The Robber Knight's Love

29. A Nice Fork in the Ass

Ayla ran as fast as she could, and still it seemed an eternity until she reached the doors of the keep. Just as she was hastening up the stairs, Dilli stepped out, dressed in a beige nightgown and an adorable little bedcap. Part of Ayla's mind wondered how she could notice such a thing at a time like this.

“Milady!” Dilli breathed as she saw the tearstained face of her mistress. “What is the matter? Can I...”

Ayla rushed past her startled maid without even attempting a reply. Her voice was still lost somewhere in a distant scream.

She ran into the keep, up the stairs and into the first empty room she passed. Darkness and the tears in her eyes concealed everything so well, she didn't even know where she was. She just flung herself into a corner and rolled herself up into a ball there, weeping into her gore-spattered gown.

A thousand questions whirled around in her head, a thousand images. She didn't have the strength to face any of them.

She just wanted to sit here forever and despair of a world that was capable of such atrocities. She had always known that there was war and wickedness in the world. But she had believed that at least in death, all people would be allowed to rest and find their peace. Now she didn't know what to believe. She only wanted to be alone.

Just then, the door opened with a squeak.

No! Isenbard had come to find her!

She couldn't face him now. She couldn't bear it! Please let him go again, she prayed. Please!

But then a voice spoke, softly, gently—and it wasn't Isenbard's.

“I thought I might find you here.”

Ayla knew that voice, knew it very well. She had memorized its every tone and cadence almost as well as she had memorized the gray of his eyes or the devilish allure of his smile. Slowly, with strength she didn't know she possessed, she raised her head a few inches and saw him standing in the doorway.

He was only a dark shadow, but she'd recognize that shape anywhere. The only man to whom she could open her heart at this moment. The only man who could ease her pain. The only man she loved.

“Find me here?” she croaked. Only then did she properly look around and noticed that she was not in her chambers, nor in any random room, but in Reuben's sickroom, where she had nursed him back to health and afterwards held him captive. Was it just coincidence? Or had some instinct led her here?

It was only of blessed distraction, then the questions disappeared and the images from the courtyard returned in full force. The gore, the staring eye sockets...

Ayla shivered, staring up at the immovable, dark figure of Reuben above her.

“Why did they do that?” she wailed. “Why would they do that to people who were already dead?”

She hadn't actually expected an answer to her words. They were not really a question. They were a cry to the sky, to the wicked world.

So when an answer came, it quite surprised her.

“To vent their rage, since they could not reach living people,” Reuben said, his voice still gentle, but with an edge of steel in it. “And most of all to strike fear into the hearts of their enemies.”

So that was it? Well, the latter part had certainly worked.

“H-how do you know this?” she sniffled. “Have you seen this kind of thing before?”

“Yes. From quite up close in fact.”

And from the way he said it, she knew. He hadn't just seen it. He had done it himself. Or rather, ordered it to be done. For a moment her heart shrank away from its own feelings. How could she ever let herself feel like this for such a man?