not what I mean.”

Tak. The woman pulled the door firmly shut.

Only then did Jack realize he had arrived at his mistress’s room.

Once she had confirmed the door was properly closed, Aspara turned and said,

“We can’t take Star with us.”

“Why not?”

“You don’t speak the northern tongue.”

At that same hour, Ugli had just arrived back at his own room as well.

《Damn it all!》

He slammed the door shut behind him and shouted.

《That woman brings nothing but trouble!》

He tore at his hair and vented his temper into the empty air.

Aspara. That woman he could not stand. Now that woman was putting the north in danger.

Of course, the blame was complicated, but to Ugli it was simply that Aspara, the woman who had gotten under his skin, was the one most at fault.

《Hhhh… It’s fine. What they want over there is that woman. If we just hand that woman over, more or less…》

But there was something that bothered him.

That man who grew a flower garden inside his head. That man had said, in his letter, that she could bring up to two attendants.

He did not know whom that woman would choose as her second attendant, but the first was self-evident.

《Jack…》

Aspara would surely take Jack along and return south.