Guts has seen enough of how men treat women to know refuting the point would just seem childish. If her home was anything like his, she would have definitely seen worse with a pretty face like that.

Still, part of him resented that he let himself be so easy to read. The cursed brand on his neck had brought down so much death and catastrophe, it was difficult to think of himself as anything but a walking disaster. Though, in that vein, what would one more death mean to the cumulative whole?

In the end, what he ends up doing is making huffing noise not unlike the disgruntled horses around them, and turning his back to keep applying more mud.

“Suit yourself. It’s your life.”