Ch#148
“I have summoned a priestess just in case. It would be best for you to be examined.”
Talia felt her face flush with shame and glared at Barkas.
“It’s nothing. I just stumbled for a moment.”
“You were struggling with your back until only yesterday. Stay still.”
Barkas wrapped his arms more firmly around her struggling form and cast a cold gaze toward Edric.
The man, shifting his eyes in flustered confusion, flinched and stiffened. His reaction was as if Barkas had pointed the tip of a sword at him.
“It would be best for you to leave now. This is no time to be idling about.”
“……I was just about to depart.”
Gulp. The man swallowed hard and spoke in a tense tone.
Barkas watched him with an expressionless face before stepping toward the entrance and adding, “Then leave at once. I have instructed the stablemaster to prepare a decent horse, so you may use that for your journey.”
“Ah…… thank you for your consideration.”
Despite Edric’s polite reply, Barkas left the drawing room without a word.
Talia glanced over his shoulder at the man standing there as if frozen, then looked up at Barkas. Meeting his steady, blue-gray eyes, she instinctively shrank her shoulders.
His face was calm, no different from usual. So why had she felt a momentary chill?
“What did you and Ruben talk about?”
“Just…… we didn’t talk about much.”
At her evasive answer, Barkas’s eyes narrowed.
He questioned her again, his voice rasping.
“What ‘not much’?”
Talia shifted her eyes awkwardly.
There was no particular reason to hide her conversation with Edric Ruben, but she felt he would be displeased if he knew she had been prying into things behind his back.
After a moment of hesitation, Talia mumbled as if making an excuse.
“We were just exchanging pleasantries.”
“…….”
“He’s always been a bit of a busybody. It seems he was concerned about how I’ve been doing……”
As she added the explanation, uneasy with the lengthening silence, a cold aura momentarily flickered in Barkas’s eyes.
Only then did Talia realize he was in a rather foul mood. However, she couldn’t grasp the exact reason why.
Was he angry that the child in her womb had nearly been put in danger due to her careless behavior?
As she watched his face with an anxious expression, Barkas, who was heading up the stairs, muttered in a dry tone.
“It seems you were quite close with Ruben.”
“I only had him as a guard for a few months, that’s all.”
Talia snorted reflexively.
“That man just interferes on his own. He’s the most persistent nag I’ve ever met! He’d be better suited as a nanny than a knight.”
For some reason, the longer her disparagement continued, the more his expression hardened into a cold mask.
Since he had treated Edric so harshly, she thought they were on bad terms, but was he actually a cherished subordinate?
Keeping her mouth shut while watching him warily, they arrived in front of their bedroom, and Barkas gestured to the servant standing in the hallway.
“Open it.”
The servant, who had been wiping the windows, dropped his rag and immediately threw the door open.
Stepping inside, Barkas lowered her onto the bed and naturally helped her out of her coat.
“How is your back?”
“It’s fine. Thanks to sleeping well yesterday, it hurts less than usual.”
Normally, he would have shown at least a hint of relief at her words, but the man remained silent.
After staring at her belly in silence for a while, Barkas slowly straightened his posture. He then poured her a cup of the herbal tea the healers had prepared in advance.
Meanwhile, the priestess and two healers, who had rushed over at Barkas’s summons, began to examine her condition.
Naturally, there was nothing wrong with her or the child in her womb.
The priestess, who had been practically dragged from the castle chapel, spoke with a sigh.
“Now that you have entered the stable period, there is no need for absolute bed rest as before. Moving a little within limits that do not strain the body will actually help alleviate the back pain.”
Talia glared at Barkas as if to say, See?
Barkas, who was looking down at her with his arms crossed over his chest, frowned and pressed for details.
“Exactly what level constitutes ‘not straining the body’?”
“As long as Her Grace does not find it strenuous, it is fine.”
The priestess, packing her things, replied with a subtle expression that was neither a smile nor a grimace.
Given how much she had been badgered over the past few weeks, she seemed to have come to perceive the Grand Duke of Sheerkhan—whom everyone feared—as just another young husband fretting over his first child.
She added with a benevolent face, “Taking regular walks for ten to thirty minutes will also help alleviate pelvic pain. However, you must always have someone by your side to support you. If you were to fall and the womb were to suffer an impact, the fetus could be harmed.”
The priestess cast a reproving look at her. Talia hugged her belly with a sheepish face.
Once the priestess left the room, the healers began to examine her body. While Marisen set up a partition to apply ointment to her legs and change her bandages, Tiuran placed a cushion behind her back and helped her into a comfortable position.
When all the commotion finally ended, Barkas sent them all out at once.
Talia, realizing he had stayed behind because he had something to say to her, took on a tense expression.
The man, who had been looking down at her in silence with his arms crossed for a long time, finally spoke.
“Your Grace is a married woman and the Grand Duchess of the East.”
Talia looked up at him with bewildered eyes.
Can’t he see my swollen belly?
She blinked blankly, wondering why he was stating something the whole world already knew, when Barkas added dryly.
“I cannot tolerate you idling about with men as you did in your thoughtless teenage years. Please behave in a manner befitting a Grand Duchess.”
Talia’s face flushed red at the sudden accusation.
Anger surged to the top of her head in an instant.
“I was merely having a brief conversation with my former knight. In what way did I misbehave?”
“Staying in a room alone with another man is inappropriate in itself. Surely you know that much.”
It was true. A married noblewoman was always supposed to be accompanied by an attendant. Especially when meeting a man who was not her husband.
However, Talia, who had never kept anyone by her side except her nanny and Barkas since she was young, could not stand having someone trailing after her. It made her feel like she was being watched.
She glared at him with a rebellious expression.
“Don’t talk as if I were having some secret tryst. There are over two hundred people living in this main castle! Servants were passing back and forth even outside the drawing room.”
“Every one of them likely saw Your Grace with a young man from the outside. Do you not consider that they might start wagging their tongues?”
“If anyone dares to wag their filthy tongue, I’ll have it ripped out!”
Furious to the core, Talia snapped back fiercely.
“I am a cripple and pregnant. Do you think anyone would even want me? Even if I ran at them naked, they wouldn’t blink an eye! They’d be lucky if they didn’t run away for their lives!”
No sooner had she finished those words than a dark shadow loomed over her.
Talia flinched in surprise. Barkas, leaning his upper body close to her, whispered coldly.
“Do not speak that way.”
Since their marriage, the times he had shown such a threatening attitude could be counted on one hand.
Perhaps noticing she was frightened, Barkas stepped back and took a deep breath. Soon, a much calmer voice followed.
“……I was being overly sensitive. If I have offended you, I apologize.”
It was a formal apology intended to end a pointless argument rather than a sincere reflection of wrongdoing.
Talia kept her mouth shut and lowered her eyes. Seeing the rims of her eyes redden, Barkas sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. He then sat her on his lap and stroked her hair.
It was like being slapped and then soothed, but Talia did not push him away. She felt no small amount of relief that Barkas had returned from that cold, chilling antagonist of the past to her devoted protector.
“……Let us go for a short walk after we eat.”
Having confirmed she had calmed down, Barkas made a polite suggestion.
Talia shook her head with a sullen face.
“Forget it. You go do your work. I’m just going to take a nap.”
Barkas’s lips twitched as if he wanted to say something, but he soon laid her down on the bed and left the room.
She quietly got up and approached the window. Beyond the wide castle courtyard, she could faintly see the back of Edric Ruben leading his horse.
Soon, the man began to gallop across the vast hills. Above him, she could see snow clouds creeping in. She hoped it was not an ill omen.
Winter passed in the blink of an eye. And Talia could no longer afford the luxury of worrying about northern rebellions or wars. As her belly grew larger, the pain in her lower body reached an unbearable level.
