Chapter 11
Aislynn fled down the hallway and back up the stairs to her room as soon as she was able to run without Eryk seeing her. She didn't care who else saw her right now; she just cared about getting away from him before she did kill someone. She had never been so furious in her life.
As she slammed open the door to her rooms, Marja took one look at her friend and bit off the comment she had been about to make. Marja had a feeling that if she valued her life at all, now would not be a good time to draw attention to herself. Instead, she shrank back into a corner while Aislynn stormed through the reception room and into her bedroom.
Aislynn stripped off her soaked clothing, throwing them into a pile in the middle of the room. She glanced briefly at the black dress that Marja had laid out for her but thought better of it. She was in no mood to play princess right now. Instead, she pulled on another pair of pants, these a dark green instead of her regular light brown, and then went digging through her drawers for a shirt. She knew that she should be wearing black out of respect for the dead king, but she just couldn't bring herself to do anything that would make Eryk happy right now, even if it was the proper thing to do. No, she corrected herself, especially if it was the proper thing to do. She pulled out a sleeveless tunic, deep yellow in color, and belted it around her waist with a black belt. It would have to do.
Next, Aislynn went looking for her weapons. Perhaps, given her mood, being armed wasn’t ideal, but she wasn’t going anywhere without her weapons today. The daggers she’d had with her this morning were from the castle armory, and not her own perfectly balanced pair, so those were what she picked up first, adding their scabbards to the belt she wore. Then she found her sling, and a pouch of bullets. She hefted the pouch for a moment, then changed her mind and let it drop back onto the bed. She’d use rocks instead, she decided. They were considerably less expensive to replace if she lost one.
During all of these preparations, Cheta just sat by the door, unmoving except for the slight rise and fall of her chest as she drew breath. She wasn’t sure what Aislynn was thinking of doing, but she was determined to help support her friend through this. That’s what she was for, after all. It looked like Aislynn was getting ready to go shoot down a few pigeons, considering the ranged weaponry she was selecting. That could be fun, the wolf thought.
Just as Aislynn was about to leave her bedroom, there was a knock at the outer door. Aislynn spun toward the noise, ready to tear a strip off of whoever it was. She knew that it wasn’t Eryk, since she could feel him still down in the study. A part of her really hoped that it was Branden, but she figured she wasn’t that lucky. With a nervous glance toward her friend, who she could see through the open bedroom door, Marja answered the door and then stood aside as Byron entered the room.
“Come with me,” he said, not quite ordering Aislynn to accompany him but certainly more than suggesting.
“What if I had other plans? Are you going to make me?” Aislynn snarled.
“No, I’m not,” Byron replied calmly, determined to help Aislynn calm down as she had helped him earlier. “But I figured that you could use something to hit right about now, so I came to offer my services.”
Aislynn eyed him, a little apprehensive, but she couldn't see anything in his body language to suggest that he meant her harm. She relaxed just a little.
“You’re likely right,” she admitted. “I probably could use something to hit. Let’s go.”
Byron led the way back out of the castle proper and into the main courtyard, retracing their earlier steps back to the barracks. Once they entered the building, the pair walked past some guardsmen. The conversation stopped immediately as the men turned to stare at them, or more specifically, at Aislynn.
“Seems like someone’s been spreading tales,” Byron commented.
“You didn't honestly think that it would stay a secret, did you?” Aislynn snorted in a most unladylike manner. “I wonder what they said when they got back here?”
The guards were looking at her nervously, but they were not aggressive in any way. Either they didn't know about the accusation Branden had laid at her feet, or they didn't believe her capable of it. Regardless of which was true, it would certainly be easier to deal with curiosity than it would be anger and distrust.
Byron sighed. “I guess that we might as well deal with this right now,” he said. “The sooner it’s all out in the open, the easier everyone’s lives will be.”
He turned to face the guards standing in the hall watching them.
“You two go fetch the rest of the off-duty guards and meet us in the dining hall. We'll address all of your questions there.”
The guards took off at a run, and Byron and Aislynn continued at a more sedate pace to the large dining room and the rapidly gathering compliment of castle guards. After giving the guards a few minutes to assemble, Byron began.
“Well gents, by now you've likely all heard some interesting stories about our guest here.” He paused, indicating Aislynn standing at his side. “Most of those stories are probably at least partially true. It would take too long to tell the whole story, so why don’t you just ask the questions you’re dying to ask and the two of us will answer them as best we can.”
There was silence in the room for a few moments while the guards mulled this over. Were they actually expected to ask the real questions they wanted answers to, or was this all for show? Aislynn could see her pair of loyal guards in the back, easily identifiable due to their uniforms. She saw them tense, just in case she needed them to try to protect her.
“Is it true that she’s an assassin?” a guard called from the back of the room, finally getting up the courage to ask a question.
“Yes, that’s true,” Aislynn answered, despite the fact that she hadn't been addressed directly. She decided to keep the answers short and sweet, and get this over with as quickly as possible. She really hated being the centre of attention.
“Did you kill the king?” This one was braver, asking one of the questions and directing the question to Aislynn herself.
“No, I most certainly did not.” Her tone left no room for argument, and nobody wanted to continue along that particular line of questioning.
“Did you come here to seduce the prince and take him away?”
Aislynn laughed at that one. “No, I came here to try and keep him alive, which is becoming less and less likely the longer he keeps being such a pain!”
As the questions continued to fly, the guards started to relax, some of them coming to realize that the Aislynn currently in front of them was no different from the Aislynn who had been doing her best to run their captain around the courtyard each morning.
“Is it true that you threatened to kill the new chief advisor?” A hush fell over the crowd at that one. Aislynn wondered if Branden was well liked by this crowd.
“Yes, I did,” Aislynn replied, blushing now at her loss of control. “He doesn't seem to like me very much, and the feeling is mutual. I was…am…very angry about his accusations.”
After that, the questions began to get less relevant to the situation and more personal, with a touch of silliness. Byron decided it was time to end this impromptu gathering.
“That’s enough gentlemen. With the current shaky situation between the princess and Lord Branden, she'll likely be spending more time over here with us. You can ask her directly if there are more questions later. I hope that you'll make her feel welcome here and I encourage you all to take advantage of her expertise.”
As Aislynn and Byron turned away, one last question rang out.
“Princess! Do you think you could take me down?” This question was pure curiosity.
She turned, with a grin. “Almost guaranteed. And likely you and any of your buddies together.”
With that, Byron escorted a considerably less irritable Aislynn out into the courtyard so that she could hit something, as promised. A little
bit of physical exertion, and her temper should cool. Byron was looking forward to that – an angry Aislynn was obviously a dangerous Aislynn, and he much preferred her company when she was in control.
Byron figured that if Aislynn was going to spend some time among the guards, she might as well get to know where everything was, so after the meeting he took Aislynn for a brief tour of the barracks building. They left the dining room, and then went to Byron’s office, the armory and the small barrack’s library. Byron finished the tour at the indoor arena, and introduced Aislynn to “Pete”, the guards’ nickname for the pells. He then excused himself for breakfast, leaving Aislynn to work out the last of her anger beating up Pete using the variety of weapons available.
It took about an hour of hard exercise for Aislynn’s temper to cool, which was a lot longer than usual. Her father had always joked that she should have been born a redhead considering how quick her temper would flare up. But quick to flare, quick to die down had always been her experience, so this was something new for her. She admitted to herself that she was glad that Byron had noticed how badly she needed to explode; hitting the pells was definitely just what she required. She spent most of her time imagining that she was hitting Branden.
When she had finally exhausted herself, Aislynn just sat in the middle of the arena to think. She knew that Eryk was mad at her, and she knew that Branden was mostly the cause, after seeing the way he was encouraging Eryk to leap to the wrong conclusions about her. However, she also knew that Eryk was mad because he felt betrayed and she didn't know how to fix that.
Aislynn knew that doing her job was going to be especially difficult over the coming days, because being a bodyguard was very complicated when you weren't allowed near the person you were supposed to protect. She would just have to figure something out, something that would allow her to be near Eryk without being seen. That was his requirement, after all.
“What do you think Cheta?” she asked, scratching the wolf’s ears. “Do you think we should just beat some sense into the man? Perhaps hang his so-called advisor out of a window?” The wolf, of course, didn't answer. She never did, but she did make a great sounding board.