Chapter 82
“How could that be!”
The man hunched his large shoulders exaggeratedly and put on an overly frightened expression.
“How would I dare, before the one who will become the ruler of the East!”
Varkas quietly stared at the man’s face and silently brought the wineglass to his lips. When he did not immediately react to the provocation, the man seemed slightly disappointed.
Removing his playful expression, the man growled.
“I am merely a little curious. What on earth was the Young Master thinking when he betrayed the First Princess and took on the imperial family’s troublemaker?”
A heavy silence settled inside the hall.
Varkas moved only his eyes and looked over the faces of the nobles seated along both sides of the long table.
The loyal retainers of the families that had lived in Kalmor, the heart of the East, and served as the hands and feet of House Siar, were wearing displeased expressions.
However, the provincial nobles were watching his reaction with assessing eyes. It seemed they were trying to gauge whether the young heir of the Grand Duke’s house was a person worthy of being entrusted with the future of the East.
He lightly swirled the wine in his glass, paused for a suitable amount of time, then slowly opened his mouth.
“Betrayal is an exaggeration. As everyone knows, my engagement to her was formed according to political interests. If the situation changes, then the contents may also change.”
“What exactly has changed?”
A vein rose on the man’s forehead.
“Are a few words from His Majesty the Emperor really such a serious matter that they can break a promise made over years?”
“Then do you regard an order given by the ruler of the Empire as light?”
Varkas tilted his head and asked back.
As if speechless, the man’s thick lips closed firmly. The man, his face covered in black beard turning red, glared at him and sneered loudly.
“What remarkable loyalty! A man like me would not dare imitate it!”
“Sir Gutvan, you seem overly agitated.”
A middle-aged nobleman seated opposite him cautiously tried to stop him.
But the man did not even pretend to listen. He picked up a goblet full of wine, drained it in one gulp, roughly wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and continued.
“But someday, even our great His Majesty the Emperor will come down from his seat. Then His Highness the Crown Prince will become the ruler of this Empire. What do you intend to do then? Will His Highness truly accept the East’s loyalty with a willing heart?”
“This marriage is something His Highness the Crown Prince also agreed to.”
Varkas tilted the glass and reflected his own face on the red liquid as he spoke slowly.
“No. Later, he pushed it forward even more actively.”
“What on earth does that…”
“Let me explain only this much: this marriage had aspects that benefited His Highness the Crown Prince to some degree.”
He cut him off coldly.
“It is not as though I can carelessly speak of the imperial family’s shame.”
Suspicion spread across the nobles’ faces. Those words could also be interpreted as meaning that he held a weakness of the Crown Prince. Varkas watched them exchange glances, then spoke in a lighter tone as if changing the atmosphere.
“If your questions have been resolved to some extent, let us end this pleasant conversation here.”
Then he lifted his glass and slowly looked around at everyone present.
“Now, drink. As Gutvan said, is this not the wine the future Grand Duke of the East received in exchange for no less than seventeen years of loyalty?”
Varkas raised the corner of his mouth, brought the wineglass close to his face as if savoring the aroma, and added leisurely.
“When will you ever taste such a delicacy again?”
The nobles, who had been moving their eyes as if unsure how to respond, soon raised their glasses with awkward laughter. It was clear they all wanted to stop the verbal sparring around this point.
However, the man did not seem to have any intention of backing down. He struck the table with a fist like a steel hammer and shouted.
“How can I believe such words! The entire Empire knows how dearly His Highness the Crown Prince cherishes Her Highness the First Princess. There is no way such a person would make a decision that tramples on Her Highness’s honor!”
Varkas erased the smile hanging from his lips. His patience was slowly beginning to run out at the words and actions of a man with whom communication was impossible.
He leaned his head against the backrest and jerked his chin as if telling him to continue. The man poured out words without delay.
“Do you know what rumors are spreading right now? Even the heir of the East has fallen for the witch of the Taren family. Just as His Majesty the Emperor was deceived by that viper-like woman and betrayed Her Majesty Empress Bernadette, the future Grand Duke of Siarkan has also been bewitched by that daughter and betrayed the virtuous First Princess! Such words are spreading throughout the Empire!”
The final words were almost a shout. His booming voice filled the hall.
“If Her Highness the First Princess also ends up following in the footsteps of Her Majesty Empress Bernadette, how do you intend to atone for that sin!”
“I have listened and listened, but there is no end to this!”
Daren Dru Siarkan, unable to endure any longer, cut into the conversation.
“Alek Gutvan, you are a retainer of the Grand Duke’s house! Do you think that sort of attitude toward the heir of the Grand Duke’s house will be tolerated in Raedgo Castle!”
“When a leader has taken the wrong path, raising a voice of criticism is also the duty of retainers!”
The man shouted bravely toward Daren, then turned his eyes back to Varkas.
“Young Master could have made the First Princess, whom the entire Empire admires endlessly, the lady of the East! Yet you brought as your bride a wicked woman who is nothing more than an illegitimate child. How can we simply let this pass in silence…!”
The man who had been shouting suddenly stopped speaking. Varkas, too, who had been looking down at him as if watching a ridiculous play, stiffened.
A small figure wearing a trailing hood pulled all the way down over the head had approached behind the bear-like man and tilted a wine bottle over his large head, pouring blood-red liquid over him.
At the sudden incident, the sound of rough gasps came from all over the hall.
The person who had suffered the outrage also seemed too stunned to react immediately. The man, who had been blankly soaked by the pouring wine, sprang up only after the bottle was empty.
His enormous body, nearly seven cubits tall, rose ominously over the unwelcome guest whose entire body was covered by a robe.
“What mad bastard did this…!”
The man grabbed the stranger’s wrist and pulled off the hood covering the head.
Then the long hair that had been rolled up inside the garment poured down like a golden waterfall and ravaged the view.
The man, who had raised his fist as if he would strike her face at any moment, froze in place.
The woman shot a venomous gaze through her disheveled hair.
The man trembled faintly as if electrocuted by that intense gaze, then gulped dryly. His pupils, black as tar, flowed stickily over the woman’s face.
Varkas, who had been gripping his goblet as if he would crush it, immediately rose from his seat.
He approached behind her and pulled her frail body into his arms, and the man unconsciously gripped the woman’s wrist harder, as if unwilling to let her be taken away.
At that moment, something writhed inside his stomach.
Varkas looked down at the black hand holding her with dark eyes.
The man was still licking over every corner of her face with vacant eyes. A chilling cold crawled up Varkas’s spine. Just as he narrowed his eyes at the strange sensation of the back of his head growing cold, a sound rang out like a whip striking a horse.
The man looked down at the woman with dumbfounded eyes. His expression said he had no idea what had just happened.
She raised her arm and slapped the wine-soaked face once more.
“How dare you put your filthy hands on me.”
Only then did the man come to his senses, release her wrist, and take a step back.
Hayır! Ama.. ama en güzel yerindeydi.. böyle bitemez🥺🤧 kraliçem yine yargı dağıtıyor, ve o adamın haberi yok ama şansını zorlarsa Varkas her an kellesini alabilir gibi duruyor .