For a while, Reuben was silent. His forehead creased, and the smile disappeared from his lips. He did not let go of Ayla's hand though. If anything, she felt his grip tighten.
“Hmm…” he muttered at last. “It looks like they're building some kind of siege weapon. But…why? They've got us where they want us.”
And even though that wasn't a very cheering thought, Ayla thrilled to the sound of the last word.
Us.
He was thinking of “us.” Did that mean everybody in the castle or, more precisely, the two of them? She bit her lip. No, now wasn't the time to get distracted by thoughts like that. She had to focus.
“I know it's a siege weapon,” Isenbard said impatiently. “But what is it exactly?”
“Well, it can't be a trebuchet.”[14] Reuben pointed at several of the trees down in the valley that the men were working on. “The pieces are too small. The arm is missing.”
Isenbard frowned. “A trebu-what?”
Reuben waved his hand dismissively. “A trebuchet. It's a siege weapon, a rather recent invention. It…oh, nevermind.” He shook his head. “None of the trees they are felling are big enough to build one. They don't even look large enough for a normal catapult. The only thing that I can think of…hmm…”
He cut off, chewing his lower lip.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Isenbard growled, raising an eyebrow at Reuben. Ayla looked questioningly from the old knight to the young one, but neither saw fit to elaborate.
Reuben nodded, grimly. “Yes, I’m thinking exactly that. But it doesn’t make any sense.”
“No sense at all.” Isenbard nodded back at him just as grimly. “I completely agree.”
“Me, too,” said Ayla. They both turned to stare at her.
“How do you know it’s not making any sense? Do you actually know what we’re talking about?” Reuben wanted to know.
She glared back at them. “No, I don’t know. I think it’s the two of you who aren't making any sense! Can you please tell me what you're talking about before I go mad? What is a trebuthingy?”
“A trebuchet. But, as I said, it’s not one of those. The trees they are felling are too small. And…yes, do you see those, there?” Reuben pointed again, this time at two pieces of wood which had already been cut into shape and were now being rammed into the ground so that they met in mid-air.
“That looks like supports for something,” Ayla said.
“They are. My guess is that they’ll hold in place a central beam of wood, on which, in turn, another beam is placed, with a rope attached at the end. This acts like a staff sling, making it possible to throw stones and other objects over quite some distance.”
“Stones?” gasped Ayla, alarmed. “Does that mean they intend to bombard us?”
“If they are, it will be highly amusing.”
“Amusing? Reuben, how can you say that?” Ayla felt the color drain from her face. “Those are my people you’re talking about! My castle! You can you say it’s amusing, when—“
“Amusing because,” he cut her off, “they cannot throw anything large or dangerous enough to really harm us.”
“Oh.” She felt a blush coming on. “Well, you should have mentioned that.”
“I was just going to. As I said before, what they are building looks like a small, even primitive version of a siege weapon. Look, I’ll show you.” Reuben gestured to one of her guards. The man took a few steps back, looking apprehensive.
“Come here!” Reuben barked. “I need your spear.”
Carefully, the guard approached, stretched out his spear, and handed it to Reuben pointy end first, as if afraid he would be stabbed with it otherwise. Reuben snatched the spear away from the guard and balanced it on his arm, moving it up and down like a lever. Ayla watched, fascinated as he explained the mechanics of death as if it were something perfectly ordinary.
“This arm is placed on top of the middle pole. It moves on a hinge. When men pull on ropes attached to one end, the other end shoots up and, with it, the sling that is attached to it. Inside the sling is the projectile.”
Reuben hit one end of the spear sharply and the other snapped up into the air. Ayla jumped back with a little yelp.
“When it passes the zenith of the rotation movement,” Reuben said calmly, stopping the spear in its track when the sharp end was pointing directly up into the sky, “the sling releases the projectile, which flies towards the target. What happens on impact…”
He breathed in a deep sigh. “Well, that depends very much on the size of the projectile and the toughness of the target. A man-pulled catapult like they are building,” he waved deprecatingly towards the mercenaries as if they weren't even worth his attention, “can maybe smash in the roof of a peasant's hut or crack a wooden barricade. But,” he tapped one of the stone crenels in front of him, “it cannot hope to harm a solid stone castle. It would be like hurling pebbles at a solid oak door. You might scratch it, but you could never break it.”
“What about burning missiles?” asked Ayla.
Reuben raised an eyebrow in what was an insultingly surprised manner. “You actually have a brain in that pretty head of yours!”
There were a lot of things Ayla might have wanted to give as a reply to this—like “How dare you!” or “A better one than yours, Sir Knight!”—but all she could think to say was, “You think my head is pretty?”
Color rose in her cheeks. Isenbard and all the guards seemed suddenly very interested in examining the stones of the castle walls.
Reuben leaned down to her and whispered in her ear, “Very. But not as pretty as some other parts of you, I'm sure.”
“Reuben!” She hissed, her cheeks turning an even darker shade of red. “You can't say such things!”
“Of course I can. I just did.”
“What I meant is you shouldn't say such things!”
“Well, that's something totally different.” His eyes burned with gray fire as they gazed into hers. “I love doing things I’m not supposed to do. It's so much fun.”
“At least don't say them while we're with company!”
“I can't wait to get you alone, then.”
By now, Ayla was feeling really hot, and it wasn't just her face anymore, either. She tried to shake it off and wrench her gaze away from his fiery gray gaze to the siege weapon down in the valley. That wasn't easy, though, while a chorus of nightingales were fluttering in her chest, singing the beautiful song of “He may love me! He may actually love me!”
“Err…we should…we should return to the matter at hand,” she said. “Yes. The siege. We should return to the siege.”
“As Milady commands,” said Reuben, bowing his head. “My sword is always sharp and at your command.”
“Err…good. Well, what do you think?” she asked, fumbling with her dress since she didn't really know what else to do with her hands. “Could they be planning to throw flaming projectiles at us?”
Reuben shook his head. “What would be the use? I admit, flaming projectiles can often do harm where other kinds of missiles fail. But in this case? No. Most everything in the outer defensive circle is built out of solid stone. They couldn't hope to set fire to anything. And pelting us with fire just so they can disrupt our dull lives? Unlikely.”
“So,” Ayla put her concluding question, “is this siege weapon a threat to us?”
“It cannot harm the walls of the castle,” answered Reuben. His tone was hesitant. Curt. Ayla knew how to listen for things that were not said. It was a skill she had picked up from conversations with Isenbard.
“That is no straight answer to my question,” she accused. “Can it harm us?”
Reuben shook his head but frowned as he did so. “I cannot see how. They might be able to throw lighter projectiles over the walls, but how could they harm us? We could simply evacuate everybody except the soldiers into the inner ring of walls and station the men-at-arms on the walls so they would be protected by the crenels. It would be of no use to the enemy to bombard us like that. As I said, any projectiles they can throw at us with this kind of siege weapons are too small to harm us.”
“Maybe they just don't know that, and that's why they're going to try it,” a guard suggested hesitantly.
“No.” Isenbard shook his head. “I can't believe a commander of a mercenary army is that stupid. He wouldn't have lived long enough to become commander if he were.”
“Agreed,” Reuben nodded.
“So…what does it mean?” Ayla asked. She wasn’t trying to sound scared, but her eyes pleaded with Reuben for some reassurance.
Maybe he wasn’t looking at her eyes closely enough to notice, though.
“They have something planned,” he told her. “We'll just have to wait and see what it is.”
*~*~**~*~*
Sir Luca waited beside the catapult, his fists on his hips, a smile on his lips that did not show the least sign of humor. It was a dark smile. Conrad approached him cautiously. His master was in a strange mood these days, and one never quite knew how he would react or to what lengths he would go.
Conrad had already realized this before tonight, but he was being even more careful now. More careful after what they had just done, and what he knew they were going to do…
A shiver ran down his back. Not something very common for a man who had killed more times than he could remember.
“Sir?” He stopped beside Sir Luca and bowed.
“Is it done?” the commander asked.
“Aye, it is done.”
“And did they see you?”
“No, they didn't see or attack us. Nobody is hurt.”
“I am not interested in whether anyone is hurt. I am interested in whether those maggots in the castle know what we are going to do. I want this to be…a surprise.”
“They will not know what is coming, Sir. I promise you that.”
“Good.”
Conrad looked behind him, at the wagon which approached the siege weapon. He had to lie to the driver about its load, because three of his colleagues had, one after the other, refused to drive the wagon after being told what was in there. Even though the army's drivers had seen and committed their share of bloodshed, they would not cross some boundaries.
“And is the siege weapon ready?” inquired Sir Luca.
“Yes, everything is ready. Only…”
“Only what?”
Conrad swallowed. Better get this over with. “I wanted to ask…are you really sure about this, Sir?”
Sir Luca turned towards him. Conrad took a step back as his commander’s small, dark beetle eyes fixed on him.
“Did I give the order to have this done?”
“Yes, Sir! You did, Sir!”
“And did I sound in any way unsure to you?”
“No, Sir!”
“Good. Proceed.”
Conrad whirled around and, only when he had turned completely away from Sir Luca, allowed his expression to show what he felt. Breathing heavily, he marched over to the cart and nodded to the driver.
“Go!” He said gruffly. “You're not wanted here anymore tonight.”
The man looked surprised. “Don't you want to help me unload?”
“No.” And be thankful for it, you fool.
“Well, suit yourself.” The driver jumped down from the wagon. “I'm going to have a drink with Bern and Otto, then, if you don't mind.”
“You do that.” And hopefully they won't tell him what he has just driven around.
After the driver had left, Conrad whistled once. From the darkness stepped a selection of men. Not the best men of the army, not those on whose loyalty Conrad would have relied most, but the vilest, the most brutal, the ones who, given enough incentive, would do almost anything.
In other words, the perfect men for this task.
“Start to unload,” commanded Conrad in a voice that didn't quite sound like his own. The men jumped onto the wagon and began unloading the projectiles. Yes, projectiles, thought Conrad. Or, better yet, “objects.” Think of them as objects, and nothing is wrong. Otherwise you might start to call them other names…
Soon there was a pile of the objects beside the catapult. It had already been positioned correctly by men who knew how to handle such machinery. All that was required now was to shoot, to shoot, and to shoot. And maybe, someday, gain forgiveness for what they had done.
“Load the catapult,” Conrad heard himself say. One of the men grinned as he picked up one of the objects, threw it into the air, and caught it with his other hand. Conrad would have liked to punch him in the face, but Sir Luca was still standing beside the siege engine, waiting and watching. So Conrad just stood there while the grinning mercenary put the object into the sling, ready to be thrown at their enemies.
“To the ropes,” Conrad heard himself command. It didn't sound like himself at all.
Several of the men hurried to the ropes at the other end of the throwing arm. They gripped them tightly and waited.
Conrad was just about to open his mouth when Sir Luca held up a hand. It was a clear sign. The hand hovered in the air for an immeasurable second, then it came down like an executioner's ax.
“Pull!”
*~*~**~*~*
Reaching the top of the stairs, Ayla pushed the tower door open and stepped out onto the allure. It was dark now. The sun had long disappeared behind the horizon, and night had fallen.
Sir Isenbard was still standing where she had left him hours ago, on the wall, staring eastward, although there wasn't anything one could see out there now. He would probably remain standing there for the rest of his days if she didn't force him to go to bed. Ever since that incident with the intruders, he seemed to think it a better policy to stand watch on the wall all night rather than catch a good night's sleep.
“Has anything happened yet?” she asked, coming to a standstill right beside him.
“Milady!” He started and turned towards her, standing straighter than he had before. His eyelids, which had been drooping, suddenly came up. “No, nothing has happened yet. I wonder why. There hasn't been any hammering or sawing for hours. They must long be finished with their work. And still they are not attacking.”
“You shouldn't be up here staring into the night, then,” she admonished. “You should be resting for when they do attack. We will need you then.”
“I can handle it. Don't worry yourself.”
“Why wouldn't I worry? You…”
Ayla was interrupted by a whooshing noise and a wet smack from behind her. She looked into the direction from which it had come, but before she could completely turn around Isenbard had pushed her back against the wall.
“Keep down!” he shouted. “They’re shooting something, girl, so keep your head down! We have no idea what devilry they have cooked up! Guards! Guards, protect your mistress!”
The thunder of heavy boots on stone sounded through the night as a detachment of the castle guard came hurrying towards them. More smacks and thuds came from all around. They didn't sound very dangerous, Ayla thought. There was no fire, no breaking stone, nothing that could indicate danger.
“Stay here,” Isenbard hissed, pushing her even more tightly against the breastwork. “Don't move an inch, understood?”
He didn't even wait for a reply but sidled forward until he had reached the place on the wall where one of the projectiles had landed. Taking a torch from one of the brackets set in the stone, he held it so he could see what the missile was. Since he stood between Ayla and the object, she couldn't see anything. But then he turned around—and she saw the expression on his face.
“Get her out of here!” he shouted to the approaching guards. “Get her into the keep! Now!”