The man on the wall looked back and forth between his comrades right beside him and the slowly dispersing crowd down in the orchard beside the keep. Now was not the time to act. The old knight’s funeral was only just over. Everyone was still agitated, and all the other guards were doubly cautious because of Sir Isenbard's death. Now was not the time. Not yet.
But soon, an opportunity would present itself. And then the castle would fall.
Another guard strolled up the allure and nodded to him. “Seen anything suspicious?”
“No,” he answered. “Nothing at all. The night is quiet, and we are safe.”
*~*~**~*~*
Ayla stared at Reuben, uncomprehending. Oh, she had understood the words he had said, all right. All of them were perfectly normal words. But together, in that order…?
There's a traitor in the castle.
It didn't make any sense. Surely her ears were playing tricks on her.
“What?” she asked. “What did you say?”
He must have meant something else than what it had sounded like. He must have.
“A traitor. In the castle,” Reuben repeated.
“But…I don't understand. A traitor to what?”
“A traitor to us, Ayla. A traitor who fastened that grappling hook from atop the wall and let down the rope to the mercenaries. A traitor who wants to hand you and everybody else in the castle over to the Margrave on a silver platter.”
Reuben's voice had turned grim at the end, and he spat on the ground. At any other time, Ayla would have reprimanded him sharply for that, but not now. Not with what he had just told her. There was room for nothing else in her head. Cold claws gripped her heart and squeezed painfully, making her whole body shudder.
“No! No, no, no! That cannot be! I refuse to believe it!”
Tears ran down Ayla's face. They weren't tears of grief now, as they had been during the funeral. They were tears of anger, and in her anger, she lashed out. Her fist slammed into Reuben’s chest.
“You! How dare you suggest such a thing? You of all people dare accuse another of lies and treachery?”
She could see the flash of anger in Reuben's eyes as her words hit, but at the moment, she didn't care. She wasn't going to let him do this. She wasn't going to let him slander the people who had sacrificed so much to protect her. She was not going to let him cast even the slightest shade of doubt on their loyalty!
Reuben swallowed. In his eyes, pain fought for control with his rage.
“How I dare?” he asked in a dangerously low voice. “Well, let's just say that I am an expert at treachery and lies. You yourself should know that all too well. So one might say I am the person best qualified to spot treachery.”
“Oh, an expert in treachery, are you?” Ayla shot to her feet. She was so furious, she needed to look down on him, not up to him! “Just because you have no honor doesn't mean the rest of us are traitors and criminals! My people are loyal and brave, every last one them! Do you hear me? Every last one!”
Reuben, too, shot to his feet. His steely gray eyes glinted threateningly. “Oh, really? Every last one? Even the one who sold you to the mercenaries?”
“Stop saying that! It isn't true!”
“It is. There's a traitor in the castle, and no matter how much you shout, that fact isn't going to change!”
Ayla felt moisture in her eyes. But she couldn't cry now. Not when she had to stand up for her people. Not when she had to fight for their honor. She couldn't believe Reuben was doing this to her, on this very night, when the earth over Isenbard’s grave was still fresh. She felt as though her heart was being ripped in two.
“It is true,” Reuben repeated.
“Liar!” she shot at him.
“Liar? You think I am lying to you?”
“It wouldn't be the first time!”
“Right! That's it!”
Reuben took a step forward and before she could move, he had gripped her by the forearms. For just a moment Ayla was afraid of what he intended to do to her—but he just turned her to face the chair.
“I'm going to prove it to you,” he said in a low, dangerous voice. “I will not have you think of me as a liar. Never, ever again! Look at this chair! Do you see how the backrest is lowest in the middle and goes further up left and right?”
“Yes?” Ayla whispered, cautiously. Where was he going with this? She had seen this old chair a hundred times before.
Reuben was now standing behind her, facing towards the chair with her. He bent over her back, and whispered in her ear, “Imagine the higher parts on the side are the crenels, and the middle is the indentation between them.”
“Yes?”
“Now imagine this!”
Suddenly letting go of her, Reuben darted around the chair. Kneeling down on the other side, he thrust his arm out from below, between the two higher parts of the backrest.
“Imagine the grappling hook coming from below. Do you know how a grappling hook is used?”
“It can be thrown by hand.” Ayla's voice was hoarse. The way Reuben was staring at her, so intense, sent her heart hammering.
“Yes, it can. But this particular specimen is too heavy to be thrown by a man. Do you believe me when I say this?” His steely gaze bored into her. “Or do you think I'm a liar?”
She shook her head. “No. Isenbard said much the same thing to me before…before he…”
She couldn't finish the sentence.
For a moment, the anger vanished from Reuben's eyes, and she saw a flicker of something she had never seen there before. If she hadn’t known him better, she might have thought it was compassion. But then it was gone, and the rage came back in full force.
“Excellent! So what else could have happened?”
“The grappling hook can be thrown by a catapult.”
“Ah!” Reuben raised a finger. “Quite right. But not any kind of catapult. It can only be shot by a ballista.”
“A what?”
“A grappling hook is not a stone or some other sphere-shaped missile that can just be thrown through the air. It needs to be aimed precisely, and the only way to do that is to shoot it like an arrow from a giant metal bow. There's only one kind of catapult like that, and it’s called a ballista.”
He jumped to his feet and, with two steps, was over at the wall, from where he took a hunting bow that hung there for decoration. Striding back to the chair and kneeling again, he quickly drew back the string and pointed the weapon at Ayla.
She flinched. She couldn't help it. Even though there was no arrow put to the string, the sight of Reuben regarding her coldly over a potentially deadly weapon was too intense to not shake her to her core and far too familiar.
“You see?” He said in a low voice. “Like this.”
He turned the bow until it was horizontal.
“Except for the fact that the bows of ballistas are level, not upright, they work exactly the same as a normal bow. You pull the string back, and…wham!”
He let go of the bowstring, and it snapped forward. Again, Ayla flinched, and this time took a step back.
“The ballista’s giant bow,” Reuben continued unperturbed, “is laid sideways on a wooden construction. The string, which is too strong to be pulled back with just the strength of your arms, is pulled back by a lever and various mechanisms, and a giant metal arrow is placed on the bow string. This can be anything—from a normal arrow which is simply of abnormal size, meant to wreak havoc in an enemy army, to a grappling hook such as the one which the mercenaries used to enter this castle.”
“So?” Ayla demanded, trying to keep her voice from quivering. “That only proves what I’ve been saying: that the grappling hook must have been shot from below!”
“No, it doesn't.”
Reuben sprang up again. Throwing the bow aside, he came towards her and gripped her by the shoulders. “Don't you see, Ayla? In order to be shot by a ballista, the grappling hook must be part of a metal arrow.”
“And why couldn't it have been an arrow?” Ayla protested. She could feel where this was inevitably leading, and she was determined to struggle against it with all her might. Tears stung her eyes again, and she blinked them away. “It looked pretty arrowish to me!”
“It was no arrow because it had no notch.” Reuben's eyes were merciless. He took something from behind his back: an arrow, which he had picked from the wall along with the bow, without Ayla realizing it. “See?” Flipping the arrow around, he showed Ayla the notch, a small indentation which was used to fix the arrow on the string, right at the back. “Without this, any grappling hook isn’t an arrow, but simply a sharp piece of metal.”
He took a step towards her, holding her captive with his gaze. “A piece of metal that had to be fixed between the crenels of the wall from above, by a traitor among our own soldiers. That is the only possible solution.”
“No,” she whispered. “No, it's not possible. You…you're lying, you…”
His hands came up, gripping her by her shoulders so tightly it hurt.
“I'm not lying!” he shouted. The roar of his voice made her ears ring.
“It's not true!” she shouted back, pounding on his chest. “It's not true! It can't be true!”
That was when the tears started in earnest and dashed down in waterfalls over her cheeks. She collapsed forward onto Reuben’s chest and, a moment later, his arms were around her, holding her close, rocking her.
“It…can't be…” she sobbed.
“I'm so sorry,” he murmured into her ear. “Oh Ayla, I'm so terribly sorry.”
That night, Ayla didn't return to her chambers. There were some things that you just couldn’t handle without being held.