"Eat, eat, please eat..." Agata pleaded.
Agata kept scooping the thin porridge from the bowl with a wooden spoon and bringing it to the lips of the infant, who was only seven or eight months old.
The child, who had gone hungry for days, still would not open her mouth.
After leaving the northern lands, she had first developed a fever and suffered severe acclimatization problems, vomiting violently. When the fever finally broke, her body could no longer keep up nutritionally.
The infant's eyes were dull, and she radiated extreme weakness. Her earlier frantic crying seemed like a final flash of vitality, draining every last bit of life from the tiny child.
Tears welled in Agata's eyes as she forcibly fed the porridge into the infant's mouth, but it always spilled from the corners of her lips. There was no sign that she had swallowed any of it. No matter how Agata tried with the spoon, she could not feed her—not even a cough came out.
"Please, eat..." Agata said through tears. Prolonged hunger had nearly robbed her of the ability to produce milk. No matter how hard the child suckled at her shriveled breasts, not a drop came out. Her child had once wailed day and night, and Agata had been helpless. She had even considered cutting her fingers and letting her child lick the blood. Now that there was food, was she unable to eat it?
A crushing grief and despair washed over her. Holding the child, she sobbed soundlessly.
Suddenly, as though remembering something, she rose to her feet. On weak, aching legs, she rushed toward the lord at a frantic pace.
A knight with a composed expression stopped her. The strict hierarchy made it clear that this was not a place she should tread. If she