The Robber Knight's Love (The Robber Knight Saga #2)(79)

Reuben stopped in his tracks.

“Go to the wall, Captain of the Guard, and guard it,” he said. “Asking too many questions can be hazardous to your health.”

Then he strode away.

His path took him around the keep, to the back of the stone fortress. There, a separate entrance led to the castle dungeons. Reuben nodded in appreciation of the cleverness behind the layout of the castle. This way, if the prisoners escaped, they could not seize control of the keep and its inhabitants immediately. They would be stuck in the open, between the keep and the outer wall, with no defenses against attacks from both sides.

However, it didn't look like this clever layout had been of any use in recent years. Reuben unwillingly smiled as he entered through the rusty gate, which stood wide open. Was Luntberg normally such a peaceful place that its dungeons were used for storing old, broken cartwheels and moth-eaten rugs? Or had Lady Ayla just had as much luck with catching other robbers as she'd had with him?

He supposed the former was more likely. Luntberg looked like a peaceful place. Well, before the Margrave's army had come, anyway. That black thought reminded him of why he was here.

Taking a torch from the wall, he lit it with a flint and proceeded down the stairs, past cobwebs and broken odds and ends down, down into the depth below Luntberg Castle, even further down than the cellars.

Why had they stored the object down here? he asked himself. Maybe they had instinctively sensed its dangerous nature.

The deeper he ventured into the bowels of the Luntberg, the darker it became. The darkness seemed to eat up the light of his torch and got ever hungrier the further he progressed. The steps of the stone staircase became more and more uneven. Why not? This was a dungeon, after all. The kind of people that were brought down here were probably meant to break their necks at the earliest opportunity.

This is where I might have ended up, shot a thought through his head. If everything had not worked out just the way it did, and Ayla had known who I was from the very beginning, I would have been brought down here and locked in some dark cell, only to leave it again to die, dangling from a rope.

He banished the thought from his mind. Things had worked out just fine. He was not and would never be Ayla's prisoner—at least, not the kind she would need iron bars to keep in her castle. He was bound to her by other ties. Far stronger ones.

The last few steps, and he stood at the very bottom of Luntberg Castle, deep inside the mountain. He crossed the tiny room and finally came to a halt in front of a large door made of bars of iron. This was the place. This was where the guards had told him they had stored the object he was looking for. Now he was going to have to check his suspicion. What if he was wrong? Well, that would be bad, very bad indeed. But then…what if he was right? That would be even worse. For him, for everybody else in this castle, and especially for Ayla.

Pain shot through his heart as he remembered the few whispered words he had exchanged with her in the chapel—the only kind of pain he ever felt. Ayla's pain.

“Ayla…I'm so sorry.”

He felt her soft body quivering in his arms.

“Wasn't your fault, Reuben… I…”

“Shh. Don't say anything. I know. I know.”

“Oh, Reuben!”

“Ayla.”

“Hold me.”

“I am.”

“Tighter.”

And he had. For a long time. Then he had plucked up his courage, which wasn't easy because there was quite a lot of it, and had said the five words he wanted to say least of all in the world.

“Ayla…I have to go.”

“Reuben…no, please!”

“I don't want to. It's just…there's something I have to check. A suspicion I've had for some time now, and I have to find out whether or not I'm right. I have to make you safe.”

“I'm safe while you hold me!”

He had swallowed then and admitted the truth, for once in his life. “I wish that were true, Ayla. But it isn't.”

“Where do you…” Her words broke off in a sob, but he knew what she meant.

“The castle dungeon. I won't be long, I promise.”

She nodded against his chest. She felt so vulnerable, so small in his grasp. His arms around her felt so much like the safest place for her to be. He just wanted to stand here and never let her go. That, however, he knew to be slightly impractical. Even if he did not have to go to ensure the safety of everyone in the castle, he would have to go to the lavatory sooner or later.

Slowly, he helped her down to the floor, where she knelt before the body of Isenbard. At least like this, she was closer to her lost friend and in less danger of falling. Then he tortuously released his grip and stood up.

“I'll be back soon.”

He had left. And now he stood before the dungeon door to see what he had come to see. Slowly, his hand extended and pushed open the iron door in front of him. The creak it gave as it swung inwards was all too familiar to Reuben. He had seen enough of places like these to last him a lifetime. But, nevertheless, he entered. Holding the torch high above his head, he let his eyes wander around the windowless stone chamber, searching. They did not have to look for long.

On a battered old table in the corner lay the huge iron grappling hook, the same grappling hook that had hung from the castle wall only a short while ago, making it possible for the fat mercenary and his companions to get over the wall and nearly kidnap Ayla. His guts clenched at the memory.