Chapter Text
Cutlery scraped gently on the silver plates. Vlad's molars hurt when his jaw moved to chew the lamb. He watched Elisabeta pour a small amount of wine into her goblet, and dilute it with water.
"You have completed enough translations today." He said. "Rest with me."
Elisabeta gave him a cold look.
"You started a fight with the Vatican treasurer despite an inability to read the Latin legal scripture with which he now sues you with." She told him. "Unless you want your Roman Catholic mother to be excommunicated."
"My Roman Catholic Mother can convert to the Eastern Orthodox Church." Vlad said. "Her husband and all of her children are blessed in this righteous Church."
"Your Mother will not convert even if she was blinded." Elisabeta sipped wine from the goblet. "Your Mother would not convert to save your life. I resent that despicable heretic. Her own people sued her for terrorizing peasants with outlandish taxation demands."
Vlad's mouth curled up.
"She built a cathedral for her Catholic kin, she was forgiven." He answered.
"Bogorodice!" Elisabeta snapped. "Nevesta tvog oca? Ćerka životinje!"
She coughed into the back of her hand, and drank more of the wine.
"It is only six pages." Elisabeta dismissed. "The work is not difficult."
Each page took Elisabeta just over or just under fifteen minutes.
Vlad decided he could wait that time for her, yet it displeased him. He gave no importance to the enraged papal treasurer. He gave no importance to his Mother bearing the brunt of Vatican offence.
He wished his wife would listen to him. She was meant to.
"I can hear you thinking and I detest it." Elisabeta warned.
"If you can hear me thinking you should know and understand what I am thinking." Vlad said. "Do not speak to me like that."
Elisabeta's eyes flashed nastily, petulantly.
The points of Vlad's fork nearly went through the roof of his mouth as Elisabeta suddenly crashed her hand to the table.
"Do not!" She shouted. "Do not ever speak to Miloš Dušanović in that manner in front of the boyars,or your insipid councillers, ever again!"
Being married to a strong woman of faith had its complications.
Vlad was steadily discovering it.