The Robber Knight's Secret

50. Afraid of the Light

"Reuben!"

"Very well..." Sighing, he pointed down into the castle courtyard, dozen of yards below, to the gatehouse and the little door set into the stone beside the main gates.

"I sent a few a few of your men out of the castle every night to keep watch, and alert me if the enemy makes a move to attack. Don't look so disapproving. They were all hunters and woodsman, well capable of concealing themselves from the enemy."

"Why send out scouts at all?" Ayla demanded, trying her best to rein in her anger at the unnecessary risk he'd put her people in. "Keeping watch is what the guards on the walls are for, isn't it? At least it would be, if they could see!" She through him a dirty look. "I suppose I needn't ask whose brilliant idea it was to send them out on watch without any torches?"

"Guilty as charged," Reuben said, cheerily. The blaggard's grin didn't diminish one jot.

"Why, Reuben? For God's sake why? How are they supposed to see, without any light?"

He gave her an almost pitying look, and she felt her hands twitch with a strong urge to strangle him. She didn't. Firstly, because she was a good Christian, and would never commit such a sin, and secondly and more importantly, because the son of a witch was already wearing a steel bevor around his neck.

"Light doesn't make you see better," he said to her, in the tone of a schoolmaster talking to a thick-headed, but perhaps not hopelessly stupid child. "It blinds you."

Ayla turned to throw an inquiring glance at Theoderich. "Has he gone and cracked his head, or something?"

Theoderich, caught between the Lady he was sworn to protect, and the knight master who wouldn't hesitate to tan his hide, gulped, and preferred not to answer. His opinion, though, was clear on his face.

"You have, haven't you?" Ayla turned back to Reuben, who actually had the gall to look offended. "How are you supposed to see at night without torches?"

Reuben looked thoughtful for a moment—then motioned her over. "Come. Let me show you."

Hesitantly, Ayla stepped nearer, crouching down behind the crenels, right beside him.

"See there?" Carefully raising a hand over the crenels, Reuben pointed to the distant enemy camp, where still a few campfires burned. "You can see the fires, can't you?"

"Yes, of course I can!"

"And the men walking around between them?"

"Yes."

"And do you think they can see us?"

"No, of course not! They'd be blinded by the li—"

Ayla stopped in mid-sentence, realizing what she'd just been about to say.

Reuben nodded. There was no cockiness on his face now, not even a grin. It was that fact that made Ayla listen more than anything else.

"It's a bit of a strange concept, and most soldiers don't understand it. But if you spend a few years with a band of robbers in the Holy Land, doing nocturnal raids on caravans, you learn quickly enough. Light makes you easy prey at night. You have to learn to see without it, or don't see at all."

He gestured to the guards marching atop the walls.

"If I'd allowed them to keep their torches, as soon as the enemy attacks, they'd be shot down like flies. We'd lose a dozen men or more, just for a bit of fire. Like this, the enemy won't know where to shoot."

He reached over, covering her hand with his.

"I promised to take care of your people, Ayla, and I will."