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The pregnant Marchioness stalks into the Marquis’ study, indignant.
Although it really is their study, together, sometimes with Changning, most of the time just the two of them.
For now, anyway.
When she had gotten pregnant, Aunt and Uncle Zhao had urged them to go back to the capitol for medical care—at least until she gave birth. Twins were no easy business, not for the rural clinic of Lin’an. Xie Zheng had municipal improvements planned all over the Northwest as part of his governorship, but splitting his time as Prince Regent in the capital and matrilocal husband in Lin’an had him spread thin, and with Bao’er still young, the court was cautious about excessive payments from the treasury.
Besides, the Princess and Gongsun, and Changning (well progressing in her studies under her uncle Gongsun’s watchful eye) would be closer. Yu Qianqian as well, with all her new ideas for maternal care that supposedly came from her home far away.
Which is why they had maintained the Flower-Crowned General’s mansion in the capitol. From the Wei and Xie homes, Xie Zheng had only taken what remained of his parents, and promptly moved into his wife’s mansion without much fanfare. It had caused a stir in the capital when their matrimonial carriage had driven to the Flower-Crowned General’s mansion instead of the Xie family home; but Xie Zheng had insisted.
The Marquis was a matrilocal husband, after all.
That, and the death of Wei Yan was still an open wound, and Xie Zheng did not want his children to inherit his ghosts.
Besides, their children would be raised in Lin’an. Of that, the husband and wife were in agreement. Changyu (along with the pig butcher squad, now the able foremen of the Fan Meat Shop and its many branches) had overseen the expansion of the Fan family home, buying what used to be the Song family house, demolishing the old structure, and building a new one. Xie Zheng had taken much pleasure in dismantling the Song house plank by plank.
The physicians (the Princess among them) had advised only light physical activity for nine months, a charge that the Marquis had taken to mean no movement unless absolutely necessary. If it was up to him, he would have carried her from room to room so that her feet would never have to bear her weight.
(He tried, at least. Changyu bit him the last time.)
He agreed to at least appoint himself her human crutch and never leave her side. Changyu had merely shaken her head, an exasperated pout on her lips. It had taken all of Xie Zheng’s self-control not to kiss her senseless.
“No,” is the first thing the Marquis says immediately, dropping his brush and leaving his desk to go to his wife. “Changyu. You were supposed to be in bed.”
“I have been in bed!” Changyu huffs. “It’s the only thing I have been doing! All I did was go to the kitchens—”
“You went to the kitchens? I specifically told Jinglan to make your—”
“I can’t,” Changyu says sadly. “I felt it–the feeling that Qianqian warned me about. I got to the kitchens, pulled out a slab, and–” her cheeks grow big at the memory, her face greenish. Xie Zheng cups her face in alarm. “What? Was the meat not good? I tried, I went myself and tried to remember what you told me…”
Changyu screws her eyes shut, her body rebelling between gagging from nausea and laughing out loud at the thought of the Marquis in the capitol marketplace, stoically haggling over a pork loin. She gags almost hysterically, waving Xie Zheng away as she doubles over and waits for the wave of nausea to pass. She dimly registers her warrior husband nearly beside himself in panic.
“Changyu! What is it, should we call–”
“Aiya,” Changyu flails around, her hand catching on her husband’s strong forearm. “I’m fine. I’m fine. The meat was fine, although I couldn’t eat it. Qianqian says this is normal.”
Brow furrowed, Xie Zheng leads her to sit on the pallet beside the desk, pouring her a cup of tea and dabbing away the beads of sweat on her forehead. Despite her state, Changyu smiles softly at her husband’s caring touch. “Thank you.”
She’s rewarded by a gentle kiss to her forehead, after which Xie Zheng sits beside her and lets her rest against him. Her stability, in more ways than one.
Her stomach grumbles, and Changyu feels her face grow red.
“You went to the kitchens and went out empty-handed,” her husband’s amused but worried tone says above her, stroking her hair.
“I can’t eat,” Changyu whines. “Can’t cook, either. The smell—”
Xie Zheng holds his wife in his arms for a moment. Even with servants at her command, Fan Changyu always wanted to do some things on her own. If she wasn’t pregnant, she’d still be carving up the household’s pigs herself.
“What if I cook for you?” he suggests tentatively, ready to be rebuffed—
“I want your fish,” Changyu says immediately, perking up in his arms and turning to face him. Xie Zheng grins. “My fish?”
She shoves at him, and even if she’s pregnant (perhaps because she is pregnant) there’s some force to the blow. Xie Zheng chuckles as he leans back and takes it, catching her wrist playfully.
“I’m serious,” she pouts. “The grilled fish you cooked over the fire. At the camp. The night we—”
Xie Zheng smiles. He thinks that night will be forever etched in his memory. “I remember,” he says. “We might not have the exact berries, though. It might not be the same.”
“There’s a similar pond with a small waterfall just outside the capitol,” his wife continues nonchalantly. “Qianqian and I discovered it on one of our trips. The bushes you need will probably be close by.”
Xie Zheng narrows his eyes and points at his wife. “I know what you’re doing, furen.”
Fan Changyu immediately assumes the biggest, roundest eyes that Xie Zheng has ever seen. The Xie generals got to calling it the Marchioness’ secret weapon. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, fujun,” she protests innocently. “I’m just sharing some information.”
“You’re trying to get out of the city, is what you’re trying to do.”
Changyu sighs. “Can you blame me? I need to see a tree, Xie Zheng! I–” she looks downcast. “I–I miss Lin’an.”
That, of course, is the proverbial nail in the coffin.
“Alright,” Xie Zheng acquiesces. “But at least eat something before the trip. I can’t have the Marchioness going hungry.”
Changyu beams up at him and lands a kiss on his cheek in thanks.
The production needed to whisk away the Prince Regent and the Flower-Crowned General without scrutiny is a difficult job, but one that the Blood-Robed Cavalry can easily handle.
Dressed in their usual Lin’an attire, in a more understated carriage with Xie Wu driving and the rest of the squad interspersed in the crowd, they make it out of the capital and towards the mountain fringes.
When they reach the falls, the bubbling water merrily greets Changyu as she dismounts from the carriage, delighted.
She takes a deep breath of the fresher air, savoring her surroundings as her husband gets to work clearing a space for their bonfire. A log is rolled in to act as their seat, and Xie Wu is quickly dispatched to find the required berries. The rest of the cavalry retreat discreetly to form a perimeter, leaving husband and wife alone.
Changyu watches as her husband rolls up his sleeves and gets to sharpening a stick for his fishing, lips pulling up into a smile as she remembers that night.
Xie Zheng looks up and catches her gaze, smirking when he realizes she’s been staring.
“I will not spar with you,” he says immediately, reading his wife’s thoughts.
Changyu pouts and crosses her arms. “I could beat you. Even like this,” she states, uncrossing her arms to wrap them around her growing belly.
“Likely,” Xie Zheng acknowledges with an incline of his head. “So I only ask that you spare me the humiliation of defeat.”
Changyu grins. “Your children will help me. With thrice the strength—accept defeat, Wu’an Hou.”
A soft smile steals over Xie Zheng’s face as he comes closer, gently drapes one arm over her shoulders, the other hand resting gently on top of hers, both covering the swell in her clothing. “Mm. Then I look forward to being outnumbered.”
The grilled fish is warm in her hands as Changyu eagerly takes the first bite, almost squealing in delight as the lightly-seasoned soft meat makes its way into her stomach without triggering any nausea. Her usual pork dishes, heavily seasoned and thick stews, had been hard to stomach. This was heaven.
“Houye,” she says, the title carrying a fond familiarity, teasing her husband as she takes her time picking the fishbones clean. “Would you mind terribly if I assigned you to kitchen duty?”
Xie Zheng smiles, taking off the second fish from the stick and replacing the carcass in his wife’s hand with a newly-cooked fish. “I am yours to command, my lady.”
Changyu accepts the fish gladly, but something in her husband’s words makes her pause. She takes a moment to observe him—dressed only in simple underclothes, his plain navy robes taken off to avoid getting wet, bent over a fire. Here was the Prince Regent, Marquis of Wu’an, commander of the Xie Army and heir of the Wei family—and she had made him gut and grill fish for her dinner.
“Yan Zheng.”
Hearing the name he married under, Xie Zheng lifts his head and softens at the picture before him. Like this, her hair down in braids and in her comfortable robes, Changyu looks ethereal. As beautiful as the day he married her.
“Mm?”
Changyu suddenly feels cold. “Do you—do you ever regret it?”
Xie Zheng pauses. “Regret what?”
“This,” Changyu gestures, at the fish, at the fire, their plain clothes—the signs of a life they still strove to have, despite everything pulling them away from it. Sometimes, she still felt guilty. “This life. Lin’an. All of it.”
Me, she doesn’t say, but Xie Zheng can read it in her eyes as clear as day. He remembers her early reluctance, her overtures to him leaving her behind to pursue glory and status and a proper pairing, when the only thing Xie Zheng knew was that she was the only life he could have had worth any meaning.
“Changyu,” he says softly, abandoning the fish for a while in order to sit down beside his wife, taking her hands in his own. “I meant it, when I swore to love you in front of my parents’ tablets.” He cups her face with one hand, tenderly brushing away the bangs from her eyes. “Without you, my life had no meaning. How could I regret you?”
Changyu smiles then, and leans forward to kiss him, snuggling into his shoulder. “Charmer.”
Xie Zheng huffs. “And what about me, hmm? Still want a well-behaved scholar in this life?”
Changyu slaps his hand in reproach. “Say that again, and I’ll hit you.”
Her husband chuckles, but Changyu does hear the undercurrent of tentative fear, the remnants of not knowing whether it was him or his shadow that his wife loved. She takes pity on him and takes his hands in her own, rubbing gently over the part she hit, snuggling closer until her torso is almost completely in his lap. “Xie Zheng.”
“Hm?”
“I love you,” she says sincerely, entwining their hands after placing a kiss onto his rough knuckles. “I love you.”
She can feel her husband freeze and then melt into her, head bowing to tuck into her neck, planting a soft kiss on her shoulder.
But the log is not their bedchamber, and the cavalry are closer than they think. As in many times before, it is up to Changyu to be the reasonable one.
“The fish will burn,” she points out. Her husband lets out a low laugh and sighs as he disentangles from her reluctantly to tend the aforementioned fish, Changyu watching with an unrepentant grin.