Sold.

Sold.

This young man is out here suffering in this freezing place — and what kind of attitude is that for a family to take?

Just because I am the meek, gentle, adorable youngest, you mustn’t go taking my existence for granted.

Of course, the north is beautiful too, and the people are kind,

but the wind is cold, my friends are not at my side, and without a single reply from family, it is no easy thing to keep working.

If you truly love me, then I warn you — please, please be sure to send back a word of thanks.

I send more than enough money home, so do not hand me any of that “paper is too expensive” nonsense.

…You may notice my tone is a little different today, but

after holding so many feelings in for so long, this is what comes pouring out — please understand.

That is all for now, in haste.

—With love, Jack]

Ugli nodded in satisfaction. The handwriting he had pushed out of his left hand, deliberately set on a slant, looked passably convincing.

He folded the letter neatly twice, unfolded it, then refolded it slightly askew on purpose before slipping it into the envelope. Jack’s original letter he balled up small and stuffed into his back pocket.

That fellow is too soft-hearted and too thick — this sort of thing, I have to do for him…

Offering up that excuse, or perhaps that self-conviction, to no one in particular, he rose to his feet and made for the post-room.

Just then, as he turned, a small figure swam into his line of sight.

“What are you doing?”

Ugli started badly, his head whipping around toward the voice. The familiar pale-pink hair, the downturned eyes. Jack’s lady stood there.

《…!》

“Hmm. The handwriting is quite convincing. Did you write it with your left hand?”

“《Mu—!》— That is, what is the matter, madam.”

Ugli barely managed to meet the woman’s eye, feigning composure.

“What is the matter, indeed — what should one be doing, walking down a corridor, but walking? Surely that is the question I ought to be putting to you.”

“…I was running an errand for Jack.”

“An errand.”

It was her usual unconcerned expression. And yet a tinge of laughter had seeped into the sentence. The woman flicked a glance at the corner of the letter Ugli was hiding against his chest, and said:

“Don’t worry. I shall pretend I saw nothing.”

“I am truly—”

“On the contrary, I am grateful. I have wished, more than once, to write a letter like that myself.”

She tapped the surface of the envelope with the tip of her little finger, tap, tap, and said:

“However, the line of the strokes is wrong. The pen Jack ordinarily uses has a sharp nib, not a rounded one — his horizontals come out thick.”

“Ah…”

“I shall lend you a similar pen — come along to my room. Now, then.”

Ugli hesitated for a moment, then followed Aspara as if there were no helping it.

[26.]

“Here. Try writing with this pen. It will be more convincing.”

Ugli took the writing implement she handed him and spread out a fresh sheet. Feeling the gaze of the woman seated across the desk fixed on him, he managed, with effort, to begin writing.

“…Why are you helping me with this sort of thing, madam?”

“Did I not say? Because the contents are well worth sending. Jack is a kind boy, but his family is a little…”

Aspara, as though sifting for the right word, gazed up at the ceiling for a moment and clicked her tongue.

“《—-》sort of people.”

“Why is it the curse-words that come out in northern tongue?”

“Southern curses are too soft.”

Aspara smiled faintly and went on:

“More to the point — speaking of family —”

In that instant, Ugli sensed it. Ah. So this is the real subject this woman called me to her room for.

“It may be a bit sudden, but…”

He braced himself, vowing that whatever scheme or stratagem he was about to hear, it would not shake him, and swallowed dryly.

“Sebinya Gobir — is she your younger sister, or your elder?”

《Geyk.》

“Oh, my — are you all right?”

“Gwa-, kheok, hkeuk, ahem. I am — kff — fine. Ahem. Swallowed wrong, that’s all.”

Ugli answered with his face gone bright red, though whether from embarrassment or from blocked breath, no one could say.

“That — ahem! But that — where on earth did you…”

“That you and Sebinya are family, you mean? I went to her newlywed home not long ago, didn’t I. I heard it then.”

“That woman…!”

I told her not to talk like that, Ugli swallowed back along with his sore throat.

“Hee hee — yes, I heard that part too. I gather you told her not to mention it to me? But it seems that woman is not the sort to listen to others.”

“That — yes, that is so.”

He let out a long breath and screwed up his face.

“Honestly, that is how she has always been, that woman! Always… always lets other people’s words go in one ear and out the other, foolish as she is. When the cleverer one — meaning me — offers to handle things for her, she ought to count herself lucky and accept quietly, but no, she has to insist on managing it herself…!”

“My, what consideration.”

“It is merely the unavoidable sense of duty of a man saddled with a foolish blood-sister.”

“Ordinarily, when one’s blood-sister is a touch foolish—”

Aspara, without saying a word, handed him another sheet of paper. Ugli, his fists clenched tight, had crumpled the letter he had been writing without noticing it himself.

“—one does not cross a national border to build a brand-new country where that foolish sister of one’s own blood might also live well.”

“…How much have you heard?”

“All of it.”

“Haaa…”

He pressed a hand to his forehead and tapped the pen against the desk in agitation. Tap, tap, tap—

Mixed-blood children like them were, as often happens, nothing-special bastards. But the two of them held entirely different views on what to do with their lives. On how a ‘nothing-special mixed-blood bastard’ was supposed to live —

Sebinya, with the skin-tone of a southerner, stayed in the south. She dyed her hair, ruined her irises, hid her own identity. She decided to live by mimicking a southerner.

Ugli, with the skin-tone of a northerner, left for the north. He went to that place where the shape of a nation had not yet quite set, and meant to build, with his own two hands, a society where people like himself could live well.

It may have been a reckless line of reasoning, but in his youth Ugli was that sort of boy.

A little over ten years had passed since then. Each of the two believed they were the winner of this long, drawn-out match. Sebinya thought she had succeeded; she had a more expensive house, a husband of fine pedigree, a child of her own. Ugli thought his choice had been the right one; he was building a better world in a freer land.

And so the two of them had, each in turn, tried to invite the other into their own ‘better world.’ Over the course of years. But these two ill-matched siblings had been holding a deadlock for a very, very long time.

“…So why are you raising this matter with me?”

“Ugli.”

The woman cupped Ugli’s hand in both of hers, the way one might hold a baby bird.

“Is there a reason you do not disclose your origins to the castle lord?”

“That is—”

The retainer of the great hands hesitated for a moment, then answered drily:

“It is none of your concern, madam.”

“…”

“There is nothing in particular for you to trouble yourself over, madam. Please do not worry.”

“It seems you have rather lost sight of your station.”

At the unfamiliar coldness of her tone, Ugli froze for an instant.

“…What?”

“‘What’ is not the answer.”

The woman tightened her grip on the joined hands and went on:

“I am not asking. This is what I, as the rightful queen of this nation, am saying to my subject.”

A small hand, a weak grip. And yet, somehow, Ugli could not pull his caught hand away.

“I know you think of me as a stone that came rolling in. But in the end, I am one of the leaders of this nation.”

“That is not — I have never thought of you as a stone that came rolling in.”

“As a leader — as the lady of the house of this castle — when even from the castle lord you hide your origins, I cannot help but be suspicious of you.”

“…”

“If there is a legitimate reason you must conceal your true nature, tell me. If there is not, then to my husband—”

Aspara paused for a breath, and chose her next words plainly.

“—to the castle lord, I have a duty to speak.”

“I…”

Ugli stopped for a moment and looked into the woman’s eyes. The thick double-folded eyelids, the downturned outer corners. A dim, vacant impression. And yet the pupils themselves, those bright, glistening pupils alone, were looking straight at him.

She resembles the lord.

What on earth was that, Ugli thought, startled at his own thought. He came back to himself and looked again, and the pupils he saw bore no resemblance whatsoever to those of his master.

“Ugli.”

“Ah — yes.”

But there was no reproach, no suspicion in that gaze. Aspara was not reproaching him. She was simply, sincerely, asking. The real reason Ugli devoted his loyalty to this nation. There was no doubt about whether his loyalty was real or false driving the question; there was only the will to have an honest conversation, set there before him.

“…Is why I did so.”

“Hm?”

“I am a northerner — that is all I said, that I am a northerner. My nationality, my identity — I am a complete northerner. There is nothing I have hidden.”

“You have not hidden it, you say.”

“As for the place I was born and so on — well — anyone, had they asked me directly, I would have answered honestly.”

His tone was confident, but his face was bright red. Whether from anger or irritation at the situation, or from shame, or from embarrassment, there was no telling.

“I see. Very well.”

With that answer from Aspara as the close of it, the northern attendant said no more.

“As I thought — you are a deeply considerate boy.”

“Why do you keep saying such things, madam?”

“Is it not so? Disliking the world as it is, you go and help raise up a country in some empty patch of ground, you make plans to invite your younger sister there to live alongside you. That is no ordinary thing.”