The Robber Knight's Love (The Robber Knight Saga #2)(129)

Ayla, however, would have none of it. She held the girl pressed tightly against her chest, cooing to her in a reassuring tone. “Don’t worry! Everything will be all right now! You’ll be safe!”

Reuben cleared his throat. “She probably knows that. After all, she made sure of it herself with a good, hard stick.”

Ayla threw a glare at him that would have made a king quake in his boots.

“What did I do wrong now?” Reuben wanted to know.

“You have to ask that, you blockhead? You beheaded a man in front of a five-year-old!”

“Well…it helped win the battle and kept us from getting killed,” Reuben pointed out.

“That's no excuse!” Ayla snapped. “She will have nightmares for the rest of her life!”

“No, I won't,” Fye mumbled her protest into the linen of Ayla's gown, struggling to get free. “I'm perfectly fine!”

“Shh, girl, shh,” Ayla muttered, stroking her hair and looking at her with loving eyes. The look in her eyes when they returned to Reuben was quite different.

“Couldn't you have done something different?” she demanded.

“Well, I could have stabbed him in the stomach.”

“Reuben!”

“That would have been slightly messier, you know, with all the guts and fluids spilling out…”

“Reuben! Shut up!”

Quickly, Ayla clamped her hands over Fye's ears. “You don't need to hear this, sweet. Just think of a fine meadow in the spring. You'll soon feel better.”

“Meadows in the spring make me sneeze,” the girl protested. “And I'm perfectly fine.”

“No, you're not,” declared Ayla with a determination Reuben just had to admire. “You've just witnessed a terrible ordeal that no child should have to witness!”

“I'm all right, really.”

“No, you're not!”

“You can trust her on that,” Reuben advised the little girl. “Ayla knows her healing. She knows when somebody is fine and when they aren't. And, if they should happen to be fine in spite of her pronouncement…well, she has a wicked slap.”

Ayla shook an accusing finger at him. “And that coming from a man who beheads people? I like your cheek!”

“He was your enemy,” Reuben said grimly. Then, his lips twitching into a smile, he added, “And I know you like my cheek. You can show your appreciation of it with the soft caress of your sweet lips whenever you want.”

“The soft caress of my knuckles, more like!”

Reuben was just about to say something else when a scream echoed across the wall and a woman rushed out of the tower towards them, her hands flailing in the air. Who the hell was she? Reuben dismissed the question from his mind. There was only one important thing right now: from the way she was screeching, it was obvious the woman was crazy. Quickly, Reuben put himself between her and Ayla, raising his bloody sword, ready to strike the dangerous madwoman.

“Get out of the way, you big oaf!” Ayla hissed from behind her. “That's Margaret, Fye's mother!”

“Oh.” Reuben shifted. “And she isn't crazy?”

“No, of course not. She's just concerned for her daughter! Get out of my way.” Ayla marched past Reuben and held Fye out to the woman, who gathered her little girl up in her arms and pressed her to her chest, weeping. Apparently, Fye didn't much appreciate this. She put up a good deal of resistance, even more than with Ayla.

“Dear Lord in Heaven!” the woman cried, pressing her daughter against her chest with iron strength. “Fye! My dear, sweet, harmless, innocent, little Fye!”

Reuben regarded the woman and child with interest. Was she talking about a different Fye? Somehow, the woman's description didn't match what he'd seen of the girl's character so far. But then…she was her mother. She deserved a few delusions.

“I was so terrified when I noticed she was gone,” the woman wept. “I only realized it when we were in the cellars under the keep, safely away. I know I should have kept better watch, but there were so many people milling around, and there were my other children to watch, and I had told her to follow me and not go outside! Why would she come up?”

With mounting curiosity, Reuben looked on as Ayla took the woman in her arms and muttered senseless platitudes like “it's all right now” and “shh.” This seemed to be something intrinsically female. It didn't seem to matter to Margaret that Ayla made no attempt to answer the garbled questions which kept streaming from her lips. Reuben would have tried to answer to the best of his ability—after maybe dumping a bucket of cold water on the woman to calm her down a bit. The screeching and weeping was really starting to get on his nerves.

Finally, the woman freed herself from Ayla's grip.

“She is all right, isn't she?” she asked tearfully. Shaking with fear, she held up her daughter to examine her. “Nothing happened to her, did it?”

“On the contrary,” Reuben felt it his duty to point out. “She fended for herself amazingly, giving the enemy commander a tremendously impressive whack on the ass.”

Apparently, this was not what the woman had been wanting to hear. Ayla managed to catch her just in time before she keeled over backwards along with her child.