The Robber Knight's Love (The Robber Knight Saga #2)(90)

Lord, please, no, Ayla thought, desperately. He can know about Isenbard's death—maybe he’s strong enough for that. But for the other thing? Never! I can’t breathe a word about the traitor. It would destroy him.

“No, there's nothing.”

“Ayla…”

“There's nothing! I swear, there's nothing. Look, err…I have to go now. I am very busy, you know, being besieged and all. I have to go now and…and let myself be besieged. I'll come to visit you again as soon as I have time. Good-bye.”

She sprang up and, before he could say another word, was out of the door and had closed it behind her. She hurried down a few stairs, and then stopped, leaning against the wall and panting heavily.

Thank the Lord, she had averted that disaster. Count Thomas would not, could not learn that one of his beloved subjects had betrayed him. She would not let that happen. She herself would suffer all the pain that was necessary, but never would she allow something to hurt her father like that.

Drawing in a few deep, steadying breaths, Ayla finally started on her way down the stairs again. She had visited her father. She had taken from the meeting all the joy, all the strength that Count Thomas could give her. Now she would need them. Now she had to do what Reuben had asked of her.

Tell the truth.

Why are the things that sound so simple always the most difficult to do?

She had reached the end of the stairs. A few yards down the corridor was the entrance to the room where she knew they all were waiting for her. She strode towards it and paused in front of the old oak door for a moment to collect her thoughts. Then she raised her hand, grasped the doorknob, and pushed. It was time.





The Duties of a Lady

Ayla stood in the doorway. Her face was calm and unemotional. For a moment, Reuben saw her eyes move to him. Then they looked straight forward again, and she moved to her chair, to take her place at the head of the table.

“Greetings, my friends, my vassals,” she said in a voice as unemotional as her features. “I have called you together to give you grave news.”

“Oh, great,” grumbled Burchard. “We're being besieged, our military leader has just been buried, and we're all likely to die in the near future. Don't think of anything to cheer us up, please!”

Ayla silenced him with a look. She clearly was not in a mood to joke.

A shiver ran down his back as Reuben remembered what he had told her, in his room, after the funeral. “You must tell them. It must be you.”

“Why me?” Tears had run down her face in rivulets. She had stopped pounding on his chest, but only because she didn't have the strength to do it anymore.

Reuben's anger dwindled. He had been angry, terribly angry—she had called him a liar, called his loyalty into question after everything he had done to prove it! But then, as she had started to attack him, as he had felt her in his arms, fighting, crying, trembling, he had realized that it was not really him she was calling into question, but her own beliefs. Her own way of seeing the world.

During the entire siege, her belief in the loyalty and love of her people had given her strength. Now that belief was crumbling, and her strength along with it.

“Why me?” She repeated, her voice only a painful moan. “You discovered it. You tell them!”

“Me, tell your vassals that one of their own is a traitor?” Reuben's lips twitched in a humorless smile. “They aren’t even sure who or what I am, let alone sure whether they should trust me. They wouldn't believe a word I say. And if they did know who I truly am, they would want to kill me on the spot. No. You must do this. You must tell your commanders that there is a traitor among us, because, if there is anyone they will believe and put their trust in, it is you.”

“But Reuben…we can’t have a traitor in the castle. It can't be. It simply can't be.”

“Saying that it can't be doesn't change the fact that it is, Ayla. I'm sorry.”

“Reuben…hold me. Please, just hold me.”

“I will. I will.”

He had held her through the night as she cried into his chest. She had gotten less sleep that night, which was perfectly calm and quiet, than during any of the nights when the enemy had kept them awake with their infernal racket. Her enemies had not managed to break her spirit. Had her own people now done the job?

Looking at her as she sat at the head of the table now, tall and proud, not a single drop of moisture in her sapphire eyes, Reuben sincerely doubted it. He marveled at her. He was a strong man—in fact he had never met anyone stronger—and Ayla was just a slip of a girl compared to him. But the inner strength she displayed now took his breath away.

He might be the most terrible warrior in the entire Holy Roman Empire, but she was more than a warrior. She was a general.

There was silence around the table.

“So?” Burchard finally asked. “What is it you've got to tell us?”

Reuben continued to look straight ahead at Ayla. Their eyes met again, and she nodded. He nodded back, hoping that this small sign of affection would give her strength.

“The grappling hook in the dungeons has been examined,” she said. “And the examination revealed something serious. Something none of you will like to hear.”

She told them.

It was a bare account of the facts, without mentioning who had examined the grappling hook and drawn conclusions. She made it sound as though the examination had been conducted under her orders, and the original suspicion had been hers. When she was finished, the silence around the table returned.