Chapter Eight #2
He grinned. “She wasn’t a fine lady back then,” he said.
“And aye—a tree. I was home from the great quest to the Levant, heading toward Lioncross Abbey Castle to claim my bride, when this woman fell out of a tree right in front of me. I remember this mass of blonde hair all over the ground as she lay there and groaned, so naturally, I took pity on her and brought her home.”
“This is the same woman you bullied into marrying you?” Elle asked.
Christopher laughed softly. “The same,” he said. “I see that you remember what I told you yesterday.”
“I do, indeed,” Elle said. “I never forget a conversation.”
Christopher shot Curtis a long look. “You would do well to remember that about your future wife,” he said, but his focus returned to Elle.
“We returned to Lioncross, where I met Dustin’s mother, Lady Mary.
Lady Mary was a kind, gentle creature who struggled with a daughter who was neither kind nor gentle.
It was Lady Mary who forced Dustin to don the very blue dress you are wearing at our first official meeting later that day.
Therefore, the garment you wear has special meaning to me and to my wife.
She would be very honored that you are wearing it. ”
Elle looked down at the dress, trying to see it with the sentimentality that Christopher was. “If it has special meaning, why does she not keep it with her?” she asked. “Why was it here, with you, at a battle?”
“Because she would come with me sometimes on a battle march,” he said. “That is why you have clothing to wear—she always kept some with me should she decide to attend me.”
Elle nodded, fingering the dress that had been altered slightly since Dustin had been a young lass, wild and free. She could see where seams used to be, having been let out in the slightest. She tried to picture Curtis’ mother, a blonde woman who liked to hang from trees.
“Did Lady Hereford really hang from trees?” she asked, a smirk tugging at her lips.
Christopher nodded. “Indeed, she did,” he said. “She was fearsome, unrestrained in a way few women are. You remind me of her, to be perfectly truthful. You led a battle yesterday, which is something she is more than capable of doing. She is fearless, and so are you, I am coming to see.”
Elle almost replied with fearless but a failure, but held her tongue.
They already knew she was beaten. She knew she was beaten.
There was no use in rehashing it every time it came up, and the truth was that it could have been so much worse.
Hereford and his son were treating her kindly and fairly when they could have very well made her a prisoner and treated her as one. But they weren’t.
Elle was coming to be grateful for small mercies.
“I am certain I will meet her one day,” she said, because she couldn’t think of anything else and Christopher’s kind words had her unsettled. “I will take good care of her garment.”
“I am sure you will,” Christopher said, seeing that she was feeling awkward.
“The reason I am telling you this is not to force sentimentality into the situation, but because you and Curtis are to be married today, and the dress you are wearing is most appropriate. My wife will be quite sad that she cannot be present, but your wearing her dress will give her comfort. She is here in spirit.”
Elle looked at him in astonishment. “Today?” she said. “We are being married… today?”
Christopher nodded. “There is no reason to delay,” he said. “Henry will have his marriage, Curtis will have a new castle and a new wife, and this section of the marches shall be settled for the time being.”
Elle wasn’t over her astonishment, and she didn’t like the way he sounded so positive about the situation. As if this was a good thing. As if her entire world hadn’t just come crashing down.
In fact, it shocked her to the core.
“You speak as if this is something good,” she said, sliding from astonishment to outrage.
“You speak as if all that matters is that your son will have his castle and a new wife. But what about me? I have lost everything for your son to achieve his status. I have lost my independence and my freedom, not to mention a castle I held for a solid month against mayhap the greatest warlord in England. Yet… you do not acknowledge that I had to sacrifice my entire life so your heir could have a destiny, and I find that wholly insulting.”
The warm expression faded from Christopher’s face.
He glanced at Curtis to see how the man was reacting to Elle’s statement, and all he could see on his son’s face was that, perhaps, she might be right.
Curtis’ only response was to lift his eyebrows at his father, which told Christopher he may have been thoughtless.
He was careful in his response.
“If I have been insensitive, forgive me,” he said quietly.
“It was not my intention. Much like you, we have done a month’s worth of battle, and I suppose I am weary and eager to return home.
But I realize that although you are returning home, it will be different than it was.
I should have said that, and I am ashamed that I did not.
But this is the nature of war, my lady. I have told you that.
There are victors and there are losers. Because I did not acknowledge your sacrifice does not mean that I am unaware of it. ”
Elle had to take a deep breath to calm herself. “Have you ever been on the losing side of a battle, llew?” she asked. “Do you even know what defeat feels like?”
She had called him the Welsh word for lion. Christopher had been known throughout his adult lifetime as the Lion’s Claw, the right hand of Richard the Lionheart. A lion was even on his standard, so she knew well the man’s nickname in that pleading question.
He did not take offense.
“I have seen more than forty years of battle,” he told her. “How many years have you seen?”
That gave her some pause. “Not as many,” she said reluctantly.
Her answer caused Curtis to turn his head away lest she see him smirk as Christopher remained patient with her. “And do you think it would be fair to say that, within that time, I have lost a battle or two?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Possibly,” she said. “But I would wager not many.”
“You would be correct,” Christopher said.
“But I will tell you something that I have learned in defeat, my lady. How you accept a loss is as important as you accept victory. A man—or woman—of humility in victory is a thing to be admired. The same could be said for a man or woman of defeat. I accept this victory with humility because I am grateful for it. I am grateful I accomplished my task, and I am grateful my losses were minimal. You can show humility with your grace and understanding and cooperation. No one is trying to shame you, Lady Elle. Please remember that, even if we are tactless from time to time.”
There was a rebuke in that, but it was perhaps the politest rebuke Elle had ever heard. She didn’t argue with him. She simply nodded her head. He’d been trying to tell her for two days that this was no longer her game. She was only a player in a board that someone else controlled.
It was time for her to learn that for good.
But it was still difficult for her to swallow.
“Can you tell me the worst battle you have ever lost?” she asked. “I would like to know.”
It wasn’t a flippant question. In fact, it was a very earnest one.
Christopher could see that this young woman, who had fought so bravely, was trying to relate to him the only way she knew how.
That was a lesson for him, in fact, to communicate with her in a way she understood. She understood hardship and battle.
Perhaps this was his opportunity to learn something about his son’s future wife.
“It was many years ago,” he said. “Curtis was not yet born. There was a battle at a castle called Tickhill. My enemy was Prince John, who had taken over Tickhill, and it was my task—and the task of the army of King Richard—to get him out. It was a very big castle with enormous walls and a tall motte. It was partially surrounded by a millpond, but on the day I remember, it had been raining horribly. The mud was so thick and deep that the chargers were in danger of breaking legs in the stuff. I remember sheets of rain and dodging the bolts that the archers were shooting from the castle walls. One, unfortunately, hit me.”
Elle was listening with interest. “You were wounded, then?”
He nodded. “I was,” he said. “It was very bad. I found my way to the edge of the field with what I thought was a mortal wound. A fellow knight found me, and because the battle was still ongoing at that point, he could not be spared to tend me. His horse had been injured, so he took mine, but he was nearing the castle, and the horse took a bolt. It fell over on him, and he drowned in the mud as my horse smothered him. I am not entirely sure what happened to me at that point because I lost consciousness and some people took me away to save my life, but days after the battle, my men found my dead horse and what they thought was my body buried beneath it. My wife, and the whole of England, was told that I was dead. She even married another man because I was not strong enough to return to her for quite some time.”
Elle was invested in the story. “That is a terrible thing,” she said. “And this was the worst battle you ever lost?”
He shook his head. “It was the battle where I lost everything,” he said. “I lost my identity, my wife, the life I knew… everything.”
“What happened to Tickhill Castle?”
“The castle surrendered at some point,” he said. “It was given back over to Richard, and John went elsewhere to wreak havoc.”
“And you were fighting for Richard the entire time?”
“The entire time.”
“I have heard that was a terrible time in English history.”
“It was.”