Reuben felt increasingly uneasy over the next few days, for a variety of reasons.
First and foremost, of course, there was Ayla. She hardly spoke to him and avoided him like the plague. The one time he had tried to drag her into an alcove and make her swoon with passionate kisses, her knee in his groin had made clear she wasn't having any of it. Not that he had actually felt the blow, of course—but he thought he owed it to her to let go and groan dramatically. He did love her, after all.
She was obviously upset with him for some reason. More than once, he had tried to waylay her in the corridors and throttle the truth out of her, but to no success. She simply swept past him without a glance.
Ayla wasn't the only one who was upset with him. Fye, on hearing what had passed between him and Ayla, had threatened to stab him in his sleep. When he pointed out to the girl that it was on her suggestion he had conceaded to that infernal notion of marriage, she wacked him with her stick.
Women! They were all the same.
Sir Reuben the robber knight was feeling badly misunderstood.
And finally, there were the recruits. Not that there was anything wrong with their training. No, everything seemed to be going just fine in that direction. The men's and women's shooting improved every day, and their confidence grew at an even greater pace.
However, again and again he caught some of them at throwing him strange, thoughtful looks, as if he were a rooster in a coming cock fight. More than once he saw coins or small trinkets being surreptitiously exchanged, and when he demanded to know what was going on, nobody would answer him, not even when he threatened to roast the people involved over an open fire.
Finally, when he saw a fat peasant handing three silver coins to one of his friends, and caught the name "Ayla" among some muttered instructions, he lost it.
"Tell me!" He roared, stepping out from behind the corner and grabbing the peasant by the collar. "Tell me right now what is going on, or, by Satan's fungus-farting breath, I'll strangle you right here and now!"
"I... Milord, I... "
"Now, you clay-brained son of a toad!"
"I... I can't, Milord."
"Right! You asked for it...!"
"Reuben! Let the man go, at once!"
Reuben sighed. Even if he hadn't recognized the voice immediately, he would have known who it was. It was, of course, the only person in the castle who dared to give him orders, and knew that—sometimes—they would actually be obeyed.
Slowly, he set the man to the ground and relaxed his grip on the collar.
Ayla appeared beside him, glaring up at him. It was the first time she had looked him in the eye since he had, in a fit of temporary madness, offered to marry her.
"Apologize to him!"
"Why, hello, Milady. It is nice to speak to you, too, after such a long time."
"I said apologize to him! Now!"
Reuben looked down at the cowering peasant consideringly. Finally, he sighed, and nodded. "I apologize. I should not have called you a clay-brained son of a toad."
Ayla nodded. "There. That wasn't so hard, was it?"
"Not," Reuben continued to the peasant, "when you're so obviously the clay-brained son of a slimy little limpet."
"Reuben!"
He earned another glare from Ayla, and bowed to her, smiling slightly. "I would say much worse things to be graced with the bewitching gaze of your beautiful blue eyes, Milady."
She promptly stepped on his foot. He sighed again. Such eloquent, romantic words and they all went unappreciated. What a cold, heartless girl he'd had the misfortune to fall in love with.
"Th-thank you, Milady."
The stammered words of the peasant brought both their attention back to him. Reuben glowered, but Ayla quirked an eyebrow, smiling.
"I see you are still active. How do the odds stand at the moment?"
The peasant's face, red from near strangulation, drained of color in an instant.
"You know, Milady?"
"Certainly. Do you think there's anything in this castle I don't know about?"
"No, Milady. Of course not, Milady."
"So, how do the odds stand?"
"S-seven to one, Milady."
The slight smile on Ayla's lips morphed into a radiant one. Reuben's urge to strangle someone shifted from the peasant to her.
"Is that so? How gratifying. Please continue. Don't let us interrupt." And with a nod of her head, she turned, moving away from the training grounds and towards the keep.
Reuben hurried after her.
"You know what they're doing, don't you?" he growled.
"Yes."
He waited, continuing to follow her. Finally, he cracked.
"Well? Are you going to tell me?"
She smiled up at him, sweetly. "I don't think so, no."
And with that, she closed the door of the keep in his face.
So, taking all things into consideration, things were going very well for Reuben. Fabulous. Fantastic. Beyond words.
*~*~**~*~*
Time passed. Quite a lot of it, actually. The Margrave's men were still sawing and hammering behind the false siege fortifications they had erected, but Reuben was experienced enough to notice a shift in the pattern. Where before, a lot of people had carried freshly cut wood from the forest to the hidden space behind the fortifications, now, most of the activity stayed behind the concealment of the wooden barricades.
Reuben knew perfectly well what this meant. The siege ladders, and whatever else the Margrave's men had constructed, were nearing completion. No new material was needed now. Only a short amount of time remained, while the enemy sat behind their barricades, finishing their siege weapons. Then, the Margrave's forces would attack.
As much as he detested admitting it to himself, he couldn't put it off any longer. If he wanted to talk things through with Ayla before the last battle, he had to act. It was time.
Satan's hairy ass! Why the hell was it so damn difficult to bring himself to talk to her? He had never had problems talking to women before!
Granted, his opening to the conversation had mostly been "Stop right there! Hand over your jewels, or I'll cut your pretty little throat!", whereupon the lady in question had responded with a loud screech, or a fainting if she was particularly amenable. That option wasn't exactly open to him in this particular case. But still...
She was only a girl, for Satan's sake!
A girl he loved.
"It's not my fault!" he growled to himself. "How on earth am I supposed to talk with her if she won't say a word to me?"
"Why don't you use monastic sign language?" Theoderich, who was loading a crossbow next to Reuben, suggested.
"Do you want me to take that crossbow from you and shoot you with it, goldilocks?"
"It was a serious suggestion, Milord," the young man protested. "The monastic sign language is very expressive. Sir Isenbard spent some months in a Benedictine monastery, and he taught me a few signs. Look." He moved his hand repeatedly to his mouth, three fingers extended. "This means, 'I want to eat.' And this," he raised one hand and moved the slightly curved upper side of the fingers in a way that suggested a flying motion, "means 'Hallelujah.'"
"Amazing." Reuben narrowed his eyes at his squire. "And how do say in monastic sign language: 'I want to drag you to the next bed and ravish you all through the night, and unless you don't tell me what's wrong I'm going to do exactly that, and spank you afterwards!'?"
"Um... I don't think the monks have a sign for that, Milord."
"What a surprise."
So Reuben kept waiting, kept gathering his courage. Courage, however, lately seemed to be a slippery thing, and always escaped his grasp when he saw Ayla. That is, until one late evening, he saw her standing atop the wall, silhouetted against the sunset.
He stopped in his tracks. The sunset beyond the castle lit the sky crimson. Sanding up there in the wind, her white gown gleaming red in the fading light and fluttering slowly in the wind, she almost seemed as if she were floating in a sea of blood.
Reuben stared at her for a moment—just stood there and stared. Then, without a moment more of hesitation, he thrust open the door to the tower and made his way up the stairs.
Up on the wall, the effect of the crimson sunset was no less disturbing. A fine setting for a war, he thought wryly. The company fit too: there were two guards with Ayla, one on either side of her. At her vassal's assistance, she rarely ventured out of the keep without guards these days. They were all aware that the enemy might attack at any moment, and that Ayla's safety was of paramount of importance. She was the backbone that held the castle together.
Of course she had objected, and told both Burchard and Linhart in no uncertain terms that she could take care of herself, but Reuben had just posted guards around her anyway. One of the advantages of her not talking to him was that she couldn't come around to complain.
He took a deep breath. Well, that might be about to change.
"You there!" The two guards' heads jerked around at the sound of his voice. Reuben jerked his hand, motioning down the wall, away from Ayla. "Get lost."
The two guards got lost very quickly and efficiently. Reuben doubted even a pack of bloodhounds would have found them again. Well, good riddance. He wasn't concerned for Ayla's safety. After all, he was with her now.
She was standing, not very tall but quite proud, looking out over the Lunt Valley, towards the enemy and the bloody sunset. Stepping up next to her, he leaned forward and rested his elbows on top of the crenels. She didn't acknowledge his presence. For a while, neither of them spoke.
Finally, Reuben took a deep breath. It was now or never.
"Ayla?"
No answer. He didn't look at her, just continued to stare out into the sea of red in front of him.
"I'm a great warrior," he said, without false modesty. He didn't even have the real variety, so why bother with the false one? "Probably the greatest there is. But even for the greatest warrior, there is always the chance of never coming back."
Again, no answer. He hesitated.
"There's a big battle ahead. In case I don't come back—I want to talk with you."
Once more, he paused.
"Correct me if I'm wrong—but I got the impression that for some reason you weren't thrilled when I said we could marry the other day."
A muscle in Ayla's jaw twitched.
"How observant of you."
"The thing is... I don't quite understand. You want it, don't you?"
There was breath of hesitation. Then: "Yes."
"But you're angry with me for suggesting it?"
"No. I'm not angry that you asked me. I'm angry about how you asked me."
The confusion on Reuben's face, already pretty much in evidence, intensified.
"Ayla, I have no idea what you are talking about."
She through him a half-loving, half murderous look. "You really don't, do you?"
"No, Milady."
"Reuben, you are a tottering, boil-brained kettlehead!"
"If you say so, Milady." He hesitated. This might not be the best time for it, but he might as well give it another try. Maybe she was just being unnecessarily emotional. She was a woman, after all. "The offer still stands you know. If you absolutely want to marry me, I'll do it."
The moment he saw the expression change on her face he knew he had said the wrong thing.
"You!" she growled, punching his chest, once, twice, three times. "You puny, rump-fed rat's bane! I could kill you!"
Rather startled by this attack, Reuben grabbed her by the shoulders. Satan's hairy ass, she was crying! And she was still hitting him! And he, by all the stinking deamons of the blackest pit of hell, had no idea why!
"I could kill you!"
Another punch to his chest.
Reuben thought of various responses to this. There was "No, you couldn't, your hands are far too small for strangling and you don't have a knife." Or he could say "You're absolutely crazy, do you know that?" Or maybe "Do you want to lie down and rest? I'm sure you'll feel better in the morning."
But none of these options were, in his opinion, likely to yield satisfactory results.
Ayla punched him a few more times, then collapsed against his chest, sobbing. Having no clue what else to do, Reuben just put his arms around her and pulled her to him. They stood like that for a while: loving, yet hating, wanting and still denying, so close, and yet a thousand miles away from each other. Finally, Ayla's sobs began to subside, and she lifted her tear-stained face.
"Marriage for me," she whispered, looking up at him in a way that made his heart ache with the only pain he could ever feel, "is something holy. Something joyous. Something wonderful. It is a man and a woman joining their souls and bodies, to stay true in health and sickness and to love each other through all misfortunes, for better or for worse, through all the days of their lives."
She swallowed, hard, clutching her clenched hands to her chest.
"That's what marriage means to me, Reuben. And you... You throw it at me like you'd throw a bone at a dog. Not because you care for the dog, or want it to be happy, but so it'll stop nagging you."
Reuben frowned, wondering how suddenly canines had entered into the conversation. "If I wanted a dog to stop bothering me, I'd slit its throat," he pointed out.
Obviously, Ayla didn't appreciate that remark very much.
"I love you, damn you!" she screamed, punching his chest again, with more force than he thought she had in her. "And you say something like that to me? I love you!"
Reuben could feel his own temper rising.
"And I love you," he growled, grabbing her arms. She tried to hit him again, but had no hope of matching his strength. "Which is exactly why I do not want to marry you! Never, ever!"
Fresh tears sparkled in her eyes, and he almost let go to comfort her—but not quite.
"That doesn't make any sense," she hissed.
"Oh yes, it does. Tell me, what is a marriage?"
"It's a bond of love! A promise of eternal faith!"
"I don't want to know what you think of it! I want to know what it is? What happens at a wedding?"
"Two people come together to get married! What else?"
"And who performs the ceremony?" Reuben demanded, hardly able to control his voice.
"A priest, of course, you loggerhead!"
"Aye, a priest," he confirmed in a low voice. Slowly raising his arm, he hitched up his tunic until the pits of his arms were exposed. "And who, do you think, gave me those?"
*~*~**~*~*
Ayla blinked up at him in surprise, her anger temporarily halted. She hadn't expected this. What did he mean?
She met his gray eyes, and saw the gravity there. This was no joke, or distraction. He jerked his head at his armpit, and pointed with a finger of his other hand. Reluctantly, she bent closer to look.
There, hidden among curly black hair, she saw something she had never noticed before: a number of scabbed, reddish welts, hideously twisting his otherwise smooth and perfect skin.
What had Reuben said about his days in the dungeon, when he was in the clutches of the bishop of Palermo? They went for my armpits, my toes, the soles of my feet—anything that isn't clearly visible with clothes on.
"A priest did that to me," Ayla heard Reuben's soft voice, as if from very, very far away. "He didn't hold the hot irons himself, but he commanded the men that did, told them exactly where they would be most... effective. Another priest sat in the corner, waiting to take down anything I might say, and two more stood by, just to watch. For fun, you know."
She felt fingers under her chin. Numbly, she let her head be turned until she looked into Reuben's savagely honest, gray eyes. All pretense was gone. She could see right to his core, and it was woulded, and he felt no shame in admitting it—to her. Only ever to her.
"When I think of standing beside you," he whispered, hoarsely, "of swearing my eternal love for you, the most holy, no, the only holy thing on earth to me—and then have one of the same creatures that wanted to torture me to death bless this union... I can hardly keep from retching at the thought!"
They stared into each other's eyes for one agonized moment. Then, overcome, Ayla closed what little distance was between them and wrapped her arms around him.
"Reuben," she murmured. "Oh, Reuben."
"Ayla!"
His arms came up, a massive echo of hers, enfolding her in warmth, and strength, and love. Yes, love, Ayla realized with a flood of mingled horror and awe. How could she have been so blind! She had known of his hatred for the church, had heard his story and known that every ounce of his rage was justified! And still, she had demanded this of him, and he... He had said yes.
In spite of everything, in spite of rather wanting to die than have a priest, as he saw it, taint their love, he had still given in and agreed to marry her. If that was not a sign of eternal love, what else could be?
"I love you," she whispered, burrowing deep into his warm chest. What else was there to say?
"I love you, too," she heard the words that made her world complete.
But, still...
She hesitated. Then, the question spilled out: "But you don't want to marry me, do you?"
Slowly raising her head, she looked up at him. He was gazing down at her, pensively.
"I will, if you want to," he said. There was no hint of his true feelings in his voice, but his eyes... Ayla knew him well by now. Well enough to know that he was skillful at evading questions.
"That's not what I asked, Reuben."
He hesitated. Then she felt his jaw tighten. "No. I don't want to marry you. I don't want anything like that between us, ever."
The words were an arrow to her heart—and yet, at the same time, they made her ache with love for him.
*~*~**~*~*
Ayla lay awake until very late that night, and even when she drifted off into sleep, it was uneasy and fitful. On the one hand, she was thrilled, relieved, joyous beyond belief that Reuben did indeed love her, that all her fears had been groundless. On the other, she grieved for the horrors of his past, for what had been done to him, and for what, as a result, now lay between them.
She could see his hatred of the Church in his fiery gray eyes—maybe even hatred of God. Small wonder he swore by Satan's name, if he thought God responsible for what he had lived through.
But he isn't! she thought, angrily. Of course he isn't! And how could anyone think so? God is all good, and kind, and loving.
But then, God was also supposed to be all-powerful. If he hadn't caused Reuben's downfall and torment, he had at least stood by, doing nothing to prevent it.
Stop it right now! she chided herself. You're starting to sound like a heretic!
More than that, she was starting to sound like him. And she shouldn't! God was all good and loving, and he was all-powerful—it wasn't him that caused suffering on earth, it was those blasted humans with their gift of free will, which unfortunately they tended to use to jab other people with hot irons or sharp metal objects.
"Which," she murmured angrily into her pillow, "any clot-head with two pennies worth of brains should be able to see!"
Her anger, hot though it was, burned only briefly. Very soon she heard again, from the vault of memory that held all she knew of Reuben, his words, faintly echoing inside and around her, warming her heart: I love you, too.
Drawing her pillow closer, she hugged it to her chest, wishing for something, or rather someone, else, to hold in her arms. He loved her. That was all she needed to know, for now. To all the rest they would find a solution. A smile flitted across her face. God willing, they would have long enough lives.
With that hopeful thought, she drifted off into slumber, still hugging her pillow close, a substitute for the man who wasn't there. It wasn't long before a dream took her.
In her dream, she was lying on a rough wooden board, her wrists and ankles bound by chains. Over her stood a man. His face was concealed in the shadows, but his robes clearly identified his as a priest.
"W-why am I here?" she stammered. "What do you want of me?"
He didn't reply. Instead, he reached for his belt, and from it pulled a short, but wickedly sharp knife.
"Let me go!" She began to struggle. "I've done nothing wrong! I'm a good Christian, I swear! Please...!"
The priest didn't even appear to hear her—or maybe he just didn't listen. Stepping forward, he laid a hand on her shoulder, and shook it roughly. The other hand with the knife came closer and closer.
"Lady Ayla!" His voice sounded sharp—and surprisingly young. Was she to be tortured by a mere boy?
"Please!" Ayla felt tears sting her eyes. "This is all wrong! I'm a faithful daughter of the church! Please, I'm not..."
"Lady Ayla" He shook her shoulder again. "Lady Ayla, wake up! You must wake up!"
She blinked, shaking off the blanket of sleep that covered her. It took a moment for her to realize that she was not in a torture chamber, but in her own room at Luntberg Castle. After another moment, she saw with a jolt of shock that there was indeed a shadowy figure standing over her, grabbing at her shoulder.
Her elbow shot out, catching the stranger solidly in the midriff. He gasped, and stumbled back. Ayla immediately took the opportunity to swing her legs out of bed, grab him by the arm and pull, sending his head towards the stone wall.
"Ouf!"
"Who are you? What are you doing in my chambers?" Grabbing a large candlestick from the chest beside her bed, she raised it over her head and glowered threateningly at the man lying face-down on the floor. "Tell me now, or I'll..."
"No! Please, no, Lady Ayla! It's me, Theoderich!"
"What?"
Startled, Ayla lowered the candlestick. The fellow on the floor turned around and indeed, it wasn't a strange man, but Reuben's young squire.
"Sir Reuben will be glad to hear you're on your toes, Milady," he croaked, gesturing to the candlestick.
Ayla put it hastily aside, a little embarrassed. "Never mind that! What are you doing here, young Theoderich?"
His face darkened, loosing any hint of humor that might have dwelt there a moment ago.
Oh no. What in God's name...?
"Sir Reuben sent me to wake you," he said, clambering to his feet. The growing dread in Ayla multiplied a thousand fold at his words.
"Why?" she demanded. "What's the matter? Why didn't he come himself?"
Theoderich met her eyes straight on.
"Because he cannot. He's on the wall, preparing to defend us from the enemy's final attack."
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Greetings, Milords and Ladies!
The final battle is coming! Are you sharpening your swords? ;)
(a battle-ready) Sir Rob