Ayla bit her lower lip. “Well…in that, they're not entirely mistaken.”
“And you expect me to believe that all this was done by a merchant? A peaceful, money-loving apple dealer?”
“Arms dealer. He is an arms dealer.”
“Fine. But that he knows how to sell a sword doesn't mean he knows how to wield one, Milady. How would he be able to break into the camp and steal a knight's armor, not to speak of riding in that armor at full gallop, if he himself isn't—”
Isenbard broke off, and his eyes went wide. Concern swept away Ayla's nervousness in an instant, and she grabbed one of his hands.
“Isenbard? Are you all right? Isenbard?”
Maybe the injury he had suffered had delayed effects! Oh Lord, maybe he was having a seizure!
But his eyes focused on her again almost immediately. They had a strange, pondering look. As if he were weighing something in his mind.
“An arms dealer,” he said slowly. “I see. Yes, as such he would have a certain expertise with weapons, I'm sure. I’m sorry for troubling you with unnecessary concerns, Milady.”
Relief flooded through Ayla. He had swallowed her story! It was amazing. She wouldn't have thought anybody would believe her inexpert attempts at lying. Smiling, she looked after Isenbard as he went away, whistling.
*~*~**~*~*
A few hours after his invigorating talk with Ayla, Reuben heard voices outside his room.
“I'm sorry, Sir, but nobody is allowed to enter the room with a weapon.”
“Not even me, Hubert?” It was the voice of an old man, but still a strong voice. Reuben fancied he had heard it before. He frowned. Where had that been?
“Um…especially not you, Sir.” The guard sounded embarrassed. “Lady Ayla gave us express orders that you were not to enter this room with a sword in your hand, and that if you were to try, we should…err…stop you.”
“Did she, now? How interesting. And how exactly would you go about stopping me, Hubert?”
“Um…I have no idea, Sir. Now, can you please give me the sword? Please, Sir?”
“Certainly. I don't think it would be a good idea if we were to come to blows, now, would it?”
“Certainly not, Sir.”
There was some shuffling and clanking, then the door opened and an old man stepped inside. His face was wrinkled, but still angular and firm, and he had a neatly trimmed, white beard.
“I remember you,” Reuben said, examining him warily. “You're that old geezer who couldn't ever shut up.”
The old man raised an eyebrow. “I admit, I'm not often characterized in this fashion, but I suppose you are correct. And you are that young fellow who deserves to have his tongue cut out for his insolence.”
“Yes, that's me.” A grim smile flitted over Reuben's face. “I have very often been characterized in this fashion. And yet, my tongue is still firmly attached.”
“I'm not surprised.” The whitebeard's eyes flitted to the giant sword at Reuben's hip. “You carry efficient protection against tongue-cutters.”
Reuben shrugged indifferently. “A merchant has to defend himself on the road.”
“It's better than a candlestick.”
“That it is.”
“And where did you come by this impressive peace of weaponry?” asked Isenbard. “It is a strange thing for a 'merchant' to carry.”
Reuben heard the stress the old man put on the word. There was knowledge behind this man's speech. Dangerous knowledge. Reuben's jaw tightened, and he considered drawing the sword and decapitating the old fool. Slowly, his fingers moved towards the hilt of his weapon.
But then he thought of Ayla. This castle was her home. He couldn't spill blood here. It took so long to be washed off the floor. Besides, he couldn't again shake her trust in him when there was the slightest chance it might be rebuilt. And, oh yes, most people, Ayla probably included, generally considered killing people to be wrong. He remembered that from before he had started enjoying it.
His fingers moved away from the sword hilt again.
Only then did he notice that the old man's eyes had followed his movements closely. For the first time in a long while, Reuben felt uncomfortable under the gaze of another. A feeling that he only remembered from his teachers, back when he had been a young page and then a squire.
“You were ill, weren't you?” the old knight asked.
“Yes,” was Reuben's curt reply. Why had the man asked that? He surely knew it.
“And Ayla nursed you back to health?”
“Yes, she did.” And he had to know that, too. What was his game?
“Ah, yes, Ayla.” The old knight sighed. “She has a good heart, I have to admit. But she has a brain the size of an earthworm's, and she is awfully ugly. I hate to speak ill of my mistress, but so it is. The ugliest girl that I saw in my entire life.”
What in the devil’s name was this? Reuben's face turned red with anger. Ayla trusted this man, called him a friend, and he was insulting her behind her back? In two steps, Reuben was across the room and in front of Isenbard. He towered over the old man, his hand on his sword hilt again.
“I think she is the loveliest young lady that ever walked the earth,” he growled, his voice seething with fury.
“Is that so?” Isenbard inquired calmly.
“Yes! Intelligent and lively, too! And you had better agree or I will make you regret it!”
“Indeed? Well, in that case…” Isenbard sighed, “you're right. She is not bad-looking. And quite smart for a young girl.”
Bah! Reuben stared with contempt at the old knight. Only a coward backed down this easily, even if his claim was preposterous. The next time he saw Ayla, he had to speak with her about her trust in this craven old fool. From what Reuben had seen so far, there was no foundation for it whatsoever.
“You don't like being stuck in here, do you?” Isenbard asked, changing the subject with unexpected abruptness.
Reuben glared at him, still not entirely appeased. “Of course! Wouldn't you hate being stuck in a room all day?”
“You would rather be out there?”
“Yes!”
“Doing what?”
Reuben was silent. No answer came to him. He knew perfectly well what he would like to do. His hand was itching to draw his blade again. But he couldn't tell that to this old man. Why had the man asked, anyway? This was getting more and more awkward. Reuben had no idea what the old man was doing here or what these odd, unconnected questions were leading up to.
“Was there something in particular you wanted?” he asked the old man, wanting to be rid of him.
“Yes,” the whitebeard replied, eying Reuben with a small, satisfied smile on his lips. “And I think I have found it.”
Then he turned and left the room without another word. Reuben gaped after him. What had that been all about?
*~*~**~*~*
Ayla stood on the gallery and looked down into the main hall. People had begun to settle down there. With what few possessions they had left—pieces of cloth and string, earthen bowls, and the like—they had demarcated their personal space in the large room, and, with Ayla's permission and against the protest of the castle cook, had used the large embroidered feast tablecloths owned by the Luntberg family to make makeshift beds for themselves and their children.
Now they were sitting around without much to do. And as it always is with people who know each other and don't have much to do, they started gossiping. First, they talked of the mysterious occurrence of this morning, of the merchant who had come riding into the castle dressed in a knight's armor, with an army at his heels. Normally, such a topic would have provided enough to talk about for weeks on end. But these were not normal times, and people's thoughts soon returned to the army in front of the gates, the merciless infamy of the Margrave von Falkenstein, and, ever more often, the specter of doom that threatened to engulf them: starvation.
Ayla listened from the shadow of a stone pillar as the worry of her people grew.
She had come here after her conversation with Isenbard, wanting to see if she could help them in any way, if they needed anything—only to realize that they needed exactly those things she could not provide for long: food and safety.
They all knew what nobody would say aloud: that the safety of the castle was just an illusion, temporary and fleeting. Soon, their supplies would run out, and then they would be at the mercy of their enemies, hopelessly outmatched. Fear was spreading like an epidemic.
Only one person seemed to be entirely confident.
“And then,” declared Fey and let the stick in her little hand swish through the air like a sword, “Sir Reuben will hack his enemies into tiny little pieces. Really, really tiny little pieces, you know? Like mincemeat, only muuuch bloodier.”
“Um…I'm sure he will, dear,” said Margaret, the despairing mother. “But hush, will you? There is a man who is actually called Reuben, and he is a guest in our lady's castle! You shouldn't call your doll by the same name. If he hears…”
“Why not? He should be honored I named it after him, shouldn’t he? It's a knight's doll, after all, and he's just a stingy, money-grabbing merchant.”
“Yes, dear, but he or Lady Ayla might not see it that way…”
“Then I'll go to them and explain. They'd have to be really silly not to see I'm right.” Fey rolled her eyes at the thick-wittedness of her mother. Then she lost interest in her parent altogether and began practicing blows with her stick sword again. “And then, if there are any enemies left which Sir Reuben hasn't cut into tiny little bloody pieces, he will give them to his personal torturer. And he'll put them on the rack and pull them reaaaaally long. You know, until they're ten or eleven feet tall or something like that. And then they'll have to walk around like that for the rest of their lives and will continually bump their heads when they want to go through a doorway.”
“Fey! You shouldn't say such things!”
“And the Margrave he will pull even longer, so that he won't fit through a doorway anymore at all! And after the baddie has hit his head often enough, Sir Reuben will take him and chop him into pieces which will be even more tiny and bloodier than the pieces he chopped the others into!”
“Fey!”
In the shadow of the pillar, Ayla couldn't prevent a smile from flickering over her face. Oh, if only Sir Reuben could really hack her enemy into tiny little bloody pieces. Then her world would be so much simpler. But even if she had been able to trust him, even if she did not need to keep him under guard all the time, what could one man do against an army of six or seven hundred?
Nothing.
Despondently, Ayla shook her head and, as she did so, from the corner of her eye, saw a shimmer of reddish light reflecting off her hair. Looking out of the window behind her, she saw that the sun was already setting, flooding the land with crimson. She had stood here longer than she had thought.
What now?
She supposed she could only go to bed. Awake, there was nothing more to do but worry. Hopefully, sleep would help her save her energy and endure a little longer. Soon enough, she would be kept awake by the gnawing hunger in her belly.
Ayla returned to her chambers, which she now shared with Dilli and three of her other maids. After much arguing, Burchard had accepted that sleeping in their company might not be totally morally unacceptable. Ayla lay down on her four-poster bed. Normally, she would have drawn the curtains to keep the warmth in, but the curtains had been taken off at her order to serve, along with the castle’s tablecloths, as bed sheets for those of the villagers who didn't have anything else to sleep on. So she simply curled up into a tight ball and pressed herself into the mattress, wishing heartily that, when she woke up, all this would prove to be a bad dream and the feud would have never happened.
*~*~**~*~*
When she jerked awake, it was dark, and a knife was pressed to her throat.
“Not a sound, girl,” growled a rough voice out of the darkness, “or you're dead!”
Ladynapping
Moodily, Reuben stared out of his window, up at the moon. He had heard quite a few ballads sung about it. The damn thing was supposed to be romantic. He couldn't decide whether that really was the case or whether he'd like to hack it into tiny little pieces. Just as he couldn't decide what to make of Ayla.
Had she forgiven him? Did she still have feelings for him?
That maid, Dilli, seemed to think so. But then, the same maid, Dilli, had taken him to be one of the undead on their first meeting, so Reuben didn't feel a lot of confidence in her judgment. Unable to decide what to think or what to do, he continued to sit on his bed, staring up at the moon. He was completely lost in his thoughts. So completely that he almost missed the quiet scrape of metal on metal.
Almost.
He had been a robber knight for five years. You didn't stay alive with a price on your head for five whole years on the roads of the Holy Roman Empire and the roads of even stranger, far deadlier lands without learning the difference between an “oh damn, I have just made a scratch in my brand-new bronze mirror” sound and a “psht, I am drawing a dagger” sound. He had certainly heard the latter kind often enough.
Swift and silent as a striking snake, Reuben swiveled around so his head faced the door, and his legs were like a coiled spring beneath him, ready to catapult him to his feet at a moment's notice. His hand clamped down around the hilt of his sword, and darkness descended on his features.
There it was again! There was no doubt this time; it was the sound of a knife. Reuben could imagine only one reason why a man with a knife might want to come into his room in the middle of the night, and it wasn't to cut his toenails. Whoever wanted his life would not find him unprepared, though. His other hand slid under his coat of mail to the hilt of the familiar dagger concealed in a secret pouch there. Luca, the fenn-sucked scut, had probably not even realized it was there, in the brief period during which he had dared to don Reuben’s armor.
Reuben grinned. These other enemies out there would remain just as oblivious of the dagger’s existence until it was too late for them.
Then, very slowly, the grin slipped from his face as a terrible possibility occurred to him.
Who could possibly be after his life right now, except one person? The only one who knew who he really was. The one who had sworn to see him dead.
His hand clenched so hard around the hilt of the dagger that he almost ripped the thing out of its sheath involuntarily. God's teeth! Did she not have the courage to have him hanged in broad daylight and see the deed done? Did she have to send a hired killer to do her dirty work for her? He had not thought so low of Ayla as that.
But…no. Reuben frowned. He could still hear the snoring of the guards right in front of his room. If Ayla had sent a killer to rid herself of him, surely she would have sent her own guards away first.
The alien, secretive noises came closer. Now they were not scrapes of metal anymore, but quiet footsteps. Nevertheless, it was the same person, Reuben was sure. More footsteps followed. They approached his room slowly. Reuben loosened his sword in its scabbard and prepared to face his enemies, whoever they might be.
And then the footsteps went past his room, on down the corridor.
For some reason Reuben didn't feel better.
If they were not after him, who could they possibly…?
*~*~**~*~*
A dirty, smelly hand clamped down over Ayla's mouth. Above her, she could see the beefy figure of a man dressed in light leather armor, with several knives at his belt. What little moonlight fell in through the small window showed only the rough outlines of his face, but that was more than enough. A patchwork of scars, a massive chin, and a broken nose told Ayla as surely as the knife at her throat: this man wasn't here for a game of chess.
“Up with you,” he growled.
When she didn't react, paralyzed with fear, he grabbed her by the hair and pulled painfully. “Up with you, I said! Do as I say, or I'll leave a few marks on that pretty little face
of yours. Would you like that? Now move!”
She half rose, half was dragged to her feet. Her head was on fire, the man still having hold of her hair. He used it to pull her against his chest, and he snaked an arm around her waist.
Ayla dragged in a ragged breath and almost gagged. Ugh! The thought shot through her head. He stinks worse than a week's worth of pig’s dung!
And then she thought, A man is taking me against my will and pressing a knife against my throat, and all I can think of is how bad he smells? What's wrong with me?
She felt rather odd. Blood was pounding in her ears, her hands were sweaty, and her eyes were opened unusually wide. She didn't feel fear as such—she was still far too shocked for that, having been ripped from sleep in half a second. But she knew somewhere deep down that fear was on the way. And when it came, it would hit her like a rampaging boar.
“Ortwin!” the beefy man hissed. “Is the way clear?”
“Err…not as such, Sir,” came a voice from the direction of the door. There are more of them, another thought shot through Ayla's head.
“What do you mean, not as such?” growled the beefy man. “Are there guards outside or not?”
“I don't know whether there are guards outside, Sir. There's a girl inside, though, Sir.”
“What?” The beefy man’s grip on Ayla’s hair tightened, and she had to bite her lip to keep from screaming.
“A girl, Sir. In fact, several of them, sleeping on the floor. Two of them have rolled over and are now lying in front of the door, blocking our way out.”
“What the devil are girls doing lying around on the floor in this room? I thought this was the lady’s chamber!”
“I have no idea, Sir.” There was nervous whispering from the door. Apparently, there were several men over there. “What shall we do, Sir? Take them?”
“No! We're not here for servant girls. It's her we want.” He tugged on Ayla's hair again, and she couldn't help letting out a whimper of pain. “Cut their throats and be done with it!”
Ayla's eyes widened. Dilli! Heilswinda! No! But before she could start to fight and moan in protest, the man at the door said, “Um…it's dark over here, Sir. I might just as well stab them in the foot as in the throat.”