Milk-Concealing Kitten
They were all assembled around the table: Linhart, Sir Waldar, Sir Rudolfus, and Burchard. What a bunch of misfits!
Reuben examined their faces one after the other. Linhart and Burchard were the only ones who returned his gaze. Sir Waldar was too busy staring despondently into his empty tankard, and Sir Rudolfus turned beet red and looked away as soon as Reuben looked at him. If it had been anybody else, this would have made Reuben suspicious as hell—he’d have had them in a chokehold, trying to force a confession out of them that they were the traitor he was looking for. But Sir Rudolfus always avoided everybody's eyes and could be made to blush by an ant if it looked at him funny.
Burchard did most definitely not avoid Reuben’s eyes. On the contrary, he returned Reuben's gaze with full force and with a bit of suspicion on top. Although the old steward wore no sword and was no fighter, he seemed to think that he had inherited the job of protecting Lady Ayla from Sir Isenbard.
He was wrong, of course.
“Do you know what she wants?” Sir Waldar grunted to Captain Linhart when, after ten minutes, they were still waiting for their mistress to arrive.
The Captain shook his head. “No. I have no idea why Lady Ayla has ordered us to assemble here.”
Sir Waldar's questioning gaze went from Linhart to Sir Rudolfus, and from Rudolfus to Burchard. They all shook their heads. Finally, it landed on Reuben.
“You!” Sir Waldar nodded to Reuben. “Do you know where she is?”
Reuben nodded, curtly.
“Well, where is she, then?”
Reuben shook his head.
Sir Waldar didn’t seem to think that was a satisfactory answer to his question. “What’s that supposed to mean? And who the hell are you, anyway? I know every man jack in this blasted castle, but I've never heard your name before!”
Reuben didn’t even glance at the man, let alone turn towards him. He remained sitting just as he was, staring at the empty chair at the other end. Ayla’s chair.
“My name is Reuben.”
“Just Reuben? You’re wearing a knight's armor.”
“Yes, I am.”
He could already see the next question forming on Waldar's lips—a question that he might not be ready or able to answer. But then, suddenly, they all froze. Light footsteps sounded from outside. Somebody pushed against the door, and it swung open.
*~*~**~*~*
Cautiously, Ayla opened the door to her father's tower chamber. The village woman was sitting on the other side, her eyes red, her hands busy stitching a soldier's pair of pants that had been ripped in the fight on the castle wall.
“Is he…” Ayla began in a low voice but was interrupted.
“I'm awake, daughter,” the count's brittle but amiable voice came from behind the door. “You can come in.”
Inwardly, Ayla sighed with relief. She had prayed that he was awake, and her prayers had been heard. She needed this now, needed to talk to him, to the only person in the castle who did not yet know about the terrible fortunes which had befallen them, and about those which were yet to come and were hovering on the horizon like black storm clouds.
Entering the room, she smiled timidly at the middle-aged woman and asked, “Could you please wait outside for a few minutes? I want to have a little talk with my father.”
Jumping to her feet, the woman curtsied, gestured to her children, and hurried towards the door. “Of course, Milady. Come on, you three, follow me.”
When the three children in question didn’t show the slightest inclination to follow, but instead stayed to stare at Ayla, she hurried back, grabbed them by the scruffs of their necks, and dragged them out in a most motherly and gentle, but nevertheless determined, manner. Ayla heard the three complaining all the while they were being dragged down the stairs. It brought a little smile to Ayla's lips, but that disappeared immediately when she remembered what had happened and what lay ahead of her.
Slowly, she walked to the count's bedside and knelt.
“Hello, father,” she said, her voice thick with emotion.
He smiled up at her warmly. “And what has this wrinkly old man done to deserve the honor of a visit from Lady Ayla von Luntberg?”
“Father!” she admonished. “Can't a daughter simply come visiting anymore because she wants to spend time with her father?”
His smile broadened a bit, showing something of the mischievous young man he had been long ago. “Not when her father is so dried-up, old, and crusty. And not,” he added in a more serious tone, “when she has a feud to fight.”
Ayla swallowed. In that, he was absolutely right. It was, in fact, the main reason why she had not been up to see her father more often. Something always needed to be done, something always popped up to keep her busy. But now she needed just a few moments away from the madness, together with the last solid, dependable, familiar person who hadn’t yet been shaken by the siege.
“I have to be with you sometimes, father,” she told him, gently stroking his beard. “If I wouldn't do that, I think I would go mad.”
He stared into her eyes, and the fatherly love she saw there almost made her cry, almost brought the whole horrible truth tumbling out of her mouth.
“How is everything down in the castle, Ayla?”
She shrugged. “What can I say? Our supplies are slowly dwindling, the enemy is always playing new tricks on us, looking for ways into the castle or ways to demoralize us.”
“The latest of which reached even me, here, high up in my retreat,” the count sighed. “I must admit, I haven't been sleeping very well for the last few nights.”
Ayla's lips twitched. “Neither has anybody else in the castle. Well, at least that is over, for now. They seem to have despaired of that tactic.”
“Just like that?”
“Well…” Ayla hesitated. It couldn't really hurt to tell him, could it? “The main point of it was to exhaust us. A few days ago, when we were all half-dead from lack of sleep, there was an attempt to take the castle. But it failed, and after that, they seemed to lose confidence in that particular plan.”
“I see.” The Count nodded gravely. “Is there anything else you'd like to tell me?”
“N-no. What else could there be?”
Her father smiled at her again. His smile was so sad it almost brought tears to Ayla's eyes again.
“For example—how long has Isenbard been dead?” he asked in a quiet voice. Ayla’s breath caught. She felt as if a mule had kicked her in the stomach.
“How…how did you…”
“Ayla, my child.” With another sad smile, the count reached up to cup her face with a shaking hand. “You're my daughter. I have known you for seventeen years, ever since your mother, God bless her soul, brought you into this world. Whenever you try to lie or conceal anything, you get this expression on your face, like a little kitten trying to hide a cup of milk behind its back.”
Ayla would have protested that she looked nothing like a kitten, and even if she did, she definitely was not in the habit of carrying cups of milk around with her, but the pained expression on her father's face stopped the words.
“How long, Ayla?”
“About three days. We…we just buried him yesterday.”
“I wish I could have been there,” the count murmured. “I wish you had told me, Ayla. I understand why you didn't, but I still wish you had told me.”
Ayla's lower lip began to tremble. God, wasn’t this the perfect irony! She had concealed the truth from him because she had feared that her father would be the one that couldn't handle the reality of Isenbard's death, and now it was she who felt as if she would break down any minute.
“I…I'm sorry, father,” she whimpered. “I just thought that if you knew…that it would be too much for you, that it would kill you. I'm so sorry.” Impulsively, she threw her arms around the old man's skinny neck and hugged him close. The curls of his long beard stroked her face, wiping the tears away. “I'm so, so sorry. I didn'
t want to lose you, too.”
“I know.” He patted the back of her head with a feeble hand. “Shh, Ayla, I know. Don't cry.”
But she did. She cried long and hard while Count Thomas held her and rocked her like a baby. Somehow, it felt good—letting go, losing oneself to the grief, not being afraid of showing what one really felt. She couldn't do that at the funeral, not with her people watching her.
Finally, when her sobs began to subside, her father gently pushed her away. “How did it happen?”
So she told him everything, from the grizzly bombardment to the nocturnal attack on the castle and Isenbard's heroic defense of the wall. She described every single event in minute detail, knowing that nothing less would do. Now that the truth was out, her father deserved to know all. Isenbard had been his closest, no, his only friend in the world. So she talked for hours and didn't hold back with praise when she came to Sir Isenbard's last minutes up on the wall.
“He was a hero,” she concluded, her voice hoarse from talking and crying. “He defended the wall with only half a dozen men. Without him, we all would be dead or enslaved.”
“The stupid fool,” the Count muttered, shaking his head, a smile on his face and moisture in his eyes. “He always took on too much than was good for him.”
Ayla nodded, not having the strength for any more words.
They sat together for a while in silence. Ayla knew she had to give her father this time. Finally, the count collected himself and cleared his throat.
“But…that is not everything?” he asked, looking questioningly at his daughter.
A frown crept on Ayla's face. “Yes, it is. I have told you everything about Isenbard's death, just as it happened.”
“About that, yes, but…” He stared intently into his daughter's eyes. She averted them quickly and tried not to look like a guilty kitten caught in the act. “There's something else. Something you're concealing from me.”
Lord, please, no, Ayla thought, desperately. He can know about Isenbard's death—maybe he’s strong enough for that. But for the other thing? Never! I can’t breathe a word about the traitor. It would destroy him.
“No, there's nothing.”
“Ayla…”
“There's nothing! I swear, there's nothing. Look, err…I have to go now. I am very busy, you know, being besieged and all. I have to go now and…and let myself be besieged. I'll come to visit you again as soon as I have time. Good-bye.”
She sprang up and, before he could say another word, was out of the door and had closed it behind her. She hurried down a few stairs, and then stopped, leaning against the wall and panting heavily.
Thank the Lord, she had averted that disaster. Count Thomas would not, could not learn that one of his beloved subjects had betrayed him. She would not let that happen. She herself would suffer all the pain that was necessary, but never would she allow something to hurt her father like that.
Drawing in a few deep, steadying breaths, Ayla finally started on her way down the stairs again. She had visited her father. She had taken from the meeting all the joy, all the strength that Count Thomas could give her. Now she would need them. Now she had to do what Reuben had asked of her.
Tell the truth.
Why are the things that sound so simple always the most difficult to do?
She had reached the end of the stairs. A few yards down the corridor was the entrance to the room where she knew they all were waiting for her. She strode towards it and paused in front of the old oak door for a moment to collect her thoughts. Then she raised her hand, grasped the doorknob, and pushed. It was time.
The Duties of a Lady
Ayla stood in the doorway. Her face was calm and unemotional. For a moment, Reuben saw her eyes move to him. Then they looked straight forward again, and she moved to her chair, to take her place at the head of the table.
“Greetings, my friends, my vassals,” she said in a voice as unemotional as her features. “I have called you together to give you grave news.”
“Oh, great,” grumbled Burchard. “We're being besieged, our military leader has just been buried, and we're all likely to die in the near future. Don't think of anything to cheer us up, please!”
Ayla silenced him with a look. She clearly was not in a mood to joke.
A shiver ran down his back as Reuben remembered what he had told her, in his room, after the funeral. “You must tell them. It must be you.”
“Why me?” Tears had run down her face in rivulets. She had stopped pounding on his chest, but only because she didn't have the strength to do it anymore.
Reuben's anger dwindled. He had been angry, terribly angry—she had called him a liar, called his loyalty into question after everything he had done to prove it! But then, as she had started to attack him, as he had felt her in his arms, fighting, crying, trembling, he had realized that it was not really him she was calling into question, but her own beliefs. Her own way of seeing the world.
During the entire siege, her belief in the loyalty and love of her people had given her strength. Now that belief was crumbling, and her strength along with it.
“Why me?” She repeated, her voice only a painful moan. “You discovered it. You tell them!”
“Me, tell your vassals that one of their own is a traitor?” Reuben's lips twitched in a humorless smile. “They aren’t even sure who or what I am, let alone sure whether they should trust me. They wouldn't believe a word I say. And if they did know who I truly am, they would want to kill me on the spot. No. You must do this. You must tell your commanders that there is a traitor among us, because, if there is anyone they will believe and put their trust in, it is you.”
“But Reuben…we can’t have a traitor in the castle. It can't be. It simply can't be.”
“Saying that it can't be doesn't change the fact that it is, Ayla. I'm sorry.”
“Reuben…hold me. Please, just hold me.”
“I will. I will.”
He had held her through the night as she cried into his chest. She had gotten less sleep that night, which was perfectly calm and quiet, than during any of the nights when the enemy had kept them awake with their infernal racket. Her enemies had not managed to break her spirit. Had her own people now done the job?
Looking at her as she sat at the head of the table now, tall and proud, not a single drop of moisture in her sapphire eyes, Reuben sincerely doubted it. He marveled at her. He was a strong man—in fact he had never met anyone stronger—and Ayla was just a slip of a girl compared to him. But the inner strength she displayed now took his breath away.
He might be the most terrible warrior in the entire Holy Roman Empire, but she was more than a warrior. She was a general.
There was silence around the table.
“So?” Burchard finally asked. “What is it you've got to tell us?”
Reuben continued to look straight ahead at Ayla. Their eyes met again, and she nodded. He nodded back, hoping that this small sign of affection would give her strength.
“The grappling hook in the dungeons has been examined,” she said. “And the examination revealed something serious. Something none of you will like to hear.”
She told them.
It was a bare account of the facts, without mentioning who had examined the grappling hook and drawn conclusions. She made it sound as though the examination had been conducted under her orders, and the original suspicion had been hers. When she was finished, the silence around the table returned.
Finally, Sir Waldar cursed. Reuben raised an eyebrow, impressed. As a connoisseur, he could tell that this had been an exemplary piece of infamy. He wouldn't have thought the old drunkard had it in him.
“It can't be,” Captain Linhart said, his voice hoarse.
Sir Waldar cursed again.
Lady Ayla didn't even bother to admonish him, which Reuben found slightly unfair, since she took every opportunity to try and cure him of cursing. But he supposed that, at the moment, she had weightier problems on her mind.
“Isn't there some other way the enemy could have gotten that grappling hook over the wall?” Burchard wanted to know. “Some other siege engine that we don't know about, or some trick?”
“Like what?” Ayla sked.
“Err…I don't know. I would have to think about it. But I'm sure I could think of something.”
“Of course. We'll just ask the enemy not to attack us while you're at it. Take your time.”
Burchard's mustache bristled. “Now, listen here…”
“No, you listen!” Ayla interrupted him. “We can all argue about it as long as we want, but the fact won't change: We have a traitor in the castle, and we have to take care of him, or he'll sell us all to the enemy.”
“How did you find out about this?” he demanded, his massive eyebrows drawing together in an angry frown. “How did you suddenly become so knowledgeable about grappling hooks and ballistas?”
“I believe the plural is ‘ballisti.’”
“I don't care what the plural is! I just want to know how you supposedly found all of this out!”
Reuben expected it, and it happened. Ayla wasn't able to keep her eyes from flickering into his direction. Both Burchard and Sir Waldar saw it.
“Him?” Burchard demanded. “He told you? Is that why he is here?”
“He is here because he is more experienced in warfare than any of us,” Ayla answered in a quiet voice.
“And how come?” Sir Waldar had now lost interest in cursing and in his empty tankard. He was leaning forward over the table, his little eyes were wandering between Ayla and Reuben. “Who is he, anyway?”
“He’s supposed to be a merchant,” Burchard answered the question. He looked over at Reuben in his monumental, blood-red plate armor with a giant sword strapped to his belt. “Lately, I've begun to have serious doubts about that.”
“Understandable,” grunted Sir Waldar. “I think either he or you owes us an explanation, Milady.”
Reuben tensed. His eyes flashed to Ayla, whose face gave nothing away. Did she intend to give them the truth? If she did, Reuben knew he was finished. Burchard and Captain Linhart would not tolerate a criminal among their number, moreover one who had robbed their mistress. He would be lucky if he was put to death quickly.