The Plan.

The Plan.

The castle lord glared at the interpreter-attendant like a beast and silenced him.

《Eep…!》

The young man clamped his mouth shut on instinct, out of sheer animal fear.

《All right. All right — I’ve things to discuss with my mo… with the head of the merchant house anyway… But mind, I’ll take no responsibility for what comes of this!》

《Indeed.》

“Volmo, ―- ― ―― ―-?”

“Ah, ― ―― just ― ―― we were.”

Hm. He had grasped roughly half of the conversation just now. Gus felt his confidence swell and gave an inward nod.

The castle lord had not yet realized that he had grasped roughly half of the words but not a single bit of the conversation’s overall content.

“― ――? ―- ――- ―-…”

“―-. ―- ――.”

After a few small rounds of back-and-forth, Volmo turned to the castle lord and spoke.

《I’ve talked her round, somehow. I told her I had to head back urgently — but I take no responsibility for what comes of it from here on!》

《Right. My thanks.》

The castle lord grinned wide, a smile that to Volmo’s eyes signalled the opening of some wicked plot, and gave him a wave. Unable to wipe the unease from his eyes, the young man glanced back over his shoulder again and again as he disappeared slowly into the woods.

“Mm…”

The castle lord’s wife looked at him with a flustered expression. Flustered, and a little put out. Meeting that face, Gus felt a stab through his chest and flinched at the shoulders.

A little uneasy, perhaps. Being alone with me here in the woods…

So as to put her at ease as far as he was able, Gus began walking with a small distance between them. A single step’s distance: far enough that his great shadow wouldn’t fall over the lady’s head, near enough that the heat radiating off his flushed skin could still be faintly felt. Just that much, exactly.

Maintaining that exact, judicious distance, the man and the woman walked for a long while.

The forest was easy to walk through. Jade-green moss lay spread out like a carpet, and those tufted bryophytes cushioned each step underfoot. It was as though one were walking on a springy sponge.

The air was filled with just the right amount of moisture, the smell of dew, and the songs of all manner of birds. The pecking trills of the bushtit, the long, low cry of the bunting, and, uncannily well-matched to the sound of running water, the warble of the bush warbler.

But the sound that loomed largest of all was an awkward silence. The silence between Gus and Aspara. The silence between two strangers who had lost their interpreter settled in their lungs more heavily than anything else.

“…”

《…》

After a long silence, Aspara was the first to speak.

“Why ever did you send Volmo— ― ――?”

《Y-yes?》

Gus flinched and averted his eyes. Volmo, why ever. He had understood! Surely his special training was starting to pay off, he thought.

She must be asking why he had sent the man back.

《…》

But come to think of it, that wasn’t all of it. I did it because I wanted to spend time alone with you.

— how did one say that in the southern tongue.

The man kept his mouth firmly shut as he walked, and at last he opened it.

“…No reason.”

“…I see.”

That day, Gus felt acutely, intensely, how a man’s thinking cannot escape the bounds of his language.

Why couldn’t he just have rattled away in northern as he always did, or kept silent? What on earth had possessed him to spit out so rude a reply.

…My wife must have felt even more boxed in than I have, all this while.

He breathed out a sigh and thought it over.

Aspara was flustered. Sending back the one and only interpreter-attendant they had — what on earth was this man thinking.

Surely he doesn’t think madam suggested a stroll so the two of us could go off and chase about together hand-in-hand? No — we’ve only just come from a discussion of business. Our trade partner, the lady head of the merchant house, deliberately created a setting beyond the reach of her own ears, just for the two of us. Plainly, this is a signal that we are meant to take our time and discuss the contract together.

Was this, perhaps, the castle lord’s own way of refusing to communicate? Aspara could not help suspecting it.

“…Why did you send Volmo away?”

《―. ―.》

Vol—mo.

Aspara enunciated each syllable distinctly, so that her barbarian husband would catch the meaning.

“…No reason.”

“…I see.”

No reason.

So he did have some grievance after all. Aspara let out another sigh.

This is going to be a long walk.

The forest was difficult to walk through. Mugwort-green moss lay spread out like a marsh, and those sodden bryophytes pulled wet and clinging at each step underfoot. It was as though one were walking on a thoroughly soaked sponge. The air overhead was loud with the cries of birds she could not identify, and rather than filling the silence between the two of them, the noise only threw it into sharper relief.

Painstakingly lifting feet that kept sinking into the ground, Aspara suddenly realized something and gave a start.

The castle lord just now…

She knit her brow and chewed over the moment that had just passed.

Did the castle lord just answer me in the southern tongue?

Aspara turned her head to look back at him. As it happened, he too had been glancing about; in that instant, their eyes met.

…No, surely not.

The castle lord at once looked away and turned his gaze straight ahead. Three paces apart, on and on, on and on. Maintaining the strange distance of master and attendant rather than husband and wife, he simply walked on.

That pronunciation, surely, was not the southern tongue. Mm — surely I was mistaken.

Aspara settled on that conclusion and gave a small, private nod to herself.

“…”

《…》

…There aren’t any!

There weren’t. There simply weren’t. Not so much as the tip of a beak of the supposedly auspicious scarlet bird had been seen. Now that they had made the bird the pretext for this stroll, it was awkward to simply turn back. Aspara breathed out a small sigh.

I haven’t even managed to bring up the matter of the tunnel… aah, come to think of it, I really must start learning the northern tongue from Ugli before long.

The two of them simply walked, and walked, and walked on in awkward silence.

“Ah!”

Aspara let out a small cry. Just then, something scarlet had flitted, like a sudden gust of wind, to the top of a tree.

Could that be the bird they spoke of as a good omen?

Cheered by the thought that they would soon be able to head back, Aspara hurriedly called out to the castle lord.

“Castle lord, look — that’s—”

The lady stepped backward, looking up at the top of the tree to widen her field of view.

“Ah…!”

It was not a particularly clever choice. The heel of her retreating foot caught on the root of a tree.

《―- ―-!》

Just before Aspara, having lost her balance, would have come down hard on her bottom, two great hands seized her by the shoulders.

“Oh… my thanks.”

《―- ――.》

The owner of the great hands was the castle lord. He had clutched at Aspara’s nearly-falling body, then, realizing the strength of his grip was far too much, quickly let the force out of his fingers.

…I think this is the first time today our bodies have touched.

Aspara thought it inwardly, and pulled herself upright. Pretending the just-passed embarrassing little incident had never happened, she cleared her throat and opened her mouth.

“Ahem — my thanks. Now, just there… can you see the bird? O—ver there. The bird.”

《Over there…》

“Yes, just there. The scarlet plumage clearly… ah, it’s hidden by the leaves now. But it is certainly there.”

Gus, perhaps having caught the gist, narrowed his eyes and stared steadily at the top of the tree. Then he gave a small nod.

《―-. ― ――.》

“Yes, you can catch glimpses of it, can’t you. That is, it seems, the auspicious bird itself.”

Apparently it was the bird that brought happiness in its wake if seen at this time of year. Yet the creature hid far away, just out of reach.

“Mm…”

Catching the regretful look on Aspara’s face, the castle lord grew restless.

《― ――- ――- ―?》

“Pardon?”

The castle lord undid the buttons on his sleeve, rolled his arm up past the elbow, and approached the tree. His thick arm stretched straight out and took hold of the trunk.

“Whatever is it you’re trying to do?”

Once again, the lady felt anew just how truly large the man’s hands were. His grip was as wide as a bear’s paw. Even with both his hands clamped around it, half the trunk of the tree lay hidden behind them.

He gripped the trunk firmly, threw his weight onto it—

“Oh.”

—and shoved with a heavy push. Plainly, he was about to shake the tree to make the bird take flight.

“Don’t do that.”

Aspara reached out and caught the man’s right arm.

“Don’t do that. No. 《―-.》 Is that the right pronunciation? — Bad!”

The tree had only tilted a little; it stopped stock-still just as it was about to start swaying.

Gus looked at his wife like a faithful hound that had performed a trick and not received its pat. His eyes seemed to be asking, Why on earth?

“How old are you, to be tormenting a poor bird like that?”

She took Gus’s hand gently in her own, and with her other hand brushed the wet, clinging leaves from his palm.

“There now.”

《―-?》

“Let us sit and wait. The bird will surely take flight when its time comes, won’t it.”

Gus stared quietly at the empty space beside Aspara, then, as though he had at last caught her meaning, sat down.

“That’s right. It is, after all, a bird that brings good fortune. That is not the way to treat happiness.”

The castle lord did not understand. The lady’s sentence had been too long for him, and very difficult besides. But the hand he held in his own was warm, so Gus resolved, for the moment, to sit still and wait.

The faint rustle of leaves and the cries of birds far off filled the air. The two of them had settled at the foot of a towering tree, and the tangled roots cradled their tailbones at just the right angle, so that they could ease into a posture as comfortable as sitting in a low chair. Or rather, at least Aspara, with her shorter legs, could sit comfortably.