Ayla stopped on the way to dunk her head into a barrel of water. She knew she would have to address her people, and it wouldn't be a good thing if her people couldn't recognize her because her face was covered in mud, sprayed up by an enemy projectile. By the time she arrived at the keep, Dilli and Captain Linhart had been busy: nearly everyone was already assembled, with more women and children streaming in from every direction.
As soon as they spotted her, a storm broke loose.
"Milady! What was that noise?"
"Did you feel the earth shake? Milady, what—"
"The Lord's wrath has come down upon us! Milady, we must pray—"
Hands reached out to grab at her dress, her hands, anything they could reach, searching for reassurance. Ayla tried to evade them, climbing up the keep stairs to stand above the heads of the crowd, but they rushed after her.
"Milady, what..."
"...the wrath of God, Milady. The wrath of God!"
"Please!" She raised her hands, trying to ward the people off. They were pushing her farther and farther up the stairs, making her stumble backwards. "Please, I have to speak to you. I—"
She didn't know whether she could have managed to silence them on her own. In any case, it didn't matter, because a second later a gigantic black shape hurtled over their heads, disappearing beyond the wall. From somewhere in the outer castle they heard an earth-shaking thud, as if a giant had slammed his foot down. The ground under their feet shook, and the words of the villagers died on their lips. Some screamed, others dived to the ground, covering their heads with their hands. None dared to utter so much as a word anymore.
"That," Ayla spoke into the quiet night, pointing up at the sky where they had seen the boulder fly past, "is not the wrath of God. It is the wrath of the Margrave. He has built a hellish machine that serves one purpose, and only one: to smash the walls of this castle to rubble and grind us all to dust!"
A ripple of fear went through the women and children.
"Are we doomed then, Milady?"
The question came from an old woman and the edge of the crowd, bent almost double by the weight of age. She was one of the few who hadn't thrown themselves on the ground. Her words were spoken so calmly that you might almost think she didn't fear the approaching death, because the grim reaper was already coming for her—until you saw her hand, tightly clutched around that of a little girl at her side. She feared death all right, just maybe not her own.
Were they doomed? Ayla had asked herself that very question ever since she had found out what was out there in the night. Were they?
"No!" The words came out of her mouth, spoken with her voice—and they sounded so true. "As I speak, Sir Reuben, the victor of our last battle against Falkenstein, is making his way into the enemy camp to destroy that evil machine. He will break the thing like a twig and make the Margrave wish he had never been born!"
Heaven, what am I saying? Where does this confidence come from? Reuben might already be dead! How can I be so sure that he's still alive and that he will save us?
An image flashed in front of her inner eye—not an imaginary image of Reuben's death this time, but the way his eyes had burned when he had last held her in his arms. A man who looked like that didn't die. He might kill everybody else, but he himself would survive, and would return victorious.
Please. Please let that be true.
"We must only hold out," she told her people, her voice steady, "and we shall be saved. I promise you on my honor as the Lady of Luntberg."
There was a moment of hesitation—then, slowly, the assembled crowd rose to its feet, one after the other. The panic lifted from their faces. Fear was still there, but it was contained, and surpassed by resolute expressions.
Do they really trust me that much? Oh God...
"But we have to get you to safety," she continued, trying her best to keep her own panic under control, when all she wanted to do was run into a quiet corner and hide. Well, in essence that was what she was doing: trying to hide. She was just trying to find the right place to hide, and take everyone with her. But somehow, that didn't stop her heart from trying to jump out of her chest. "One of those rocks could crash down on us at any moment. We have to find you and your children a safe place to weather the attack."
"What about the men, Milady?" A young woman at the front asked, throwing a fearful glance over her shoulder—no doubt to where her young man was stationed up on the wall. Ayla's hands trembled. She understood the woman's fear all too well. Whatever danger that young man might be facing, it was nothing to what Reuben was about to throw himself into.
"They have to stay on the wall." Her voice was low, but firm. "I'm sorry; I know the risk is great that one of those rocks might kill half a dozen of them in an instant—but the risk that this is all just a ruse to get us to draw our men back from the walls is even greater. If the enemy climbs over empty walls while we're cowering in the dark, we will all be doomed no matter how safe from bombardment we thought to be."
Another rock hurtling over their heads, another earth-shattering thud. Ayla felt her heart beat even faster. The impacts were getting closer and closer. The enemy was slowly adjusting their aim. Sooner or later, one of the stones would hit the castle wall. What would happen then she didn't want to imagine.
"Get behind the keep, all of you!" she called out, pointing to the side, where the path around the keep led to the orchard at the back. "You'll have at least some cover there, until we can figure out the best place to hide in. Burchard? Don't skulk! I can see your mustache from over here! Send some people up to the tower chamber to carry my father down, and then get over here! I need you!"
*~*~**~*~*
The enemy palisades appeared in front of them like the teeth of some diabolical beast, ready to swallow them whole. Reuben smiled. Well, he intended to give the diabolical beast one hell of a stomach ache.
"How are we going to get over to the other side?" Theoderich whispered from behind. "They're so high!"
"That's normal for palisades, wouldn't you say, goldilocks?"
"Um... yes, Sir. I suppose you never really realize it until you are up close."
"You might not." Reuben reached under his surcoat and began untying knots. A few moments later, he was pulling out the rope which he had brought with him, tied as a second belt around his waist. "I, however, did."
"Yes, Milord. Of course, Milord."
"Now listen carefully." Reuben's fingers started to move in a blur, tying knots into the rope at regular intervals, and turning its end into a sling. "I haven't been able to find out whether or not this palisade has a walkway. We might be climbing up, only to face a troop of enemy soldiers. Or, if we're really lucky, I might just end up throwing this sling over an enemy's head instead of a sharpened pole. If anything like this happens, if we get attacked, I want you to run off, away from the camp. I'll be staying. Understood?"
"Staying?" The squire looked deeply touched. "You would do that? You would sacrifice yourself to provide me with an escape?"
"No, of course not! You'll run so enough of them will chase after you for me to hack through the rest and get to the trebuchet. You're expendable. If need be, you must sacrifice yourself as a diversion. Then I can get to the siege weapon and destroy it, and all will be fine."
"Um... except I'll be dead."
"Yes." Reuben flashed his squire a grin straight from the bowels of hell. "As I said, all will be fine."
"Um... I see, Milord."
"Cheer up, goldilocks! You'll probably go to heaven anyway, so you'll have nothing to complain about. I bet you'll fit right in with the cherubim."
"As you say, Milord."
"All right." Reuben cracked his metal-clad knuckles, and slowly rose from behind the bush behind which they had concealed themselves. "We've wasted enough time. Let's go. I'll go first. If you don't hear screams of mortal agony once I'm over the wall, that means I haven't stumbled over any enemies. Clear?"
"Crystal-clear, Milord."
Raising his arm with the sling in it, Reuben started forward—slowly at first, looking from left to right for heads of enemy soldiers between the sharpened ends of the poles, then faster and faster. His feet started to beat a furious rhythm on the ground. If anyone looked over the palisades right now, he was lost, they all would be lost.
Stopping about fifteen feet away from the edge of the enemy camp, he started to whirl his arm round and round, once, twice, three times. He didn't really move fast, or with a lot of strength—he knew he didn't need to. The rope was flying just right, he could feel it in the way the air moved, could hear it in the swishing sound it made as it cut through the night. Out of the corner of his eyes, threw a look at young Theoderich's face. The lad was wearing an expression as if any moment he expected the rope to fall down and strangle his knight master.
Reuben grinned a grin of pure evil.
"Watch and learn, goldilocks!"
His arm shot forward, not trying to propel the rope forward but using its natural momentum at the perfect release point, and he let go. The rope flew forward, upward, high above their heads. Reuben waited until the slack had almost vanished into the dark, then grabbed it and held tight. The sling fell over the nearest sharpened pole, and he pulled with all his might. In one quick, hard contraction the rope fastened itself around the pole.
Contractions and poles... oh, what sweet memories this evoked...
But no time for that now! Later, when he was back with Ayla.
Reuben was already running forward again. They had no time to waste. Behind him, he could hear Theoderich's lighter footsteps. Hmm... apart from the fact that he was a notorious do-gooder and a massive pain in the ass, that lad wasn't actually so terrible as a squire.
Maybe he'll even manage to survive the night.
Maybe.
The slack in his hand was getting shorter and shorter, and Reuben was getting closer and closer to the spikey poles of the palisade. Just when he was about five feet away, he jumped.
His hands closed around the rope as high as he could reach. The ground vanished from under his feet and suddenly, he was sailing through the night, suspended from the knotted rope. A second later his feet crashed into the wooden poles. There was no way of muffling the sound, and he didn't really want to. So what if an enemy soldier came by and heard him? He was ready to chop a few limbs off, anyway!
In the distance, he heard another thud: deeper, and far more menacing than the one produced with his metal-clad feet: the thud of a trebuchet missile burrowing into the earth.
Oh yes, I'm more than ready for some limb-chopping!
His feet started moving forward—or upward, to be exact. Direction didn't really make sense in this space, hanging from a rope, half pulling, half running up a wall that was supposed to be a serious obstacle to enemies like him.
Bah! His mind flashed back to the innumerable walls and towers he had climbed: Damaskus, Sophia, Badajoz—if neither the stonework of the Saracens nor of the Bulgarian Empire could get in his way, a couple of sharpened logs were certainly not going to do it.
He had reached the top in the blink of an eye and, thrusting himself up and over the sharp wooden points, he hung in empty air for a moment, watching the ground rush up towards him. Satan's hairy ass! No walkway! This was going to be a hard fall.
He grinned.
As if that matters...
Reuben slammed into the ground like one of the trebuchet's rocks. His feet buried themselves inches deep in the mud, his fists slammed into the ground to steady himself. For a moment he felt a weird wobbling sensation in his left ankle, and wondered whether he had twisted or broken it. Well, so what if he had? It would make no difference.
He rose to his feet, perfectly steady, uncoiling like a lion that had just awoken from a restful nap.
Beside him, a blonde blur hurtled down from the top of the palisades and crashed into the ground. A soft moan wafted up from the level of his feet.
"Get up," Reuben commanded, straightening and dusting the dirt of his surcoat. "We've got work to do. You can laze about later."
"Y-yes, Milord. Ohhh..."
"And stop that moaning. People get suspicious of other people lying on the ground moaning. Satan's hairy ass! One might think you've never infiltrated an enemy camp before."
"Y-yes, Milord."
Reuben heard another moan, and he was about to tell his squire that if he didn't obey, he would kick his ass all the way from here to Schweinfurt, when he realized that the moan hadn't come from Theoderich. It had come from one of the tents around them. For the first time, Reuben took in where they were.
They stood at the very edge of the camp, where the shabbiest and smallest tents of all huddled up against the palisades. Nobody was in sight, but he heard people moving inside the tents.
Enemy soldiers turning in their sleep, perhaps?
Then he heard a few more energetic groans from a tent to his left—and they weren't coming from a man-at-arms. They were coming from a woman. He smirked. So these were this kind of tents, were they? Now Reuben knew there were enemy soldiers in those tents all right. But they most certainly were not sleeping. They wouldn't be likely to pay attention to him and his squire, either, though.
"Let's go," he told his squire. "We've still got a long way ahead of us."
"Are we just going to march down the row of tents? Won't somebody notice us?"
"Trust me, they won't notice. Right now, they're pretty busy."
A particularly long drawn-out moan, accompanied by a few curse words, came from a tent to their right, and Theoderich looked towards it, worried.
"Are there wounded soldiers in there?" he whispered.
"I don't think so. I think, in fact I know, that right now they're perfectly fine."
"You can tell this from out here? Without seeing them?" The young squire looked impressed. "What secret skill allows you to know this, Milord?"
"Years of experience," Reuben said, nostalgically. Instinctively, he stepped towards the nearest tent and to listen. It sounded like some serious action was going on in there. He wondered whether he should take a look, just for the fun of it, but decided not to. He was in love, after all. To judge by his vague memory of courtly love ballads, people in love were probably not supposed to do things like that. And come to think of it, Ayla would probably not appreciate it.
"So... what is it that is happening in there, Milord? I can hear women in there, moaning. Is something wrong with them?"
Reuben looked down at the open, honest face of the blue-eyed, blonde squire. No one could be that naïve, could they?
Well, maybe this one could.
"Tell me, goldilocks, what did Sir Isenbard teach you about the different parts of an army?"
"You mean like knights, and archers, and siege weapon masters?"
"I mean apart from the warriors. Besides the warriors, what kind of people always accompany an army? Women, specifically?"
Theoderich looked puzzled for a moment. Then his face brightened. "Washerwomen?"
Reuben gave up.
"Yes, washerwomen," he sighed, "Exactly."
Theoderich threw a pitying glance at the nearest tent, from which came a particularly impressive groan right at that moment. "Must be painful business, washing clothes. They moan as if they're in terrible pain."
"Well, a knight should understand how all parts of an army work." Reuben told his squire. "Someday, when this mess is all over, I'll take you to the next big city and show you a place where you can learn how to... wash your clothes."
"Why the next big city? Lady Ayla has her own washerwomen in the castle."
"Not this kind of washerwomen, trust me."
He motioned forward, a signal that their conversation was at an end. Theoderich understood, and they moved onward, away from the ragged tents, deeper into the camp.
"Won't someone recognize that I'm not one of them, Milord?" Theoderich whispered. "I'm wearing no disguise."
"And neither do you wear any coat of arms declaring your allegiance. You look just like any ordinary squire. Now shut up, or do you want someone to hear you?"
"No, of course not, Milord."
"And don't call me Milord! I'm wearing a common soldier's clothes."
"Yes, Mil— I mean, yes. I won't."
"Good."
In front of them, different tents began to appear: larger and better kept, with the coat of arms of various knights displayed on the top. Laughter and music were coming from inside. Reuben caught the smell of honey wine wafting towards him. They were celebrating their approaching victory. A grim smile spread over his face.
Let's see if they don't find a fly in that goblet of wine.
Beyond the tents, high above their heads, he could see the arm of the trebuchet swinging in the wind after its latest shot. The creaking of the machine might have sounded ominous or threatening to any other man alive, but to Reuben it was like the greeting of an old friend. A friend enslaved by the enemy.
Just wait a little longer, old friend. I shall set you free, and you will wreak destruction among our enemies.
"There. Do you see that tent?"
Reuben pointed to a large tent with a swan and star displayed on a shield at the very top. It stood among a group of similar tents.
"Yes."
"That has to be the tent of the knight leading this particular lance of men."
"Why?"
"Because it is the largest and most luxurious."
Theoderich frowned. "My old knight master taught me that a knight has to practice humility and live a simple life to be an example to his men. Why would you expect the largest tent to be the knight's?"
"Because people are greedy bastards and don't stick to the rules."
"Oh."
"Yes. Now come!"
Reuben started towards the tent, and Theoderich hurried after him, whispering. "What do we want at the knight's tent? I thaught we were here to destroy the trebuchet?"
"We are. Did you think we'd get close enough in simple soldier's clothes? Much too risky, goldilocks."
"Then what..."
With a motion of his hand, Reuben commanded the squire to be silent. They were almost right in front of the tent now. There was a soldier standing guard outside. He looked severely displeased that he wasn't drinking and carousing with all his comrades.
"A message for your master," Reuben told him, stepping towards the entrance of the tent. The guard lowered his guisarme and blocked his way.
"Piss off, you bat-fowling blaggard! My master doesn't want to see anyone."
Reuben didn't back away. Only now it seemed to register with the other guard that the man whose way he was barring was about two heads taller than him. He swallowed.
"The message is from the Margrave," Reuben said darkly.
The guard paled.
"Exactly." One corner of Reuben's mouth quirked up. "And it is for your master's ears only. So get your prying ears away from here and go spend the night drinking like you know you want to—unless you'd prefer spending the night with his Excellency's personal torturer, of course!"
"All right, all right." Holding up a hand in defeat, the guard stepped aside and Reuben enter the tent. "No need to be like that. We're all on the same side, aren't we?"
That's where you're wrong.
Reuben didn't say anything. He just stepped inside and waited for the footsteps of the guard to fade. Behind him, someone else entered the tent—Theodrich, probably. Reuben didn't care. He was surveying his new surroundings. The tent was roomy and filled by a sickly-sweet smell. Carpets and expensive pelts covered the floor. Golden and silver bowls filled with exotic fruit and other delicacies littered the table.
Even before Reuben's eyes fell on the knight that stood facing the table, away from him, he knew what he would see: a fat man with a taste for luxury and gold rather than blood.
Good. The night is going well.
"A message from the Margrave, Sir" Reuben said loudly, stepping towards the man.
The knight turned. He wasn't wearing armor, not even chain mail. Going well? Scratch that! The night was going perfect!
"From the Margrave?" he grunted. "Well, what is it, man?"
Reuben's arm darted forward. From behind him, he heard Theodrich's gasp, but he wasn't listening. His entire concentration was focused on the dagger jammed into the knight's heart. The dagger held by his fist.
"Oh, did I say from the Margrave?" Smiling terribly, Reuben leant forward until his lips were right beside the ear of the knight who watched him with an expression of mingled horror, shock and death. Reuben lowered his voice until only the man he had just killed could hear him: "I should have saida message to the Margrave. Here it is: You're all going to die."
Twisting the dagger, he ripped it out of the wound. The knight collapsed, silently, and Reuben caught him before he could hit the floor.
"Find me his armor," he told Theoderich over his shoulder. "I have to change."
*~*~**~*~*
"What about the great hall? Its walls are thicker than any other part of the castle."
"And it's the only part of the castle that has big windows to let the sunlight in. What if one of those stones sails right through them? There'd be dozens of people left dead, and nothing we could do to prevent it!"
"The storage cellars?"
"Use your head, Burchard! They're stuffed full to the brim with provisions. It would take days to empty them, and where would we put the food? It would be spoiled by rats in a few hours, and then we'd starve to death instead of being squashed into a bloody pulp. How is that better?"
"There won't be so much to clean up afterwards."
"That was a rhetorical question, Burchard!"
"Yes, Milady."
"I'm waiting for more suggestions, Burchard."
"Yes, Milady."
"Well, do you have any?"
"No, Milady."
Ayla wanted to be angry at him but couldn't manage it. She didn't have any ideas either. Defeated, she sank against the wall and covered her eyes with her hand. They were up in Reuben's room—for one thing, because they had a good view of most of the castle from here, and for another, because Ayla secretly hoped the atmosphere in the room that belonged to Reuben would somehow help her to find insipiration. So far, though, she had come up blank. And outside, the boulders were coming closer and closer. It was only a matter of time before one hit the—
There was an almighty crash, like the bones of a giant breaking. Ayla was thrown off her feet and through the air. She felt the world whirl around her, then she landed on something soft and squishy. What in God's name had just happened? Blinking, trying to shoo away the colorful lights dancing in front of her eyes, she braced her hand against whatever she was lying on. It felt hairy, and warm. A carpet, maybe?
"Will you please take your hand out of my face?" came a gruff voice from underneath her. Hurriedly, Ayla drew back her hand and wiped it on her dress.
"Sorry, Burchard."
"It is not a problem, Milady. At least as long as you get up right away."
She jumped to her feet and hurried over to the closest embrasure. But already before she looked out, she knew what she was going to see, and it made her feel cold all over.
Through the narrow slit in the wall she could just glimpse one of the crenels, broken off and smashed to pieces, lying on the courtyard. A few feet away, there was a dark crater in the ground, and in its center an orb of black stone. Blood stained the cobblestones around the crater. But if there had been a man standing there when the stone hit, all other traces of him were gone. Destroyed. Annihilated. Ayla felt her knees begin to shake.
"What are we going to do?" she whispered. "If this goes on, the only things left alive will be the rats in the dungeons!"
Over the cries of soldiers in the courtyard and the clatter of feet, she heard her own words, as if in an echo: the rats in the dungeons.
Burchard must have heard them too, or seen something on her face, because he came to his feet with astounding agility and grabbed her arm. "Milady, whatever it is you are thinking: no! No, no, and no again!"
"I don't know what you mean, Burchard."
"Don't you play innocent with me! I know that expression. It's the one you get when you have a really, really bad idea that is going to bring me no end of trouble."
A tentative smile tugged at the corners of Ayla's mouth.
"Well, as it happens, I do have an idea. But it isn't bad. In fact, it is brilliant and will save all our lives."
"No! No, I said!"
"I don't have time to argue, Burchard. Come on!"
Slipping from her steward's grip, Ayla moved towards the door. She didn't even wait to see if he followed. She was out of the keep in moments. Not paying attention to the soldiers in the courtyard and Captain Linhart shouting orders, she rounded the corner of the castle and marched towards the orchard. The soldiers had their job to do, and she had hers. And she finally knew how to do it.
At the back of the castle, she found the crowd of women and children, huddled together, clutching at each other as if that could somehow protect them from a two-hundred pound stone missile from the sky. Ayla knew how they felt. She herself wanted nothing more than to disappear into the embrace of another's arms. A particular set of arms. Arms that held her so strongly she thought they would never let go. But she couldn't. Not yet.
"Everyone! Listen up!" At the sound of her voice, all her people turned to her. The expression on their faces gave her strength and infused her voice with a tone of command. "I have found a place for you to hide. It isn't the safest of places, but it is safe from the enemy bombardment. I promise you that nothing will happen to you if you follow me there."
Striding to the large lattice gate set into the castle wall in a secluded corner, she took a ring of keys from her belt and pushed the largest and most complicated of the keys into the lock. It turned with a click.
"I cannot make you follow me down here. If you do, you will have to do exactly as I say, remain quiet and calm. That is the best thing you can do to support the people who are fighting for you at this very moment. Take care of yourself and your children, and keep an eye open for trouble."
She swung open the gate and was already descending into the darkness when Burchard finally caught up with her. Several of the women from outside were hot on his heels.
"What in God's name do you think you are doing?" he panted.
"Don't take the Lord's name in vain, Burchard! And I'm taking my people to safety," she replied, taking a torch from the wall as she passed. The stairwell got darker and darker the farther they went down, and even in the torchlight, it was difficult to make out the contours of the steps.
"Safety? You're taking them down... there! How is that safe?"
"It's out of the way of flying two-hundred pound balls of stone. That's how."
"And have you taken into account what else is down there, or should I say who?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"A slight problem that can be overcome."
"A slight problem! Have you lost your mind?"
"I don't believe so, but I haven't checked, recently."
Burchard's response was a muttered curse that Ayla had never heard before. But she felt sure she knew where he got it from. She made a mental note to have a talk with Reuben when he got back.
They had reached the bottom of the stairs by now. Ayla stood before a row of thick oak doors, leading off to various rooms—rooms without sunlight, and with thick walls. Stepping towards the first door, she stuck the key in the lock and turned it.
"Ayla, don't do this!"
"Do you have a better idea, Burchard?"
There was a moment of grudging silence. Then: "No."
"I thought as much."
Ayla swung open the door, and a room full of shackled enemy soldiers looked up at her, blinking in the sudden light of the torch.
"Make room," Ayla told them, waving her hand imperiously. "You're getting company."
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Greetings, my Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Who can guess what was going on in those tents? ;-)
I managed to write an extra-long one chapter this week. Hopefully you enjoyed it. Now I have get back to my dungeon and continue to edit a book of mine for publication... :)
Farewell
Sir Rob
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GLOSSARY:
The grim reaper: In the middle ages, people imagined that death was an actual person, a skeleton riding around and cutting short lives with a scythe in his hand, as was used for harvesting grain. That is why people called him the grim reaper.