Again.
Whatever she did, it seemed to work against her.
Elle kept her head lowered, listening to Curtis move around the tent. It was post-battle, so there were things he had to do. She could hear him rummaging around off to her right, and she dared to lift her head, noticing that he was going through a trunk. He removed a box and set it on a portable table with a chipped leg. Then he pulled a chair up to it, the only chair in the tent, and opened the box.
Interested, she watched him pull forth a small phial and set it on the table. A quill came out, and a small leather pouch that looked as if it had rocks in it. Finally, he drew forth a sheet of vellum, a small sheet, and began to write on it.
Curiosity had the better of her at that point.
“What are you writing?” she asked.
He didn’t look up from his task. “An account of the battle.”
“Why?”
“So we will remember what happened here.”
She thought about that for a moment. “Is it something special?”
He shook his head as he carefully scripted out each letter. “Not particularly.”
“Then why do it?”
“It is mostly for my father’s records,” he said. “He likes to keep an accounting of how long the battle took, what happened, how many men were lost. Things of that nature.”
“But why?”
He did look up then. “To understand what could have been done better,” he said. “To give an accounting to the king. And to keep a record for future generations.”
Her brow furrowed. “The nature of war cannot be tallied,” she said. “Every battle is different.”
He went back to his task. “Exactly.”
Elle didn’t understand his response. She was trying to figure out why he should want to remember a battle at all, especially if he won it. Shouldn’t one remember only the victory and not the price paid?
It made little sense to her.
“Do you always do this?” she asked.
He dipped his quill in the inkpot. “Always.”
“Will you write about me?”
“You in particular.”
That didn’t sit well with her. “Why?” she demanded. “What will you say about me?”
He was focused on his writing. “That the daughter of Gwenwynwyn ap Owain became our prisoner,” he said. Then he glanced at her. “And possibly my wife.”
She deflated somewhat with the reminder of where her future was headed. “And you still think this is a good idea?”
He paused writing and shrugged. “It does not matter what I think,” he said. “What matters is the good of all. If our marriage can save lives, Welsh and English, why wouldn’t we?”
Elle simply didn’t have a snappy comeback for that. She’d argued with him before, and, somehow, he’d always gained the upper hand. Closing her eyes for a brief moment in resignation, she hung her head again.
But Curtis was watching her. He wasn’t as detached as he pretended to be, mostly because he was weary from the battle and unbalanced from his father’s directive. He was trying to figure out just how he felt about the woman he was supposed tomarry, even if he had no choice in the matter. As he’d told her, his behavior toward her would, in large part, be dictated by her. She could be civil or she could build their entire marriage on a raging battle between them.
He sincerely hoped she didn’t choose the latter.
