Ch#196
196
The moment his command fell, the soldiers surrounded her.
The sound of limping footsteps gradually grew distant. Varkas listened to the sound until the ringing echo of the door closing reached him, at which point he collapsed onto the bed.
It felt as though every bundle of muscle, bone, and nerve in his body had been shredded and mangled.
Lifting his face, wet with cold sweat, he stared vacantly at the ceiling where darkness was settling, before eventually covering his eyes with the back of his hand.
Even after regaining consciousness, he was unable to leave his bed for two days. Because the poison had spread to his nerves, he couldn’t stand properly for even ten minutes.
It was only on the third day, having recovered enough strength to move without much difficulty, that Varkas appeared at the meeting hall, looking perfectly formal as if nothing had happened.
“I’ve caused you all worry.”
Varkas walked to the head of the long table with his usual disciplined movements and offered a formal greeting.
The vassals, who had looked stiff with bewilderment as if they hadn’t expected him to attend, hurriedly rose from their seats.
“Your Excellency, is it truly alright for you to attend to official business so soon? You should still be focusing on your recovery…”
“As you can see, I am fine,” Varkas replied dismissively as he sat in his chair and gave a slight nod. “Everyone, sit. There must be a mountain of work to process.”
One by one, those who had been watching him with a mixture of anxiety and concern took their seats. Varkas lowered his gaze to the map spread out on the table.
Red lines were drawn haphazardly across various regions that could serve as hideouts. It seemed they had been doing their best to track the Zram people while he was unconscious.
“Has there been any progress in the search?”
“We discovered a few caves being used as armories, but there were no significant gains,” Edgar, the squad leader of the Wolfram Cavalry, answered with a bitter voice. “It seems they had already moved all their primary equipment. We found nothing but worn-out gambesons and notched falxes. They left behind not a single clue that could be used to track them.”
“Those who were collaborating with them also vanished without a trace during the commotion,” a middle-aged knight seated at the middle-left of the conference table spoke up abruptly. “We captured and interrogated all the pagans who failed to escape in time, but no useful information came of it. It seems the lower-level followers didn’t even know their superiors were in league with the marauders.”
The man let out a heavy sigh.
“The lead we finally managed to grab has been completely severed.”
“It hasn’t vanished completely.”
At the sound of the calmly resonating voice, everyone’s eyes gathered in one place.
Modrian, the military advisor, was looking directly at Varkas with a gaze that felt heavily weighed down.
“Is there not still one person left who might have colluded with the marauders? And one who is very close at that.”
In an instant, the air in the meeting room froze.
At the old knight’s blunt remark, the vassals swallowed hard and turned to look at Varkas in unison. He maintained a bored expression, as if he had expected such an attack to follow.
“I am truly curious as to who you are referring to.”
“Is it not the person Your Excellency knows better than anyone?”
Modrian replied composedly, leaning his elbows on the table and letting out a long breath.
“Immediately after the Grand Duchess attempted to poison Your Excellency, intruders infiltrated the castle. They were even accurately aware of the internal structure of Raedgo Castle and the placement of the guards. This cannot all be a mere coincidence. Surely, the Grand Duchess cooperated with them…”
“You seem to have forgotten that the person you are mentioning is my wife and a Princess of this Empire,” Varkas cut off the old knight’s words with a dry voice. “Does her position seem so trivial that you would conclude such a felony based on mere speculation without clear physical evidence?”
“How can you say there is no evidence? The Grand Duchess confessed herself to spiking Your Excellency’s cup. Strictly speaking, she was caught in the act! What more evidence could you possibly need?” the cavalry company commander shouted in an agitated voice.
Varkas glared at him with a chilling light in his eyes.
“She only said she added medicine; she never specified it was poison.”
“That kind of wordplay is…”
“I will repeat myself. My wife never confessed to attempting to poison me.”
As if reading the sinister warning embedded in his voice, the man flinched and shut his mouth. Varkas slowly scanned the assembly and added mechanically:
“She merely prepared wine containing a restorative for her husband ahead of his departure. There is every possibility that someone else swapped it. Therefore, that confession you speak of has no validity as conclusive evidence.”
“That is absurd…!”
The man’s lips flickered in disbelief. Modrian, who had been watching the spat between them, looked at Varkas with suspicious eyes.
“If the Grand Duchess is innocent, then why did she not actively explain herself? Throughout the entire interrogation, she never once defended herself.”
“Do you think any of you would have listened even if she had?”
The corners of Varkas’s mouth twisted into a cynical sneer.
“My wife is not so pathetic as to offer long-winded excuses before those who have already decided she is guilty and are determined to drag her to the guillotine.”
Whether they hadn’t expected him to shield the Grand Duchess so blatantly, a thick sense of bewilderment washed over the faces of the vassals. Some even sent him looks as if they were looking at a madman.
It was understandable. In their eyes, he must look like a fool who had lost his judgment over a woman.
Perhaps it wasn’t much different. Even to himself, the sight of him blindly protecting the woman who had driven him to the brink of death felt utterly bizarre.
“Then, will you permit us to investigate the Grand Duchess’s background?”
Modrian, who had been looking at him with eyes lost in thought for a long time, broke the heavy silence.
“If the Grand Duchess is innocent, there would be no reason to refuse this.”
“Have you not already detained my wife and conducted interrogations and investigations?” Varkas pointed out in a sharp tone. “What more do you intend to do?”
“I plan to conduct a thorough investigation of those around Her Grace. Particularly those who knew she intended to serve Your Excellency a ‘special wine’ that night,” Modrian explained calmly. “If, as Your Excellency says, the Grand Duchess did not cooperate with the enemy, it means someone else in Her Grace’s circle is the culprit.”
Instead of saying that he had already initiated an investigation, Varkas nodded with a stoic face.
It was because he judged that, for now, the best course of action was to divert their suspicion away from her.
“However, do not make too much of a scene. If someone cooperating with the enemy is in this castle, they might flee to avoid the search.”
Finding this reasonable, the old knight readily agreed and moved on to the next agenda item.
Recognizing that he had effectively diluted the suspicion directed at her, Varkas relaxed his fist, which he had been clenching so hard that the blood had stopped flowing.
Faint tremors were still occurring throughout his body, which had not yet fully healed.
The thought occurred to him that he might be left with permanent aftereffects. Agor’s Deadly Poison was a lethal substance that corroded organs and paralyzed the nerves of the entire body. It was a miracle in itself that he had recovered this much strength in barely ten days.
For the first time in his life, he was grateful for his extraordinary resilience. If he had never opened his eyes again… The image of Talia, being dragged into his chambers looking haggard, burned into his retinas like a scar. As the image of her standing on a gallows at the hands of his enraged kin followed, cold sweat soaked his spine.
Hurriedly shaking off those unpleasant imaginings, Varkas stood up.
“It seems we have covered all the important matters. I shall take my leave now.”
He gestured to stop the vassals who were about to stand with him and strode out of the meeting hall.
