They were still secretly dating, pretending to help out at night without telling Uncle Shawn.
Uncle Shawn treated every customer at his general store the same, but he actually did not like people from Reutlingen very much. It was not strange, since folks in Winzerton, who experienced the war in the capital firsthand, usually felt that way.
Well, for that reason, I respected their decision to date in secret without telling anyone. But when it came to a secret relationship, wasn’t just meeting in secret enough? They did not have to go so far as exchanging letters the way courtly ladies did, did they?
Yes, Aunt. My sister asked Leon to write her a letter full of passionate love. Leon, as always, did so right away. But just like many men with big arms, he seemed not to have much talent for writing.
So I guessed he scribbled down whatever came to mind in a clumsy way. The mischievous men at the forge read Leon’s letter, mocked him, and claimed that if he wanted to write a passionate letter, he had to write something like this. Then they snatched the pen from him.
Gentle Leon thought they would help him, who knew nothing about writing letters, and simply handed over the sealed letter they had written however they pleased to Sister Primrose.
Thus, the letter turned out very strange. It began with an awkward and innocent confession, but later on it started talking about how he wanted to run his hands over her skin and shower her with fiery kisses, how he wanted to sully her pristine flesh…. For me, it was a shocking array of words.
I only read it up to the middle, but after that, there may have been even more extreme lines.
Well, Sister Primrose was about to turn sixteen, so exchanging such letters with a boy her age could happen. They were dating, and she had requested a letter brimming with love and passion.
The problem was that Uncle Shawn saw that letter. Poor man! How startled he must have been.
I knew Aunt Marilyn told him that ever since Sister Primrose started growing her hair out, all sorts of scoundrels had flocked to her.
He must have known how you, Aunt, worried yourself sick because my sister ran off with those rascals as though she would throw everything else away.
So how anxious must he have been? Uncle Shawn complained a lot, but he was the sort who got restless instead of raging like fire at such matters.
He spent several days in a daze, sighing constantly at the store, as though he had lost his mind.
I did not know things would turn out like that either. Who would have guessed that he would watch my sister and me so carefully, trying somehow to handle the matter well? Who would have imagined that he would secretly follow us when we disappeared for a while at lunchtime?
Think about it. I was on my way to see Sir Arthur Celine Gillen, my sparkling Wizard, in high spirits. Did I have the presence of mind to notice someone trailing us?
That was how Uncle Shawn discovered Sir Arthur Gillen at the edge of the western forest, living in a makeshift leaf hut like a beggar.
Leon was planning to repair the cabin, so Sir Arthur Gillen was staying there again. He even said it was better without a roof, that he liked gazing up at the night sky through the sparse branches.
At that moment, Sir Arthur Gillen was plopped down on the grass in front of his leaf hut.
Sister Primrose and I had rolled up our sleeves, ready to get started on building the cabin.
How must that have looked to Uncle Shawn? That pale, handsome rascal who nearly stopped my heart was fooling our Primrose and even making her work.
Some guy from Reutlingen who looked at least six or seven years older, lying on the grass like a vagrant without a home!
Sending letters about wanting to shower a kid with kisses and touch her skin!
Uncle Shawn’s anger, which he had been swallowing down, exploded all at once. He strode up and abruptly grabbed Sir Arthur Gillen by the collar.
“This child, she is actually only fifteen, no matter how old she looks! She just looks older in the face, but she’s still a kid!”
And with that, Uncle Shawn subtly insulted Sister Primrose with his words while flailing his fists at Sir Arthur Gillen.
Aunt Marilyn, you probably imagined the two men fought violently that day. That Uncle Shawn, who had misunderstood everything, and Sir Arthur Gillen, who was suddenly attacked, traded blows.
But that did not happen. Sir Arthur Gillen did not fight back. He… only took the hits. He took every fist that came at him.
You know, Aunt, that though I alone called him ‘Sir’ and thought of him as a knight, he was not actually a gallant knight. But if you imagined him as a skinny weakling, you needed to adjust your image. He was tall, with big hands and feet and broad shoulders, as one might expect from someone from Reutlingen.
And the opponent was not Leon but Uncle Shawn—a skinny man in his fifties who mostly sat in the general store.
If they had really fought, Arthur Gillen would surely have won. He might not have beaten Uncle Shawn to a pulp, but he could have blocked those swinging arms, and dodged the blows.
Yet he did not do that. He screwed his eyes shut, crouched down, and just let himself be hit, like someone frozen in place.
I tried to intervene and stop Uncle Shawn, but I could not manage it. He flailed his arms, kept me away, and raged on.
Sister Primrose did not remain still either. She shouted that it was not true, all a misunderstanding, that she was dating a boy her own age, not this man, and that she only forced him to write a love letter for her.
Uncle Shawn did not believe it. He said the Winzerton language in the letter was full of expressions only a Reutlingen fellow would use when translating.
In the end, Sister Primrose ran to the village, saying she would bring Leon. Left alone, I just stamped my feet in frustration, not knowing what to do.
Meanwhile, Sir Arthur Gillen got quite a beating. His long blond hair was disheveled, and scratches appeared on his radiant face. Seeing him like that made tears well up in my eyes. I thought, oh, whatever, even if I got hit once, I would try something, and rushed at Uncle Shawn.
He turned his head and looked at me as if appalled. That caused him to pause his beating. In that brief moment, Sir Arthur Gillen spoke up. He coughed for a while, gasping for breath—maybe he had taken a few blows to the chest—then spoke quietly as though squeezing out the words.
“I… I don’t know how to write.”
It was the first time Uncle Shawn, who had not calmed his rage at any words, seemed taken aback. Just then, from afar, Leon came running.
Catching his breath, Leon spoke.
“Uncle Shawn. That, that was me. I just like Primrose. I really like her. I thought all I had to do was write that I loved her, but my brothers said I had no knack for writing letters and that was not how one wrote them. They said they would write it for me, that that was the only way Primrose would like it. So, so… I did wrong. It was really my fault.”
Leon knelt down and shed big tears. If, in the course of Primrose and Leon dating, someone ended up using or swindling the other, it clearly would be my sister swindling him and Leon getting duped.
Uncle Shawn must have realized right away that every word from this innocent Reutlingen boy’s mouth was the truth. Now he had nothing more to do. All he could do was sit on the ground and let out a hollow laugh.
Thus ended the commotion.
I quickly went over to Sir Arthur Gillen, brushed his tangled hair, and blew on his cheek, which was already turning a livid bruise. I also dusted off the dirt from him rolling around on the ground.
He was unexpectedly calm about it. Uncle Shawn, still in a daze, soon came to his senses and apologized.
Sir Arthur Gillen merely shrugged his shoulders.
“I’ve been hit a lot, so it’s fine. There’s a knack to it, you see.”
It seemed he had not learned how to speak politely in Winzerton language; he made that bizarre remark in a grandmotherly tone. Uncle Shawn tilted his head.
“…You say strange things. Your speech is odd.”
“Indeed. But I did study hard, you know?”
“Hmm, right. Well, never mind that. How on earth did you get in here?”
That was the problem. The magical passage leading to the western forest was under the general store. It was impossible for someone new to enter without Uncle Shawn noticing.
The four of us just opened our mouths, unsure how to answer, when Uncle Shawn waved a hand as though he could not be bothered to listen.
“Fine. If you do not want to say, then do not say anything. You got in somehow. But you do not know letters? You cannot read Winzerton language?”
“I can’t really write Reutlingen, either. I only know a little bit…”
My Sir Arthur Gillen, who always sparkled, answered meekly with a slightly disheveled face.
“Huh, have you ever learned properly?”
Uncle Shawn changed the subject entirely.
He did not seem curious about Sir Arthur Gillen’s name, how he had secretly entered the western forest, why he was squatting in a hut like a beggar in that dangerous clearing near the barrier.
Just as he had not asked anything when my sister and I arrived in the western forest, this time he seemed prepared to accept everything without question.
It was somewhat strange that he took an interest in the words “I don’t know how to write.” Yes, really. He even asked someone to bring paper, had Sir Arthur read a few letters, and inquired how he had learned magic, given people called him a Wizard.
Thus the conversation went on. Sister Primrose yawned, Leon dozed, and when the sun had nearly set, things ended with these words:
“Come to the general store when the sun is up tomorrow.”
That was how Sir Arthur Gillen came to sit at a small desk in the corner of the general store and began learning how to read and write.
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