“Yes!”
“You are a despicable worm without a shred of honor!”
“Yes.”
What in the name of the Holy Virgin… It riled Ayla how he didn't bother to deny her charges, didn't even seem to feel guilty about them! Her cheeks heated, and she took another step towards him.
“I could have you executed for your treason!”
Hans nodded placidly. “I know.”
“Then why in God's name did you commit it?”
“Because,” Hans said, looking directly into her eyes without flinching, “I knew that if I didn't commit treason, me and my family were all going to be killed once the castle has fallen.”
There was a moment of heavy silence in the dungeon. The guards around Hans threw each other uneasy glances and shuffled around. Even Captain Linhart, Sir Waldar, and her other two vassals looked disturbed. Only Reuben remained completely unruffled, glaring at the traitorous guard on the floor with a force that, by all rights, should have incinerated him long ago.
“All of you,” Ayla said, feeling as though the floor beneath her had vanished and she was falling into a bottomless, dark abyss. “Out!”
It took a few moments for the meaning of her words to sink in.
“You mean…leave you alone? With that traitor?” Linhart's mouth dropped open. “Milady, you cannot be serious.”
“Do I sound as though I am joking?”
“Um…no, Milady, but…”
“Leave us! Now!” She didn't make her voice especially loud or commanding. But it was reinforced with the strength of the feelings that were fighting inside her—despair and determination, side by side.
All of the men turned and left the room without another word. Only one remained.
“I won't leave you alone with him,” Reuben declared.
Ayla felt her heart throb at the emotion in his words. Of course, most of it was bloodlust, no doubt, but maybe, just maybe, some of it was love, too.
Oh, what she felt for him…she could hardly comprehend it in her feelings, let alone give voice to it. It was a longing, deep and instinctual, that went beyond simple affection. It was a need as basic as that for air to breathe and light to see by. Everything in her ached to let him stay. But she couldn't let anyone else hear what would now surely follow.
“Yes, you will, Reuben,” she said, trying to keep her voice empty of emotion and failing in the end. “Please,” she added in a choked whisper. “For me.”
He hesitated a moment longer. Then he threw his arms up into the air with an exasperated growl.
“Satan's hairy ass, girl, I hope you know what you're doing.” He started to march towards the door, then suddenly stopped and turned around again.
“Reuben, please…” she began again, but he interrupted her.
“Oh, I'm going. I just have to tell our friend something first.” With a few quick steps, he was back beside the quivering heap that was Hans the guard. He picked him up by the scruff of his neck as if he weighed no more than a chicken and growled, “Listen very closely. You know the worst you have to expect from Lady Ayla?”
The guard nodded.
“Very well. And now let me tell you something: Lady Ayla is not the one you should be worried about right now. I am. If by any chance you should decide to make a dash for freedom and take her as a hostage, harm her in any way, or touch one hair on her head, I will…” He bent to the ear of the man and whispered a few words so low that Ayla couldn't understand. What little color there had been in Hans’ face drained away at once. His eyes grew big, and his hands began to tremble.
“You…you wouldn't,” he gasped.
“Look into my eyes,” Reuben commanded, his voice as hard as steel, and the guard did as he was bid.
“Well?” Reuben asked, staring into the guards eyes without blinking. “Would I?”
The guard nodded.
“And will you do anything stupid while I'm not here?”
The guard shook his head.
“Very well.”
Like a sack of turnips, Reuben let the man drop on the floor and marched out of the room, slamming the door behind him. All that remained was gloom and the sound of Hans' harsh breathing. The one torch in a torch-bracket on the wall did next to nothing to illuminate the large room. When Hans raised his head to look at Ayla again, all it did was throw eerie shadows over his face that made his expression harder to read than it already was.
“Hans. Get up.” Ayla waved a hand, and he got to his feet. He was about the same height as she. They ended up looking directly into each other's eyes.
What Ayla saw shook her to the very core. She would have expected him to be either sneering and villainous or filled with guilt and anguish. But he was neither of these things. He simply looked tired.
“Why did you do it?” she asked in a voice that didn't sound like her own. “Why did you betray me? Betray all of us?”
His look didn't change.
“Milady,” he said softly “there are about six-hundred men around the castle. We, the defenders, are only sixty. They have plenty of food. We are on rations and will soon begin to starve. You have been the most courageous, benevolent, and loving lady to us that a people could wish for. You have sheltered us, fought for us, risked your life for us. Yet this does not change one fact: the castle is going to be taken by the enemy.”
“No!” Ayla growled, gritting her teeth, ferociously trying to cling on to her hopes. But it was useless! Hans was only confirming what a dark part of her own mind had been telling her for weeks. And hearing it from the lips of this strange, sad traitor made it only worse, for he had no reason to lie, no motivation to encourage her in her struggle and paint the situation in any other light than the real one. “No, we have a chance. We can win. Somehow, we can! We just have to…”
Her voice dwindled as she looked into Hans’s face and saw nothing but pity there. Pity, and maybe self-loathing.
“The castle is going to be taken,” he repeated. “And when it is, our fates are going to go different ways. You, Milady, might be forced to marry the Margrave, but we—the common folk, those who dared to fight—we will be facing death, rape, and torture. I know enough of war to know that.”
Tears came to Ayla's eyes, tears of sadness and of rage. She knew it, too. But she couldn't let herself think about it, or she would go mad.
“So you betrayed us?” she hissed. “Just like that?”
Hans nodded.
“I have always been a loyal liegeman. But then, one night, as I was holding watch alone at a corner of the outer wall, a voice called up to me from the dark. It was one of the enemy, and he made me an offer I couldn't refuse.”
“Your life, I suppose?”
“No.” With a sad smile, he shook his head. “The lives of my wife and my two little girls.”
Ayla felt ice flood her veins. For a moment, for one terrifying, endless moment, she didn't know what to say to this man. He was the traitor, she was the judge, he had done wrong, she was doing right—yet, for that single moment, it was she that felt guilty.
“So you hung the rope from the wall?” Her lips were moving automatically now, spouting out some senseless words in the attempt to keep her mind from thinking about the inevitable.
“With the grappling hook, yes. I found the hook among some old gear down here in the dungeons and went to a particular spot on the wall which the Margrave's soldier had described to me. There, I hung the rope over the wall with the grappling hook to make it look like it had been thrown up from the foot of the wall.”
“And the next attack? The one that killed…”
Sir Isenbard. She couldn't bring herself to say his name. It was too much.
Hans shook his head.
“I didn't have anything to do with that. They became impatient and tried without me. Milady…I truly meant what I said. I am sorry about Sir Isenbard.”
And, for some strange reason, Ayla believed him.
She swallowed. “Your wife…your two little
girls…what are their names?”
Sudden, fear flashed across the face of the guard who, just a moment ago, had seemed so composed. He threw himself at her feet in supplication.
“Please, Milady, I beg you, do not harm them! Punish me! Torture me! Do anything you want to me, only please do not harm them, please! Take me!”
“You have already been taken,” Ayla reminded him, her blue eyes flashing coldly. “Their names, Hans! I can find out easily enough from any of the villagers.”
Now it was his turn to swallow.
“M-my wife is called Madalena, and my two girls are Anna and Katherine. Please, Milady, I beg of you, you can do anything to me! Do you have a rack? I'll go on the rack if it will save them, I'll do anything, please, I…”
“Your family will not be harmed,” Ayla said. Inside, she wondered how she managed to keep her voice steady. Maybe because she felt so numb inside. Was this the price you paid for becoming a leader?
Well, at least she could be the right kind of leader.
“Your family will not be harmed,” she repeated, taking deep, steadying breaths. “Do not fear, Hans. I am not the Margrave von Falkenstein.”
He looked up at her, tears in his eyes.
“I know, Milady. You are the true daughter of your father.”
“Which soon enough will not matter anymore, when the castle is taken, will it?” She said, her voice brittle.
He bowed his head. “I'm sorry, Milady.”
Again, she believed him.
Slowly, as if in a dream, she wandered past him towards the door. As she opened it and was just about to step out, Hans asked, “Milady? What will happen now?”
She paused. “To the castle, or to you?”
“Both.”
“I do not know.”
Then she stepped out into the corridor.
Sworn Bond
The news spread like a wildfire through the castle: Lady Ayla was going to make a proclamation. Or, at least, the news would have spread like wildfire in the castle if it had been made out of wood and not solid stone—very, very fast. Nobody knew exactly what the proclamation would be about, but nobody was very hopeful. Since the death of Sir Isenbard, nothing seemed certain anymore.
Ayla stood at the top of the steps in front of the keep and surveyed the crowd around her. She noticed the mixed apprehension and hope on their faces. She noticed, too, how both facial expressions vanished abruptly, morphing into awed terror, when the people's gaze landed on the giant blood-red figure behind her.
“My vassals,” Ayla called out. “My people, my friends. As you know, we all lost a dear friend not long ago. With Sir Isenbard’s death, we also lost the commander of our forces. I have called you here together today for a matter that is very important, indeed essential for our survival: the choice of his successor.”
She paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. “I have made my choice. Since your lives hang in the balance here, just as much as, or even more than mine, you deserve to know right away.”
Ayla saw the eyes of the crowd flit from Sir Waldar to Captain Linhart, and then, with an expression of incredulity, on Sir Rudolphus, all gathered around her. Which of her vassals would their lady choose?
“Step forward,” Ayla commanded, “Sir Reuben Rachwild.”
Murmurs of surprise and confusion went up all around her at the unfamiliar name, but cut off abruptly as the giant figure in crimson metal stepped forward, and knelt before Ayla.
“Some of you,” she proclaimed to the crowd, “know this man as Reuben, the merchant. Yet that is not who he truly is. He is Sir Reuben, a knight, tried and tested in battle many, many times, a terror to his enemies. When he was surprised in the forest by the Margrave's troops, before the siege began, he fought an entire battalion, nearly forty of our enemies, and slew them to a man!”
Eyes widened, and gasps could be heard from all sides. Ayla saw Reuben smile behind his visor. He was enjoying this immensely, the arrogant son of a… And she would have to keep boosting him, no matter how much he smirked!
“Grievously wounded, he lay unconscious in the forest, where I found him and brought him back here to Luntberg castle. Over the last few weeks, he concealed his identity from us, not knowing whether we were friend or foe and fearing for his life. But, a short while ago, he revealed himself to me and offered his aid. And since then, he has more than proven his worth.”
Holding up a hand, she began to count.
“He broke into the enemy camp in the middle of the night, killing dozens of enemy guards and stealing weapons and horses. He rescued me from the enemy when they intruded into the castle to abduct me. He has even, as he has told me,” she paused for a look at Reuben, who managed to look somewhat guilty and disgustingly cocky at the same time, “overcome Sir Isenbard himself in a duel.”
Several people in the audience nodded at that and began to whisper to others. Relief swept through Ayla. Thank the Lord there had been eyewitnesses to that contest!
“He is a paragon among knights,” she declared. “A warrior the likes of which has not been seen since the days of Roland[18] or Lancelot[19]. Not only that, but he has commanded entire armies in battle. He is trapped in this castle just as much as we are. He has already proven his loyalty to our cause beyond all doubt. For all those reasons and more besides, I have decided to offer him a place among my vassals and to make him the commander of all my armed forces.”
The tension over the courtyard was so dense, you could almost feel it with your fingertips. Ayla knew this was what the people had been waiting for.
“Sir Reuben,” she called, her voice ringing out clearly over the courtyard, “do you wish to become a vassal of me, Lady Ayla von Luntberg, daughter of Thomas, Count von Luntberg?”
She held her hands out to him. He, following the ancient ceremony, fell to his knees, and took them in his own. It felt so good to be holding his hands. It had been an eternity since Ayla had held his hands, and she felt as though she would never want to let go again.
“I do.” Reuben's voice was deep and strong. If hers had been heard all over the courtyard, his could probably still be heard in the enemy camp.
“Then do you swear to cherish and protect me, your lady, as befits a vassal?” she asked.
“I do.”
“Do you swear to, err…love me more than your own life, as befits a vassal?”
Ayla could hardly look at Reuben as she spoke the age-old words. Still, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the smoldering, devilish look he gave her from below, a look that made her think that maybe for him, just maybe, there was nothing platonic about this part of the oath. He gently pressed her hands. Oh, dear Lord…
“I do,” he said, and Ayla thought she might faint from his voice alone.
Dear Lord, could it be…?
“Do you swear,” she continued a little unsteadily, feeling Burchard's gaze drilling into the back of her head, “to love what I love, and hate what I hate?”
“I do.”
“Do you swear that your sword arm will always be at my disposal?”
Reuben winked. “That, and all the rest of me.”
Ayla turned puce. That was definitely not the conventional answer for the question, but she would have to be lying if she said she didn't like to hear it very much. Breathless, she continued, “Then I accept you as my vassal. From this day forth, I am your liege lord, and I bestow unto you, as is my right as overlord in the absence of other heirs, the lands and titles of Sir Isenbard von Riffgarten, my loyal vassal who has passed away.”
Letting go of his hands, Ayla picked up a symbolic bowl of earth with a little twig from an apple-tree planted in the middle and handed it to Reuben, who took it with great care.
“I am entrusting my land and my people to you, Sir Reuben,” she said, fixing him with her eyes, her heart beating fast. “Earth and life both are under your care, now. I pray that you shall prove yourself worthy of my trust.”
Reuben took the bowl reverently and bowed
his head. When he looked up again, there was that devilish look in his gray eyes again that made Ayla’s bones feel weak.
“I will prove myself worthy, Milady. That I swear by the honor I do not have.”
A few people in the crowd threw confused glances at each other. Surely they had heard incorrectly?
Ayla stepped on Reuben's foot.
“Shut up,” she hissed so low she hoped nobody else could hear. “This is supposed to go smoothly! None of your nonsense here, understood?”
“How could I disobey you?” he whispered back. “I'm sworn to obey you, now. I have to do everything you tell me.”
Ayla's throat went dry. The way he said that…
“So?” He grinned the most lascivious of lascivious grins. “What should I do for you?”
“Rise, Sir Reuben,” she commanded.
He stood up. His smoldering gaze didn't leave her face. “Erect enough for you?” he asked in a very low voice when he was completely upright.
Ayla frowned. “Err…yes?”
He shook his head, smirking. “You don't even get my jokes. We'll have to work on that.”
From the way Burchard had appeared beside her with a face as red as bloody beef and a bristling mustache, Ayla gathered that he, at least, had gotten Reuben's joke.
“That concludes the ceremony,” she said hurriedly, stepping in between Reuben and Burchard. “My people, are you pleased with my choice?”
There was a moment of silence - then an explosion of sound hit. Innumerable shouts of “Yay,” “Hooray,” and “Long live Lady Ayla!' went up in the crowd. Almost all of the gathered people were staring at Reuben's massive figure, at the meat cleaver of a sword at his hip, with a sort of desperate hope. Ayla felt almost as though she could read their minds, because she had been thinking similar thought often enough lately: “If he cannot save us, nobody can.”
*~*~**~*~*
“…and Falkenstein's men have not moved for an attack so far. It seems they have reverted to their original intention of starving us,” the scout ended his report. Ayla slumped back in her chair.
“Which will work just fine if no miracle comes along and saves us,” she muttered. “In a few weeks, we’ll be dead.”