Succession Rights.

Succession rights.

“Yes, yes. You’re quite right. It would only cause trouble.”

What on earth she’s going on about, I haven’t the faintest idea, Flower was thinking privately.

“I think it’s time I fulfilled my own part as well.”

With a small clatter, the woman set down her teacup. The cup itself had been empty for some time.

“I’ve made up my mind. I shall remain here with you.”

Before the man could say something ill-omened, Aspara swiftly went on.

“On one condition, however.”

“A condition?”

“Given that this is a matter of an unwed woman and a man being together, surely we ought to take our time and be prudent about it.”

“To have pined after you with regret all these years since sending you off — what is there to be prudent about?”

“I haven’t much thought of you, personally.”

Aspara said it with a small laugh, as though telling him to stop talking nonsense.

“Besides, the last time didn’t exactly end well, now did it.”

“Don’t you worry about that. I have forgiven everything.”

Into Flower’s amiably smiling face, the woman thrust out a single finger.

“Still, you must consider the eyes of the world.”

Flower could tell, faintly, that it was a threat.

“If we live together again, it may yet be that I come to tire of you all over again. As it happens, the auspicious day of the new moon is not so far off — until then, let us stay here together and shore up our fondness for one another.”

Would you look at this woman.

“And if, after that, you still love me, we might climb to the next step then. Would that not be better?”

She’s been working her little head, thinking she’s clever.

Flower beamed inwardly, cheering himself on.

A scheme to behave as vilely as possible until the new moon comes, to make my feelings curdle, so she can force me to renege on the arrangement from her own side.

“Very well. That you would accept my proposal in such earnest is itself an honor.”

But what can I say? No matter what damned fuss you kick up, I’m not calling off this engagement.

“Conversely, should my heart not change by the time the new moon arrives, you will refuse me no longer — you’ll accept my feelings in turn. Yes?”

“But of course.”

The corners of the man’s mouth quivered faintly. He was holding back a grin that wanted to split his face clean open.

“Then, to make the promise binding, shall we put it down in writing? You there — bring paper and a pen!”

He pounded the table bang, bang until the teacups rattled, shouting the order.

Flower was, in his own way, fond of Aspara. If asked whether he liked her or disliked her, he could say with certainty that he liked her.

But that was, at present, a secondary matter. The first and foremost purpose of this reconciliation was something far greater, far more important.

Succession rights!

Feigning composure, the man fiddled idly with his teacup.

What she may get up to until the new moon, I cannot say — but that doesn’t matter. Fondness doesn’t matter. All I need is to secure the succession rights!

In the early days of his marriage, he had been resolved to treat his new bride with care. She was not an unlovely woman, and her quiet nature had pleased him.

But that resolve had gone to pieces before much time had passed.

That was in effect a swindle of a marriage. That damned matchmaker bastard…

He thought back to when he had first met Aspara, to the day the woman he had summoned with a hefty dowry had stepped down from the carriage.

He had expected someone haughty of nose and loose of tongue; what stepped down was a quiet, biddable, corpse-like woman. That part had been no problem at all. If anything, she was rather lovable.

The real problem lay elsewhere.

That damn second prince — how much money I paid just to be introduced to a princess… and he threw me the leftover chaff he was pruning off his own tree!

The southernmost reaches were made up of archipelagos, and there were many kingdoms in them. Naturally there were many royals, and many princesses. Taking one such princess as a wife was something like a badge of the successful man in the central kingdom.

The trouble was that the “princess” Flower had received was a defective article. Not a true-line royal but a concubine’s child, and far down the order of succession: chaff! Among friends whose wives were “real princesses,” she fell just a little short as a thing to boast of.

And on top of that, the extra expense it took to be rid of her in the end.

Her being a royal turned out to be a poison that made divorcing her no easy matter. Only after handing over additional funds to that swindler of a second prince, through a long and tangled sequence of steps, had he managed to chase her out at last.

But now the situation is different. She doesn’t seem to know it yet, though…

While Aspara had been away in the north, a great many things had changed in that woman’s homeland. The royal scions had been dying off one after another, until only two or so remained.

Aspara was no longer a scrap of chaff of a princess. She was one of a handful of surviving royals. If he could only remarry this woman, it would not be so wildly implausible for Flower himself to enter the scrum for the southern isles’ throne.

Thinking of that, Aspara began to look far lovelier to him than Sebinya, whom he had once so ardently loved.

Charming a passive woman like this one won’t be any great feat.

The voice of the servant arriving with the writing materials broke into Flower’s daydream.

“Master, I’ve brought paper and a pen.”

“Hm? Ah. Good. After lunch, go to the bank and fetch a notary as well. Now then — should my intent to marry remain unchanged past the new moon, I will withdraw the divorce and take Sebinya back as my mistress—”

“Lord Flower.”

Aspara, who had been the first to receive the pen, spoke up carefully.

“I am a little worried. Are you truly confident your heart will not change by the time the new moon passes?”

“Haha, you worry too much. There is no way my heart will change.”

It was not a lie. His heart, set upon his crown, was not about to change.

“Truly so?”

“Truly so.”

“You know what sort of woman I may have become. As you said yourself — while I was away in the north, the habits of the barbarians rubbed off on me just a little.”

“Whatever form you may take, I am confident I will look upon you with the same eyes as always.”

That too was not a lie. Flower, before and now alike, loved Aspara with about the same moderate measure.

The woman answered with a bright little smile.

“In that case — let us wait and see.”

In that instant, Flower felt an inexplicable shiver run up his spine. An unaccountable unease.

“Lord Flower?”

“Hm? Ah, yes — let us wait and see, indeed.”

Tap, tap, tap.

Just then, from behind the door of the parlor, light but distinct footsteps approached.

A moment later, someone pushed her face through the open gap of the door.

“Kyaa — Lady Aspara!”

Flower’s current wife, Aspara’s dear friend: Sebinya.

“You really did come— ah, forgive me for being late with my greeting.”

She at once composed herself demurely, lifted the folds of her skirt just a little, and dipped into a curtsy.

“I trust you’ve been well in the meantime?”

“It hasn’t been all that long, has it.”

“That’s true! Ah, how glad I am that I went to see you when I did. Thanks to it, this tie between us has gone on unbroken…”

The young woman beamed with heartfelt delight.

“As it happens, our talk between ourselves has just come to an end.”

“John has told me everything already.”

Sebinya said this with a sidelong glance at the servant who had brought the pen. “John,” it seemed, was his name.

“Lady Aspara, then — truly…”

“Yes. I’ll be in your care for a while.”

“Kyaa!”

The chestnut-haired woman clapped her hands like a child and cried out,

“To think we’re going to be together from now on — I’m so happy, truly.”

“That isn’t yet a settled matter, however…”

“It’s as good as settled, isn’t it. Right, darling?”

“But of course.”

Sebinya’s husband smiled broadly and took his excited wife by the shoulders to calm her.

Well — how hard could it be to hold out for just that little while? No matter what fuss that woman kicks up, how much could she possibly—

CRASH—!

A great collapsing sound filled the mansion’s corridor. It was followed by the shattering of dishes, and then the whoosh of a fire flaring up.

“Kyaa!”

“What on earth is that — what’s that noise?”

“It’s from the kitchen, sir!”

Five or six servants and the master of the house ran toward the source of the uproar. Surely it couldn’t be that the King of Barbarians had already come breaking down their walls?

The memory of that beast-like man’s eyes and the muscles of his arms surfaced, and Flower’s legs trembled slightly.

“Y-you go in first.”

“M-me, sir?”

“If you weren’t going to go in, why on earth did you come running!”

“Because everyone else was running…”

A woman’s voice broke into the argument between Flower and the servant.

“Whatever are you all up to?”

“Heok!”

It was Aspara.

She was coming out of the kitchen with a somewhat singed hemline and a great lump of charred something cradled in her arms.

“A-and what is it you’re doing, may I ask?”

“As a commemoration of the first day, I was preparing to cook supper for you.”

“That’s… the remains of cooking?”

“It’s a northern method of cookery.”

From inside the kitchen, a thick smell like hair being singed by a lamp came wafting out.

“Don’t you worry. I can manage it quite well on my own.”

“That… leave the cooking to the servants, and for now—”

“Oh my, no. My palate has grown accustomed to northern food, you see.”

Aspara said it with a bright smile.

“From now on, without fail, one meal a day I shall prepare for you myself.”

“No — that truly isn’t necessary.”

“Please don’t say such a thing. Or else…”

Her brows drooped as if she were wounded.

“I have grown so accustomed to preparing my husband’s meals with my own hands every day… if you cannot bear even this much… then there seems no answer but to call off the engagement.”