Hunted Queen

Chapter Forty Eight • A Taste of Freedom

Happy New Year to all of you, my lovely readers! I hope you had a nice start to your 2023!

Happy Reading! 

-Jade- 

They had spent three weeks on the road now. The pace in which they traveled was severely affected because Ove refused to part with any more of his cows. Jade had not said a word since she knew how much Muma meant to him. However, Brother Richard had made the mistake to suggest that the butcher could sell his cattle in the next village. This suggestion had not been received as the monk had thought, instead he had been told to keep his fingers away from Ove's property. Although, the manner he had been told this had been very passionately and caused the color in monk's face to shift... to a deep red of shame and embarrassment.

After the ordeal with Ulf, Ove had been informed about Jade's condition and about who she was, followed by how she, and a monk, had ended up at his doorstep. He had gotten an extremely shorter version than the one Brother Richard had forced out of her during her short stay at the priory though. Thankfully, the butcher did not seem like a man who was very interested in other people's lives as long as he was allowed to live his own as he saw fit, and there was almost no questions. He mostly nodded and grunted, other than that he was silent. 

However, their pace or the incredibly awkward tension between the butcher and monk was not Jade's main concern. It was the little one. The baby was growing fast and she was now starting show enough that it was hard to hide how big her belly was. For someone just passing them on the road or seeing her just for a second, her robes kept her secret hidden. But if she would have to climb down from the cart or walk, it would be easy enough to see what she was hiding underneath her clothing.

It felt like her belly grew more and more for each day despite that they did not have enough food to still her hunger. At the end of every meal, she was still hungry enough to devour an entire chicken... or even three if she was to sate her hunger. The two men travelling with her often offered her some of their own food, sometimes an entire one, but she did not take it. Did not want to be more of a burden than she already was to them. Although, at times the monk would state that he was full and offer her his left overs... but she knew better.

Being with child was not easy. Nor was it anything but comfortable. Jade knew this very well from having seen her mother carry her siblings. But she had not been prepared for how uncomfortable it would be. To carry a child would have been hard to do in the castle with all the pleasantries it came with. Unfortunately, she had to do it in a cart. Travelling day in and day out, only getting a moment to get off her sore arse and stretch her legs whenever the horses needed to rest or feed. 

Her back ached ceaselessly and whenever she had to walk more than ten steps, it was impossible not to place a hand at her lower back, attempting to soothe the pain. Her belly ached, to her initial confusion, from the growing babe in her requiring more room. Stretching her muscles and her skin further and further. Not to mention how her breasts had increased in size the last weeks. Everything about being with child had quickly become strenuous. It was as if the very second Jade had stabbed Ulf and left him bleeding in the road, her body had stopped to suppress all of these different aches and let it all hit her at once. 

Despite the fact that the journey north was more comfortable than she had anticipated when she had been at The White Stag, fearing that she would have had to walk all of the way, she longed for the padded and soft cushions in the carriage she had grown used to since entering her royal life. No matter how thankful she was that she was free of walking, her arse and back was screaming at her from sitting on the hard wooden plank beneath her now.