It was one bitterly cold morning.
I hadn't been able to sleep that night. Every time I heard a sound in the small hours, I sat up wondering if it was an assassin, and broke out in cold sweat again and again before morning. As a result, my feet were frozen to the point of going numb.
On the veranda, I slipped my feet into my sandals. The instant I did, a soft warmth spread into my soles.
That was odd.
Outside, it was cold enough for frost. Sandals left on the earthen floor ought to have been ice cold. And yet these sandals were faintly warm, as if they'd just come out from inside someone's robe.
My frozen toes slowly loosened. I stopped and looked around.
Under the veranda, that monkey—Tokichiro—gave a quick little bow. The front of his robe was still bulging slightly. On a frosty morning, and there was even a faint sheen of sweat on his forehead.
This guy—had he been keeping my sandals inside his robe this whole time, warming them? Out under this cold sky, using his own body as a brazier?
I was at a loss for words.
Because nobody was supposed to know how badly my hands and feet ran cold.
For as long as I could remember, whenever something scared me, my hands and feet went cold as ice.
Before a council. Before setting out to battle. On sleepless nights.
Fear drained the blood from every corner of my body, and my fingertips and toes went cold enough to lose all feeling. When I clenched my fists to hold back the shaking, those fists were already like ice, the color gone from my nails.
It was a coward's physiology. Proof that the Demon King was forever trembling for fear of assassins. So I had desperately covered it up, clenching my fists inside my sleeves, hiding my feet under the hem of my hakama, so that no one would ever notice.
If anyone learned I was cold, they would see right through me: this man is always frightened. That, above all, I had to avoid.
And yet.
This lowest of servants had, without a word, been warming my sandals inside his robe every morning.
"It seemed to me, my lord, that your feet were always cold," Tokichiro said with a grin.
"Was it presumptuous of me?"
Presumptuous? Hardly.
Something hot rose in the back of my throat. My most miserable cowardice, the thing I thought I'd hidden from everyone. This man had seen through it long ago. And having seen through it, he hadn't blamed me, hadn't laughed—he had just quietly warmed my sandals inside his robe.
I couldn't answer him at all. I only curled my toes, gently, inside the warm sandals.
This story of the warmed sandals apparently got around quite a bit in later years.
It is said—that though he was a lowly servant, he warmed his master's feet in his own robe: an admirable act of quick-witted, faithful service.
The household, too, said so, impressed.
"For a mere keeper of footwear, what remarkable thoughtfulness."
"That little man may have some promise in him."
I see. The quick wit of a loyal man. Put that way, it sounds nice.
But really. He had—noticed. That the feet of the man they called the Demon King were always frozen with fear.
The world thinks it's a story about a devoted servant serving his master faithfully.
That's not it. This is the story of the one man who, pretending not to see, warmed a trembling coward.