To Sell.

To Sell.

The little beast padded on instinct toward Aspara’s room on tiny feet. The two-legged one there often wiped him down with a damp handkerchief.

“Oh my, our little fluff-ball has come.”

[Ppyik.]

“What brings you here at this hour?”

Aspara laughed softly and lifted the silk-furred rat up in both hands.

“My, what is this on your back…”

[Ppyuk.]

The crude red design staining the beast’s back caught the woman’s eye.

“This is…”

Her eyes widened as she stared at the fang-mark.

A fang-shape painted onto a pet’s back. It was the signal of insult and rejection, and the woman’s response to it was —

“How darling! Why, isn’t that a hea—rt!”

A faint flicker of surprise, and then delight.

“Heehee, I had no idea this design was used in the north as well. Who could have drawn something so adorable and sent it along, I wonder?”

[Ppyik.]

“Heehee, truly such a tiny little thing. Did you draw it?”

The woman was not wounded. It was the natural response. The very small, very stupid backlash of one nationalist could not reach her.

In truth, much of what went on within the castle never reached Aspara’s eyes or ears. To this foreigner, the resentment and ill-will of those around her arrived only as a vague, hazy atmosphere. She had no way to grasp at once what the people here thought of her.

“I do not know who drew it, but it cannot be good for your skin. Come here — I shall wipe it off for you.”

Whether that ignorance was a stroke of fortune or misfortune, only time would tell.

A considerable stretch of time had passed since the throne of a small southern kingdom had been sold to some unknown bidder, and since the proceeds had set the tunnel construction in motion. The earth grew softer by the day, and the work picked up speed accordingly; as the construction funds spread out into the wages of laborers, the northern economy stirred to life, and the little rat of Fang Castle grew round and plump.

《Honestly, I still don’t like it.》

But not everyone welcomed the change.

《Ever since the worksite started up, nothing but good has come of it, and you’re still grumbling.》

《That’s the whole game, that is. You mark me — it ain’t over till it’s over.》

The opinions of those who had soured on the construction, or more precisely on Aspara, had not been so easily turned.

That, after all, was the nature of contemptuous opinion. People did not abruptly come to like the thing they despised simply because it showed itself in a good light. They only stared all the harder, eyes burning, at how that contemptible thing was contriving to deceive folk, and grew exasperated with the dim-witted masses who fell for its shallow tricks.

The north, which since Gus had taken the throne had known nothing one might call political dispute, was now facing a rising boil of steam for the first time in a very long while.

“Jack, Jack! Come over here.”

The very person who had set this wave of change in motion was smiling brightly, beckoning to her knight.

“Yes?”

“I have something to give you. Here.”

The woman pressed a thick bundle of stiff paper into the young man’s hands, inscribed in the southern tongue. A bank draft. A draft drawn on a southern bank.

Jack read the figure written on it slowly, line by line. It was not a tremendous fortune, but it was the equivalent of two years’ income for an ordinary farming household.

“This is…”

“Send it to your family back home, in your name, with a letter. It is not a great sum, but it should be enough to buy a small piece of farmland on the neighbouring island.”

Aspara closed both her hands over the bundle, pressing it firmly into the knight’s grip.

“I do not consider that I have abandoned my homeland. Nor do I consider that I owe it any debt. But… but to your family, at least, I do feel sorry.”

“You needn’t go to such trouble…”

“Who the next master of the throne shall be, I do not know — but as a rule, those who buy power with money are seldom good rulers, are they. If by any chance my decision should bring hardship upon them…”

“Not at all, my lady. Your family weren’t exactly fine rulers themselves, you know!”

“…Indeed they were not. At any rate, even so — if perhaps —”

“It’s the truth! Your family was truly useless! Even if you sold the throne to some wastrel, my lady, he couldn’t possibly put the people through more suffering than your family did, so please don’t feel guilty about it.”

“Mm… I see…. In any case —”

“Truly, there’s nothing whatsoever to worry about. Whatever incompetent, slovenly, dogshit, knuckle-headed lout becomes the new king, it’ll still be better than when your house was running things—!”

“I understand.”

“Eh? Are you angry?”

“No.”

“— and that is what happened. Did she look angry?”

“Hm. I don’t think so.”

“Right?”

Jack rolled around on the bed in his room, writing the letter that would go home along with the money. Beside him, his lover lay stretched out on the bed, soaking in the brief sunlight of the lunch break. Skritch, skritch. The pen-nib, dulled and rough from poor maintenance, kept tearing through the cheap letter-paper.

“The paper keeps getting punched through.”

“That’s because you’re writing on something soft. Go to the desk.”

“The desk is far.”

He laid the paper on the other man’s thigh and kept writing. Ugli stole a sidelong glance at the contents.

“…A letter to your parents?”

“Yeah, back home. I can’t just send the money on its own, can I.”

The letter rambled. A greeting, the circumstances of how the money had come to him, the changes about to come to the south, another greeting, how the pig farming was getting on these days, a note that he hoped they would use the money to live well, a remark that he wished they would write back soon….

“They don’t write back much, do they?”

“Mm-mm. Paper’s expensive over there, I think that’s why.”

Jack answered with his face buried in the letter.

“I know they’re getting them all right, though. When the allowance runs late, I get a dunning letter.”

“Sounds like they have plenty of paper for those.”

“Well, you know how it is…. …All done. The address — d’you think they’ll be able to make it out? I really can’t write numerals well.”

“Jack.”

He grabbed Jack’s wrist suddenly.

“Yeah?”

“About that money. What if you used it on something else?”

“On what?”

“A house for the two of us, say.”

“A house?”

“Mm. The castle dormitories only let bachelors in, you know.”

Jack said nothing, only blinking his round eyes and waiting, as if to say go on, tell me more.

“…”

But Ugli only looked at him with a smiling face. What he wanted to say he had already said in full.

“…Hah! You’re really something. There’s no way I could do that. Even after I marry, I’m going to stay here at the castle. I have to be close enough that I can come running when my lady calls.”

Jack avoided his eyes, smiling, and folded the letter briskly into the envelope. It was an awkward smile.

“I see.”

“And besides, I can’t spend the money I’m sending home on the two of us, can I.”

“Even though it’s a hometown that’s never written back once?”

“Hometown is hometown.”

He mashed boiled rice grains until they grew sticky, then pressed them along the edge of the paper to seal the envelope.

“You feel the same, don’t you? No matter how cold and poor it is, the north where you were born and raised — that’s the place you love.”

“No. Not particularly.”

“Eh?”

“Hometown is hometown, country is country.”

Ugli answered in a dry voice.

“The reason I am loyal to this place — it is simply because this is the country that thinks of me and of my future. It has nothing to do with the place I was born in.”

It was an answer just a touch too earnest for the mood of a moment ago.

“Ah, right. I see.”

Jack changed the subject hesitantly.

“More to the point… ah, more to the point, that, ah — have you heard anything lately about the tunnel construction?”

“…Aah. Sounds like it’s come along quite a bit.”

“I hope it goes well.”

“Well, it had better. Public opinion’s an awful mess just now.”

Ugli laughed as though expelling a sigh.

“Seems the construction’s gone better than they thought, so the opposition is even more annoyed.”

“It went well, but they’re more annoyed?”

“It means their opinion was wrong. Right now they’re staring with eyes set alight, hoping for at least one thing to go badly.”

“Hmm.”

“Pass it along to Lady Aspara — to be careful. I’m not sure exactly, but something might happen…”

Just then, a voice cut in from beyond the door.

“Excuse me.”

“Come in.”

The door opened cautiously and a familiar guest stepped inside. No, not a guest. He was, after all, one of the room’s owners.

《Hello there, Hostage.》

“Damn it, why do I have to say ‘excuse me’ when I walk into my own room.”

“Then don’t say it — just walk in.”

“If I don’t say it and just walk in, the two of you will…!”

Volmo could not bring himself to finish the sentence.

《This is our room, Master Ugli. Do step out, please.》

《Yes, yes.》

Ugli, grinning, snatched up Jack’s letter.

《I’ll send this off for you. I’m headed in the direction of the post-room anyway.》

“Ah, right.”

He slipped out of the room before the answer had even finished, and shut the door behind him. Beyond the closed door, the room fell suddenly quiet.

“I don’t like that fellow.”

Volmo perched on the edge of the bed and changed into his slippers, muttering. The bedsheets were damp, which only soured his mood the more.

The corridor leading to the post-room. Ugli looked left and right, made sure no one was about, then pressed a sheet of paper against the wall and began writing a new letter.

《…There. Done.》

He ran his eyes over the letter he had just written.

[…

— And so, I can no longer endure being treated like this.

If you truly understand the trouble I have gone to, then please send me even a single sheet, just one, with a word of thanks.