The Robber Knight

  Ayla frowned. For a change, he seemed to be serious. “What about? Your tendency to make inappropriate remarks in the presence of a lady?”

  “Well, we could talk about that, too. But actually I was thinking we should talk over what happened down at the bridge.”

  Ayla's eyes widened, and she could feel her breathing quickening. No! She couldn't have another breakdown! Not here! Not now! Not when she knew perfectly well that she would throw herself into his arms again as soon as her tears started to flow.

  “I... I think that's not a good idea right now. I should change your bandages. They haven't been changed in a long time, and they should be, regularly.”

  “Ayla, it's important that I know what...”

  “Reuben. Please, let me change your bandages now. We'll talk later, all right?”

  For a moment, Reuben's gray eyes were searching her face. Perhaps they saw something of her chaotic feelings there, because he reached up and stroked her hair. Just once, lightly, with the back of his hand.

  “All right, all right.” Reuben capitulated with a wave of his hand. “You can mollycoddle me all you want. But before you start...” He fixed her with an earnest, probing gaze. “There's just one thing I'd like to ask you. Something very important.”

  Ayla's heart almost jumped out of her chest with delicious anticipation. The way he was staring at her, so intently... She could swear he wasn't talking about the battle anymore.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Well, could you explain to me why you were crying about killing your enemies, earlier? I didn't quite get it the first time.”

  *~*~**~*~*

  Ayla tried. She really tried to explain it to him. But it was like trying to explain knitting to a flock of sheep. He didn't understand. After changing Reuben's bandages, telling him off for being callous three times, and hugging him four times more, Ayla gathered her things together and left. She planned to return later in the day to see how Isenbard was doing, but first, she needed to look after her other duties as the mistress of Luntberg, and then she needed to look after herself. Three harrowing horse rides and commanding a battle had taken a lot out of her. She needed to eat and to sleep, badly.

  Only when she was already down the corridor from Reuben's room did Ayla remember that she had wanted to grill Reuben about his extraordinary military knowledge, and had quite forgotten it. Darn those distractingly hypnotic gray eyes of his!

  To Kill or Not to Kill

  Ayla didn't have the energy to return to Reuben and demand the answers to her questions. After she had left him, she suddenly felt bone-crushingly tired. The battle had taken its toll on her: she hardly managed to return to her chambers and cross the room to the bed before she collapsed and the darkness claimed her.

  Although she’d had a good night's sleep the night before the battle, she slept for a full five hours. Not even thoughts of Reuben could keep her awake, though a certain devilish smile never left her alone in her dreams. She wasn't even as embarrassed about that fact when she woke up as she ordinarily might have been. Imagining what bloody specters might have plagued her dreams instead, she was really rather grateful.

  She yawned and stretched, enjoying the warmth of the bed for just one moment more. But she knew she had to get up. Looking out of the window, she saw that the sun was nearing the horizon. It was time for dinner. She had a duty to perform.

  For the first time in many days, she got up and went to the main hall to eat. She had preferred to eat in her chambers lately, which afforded her the privacy to think about her troubles undisturbed and meant she didn't have to put on a mask of confidence. But after the battle, she felt her responsibility stronger than before. Who was to give confidence to the people of Luntberg if not she, the mistress of the castle?

  A hush fell over the assembled crowd as she entered the main hall. Dinner had just been served, and everybody was about to start eating. When they saw her, spoons and knives stopped in mid-air, and all eyes went to her.

  Suddenly, a sense of significance overcame Ayla. Her eyes went to her father's high-backed chair, the lord's chair, in the center of the room. Then they strayed to the smaller chair beside it, which she usually sat in during mealtimes, although her father never sat beside her. It had seemed wrong to appropriate her father's place. There had never been a need to, and even if there had been, she didn't feel ready.

  Now though...

  Her gaze met Burchard's. The old steward sat one table further down from the raised platform of the lord's table, and was studying her more intently than anyone else in the hall. His face gave nothing away. Most of it was hidden, as usual, behind that giant bushy mustache and those eyebrows of his.

  Ayla raised her chin a tiny little bit and marched over to the lord's table. Climbing onto the raised platform, she went directly to the lord's chair and sat down.

  Everyone let out a breath they hadn't realized they'd been holding. Ayla knocked on the table with a knife.

  “Everybody, please start eating, don't wait for me. I'm sure you all have a lot of work to do to ensure our continued safety, and I wouldn't want to keep you here because of courtly manners. They won't keep us alive.”

  Ayla chanced a look at her steward. Burchard's face was still impassive. But Ayla thought his mustache looked more relaxed—perhaps even a bit proud of her.

  “Burchard?” She waved him over. “Please come here, sit next to me. We have a few matters to discuss.”

  Rising, he made an unusually deep bow and said: “As you command, Milady.”

  She knew his words to be no empty show.

  As he came to sit next to her, servants came scurrying to the table with platters of bread and bowls of porridge—people who she had known only casually all her life and who now treated her with an extraordinary mix of love and deference. A mix she hadn't witnessed for years—not since her father had been well. They had treated him exactly like that.

  Part of her ached for replacing him, but another part knew that she wasn't replacing him. She was taking up his standard. That, and the respect of her people, made her feel warm inside. It also made her feel a bit queasy.

  “The bridge, the defenses...” she asked the steward, “is all being done as I said?”

  His mustache twitched. “After your performance today, I think none would dare do anything different.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, lowering her voice.

  “Well, they might be afraid that you’ll set them on fire.”

  “What's that supposed to mean? I intimidate people?”

  “No, of course not, Milady. You just single-handedly came up with a plan that killed a hundred enemy soldiers—people are bound to think of you as a harmless little rabbit.”

  Ayla winced. She wanted to tell him that it hadn't been her idea. She didn't like taking the credit for someone else's plan. But even though, unlike with her other people, Burchard's morale wasn't likely to be shattered by the revelation, he would get suspicious about Reuben. Very suspicious indeed. Ayla wasn't sure herself where Reuben had acquired the knowledge that had saved their lives, but she was determined to get the answers herself and not have Burchard interfere. He was suspicious enough of Reuben as it was.

  In any case, another piece of information had distracted her from the gray-eyed merchant for the time being.

  “How many?” she asked, eyes wide. She wasn't sure she had heard correctly.

  “One hundred, Milady. You killed one hundred enemy soldiers.” Burchard spoke more softly than usual, regarding her with compassion. There! It wasn't impossible for men to understand that killing people wasn't a nice pastime! Why couldn't Reuben get it through his thick skull? “We are still counting, of course, and we will never be entirely sure. Many enemy soldiers got dragged to the bottom of the river by their armor, others floated too far downstream for us to find or washed up on the eastern bank.”

  “Then how do you know it's a hundred?” Ayla wanted to know. Was her voice as steady as usual? She hoped
it was.

  Burchard shrugged. “We calculated from the number of tents that vanished on the eastern bank. Bodies are still being washed ashore as we speak, so we might have a better idea of the numbers tomorrow.”

  “See that you get as exact a count as possible.”

  “I will do my best.”

  “What about the river patrols? Are they all set up?”

  “Yes, Milady. Captain Linhart is very competent. No enemy will slip through. We have patrols all along the river, right up to the rapids. If they attempt to cross there, they'll quickly find out that not only our arrows can be deadly. The night patrols are equipped with torches and are more numerous than the daytime patrols, so we won't miss anything, even in the dark.”

  Ayla gave the hairy old man a smile. “Excellent work, Burchard.”

  “Thank you, Milady.”

  Lowering her voice, Ayla added: “I have another question. The most important one of all.”

  Burchard's already serious face became more serious. “Yes, Milady?”

  “How much of this did my father see?”

  Some of the tension went out of the steward's face, but not all. His mustache twitched, thoughtfully. “As far as I'm aware, nothing, Milady. My Lord of Luntberg was taking his midday nap when the enemy attacked. The shutters of his tower room were closed, and you know his hearing is not what it used to be. I believe he slept through the entire battle.”

  Ayla exhaled in relief. “Good.”

  “You... don't want him to know, Milady?”

  “Of course I don't want him to know, Burchard!”

  There were a few moments of silence.

  “Why don't you go to see him?” Burchard suggested, gently. “I'm sure you can find the time. You take your duties too seriously, you know. You do not need to work yourself to death for our sakes. And you don't have to tell him about the battle if you don't want to. Go to see him and...”

  “No.” Quickly, Ayla shook her head. She had trouble keeping the moisture out of her eyes. “If I go to see him, he'll ask me what happened, ask me how I am. What do you think, Burchard, will I be able to tell him that everything is fine, that I am fine?”

  She looked at him.

  He looked right back, his mustache twitching in a grumpy smile. “No. You've always been a terrible liar.”

  She managed to return a hint of a smile. “You see? Better he lives in blessed ignorance. You know how fragile his health is. I can't go up there and tell him the terrible things that have been happening here.”

  There was another reason she didn't want to go up to the tower chamber, although she didn't admit that to Burchard. Her father had raised her to be as kind and gentle a lady as she could be. If she went up to him and told him all the terrible things she had done... What would he think of her? She shuddered at the thought.

  “You really think it's better this way?” Burchard asked.

  “Yes.” She nodded. “Please respect my wishes in this.”

  He hesitated. “As you wish, Milady.”

  She gave a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Burchard. Thank you very much. That will be all. Go back to your place. I don't want to keep you from your food, I'm sure you've earned it.”

  The steward didn't rise. He looked uncomfortable. “I can't go yet, Milady. There's one more matter we need to discuss.”

  “Really?”

  Ayla dipped a piece of bread into the porridge that had been her daily meal since the beginning of the rationing she herself had ordered. It really didn't taste that bad once you got used to it. And she was ravenously hungry. The battle wasn't just taking its toll in the form of tiredness.

  “Yes, Milady. I need your orders as to what we should do with the bodies.”

  The bread stopped halfway to her mouth. Suddenly, Ayla didn't feel like eating anymore. “The bodies that washed up on the bank?”

  “Yes, Milady.”

  “Why do you want to do anything with them?”

  “Milady...” Burchard swallowed. “I realize you have never been in a war before. Neither have I. But I have heard a few of Sir Isenbard's darker tales of his exploits. Tales he wouldn't tell to a young girl. It isn't good to let bodies lie out in the open, especially in the warm sun, and where there is water. Things get... unpleasant.”

  “Leave them there?” Ayla was shocked her own words might have been construed that way. “No, Burchard, I didn't mean for you to leave them. I just...” She shuddered and broke off.

  After a few moments, she could feel the steward's big, leathery hand on her shoulder.

  Slowly, she turned to him, her eyes brimming with moisture. “I just have seen enough dead men to last me a lifetime. And those are the worst—because I killed them.”

  “You didn't. You didn't even shoot one arrow.”

  “I ordered the arrows to be shot. That is the same.”

  The steward hesitated again, then seemed to decide it was best to get off this subject as quickly as possible and return to practical matters.

  “So what should I do with them?” he asked.

  “You? Nothing.”

  Ayla dipped her last piece of bread into the bowl to wipe it out and rose.

  “Milady...”

  She fixed her gaze on him, and the look in her eyes was so sad and soft it stunned Burchard into silence.

  “I brought death to those men,” she said. “The least I can do now is bring them peace.”

  *~*~**~*~*

  Reuben was busy thinking. Ayla had given him a lot to consider. For example, this business about not liking to kill people, even if they were your enemies. That was just insane. But then, he had already decided she was slightly insane, so that fit her perfectly.

  Everything about her was perfect.

  Now that Reuben thought about it, he realized that Ayla had always been more prone to help people than to hurt or kill them. She had taken care of countless wounded men after the first battle. She had taken care of a stranger she found in the woods. She was a gentle creature who wanted to help everybody.

  Except him, of course. She wanted to hang him. The real him, anyway.

  It was quite funny in a sense. Well, not funny, really. He didn't relish the thought of having a rope around his neck. But when he thought of the desires of other women around him in the past, it appeared funny.

  He remembered the courtly ladies in the stands at the tournaments all too well. They had never wanted him dead—although they had been quite eager to see him smash his opponents into a pulp. Ayla was an interesting change. The ladies at the tournaments had felt bloodlust. All Ayla seemed to have felt that day in the woods was hurt and righteous indignation. And yet the ladies at the court had never wanted him dead, and Ayla did.

  She was so different from all the women he had known. In particular, she was so different from her.

  Wincing, Reuben slammed the shutters of his mind closed on that particular memory. No. He would not think of her and Ayla in the same sentence. Indeed, he had sworn never to think about her at all, ever again.

  Aye, a sarcastic voice at the back of his mind said. You also swore you would never be duped by a pretty face again, would never let a woman rule you again. Now look what you're doing.

  But Ayla was different.

  Is she really?

  She had to be!

  But what if she isn't?

  She found him in the woods that day and brought him back with her, without thinking of a reward. She could have just let him die. She certainly had enough problems of her own to deal with. But she had brought a stranger into her home, dear, trusting, mad little soul that she was. She had to be different. Different from her, and different from himself.

  In that moment, Reuben realized that while he might not understand Ayla, he wouldn't want her to be any different than she was. It was her tenderness and care that had first brought the two of them together. Well, not first perhaps. It had been him stealing her horse and purse that had first brought them together, which weren't the most romantic
of circumstances.

  But they had not really been brought together until she took him into the castle when he had been wounded. That first meeting in the forest didn't really count—she hadn't seen his face back then, and he hadn't yet known he shouldn't rob her because he would fall in love with her.

  It was their second meeting that...

  Wait just a minute.

  What had he just thought?

  Fall in love with her? No. Oh no, no, no. He had sworn to himself he would never again fall under the spell of a woman in that way. All right, he had known that he was attracted to Ayla, that he wanted her, but falling in love? No, no, no! He didn't want to fall in love ever again. The one time it had happened, it had ended in... He shuddered, not wanting to remember, not daring to put words to the events, even in his thoughts.

  She had been the worst thing that ever happened to him.

  But did he really think Ayla was like her?

  Even if he didn't think so, he shouldn't take the risk. He hadn't thought she was worthless all those years ago, and yet she had turned out to be. Why should it be different with Ayla? He would just be crushed again. He shouldn't think about Ayla in that way. It was wrong. He had sworn he would never fall in love ever again. He had taken a solemn oath!

  Never.

  Love.

  Again.

  He had sworn it.

  Then again, as a knight he had sworn a great many things. He had sworn to honor the church (several of which he had burned down), to protect the weak and innocent from marauders and robbers (oh, right... he was a robber), and to always be courteous (oh yes he had, by Satan's hairy ass!). He had broken every single vow he had sworn over the years.

  So why not break this one?

  The thought brought a smile to his face.

  *~*~**~*~*

  “Let me, please.”

  “But Milady, that's no work for...”

  “Give the hammer to me, soldier. Now! This is my responsibility.”

  After another moment of hesitation, the soldier gave Ayla the wooden hammer. She took it and used it to hammer the simple wooden cross over the graves of the thirty or so mercenaries they had been able to find, deeper into the damp earth.