Chapter 148
“I have called a priestess just in case. It would be best for you to be examined.”
Feeling her face heat with shame, Thalia glared at Varkas.
“It’s nothing serious. I only staggered for a moment.”
“Until yesterday, you were suffering because of your waist. Stay still.”
Varkas held her squirming body even more firmly and cast a cold gaze at Edrick.
The man, who had been rolling his eyes in confusion, flinched and stiffened.
His reaction was as if Varkas had aimed a blade at him.
“You should leave now. This is not the time to leisurely chat.”
“...I was just about to depart anyway.”
The man swallowed dryly and spoke in a tense tone.
Varkas looked at him with an expressionless face, then stepped toward the entrance and added,
“Then depart at once. I have instructed the stableman to prepare a useful horse, so ride that.”
“Ah... thank you for your consideration.”
Despite Edrick’s polite reply, Varkas left the reception room without another word.
Thalia glanced at the man standing frozen over Varkas’s shoulder, then raised her eyes toward Varkas.
Then she flinched and hunched her shoulders when she met his blue-gray eyes quietly watching her.
He had the same calm expression as usual.
Then why had she felt a chill for an instant?
“What did you talk about with Lubon?”
“Just... nothing much.”
At her evasive answer, Varkas’s eyes narrowed.
He asked again in a scraping voice, as if interrogating her.
“What kind of nothing much?”
Thalia awkwardly shifted her eyes.
There was no particular reason to hide the conversation she had with Edrick Lubon, but if Varkas found out she had gone around prying behind his back, she felt he would be displeased.
After pondering briefly, Thalia soon mumbled as if making an excuse.
“We just exchanged greetings.”
“......”
“He’s always been a bit meddlesome. It seems he was worried all along about whether I was doing well...”
As she hesitantly added more because the lengthening silence made her uneasy, a cold light flashed for an instant around Varkas’s eyes.
Only then did Thalia realize that he was not in a very good mood.
But she could not figure out the exact reason.
Was he angry that her careless behavior had nearly put the child in her belly at risk?
As she anxiously watched his expression, Varkas, who was going up the stairs, murmured in a dry tone.
“It seems you were quite close with Lubon.”
“I only took him around as my guard knight for a few months, that’s all.”
Thalia snorted reflexively.
“That man just interferes on his own. He is the most persistent nag I have ever seen! He is probably better suited to being a nanny than a knight.”
For some reason, the longer her criticism went on, the colder his expression grew.
Since he treated Edrick so coldly, she had thought they were on bad terms, but perhaps he was actually a subordinate he cherished?
As she kept her mouth shut and watched his expression, Varkas had somehow arrived in front of their bedroom and gestured to the servant standing in the corridor.
“Open it.”
The servant, who had been wiping the window, threw down the rag and immediately opened the door.
Varkas entered, set her down on the bed, and naturally took off her coat for her.
“How is your waist?”
“It’s fine. Maybe because I slept deeply yesterday, it hurts less than usual.”
Ordinarily, the man should have shown even the slightest sign of relief at her words, but he remained silent.
After silently looking at her belly for a while, Varkas slowly straightened.
Then he poured her a cup of herbal tea that the healers had prepared in advance.
Meanwhile, the priestess and two healers who had come running at Varkas’s summons examined her condition.
Naturally, there was nothing wrong with either her or the child in her belly.
The priestess, who had practically been dragged from the chapel inside the castle, said with a sigh-laced voice,
“Now that you have entered the stable period, there is no need to maintain absolute rest as before. Moving little by little within a range that does not strain your body will actually help ease the waist pain.”
Thalia glared at Varkas as if to say, See?
Varkas, looking down at her with his arms crossed before his chest, frowned and pressed the priestess.
“What exactly does a range that does not strain her body mean?”
“It means a level that is not difficult for Her Highness.”
The priestess, who was gathering her belongings, replied with a subtle expression that was neither a smile nor a frown.
Perhaps because she had been harassed so much over the past few weeks, she seemed to have come to perceive Grand Duke Siarkan, whom everyone feared, as an ordinary young husband anxiously expecting his first child.
She added with a benevolent face,
“If she regularly takes walks for about ten to thirty minutes, it should ease the pelvic pain as well. However, she must have someone beside her to support her. If, by any chance, she falls and the uterus receives a shock, the fetus may be harmed.”
The priestess gave her a scolding look.
Thalia flinched and wrapped her arms around her belly.
After the priestess left the room, this time the healers began examining her body.
While Marisen set up a screen, applied ointment to her legs, and replaced the bandages with new ones, Tiuran placed cushions at her waist and helped her take a comfortable position.
When all that commotion finally ended, Varkas sent all of them outside at once.
Thalia realized that he had stayed because he had something to say to her and took on a tense expression.
The man, who had been silently looking down at her for a long while with his arms crossed over his chest, finally opened his mouth.
“Your Highness is a married woman and the Grand Duchess of the East.”
Thalia looked up at him with puzzled eyes.
Can he not see my swollen belly?
She blinked blankly, wondering why he was bothering to say something the whole world already knew, when Varkas dryly added,
“Fooling around with men as if you were still a thoughtless teenager cannot be tolerated. Please conduct yourself as befits a Grand Duchess.”
At the sudden criticism, Thalia’s face turned red.
Anger instantly shot up to the top of her head.
“I merely talked briefly with my former knight. What did I do wrong?”
“Being alone in the same space with a man who is not your husband is inappropriate in itself. Surely you know that much.”
That was true.
A married noblewoman always had to be accompanied by an attendant.
Especially when meeting a man who was not her husband.
But Thalia, who had kept no one beside her except her nanny and Varkas since childhood, could not stand having someone trail after her.
It made her feel as if she were being watched.
She glared at him with a rebellious expression.
“Don’t talk as if I secretly had a tryst. More than two hundred people reside in this main castle! Servants were coming and going outside the reception room too.”
“All of them must have seen Your Highness with a young man who came from outside. Did you not consider that they might gossip?”
“If there is a filthy bastard wagging his tongue, we can just rip it out!”
Thalia, hot with anger to the very top of her head, snapped fiercely.
“I’m crippled and pregnant besides. Who do you think would even look at me? Even if I ran at them naked, no one would bat an eye. I’d be lucky if they didn’t run away for their lives!”
No sooner had those words ended than a dark shadow fell over her head.
Thalia was startled and hunched her shoulders.
Varkas, who had leaned his upper body close toward her, recited coldly,
“Do not speak of yourself like that.”
Since their marriage, there had been only a few times when he had shown such a threatening attitude.
As if realizing she was frightened, Varkas took one step back and drew in a deep breath.
Soon after, a much calmer voice was heard.
“...I was being overly sensitive. If I offended you, I apologize.”
It was not a sincere apology of remorse, but merely a formal apology meant to end a pointless argument.
Thalia pressed her lips shut and lowered her eyes.
Seeing her eyes redden, Varkas let out a sigh and sat on the edge of the bed.
Then he placed her on his lap and stroked her hair.
It was like hitting someone once and then soothing them, but Thalia did not bother pushing him away.
She felt no small amount of relief that Varkas had returned from his old, cold, hostile self to her devoted protector.
“...After you eat, let us go out for a short walk.”
After confirming that she had calmed down, Varkas made a polite suggestion.
Thalia shook her head with a sullen face.
“No. You go do your work. I’m just going to take a nap.”
Varkas moved his lips as if to say something, but soon laid her down on the bed and left the room.
She slowly rose from her place and approached the window.
Beyond the wide castle courtyard, she could faintly see Edrick Lubon’s back as he led a horse away.
Soon after, the man mounted the horse and began crossing the broad hill.
Above him, snow clouds were slowly gathering.
She hoped it was not an ominous sign.
***
Winter passed in the blink of an eye.
And Thalia could no longer afford the leisure to worry about the north’s treason or war.
As her belly grew larger and larger, the pain pressing down on her lower body reached an unbearable level.
No comments yet. Be the first to leave a review!