From the brush where he was hiding, Sir Reuben could hear the light hooves of the mare approaching quickly. The rider seemed to be in a hurry. Just when the animal was about to pass him, he pressed his feet into the sides of his stallion and broke free of the brush, blocking the path of whoever was unfortunate enough to be his prey this day.
“Halt!” he shouted, holding up one of his mighty, iron-clad fists.
The rider's horse was almost scared out of its wits by his sudden appearance. It reared, and the young girl on its back had to hold on for dear life. Reuben watched her efforts with amusement. He contemplated the chances of her landing on her behind in the dirt. Now that would be an entertaining sight.
However, she managed to stay in the saddle. Well, well. Here was something you didn't see everyday: a female who could actually ride. What a pity that she would soon lose her horse, he thought, grinning behind his visor.
“You idiot!” the girl yelled at him, still trying to calm her horse. “What did you mean by startling my horse like that?! Do you have a screw loose somewhere, and I don't mean in your armor? You could have killed me.”
Idiot, is it? This wench needed to be taught some manners! And lesson number one would be: never insult the heavily armed man who just appeared right in front of you.
“Well, that would have simplified matters,” Reuben retorted.
Through the slits of his helmet, he saw the girl's eyes go wide and enjoyed the show immensely. Oh yes. Now you'll think twice about being so cocky again, won't you?
Apparently, the girl had come to the same conclusion. After throwing him a wary look, she made her mare retreat a few steps.
Oh no. None of that, my little vixen.
“What do you want?” she asked.
Reuben had to work hard to suppress a chuckle. By Satan's hairy ass, wasn't it obvious? This wench was apparently greener than all the leaves in the forest put together. “Now,” he said, “that's a simple enough question: all that you have.”
She stared at him, still not understanding. Then, slowly, he saw comprehension dawn on her face.
“You!” she hissed.
Behind his visor, Reuben raised an eyebrow. She had heard of him, had she? Well, it didn't really surprise him. Who, in the whole wide world, hadn't heard of Sir Reuben Rachwild? He was more famous than the Iron Otto or Sir Grinwald of Hammersdal, both impressively greedy and blood-thirsty monsters. He was Sir Reuben Rachwild.
“Aye,” he said, very pleased with himself. “I.”
“Get out of my way.” The girl made an imperious gesture with her small hand, as if she were trying to chase away a stray chicken. “Go now! Leave this land, and I will forget that you ever came here.”
Reuben almost burst out laughing. “What a generous offer, Milady. But alas, I have to rob you first. Even poor knights like myself have to live.”
“Heel! Abominable villain! You dare defy me?”
Was this wench genuine? Satan's hairy ass, this was the funniest robbery in years!
Pretending to think hard on the subject, Reuben scratched the side of his helmet. “Hmm…yes, I think I do. Dare defy you, I mean. Now, can we please get on to the robbery part? I've got places to be.”
“But you're a knight,” she protested. “How can you do this? How can you rob a woman?”
He was tempted to explain how exactly one could rob a woman—not just of her horse and belongings, but of her virtue along with those. Surely the expression on her face would have been priceless! Instead, he just shrugged and said, “Oh, it's quite easy, if you know how to. I'll let you in on my secret if you promise to keep it to yourself. You see, unlike men, women don't usually carry weapons. That makes them very easy to rob.”
The girl's sapphire eyes blazed at his words. Too bad those weren't real sapphires. The way they sparkled, they would surely fetch a good price with any merchant.
“And what about duty? Honor?” she demanded to know.
Reuben shrugged. “Ah, yes, those things. I think I had them once. Lost them about five years ago and can't say I particularly miss them. Bothersome, they are.”
“But you're a knight,” she repeated stubbornly.
“A robber knight,” he corrected. “I rob from the rich to give to myself. It's a very nice arrangement. So, if Milady could please hand me her purse now, we can both go our separate ways.”
He held out his left hand, demandingly, and fully expected to hear the jingle of coins.
Instead, the girl suddenly ducked and urged her horse onward, trying to circumvent him on the narrow forest path.
What the…She was trying to get away! The little vixen!
With lightning speed, Reuben drew his sword and swung it around. It came to a stop only half an inch from the girl's slender, white throat. Rider and horse froze, both apparently sensing the danger. Thoughtfully, Reuben moved the blade a bit, pushing aside her long, golden hair. It made a nice contrast against the silver gleam of the steel. He hoped it wouldn't be necessary to add red to the colorful mixture.
“You,” he said pleasantly, “are either very brave or very foolish. Considering that you're a female, I would presume the latter. Perhaps I didn't make myself clear, girl. Give me your money—now!”
She seemed to recognize the steely resolve in his voice. Her gaze flickered between the blade at her neck and his eyes. Her intense blue-eyed stare was disconcerting. Reuben had the sudden, inexplicable urge to blink. But he made himself focus and returned her stare with all the merciless determination he could muster—which was quite a lot.
She took time to make up her mind, nevertheless. Reuben started wondering again what was the matter with the girl. Was she stingy enough to prefer parting with her head to parting with her purse? Or was she just stubborn to the point of insanity?
Finally, when he had almost decided to give her a little prick with the sword, just to make it clear to her that it was sharp and very ready to fulfill its purpose, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a purse—an astonishingly simple model. Not one of those frilly satin and lace things rich ladies mostly carried around, but a simple leather pouch.
“Here,” she said contemptuously, throwing her purse in Reuben's direction as if she wished it were a deadly missile. “May you choke on it!”
Reuben caught the purse easily with his left hand and heard the welcome jingle of coins. Finally!
“Thank you,” he said, with a bow he tried to make as mocking as possible. “And now, get off your horse.”
“What?!”
He sighed. Did the wench have wax in her ears or something? “And we were doing so well. Girl, I'm robbing you. That means I take everything I want. Get off your horse.”
She stiffened, and her gaze hardened.
“If you think you can intimidate me, you villain, you are very much mistaken! I may have given you my money, but the only way you'll get me off this horse is if you drag me down forcibly.”
The girl raised her chin, obviously convinced she had gained a complete victory over her adversary. Ha! He would show her.
Sighing, he swung off his horse. “Oh well, if you insist…”
Surprised, she blinked and stared down at him. “What do you mean, 'If I insist'? I don't under…” Her voice dwindled as he took two long strides towards her and reached up.
“Oh no!” She wagged her finger at him as if he were an annoying four-year-old trying to get a cookie out of her. “You will not do that, Sir! You cannot be so lost to honor as to defile me! You cannot mean to manhandle a maiden!”
“Well, no,” Reuben said, smiling behind his visor. “In fact, I mean to girlhandle her. To manhandle her, she'd need balls, wouldn't you agree?”
“How dare you speak to me in such a manner?”
“Oh, just like that.” He snapped his fingers and reached for her waist. “Although I do have to admit you do have balls, even if not in the literal sense. So perhaps I will manhandle you after all, what do you think?”
“I think you will not dare to touch me,” she told him, sternly. “You are a knight.”
“A robber knight,” he corrected once again. “I do what I want. I take what I want.” And with that, he reached up and grabbed the girl around her slender waist. She shrieked as he lifted her up into the air and started banging on his helmet.
“Stop that, will you?” he growled. “My head is no church bell! Do you know what a racket that is making in here?”
“Heel! Abominable villain!”
“Yes, yes, you said that before. Now will you stop?”
But she didn't stop. She continued to hammer on his helmet, struggle and kick. It was no easy business holding her around her waist while simultaneously trying to get her feet out of the stirrups. He had to use both hands to hold her, which only left his feet and elbows for the stirrup work. She wasn't making it any easier by fidgeting and locking her feet into the stirrups with the zeal of a tournament fighter.
Finally, he despaired of getting it done like that and let go of her waist with one hand in order to pull her foot out of the first stirrup. Yet he had misjudged his hold on her midriff, and suddenly, she slid down in his hold until his hand met with resistance. Suddenly, he wasn't holding her by the waist anymore but by the…
She gasped, and the next thing he knew, she had renewed her banging on his helmet with increased vigor. He could have sworn that one of her blows actually dented the metal.
“You…you…Let me go, you monster! You fiend from hell! Let go!”
Reuben wasn't too sure about that. He was rather enjoying himself and thought he would hold on for a little longer. But, he thought, sighing, the purpose of this exercise was to get her horse out from under her, not to get himself on top of her. And preferably, he didn’t want to get his helmet dented in the process.
So he just finished his work with the stirrups, ignoring the continued protestations of the girl, and presently deposited her on the ground, where she stood, breathing heavily and shooting glares at him that could have pulverized granite.
Carefully, Reuben felt his helmet. No dents. Excellent! He swung himself into the saddle of his own stallion again, grabbed the reins of the girl's horse, and started checking his armor for fingernail scratches. There were a few, but nothing a bit of paint couldn't repair.
“Lecher,” the girl hissed up him.
“Oh, please!” Reuben rolled his eyes. Who did this wench think she was? Did she really think Sir Reuben Rachwild would be interested in a slip of a girl like her? Especially one so annoying and cantankerous? “If you think I purposefully touched you there, you are very much mistaken. I only meant to grab you around the waist.”
“Well, you aimed a bit too high for that!”
“My hand slipped.”
“So you say! I bet you did that on purpose!”
Reuben snorted and picked a few long golden hairs from his breastplate. “You wish!”
The girl gaped up at him with a bit too much indignation. Yes, she was overdoing it a bit. She had probably enjoyed his groping her. Women usually did. True, he mostly didn't wear armor in those situations, but he was Sir Reuben Rachwild, after all. His good looks and charms were surely enticing enough to penetrate a few layers of steel.
Ha! And now she was blushing! Yes, oh yes.
Having finished with checking his armor, Reuben looked down at the girl and laughed.
“You look funny when you blush, do you know that, girl?”
“I can't find anything amusing about the situation,” she snarled between gritted teeth.
“Just wait.” He bent forward and patted her on the head. He didn't know exactly why—it was just that she looked rather adorable, standing there in all her outraged impotence. “In ten years or so, you'll tell this story to your friends, and it'll make the long winter evenings seem that much shorter.”
“If they've found and hanged you by then,” she snapped.
“Ha!” Reuben threw his head back and barked in laughter. “You'll have to wait a very long time to hear that news.” He had only been captured once before—and he would die before he repeated that experience.
“Blackguard,” the girl muttered.
Reuben shook his head thoughtfully. “You know, I was robbing another woman only three days or so ago, and she was much nicer than you.”
Something glinted on the girl's cheek. What was this? Oh, she was crying now? Capital! This was really the best robbery he had had in a long time.
“Until this day,” she said, her voice quivering, “I had always thought knights to be men of honor. Apparently, I was mistaken.”
Reuben grinned. Should he? Should he not? Oh, hell. He just couldn't resist. “Oh, I do have honor, Milady,” he said. “A lot.”
“But you…”
“It wasn't mine originally,” he explained. “That sort of honor is, as I said, bothersome. The sort of honor I like is the one you take away from pretty maidens.” He winked at her lasciviously. “And I have heaps of that.”
Reuben grabbed the reins of the girl's horse more tightly and raised his hand in farewell.
“Good day, Milady.”
He spurred on his horse and the mighty stallion sprang forward, bearing his master away. Reuben grinned. No second horse could gallop like his black stallion, Satan. The mare, though, didn't seem to do too bad a job keeping pace.
Behind him, he heard the girl shouting, “I'll find you, do you hear me? I'll find you, and when I do, I'll have you hanged from the highest tower of Luntberg Castle! That I swear by all the bones of my ancestors!”
Reuben laughed. Catch him? Not in a million years!
*~*~**~*~*
Reuben sighed, resurfacing from the sea of memory.
I'll find you, and when I do, I'll have you hanged from the highest tower of Luntberg Castle! That I swear by all the bones of my ancestors!
He had thought the girl's words very funny at the time. Now, sitting in the girl's castle, surrounded by the girl's guards and revealed as the girl's enemy, he didn't think they were quite so funny anymore.
With a grim smile, Reuben stared at a stone in the wall opposite him. How arrogant he had been back then, believing he had all the power. Now, he was in her power. It would be easy for her to send her guards with orders to do with him whatever she desired. Not that Reuben didn't feel confident about dealing with a couple of castle guards—but whether he died or survived the encounter, he would still be a prisoner. A prisoner of this castle, and, more effectively, a prisoner of his love for its lady.
He had only himself to blame, he supposed, sighing. Why couldn't he have fallen in love with a nice, ugly, old, compliant hag? No, it just had to be Ayla, a young girl with a spirit like an untamed filly and eyes like sparkling sapphires. At least 24 carats.
Oh yes, and she wanted to kill him. That might present a slight obstacle to romance.
Angrily, Reuben picked up the iron candlestick and hit the wall with it.
Sir Isenbard still regarded him cautiously from the other end of the room. “Um…Sir? Are you quite well?”
“Oh, shut up, will you?” Reuben growled. He couldn't deal with that doddering old fool now. Ayla hated him! The only woman he loved, and she hated him!
He hit the wall again and again, trying to vent some of his anger and desperation.
It didn't work, which was saying something. Up until now, smashing something to bits had always lightened Reuben's mood. Or someone…His eyes strayed to the man on the bed. Unfortunately, he wasn't in fighting condition or Reuben would have challenged him to a duel, right there and then.
He started looking around for something else to smash—when, suddenly, a thought struck him:
Ayla had promised to hang him from the highest tower of the castle.
But he wasn't dead yet, was he?
Carefully, he reached up and checked his neck. No, definitely no rope marks. And no noose around it, either.
Something was holding her back.
Of course, it might just be the preparations for having him hanged, drawn, and quartered instead of just hanged. Or maybe, just maybe…she might not want to kill him.
Could there still be hope?