“I’m sorry, Burchard,” she interrupted her steward. “My mind was somewhere else. What were you saying again?”
Burchard's bushy eyebrows drew together in a frown. They looked at least as suspicious as his mustache did.
“Very well, Milady,” he said, rather gruffly and stiffly. “One of the guards told me what Hans confessed, Milady. I'm not here to disturb you for long. I just wanted to ask you one thing.”
“Yes?”
“When,” Burchard inquired grimly, “is Hans’s execution going to be?”
Ayla felt the world crumble beneath her.
*~*~**~*~*
“But must he be condemned to death?”
Pleadingly, she looked at Burchard, her father's steward, the man who had cared for her since she was a child, who had taught her how to ride and told her bed-time stories.
He stared back, his expression as immovable as stone. She was a child no longer.
“Milady, he is a traitor. He must pay for his crimes.”
“Yes, but with his life? After all, nobody died in the two incidents he’s responsible for, and…”
“That was pure chance, Milady!” Burchard cut her off. “If the Margrave's men had succeeded in capturing you or opening the gates to the castle, hundreds would have died. You know this as well as I do. Because of that traitor, you yourself had a knife at your throat!”
“It wasn't a very big knife…”
“Milady!”
“Reuben saved me, anyway.”
“That does not change the fact that you could have been killed! The intent is what matters, not the outcome. Hans must die!”
“But his poor wife…” Ayla looked around for help. Burchard, Reuben and she had been joined in Ayla's temporary audience chamber by the other commanders. When it became apparent to Burchard that Ayla wasn't simply going to put her father's seal on the execution order, he had insisted on Captain Linhart, Sir Rudolphus, and Sir Waldar joining them in order to convince her. She had happily agreed, thinking they might convince him.
Judging from the expression on Captain Linhart's face, though, that was not going to happen. He shook his head.
“I have to agree with Burchard, Milady. Personal considerations should not influence you in your decisions when it comes to justice. His life is forfeit.”
Never in her life had Ayla condemned anyone to death before. In fact, as far as she remembered, nobody had ever been condemned to death at Luntberg Castle. The mere idea of her having to do it, having to order the ending of another human being's life, made her skin crawl. Desperately, she looked for support at Sir Waldar—who burped loudly.
“Oops. Sorry, Milady. I say, off with his head!”
Ayla's pleading eyes wandered to Sir Rudolphus. His big ears drooped sadly.
“The proposal outlined by Sir Waldar does seem like the wisest course of action,” he admitted.
Ayla's shoulders sagged.
That's what you get for swearing to do everything to achieve victory, she thought sadly. You actually have to do everything, no matter how horrible..
“This is what you all advise?” She looked around. “You all say he must die?”
Burchard, Linhart, Sir Waldar, and Sir Rudolphus nodded.
Ayla took a deep breath.
“Very well,” she whispered. “I will…”
“Perhaps,” said a firm voice from behind her, “we should exercise clemency.”
Ayla turned around in her chair to stare. She wasn't the only one. Everybody stared at the figure of Sir Reuben Rachwild, who had uttered those words. They stared at him as they would have stared at an executioner who proclaimed he was firmly opposed to corporal punishment.
“Um…Reuben?” Ayla inquired. “Are you quite well?”
Without answering her, he strode off to one of the embrasures that lined the wall. Peering out over the castle, he muttered, “The trajectory would be just right…the space is perfect. Yes! Yes! Why haven't I thought of it before? Satan's warty prick! I'm the most miserable excuse for a knight that has ever been born!”
“What is the matter with you?” Ayla demanded. “And what is a 'prick'?”
Burchard cleared his throat, but nobody else noticed. Reuben didn't answer Ayla's question. Instead, he strode to another embrasure and looked out of that one, too.
“Opportunity,” he muttered. “It is all about opportunity and the element of surprise. The killing fields…yes, we must use the killing fields!”
“Reuben?” Rising from her seat, Ayla took a few tentative steps towards him. “Please, you're beginning to worry me! Are you well?”
He whirled around to face them all. His eyes were only for her.
“Oh yes!” Reuben's eyes were burning with gray fire. The sight nearly knocked the breath out of Ayla. What was the matter with him? Was it love? No. Not even love could induce such a crazed fire.
“Oh, yes!” he repeated, savage satisfaction in his voice. “I am definitely very well. In fact, I am better than I have been for ages. Because I have just thought of a plan to save the castle, end the siege, and triumph over our enemies!”
“What?”
The shout didn’t come from just the Lady of Luntberg. It came from all their throats. Ayla rushed forward, coming to a halt, breathless, only a few inches away from Reuben.
“Reuben, do you mean that? Do you honestly mean that you have found our salvation, or is it a bad joke?”
“I only ever make good jokes. And your life is not a subject for those.”
Eagerly, Ayla grasped him by the shoulders. Her heart was beating just as wildly as when he had pressed his lips on her hand, because now, there was light! There was hope! Hope that they might live, that Reuben would have the chance to kiss her again, on her fingers, her hand, and…other places. There was hope for life and love!
“Then what is it?” she demanded, trying to shake him—which, of course, didn't work. She only ended up shaking herself while holding onto his rock-solid form. “What is this spectacular plan you've thought of? Well? Spit it out!”
Reuben smiled his most devilish smile and looked at her, triumph gleaming in his gray eyes.
“You want to know what the plan is, Milady? The plan that will save us all?”
“Yes!” Not just Ayla was on her toes now. They all surrounded Reuben, staring at him with a wild mixture of fear, mistrust, awe, and desperate, desperate hope.
“It's simple,” he declared with relish. “Very simple indeed: We open the gates and let the enemy in.”
The Mercy of Impending Slaughter
Ayla stared at Reuben, and everybody else in the room stared at him with her, their eyes no longer full of hope, but incredulity.
“You,” she declared, “are definitely not well.”
Reuben rolled his eyes. “That's not the entire plan, of course.”
“There's more?” Burchard snorted derisively. “Let me guess… We lend the enemy our weapons so they can kill us more easily? Or why don't we just smash the castle to bits ourselves? That would save the Margrave so much trouble!”
The look Reuben threw the steward was enough to make him shut his mouth.
“My plan does not involve destroying the castle,” he said through gritted teeth. “But it does involve something I dislike doing almost as much.” Ayla felt him fix his gaze on her. “Are you willing to hear me out, Milady?”
Ayla was by no means as confident anymore that this plan of Reuben's was their salvation as she had been a few seconds ago. But she nodded nevertheless.
“To the very end,” she said quietly.
“Then follow me!” Taking her hand, Reuben pulled her toward the door of the room. “I cannot explain it from here. We must be on the castle wall for you to understand.”
Ayla let herself be pulled along willingly. She would have followed him all the way to Thule[20] as long as he didn't let go of her hand. Yet his route didn't take them nearly as far. He merely marched to the inner wall and, there at the gatehouse, nodded
to one of the guards posted at the entrance to the tower.
At this miniscule gesture, the guard jumped away as if stung by a viper. “Yes, Sir? I’m yours, Sir! Ready to serve, Sir!”
Ayla smirked.
“What?” asked Reuben, raising an eyebrow at her.
“It seems you have the soldiers well in hand already.”
He shrugged. “They obey my orders. But it is you they are willing to die for.” One corner of his mouth quirked up in a devilish smile. “Can't say that I blame them.”
Ayla didn't get a chance to reply to that. Reuben barked an “Out of the way!” at the soldier, who jumped aside like a nervous grasshopper. He pulled her into the tower and, without stopping, picked one of torches from the wall that, even during the day, illuminated the gloomy interior. They began to climb the spiral staircase, and the sound of feet behind them told Ayla that the other four were not far away.
Finally, they reached the top of the stairs and stepped out onto the wall. A couple of guards kept watch there.
“You!” Reuben gestured to them, and they blanched, taking a step back. “Yes! I mean you, puny codpiece number one, two, and three! Go take a leak somewhere!”
They hurried away along the allure.
“Why did you do that?” Ayla demanded to know, her cheeks flaming.
“Send them away? You’re the lady of the castle. You need to hear my plan first. If you approve of it, I want all the soldiers to hear of it at the same time. I don't want false rumors to spread.”
“That wasn't what I was talking about!” she hissed. “Why did you call them…well, whatever you called them!”
“Puny codpiece?”[21]
Her cheeks flaming still brighter, she nodded.
“It is an endearment among military men,” he told her with a diabolical smirk.
Ayla narrowed her eyes. Somehow, she found that hard to believe. However, the arrival of Burchard and the others saved Reuben from further inquisition.
“So,” Burchard grunted. “Now that you've dragged us all up here, you can tell us. What is this harebrained scheme of yours?”
“Look out there,” Reuben said, pointing down from the walls. “What do you see?”
Ayla looked to where he was pointing, then turned back to look at the others around her. They shook their heads, seemingly just as confused as she was.
“The outer courtyard,” Burchard stated in a you'd-better-stop-messing-with-me voice.
Reuben smiled, evil dancing in his gray eyes.
“That's what it may be called by you,” he said. “But it has another name. A darker one.”
*~*~**~*~*
“…and so it will end. One way or another,” Reuben finished.
The others stared at him, mesmerized. The Red Robber Knight had not taken long for his explanation. But in the few minutes since he had begun, the entire world had changed. The eyes of his audience were wide—full of insecurity, possibility, and fear.
“That,” Burchard managed in a raspy voice, “is the most idiotic idea I have ever heard of!”
“V-very risky,” Sir Rudolphus agreed.
Linhart simply shook his head.
Sir Waldar simply burped again. The others turned to stare daggers at him. “Oops,” he grumbled. “Sorry.”
“The question is not whether it is a perfect plan.” Reuben’s voice was perfectly calm. “The question is: do we have a better one? We are besieged in this castle and cannot get out. Our tactical and strategical options are limited, our choice of weapons even more so. Either we take this chance that providence had offered to us, or we simply wait. For that is all we can do. Sit. Wait. Weaken. And eventually starve.”
A heavy silence descended over the little group.
“So now we face a choice,” Reuben continued. “Do we sit back and doom ourselves to defeat, or do we do this—do we take up the sword and grind our enemies to dust?”
He nodded at Ayla.
“The decision is yours, Milady.”
Slowly, Ayla let her gaze travel over the assembled men. Burchard—stubborn, loyal, Burchard—the calm and strong Captain Linhart, the red-eared Sir Rudolphus, the enormous bulk of Sir Waldar, and finally, him: Reuben. The man she loved. The man who was asking her to entrust her life to him.
She hesitated one more moment, then nodded. “We'll do it!”
Reuben visibly exhaled. Burchard's mustache visibly bristled. He had to work very hard to not make a disparaging remark.
“But,” Ayla added, meeting Reuben’s eyes, “we can't do it alone, can we?”
The scowl on Reuben's face was answer enough. “No, Milady. Unfortunately, my plan relies on certain…lowlife individuals.”
*~*~**~*~*
Ayla thought that Madalena looked terrified when she was led into the room a second time. Well, she had good reason to be. It was not just Ayla and Reuben in there this time, although his presence alone would be enough to scare anyone out of his or her wits. This time, Sir Reuben, Burchard, Captain Linhart, Sir Rudolphus, and Sir Waldar all surrounded Ayla's high-backed chair, making an impressive official escort.
There was only one conclusion the woman could draw from this, as Ayla well knew. She hated to do this to a loyal vassal who was guilty of nothing but being married to the wrong man, but she had no choice. All their lives now depended on what transpired in the next hour or so.
“Come here, Madalena,” she ordered, working to make her voice calm and imperious. The woman did as asked and knelt at the feet of her mistress, but not without throwing a fearful glance at the five assembled men behind her first.
“Madalena…” Ayla leaned forward and made herself say it. “Madalena, by the laws of God and the Empire, your husband must die. He has committed treason, the most terrible of all the crimes on God's earth, and must pay for it with his life. I have no choice but to put my seal on the order for his execution.”
Those were exactly the words the woman had been fearing. She slumped down on the floor. Clutching at the hem of Ayla's dress, she started sobbing.
“No! Please, Milady, think of our children! What will they do without a father? Please, don’t have him killed! Take me! Take me instead! Please, I beg you, spare my husband!”
Ayla almost gave in, told her that her husband wouldn’t die, in fact, that he couldn't die if they were all to have a chance at survival. But she knew she couldn't do that. Reuben had drilled it into her, over and over, she had to make the woman see the sword hanging over her husband's head. It was no joke, no light matter, the crime of treason. Ever since Judas had sold Jesus for thirty pieces of silver, Christians throughout the land regarded this as the most serious of crimes, more serious even than murder.
Under normal circumstances, there was no way one could escape the punishment.
Under normal circumstances…
“Please, Milady,” the woman begged again. “Please! Can't you do anything to save his live? Anything?”
“It was your husband,” Reuben said, harshly, “who let the men into the castle who tried to abduct Lady Ayla and nearly slit her throat in the process. Why should she show any mercy for him?”
“I know,” Madalena whimpered. “I know, but…”
“Tell me, woman, did you know of his plot? The truth, now, or things will go very badly for you!”
“No! I knew something was on his mind, but this…! He was so strange lately, absent-minded and cold… I thought he was just worried about how the siege was going, but I never would have thought that…that he…”
Reuben leaned down to her until the growl of his voice was right next to the weeping woman’s ear. “And how is the siege going?”
“W-what?”
“How is the siege going? What do you think?”
Startled, the woman looked up. Her tearful eyes flickered from one stone-faced man to another, finally looking down at the floor again.
“I…I think that the siege is going very well,” she babbled. “Our brave warriors are doing a wonderful job def
ending us. It is strange that my husband should dare to defy your authority, Milady, while you are so obviously close to triumphing over your enemies and gaining a complete victory over…”
“Horse shit!”
“What?” Startled, the woman looked up at the knight.
“I said,” he repeated, “that is horse shit! We are about to be overrun. We barely survived the last attack. The enemy has ten times as many soldiers as we do, they are better rested and better equipped. Your husband's decision to betray his liege-lady may have been many things—despicable, immoral, cowardly—but it certainly was not strange. In fact, it was the normal thing to do. Because for those of us who are steadfast and stand by our oaths, it looks like we're all going to die!”
Madalena didn't reply anymore. All she could do was lie on the floor and cry. The sight pierced Ayla's heart. To heck with Reuben's preachings about the fine art of maneuvering and manipulating people! She was not going to let that poor woman suffer any longer. She would end this now!
Carefully, she took hold of the woman's shivering hands and pulled her up into a kneeling position.
“What Sir Reuben says is true enough.” Her voice was gentle now, gentle and warm. “But…what if there were some way to avoid death? Not just for me and him and you, I mean. What if there were a way for your husband to redeem himself and live?”
Madalena's hand contracted convulsively around Ayla's fingers. “Milady? Milady, are you in earnest?”
“In complete earnest,” Ayla responded, her face showing no trace of bad humor or deception. “There is a way by which your husband can regain his honor. Nobody but five or six guards so far knows of his betrayal. They can be sworn to secrecy. I will not divulge anything, and neither will these men here. Your husband can walk through the castle again, his head held high. He can watch his children grow up, and they can be proud of him as children should of a father. We can all be saved, and the army of the Margrave will be gone forever.”
“What is it?” The woman demanded, breathless. “What is this miraculous way? Oh, Milady, he will do anything, I swear it! If he can regain his and his family’s honor, he will do anything!”