Not Bad

If he didn’t help her, she would be trapped here, together with him, forever.

…

The man gazed at his small bride for a time, perhaps a bit longer than he needed to. Then, as though he’d made up his mind, he walked over, took the reins, and lifted her onto the saddle.

“— —.”

“Oh, thank you.”

The two mounted the horse and settled into position once more.

“Let us go back. [— — —] — is that right?”

Aspara beamed up at her husband, as though showing off her newfound command of the northern tongue.

Gus did not answer.

At that very moment, Jack was tearing through the castle in pursuit of the runaway Ugli.

“Land must be dirt cheap around here, because this place is absurdly huge!”

The spot where he finally caught up with the nimble attendant was atop the first-floor awning of the castle.

“What the hell are you! Why are you running away?”

“Who knows.”

Jack looked around. Before he knew it, the two of them had climbed into a shadowed corner above the awning.

In this secluded space he’d walked right into of his own accord, he recalled the warnings his Big Sisses had given him the day he left for the city. Be wary of grown-ups who try to get you alone in out-of-the-way places, they’d cautioned.

“Y-you depraved barbarian! A knight of honor from House Bel will not be taken in by such transparent scheming!”

“Sure, sure. But, noble knight of House Bel — where’s your lady right now?”

Jack’s throat seized mid-gasp with a strangled hk sound.

Ugli, watching his predicament, looked like he was having the time of his life.

“Don’t worry. If so much as a fingertip on your lady gets hurt, every knight in this castle will lose their hands — so there isn’t a soul in this whole region safer than your lady.”

This was not empty talk meant to soothe Jack. It was the truth.

“Don’t change the subject — you clearly speak the southern tongue perfectly well. So who the hell are you?”

“If we’re calling people suspicious for hiding the gift of tongues, you’re no less guilty. Between someone who hides what they can do and someone who pretends they can do what they can’t — wouldn’t you say the latter is the graver sin?”

“That’s…”

Ugli produced another of those sweet lumps from his breast pocket and said, “Here — catch your breath first,” handing it over.

Jack, still winded from the chase, accepted it with an expression that said he had no intention of letting his guard down, and promptly chewed and swallowed it anyway.

Claims he won’t let his guard down, and yet he doesn’t hesitate when it comes to snacks, Ugli thought. Is this a knight, or a stray puppy?

“I know I must seem suspicious, but I have no intention of harming anyone — whoever they are. I’m a pacifist. Besides, I happen to like you quite a lot. That’s why I accepted your charmless excuse for a confession.”

“I never confessed! And you shouldn’t like me — you should like the lady! You’re a royal servant, aren’t you? Huh? It should be the lady you adore, the lady you vow not to harm.”

“Hahaha — so it’s fine if I harm you?”

“I’m the lady’s knight. A knight getting hurt in the line of duty is just part of the job.”

Jack answered as though the question were perfectly obvious, tongue working to scrape the sugar stuck to his teeth.

“…In any case, I have no intention of playing interpreter for you people. Not for a while, at least. If you don’t keep my secret, I’ll expose yours.”

“Are you threatening a knight of the noble House Bel? I thought you said you liked me.”

“I do, I like you. Sharing secrets — isn’t that romantic? That’s what lovers do.”

“Don’t try to twist this with sophistry,” Jack said, though privately, the words pleased him. Lovers who share a secret. He was, after all, a hopeless devotee of penny romances.

Above all else, Jack was exhausted. It wasn’t just the sprint. The days of walking a tightrope, effectively alone in a foreign castle, had worn him down, inside and out.

“But… still… I want you to help the lady.”

He looked at the barbarian who had so abruptly claimed him as a lover. The other was looking back at him.

Those snake-like eyes belonged to someone he couldn’t quite trust, and yet, whenever Ugli found him amusing, the smile that surfaced felt like the one genuine thing about him.

“All right, barbarian. I’ll tell you one more secret of mine, so listen carefully.”

Jack sat down beside Ugli, savoring the lingering sweetness in his mouth.

“My lady… no — I… Now that you’ve come this far, you must have figured out the gist of it, but… the reason I became her personal guard-knight was a kind of joke.”

“A joke.”

“Yeah. Back in the southern palace, there’s a second young master whose personality is an absolute disaster. He was famous in high society — he liked to pair up people who suited each other. He had a reputation as a matchmaker who connected noble houses with fine alliances, but he also enjoyed pairing up the not-so-noble sorts.”

A moment ago he was professing knightly honor, and now it’s ‘the second young master whose personality is an absolute disaster’? Is that really all right?

Ugli thought this privately, but on the surface, he betrayed nothing and kept smiling encouragingly.

“My lady and I were just… a match born from that man’s idea of a joke. Every year, the palace holds a martial tournament to assign guard-knights. The top-ranked knight becomes the first young master’s guard, the second-ranked becomes the eldest young lady’s guard, and so on. I was dead last. And the young master took one look and said, ‘Since you’re the worst of the knights, you’ll pair nicely with the youngest — Aspara.’ Everyone gathered at the arena laughed and thought it was great fun.”

“Hmm. Definitely a disaster of a man.”

“How dare you speak that way about the young master!”

Jack flared up in a sudden burst of temper.

No, you’re the one who said it first… Ugli swallowed the retort and apologized with a smile.

“Anyway… my real purpose was to die quickly and conveniently. When the day came that the lady needed to disappear, I was to protect her with everything I had, then die alongside her as swiftly as possible — that, the young master said, was my honor as a knight. Even for someone like the lady, dying a dog’s death without a single knight defending her at the end would be beneath the dignity of the house. That was… at least the intent of the young master who appointed me.”

Jack paused, as if searching for the right words.

“It doesn’t mean much anymore, at this point. But — the lady, who believed my lies, used the very last of her influence to insist on taking me north with her, rather than leaving me behind to be disposed of by the second young master. So I absolutely cannot let the lady discover my secret.”

Ugli thought privately:

What on earth is he going on about all of a sudden.

“As your… lover, I’m asking this on the grounds of affection and honor. If you have no intention of revealing things right now, I’ll keep your secret too — you must have your own reasons. But someday, you must help the lady in my place. That’s the deal.”

Hmm. Is it because he’s a fool?

Ugli thought this privately once more.

Silence filled the space beneath the awning.

As the quiet stretched on, Jack’s expression grew increasingly anxious, until Ugli gave a nod, at which point he broke into a smile.

Dazed by the sudden flood of information, Ugli gazed quietly at his lover, or something close to it.

He had only meant to tease a cute knight while his lord was away. That he himself had come to take so earnestly what began as mere playfulness. That was the unexpected part.

“Thank you. One last question.”

Ugli nodded. Jack was probably going to demand to know why he had revealed his ability to speak the southern tongue. Ugli was already mentally preparing a slippery array of evasive answers, ready to wriggle free of the guileless knight’s interrogation like a snake.

Jack opened his mouth.

“You… got any more of those sweets from earlier?”

“Ha!”

A strange sound escaped Ugli’s throat as his tension evaporated in an instant.

“Well, seeing as your lady will be missing her snack time today too, I could probably swipe one more from the kitchen. Want to come? I’ll teach you how to steal food from the kitchen while we’re at it.”

“A knight does not steal.”

Ugli laughed.

“You’ll need to learn these things little by little if you want to survive out here. You’re going to be here for a long time.”

Gus found the bumbling knight from the south irritating.

It wasn’t specifically because the man was close with Aspara.

The slack-eyed young knight looked flimsier than a scullery boy in a northern castle. The way his eyelashes fluttered, unbecoming of a warrior, grated on him, as did the curly blond hair that looked more suited to a village girl.

Without a shred of bias, it was simply, as a fellow warrior who shared the title, that the man displeased him. For someone whose duty was commanding soldiers, finding an incompetent man irksome was only natural. Gus was absolutely not a petty husband.

It did bother him just a little that the man clung to Aspara’s side for no reason other than being from the same homeland.

The casual familiarity with a wife he himself didn’t dare to touch also bothered him, just a little.

In a foreign land where the only person who spoke her language was that one fool, it was only natural that she would confide in him alone, her desire to go home, her resentments. He didn’t mind. Gus kept telling himself that.

The fact that it had been that knight who had relayed his frightened wife’s wish to go back on that day, too —

Yes, that part… I do hold in genuine regard.

Jack’s composure in delivering that brutal message without flinching before “that” barbarian king, even Gus harbored a measure of respect for it.

Clop, clop, clop. The hoofbeats rang against the road.

A paved road. The stone road leading away from the snowfield and toward the castle had begun to emerge.

“You’ve returned, my lord. Master Ugli told us it would take at least three hours —”

“Open the gate.”

“Yes, sir.”

The gatekeeper’s words brought the heartbreak he’d been trying to forget surging back. Gus’s spirits, which had soared so high, had plunged just as deep.

It was a secret, but the snowfield’s flower field had been his pride and joy. It was a secret he’d buried as deeply as the fact that the “Fang Towers,” the spires for which the castle was named, had in truth been built in the image of a flower.