Chapter 18 Sworn Oath
Sworn Oath
He thought he would be calm by the time he came to speak to her.
But the memory of Ayla turning to run towards him, only to be hauled back around the corner by a group of armored soldiers, intent on returning her to the pathetic excuse of a man she’d married, kept burning furiously in Niel's mind. His pulse raced, long after it should have slowed.
The solar was a round room, its windows not covered with glass but instead by wooden shutters. One of them was thrown open, providing a view of the sprawling army camped below.
And in front of him, the castle’s lady stared at him with tear-stained cheeks. She’d changed clothes.
She screamed, he told himself. She screamed, and ran. She did not want to go with them. Couldn’t you trust her?
And yet. She had not told him about the tunnel. And she, the lady of the castle, had gone downstairs to meet the enemy soldiers as they came in.
She may have run, but it didn’t mean she was on Niel’s side. He was just missing something. Every time he was around her, he felt so off-balance.
“Well?” he asked her. The word came out sharp, nearly guttural, in an attempt not to beg. “Explain.”
Ayla blinked at him, and he fought the strange urge to reach forward with his bloody hand and wipe the dampness from her cheeks. Niel kept his feet planted shoulder-width where he stood. His hands curled into fists.
“Explain?” she asked quietly. Her gray eyes were wide. He fixed them with his own, willing her not to turn away.
“Why were you in the cellar?”
“I was looking for Isalde.” Her voice was hoarse from crying.
Isalde. The kitchen girl. And didn’t Ayla seem especially close with the kitchen folk? First poison, and now a flood of soldiers thinking they could quietly come inside through the pantry, but she had screamed, hadn’t she, and that had to mean something.
She’d sounded terrified. She’d looked terrified. She was running.
“How convenient,” Niel said. He folded his arms over his chest, tilting his chin up. He wasn’t going to fall for whatever act she pulled. The facts damned her.
“I am not lying,” she insisted, with a sharp shake of her head.
“No?” he asked. “Any other secrets you’d like to tell me about?” His whole body felt hot, like there was lightning crackling through his skin. “A tunnel in the stables? Secret doorways? Messenger birds to the other side? Were you planning this?”
“I didn’t…” Ayla whispered.
“And the tunnel you said didn’t exist?” he interrupted, exploding before she could finish. Ayla’s nostrils flared.
“I didn’t know about it,” she said.
A strangled growl of frustration escaped his lips. He could not believe that she, the lady of the castle, didn’t know about the tunnel that led in and out of it.
She was lying to him. So she’d screamed and run; so she hadn’t wanted to go with the soldiers. It didn’t mean she was being honest.
Niel had thought she was just like him. On his side, and done with the man who’d hurt her.
He’d been idiotically, pathetically desperate for her to see who Niel truly was, to see he was more than a traitor.
He'd meant to take her with him when he left this place.
To settle her somewhere safe, and comfortable.
Had mentally re-written his war plans around ensuring her future.
And he’d been wrong. He’d been a fool. That knowledge seethed in his chest, an anger that burst from him.
“What kind of fucking husband doesn’t tell his wife about the fucking escape tunnel?” Niel bellowed at the top of his lungs. If she would just admit to it, he could trust her—
He didn’t mean to yell the words.
But he had. He'd yelled, teeth bared, while taking a step towards her like he meant to strike her down.
In the small room the sound reverberated, and Ayla stumbled back abruptly, until she hit against the stone wall, palms pressed flat to it and head turning away from him as she curled back in terror.
Her breath rasped from her lips as she squeezed her eyes shut.
It was silent in the room, except for her breathing, and his own ragged pant. Niel's heartbeat pounded in his ears.
For a moment he was jerked outside of his own body, to watch as he, blood-soaked and armored, the gore not yet washed off, towered over and yelled at her. At her, who until days ago, was collecting bruises from her husband. At her, who had been prisoner to a man she should have been able to trust.
He stumbled back as shame rose up to replace the anger and desperation. Ayla stayed pressed tight to the wall.
“Perhaps a husband who does not wish his wife to escape,” she said at last, her voice shaking. Like she had only managed to speak when he was no longer looming over her.
“Mercy, I… forgive me,” Niel said, his throat thick. She didn’t answer. “I should not have…” he tried to say. “I would never…”
He took another step from her, and watched her clap a hand to her lips, her eyes welling again. A nauseated feeling overtook him.
Mercy. He sagged, feeling suddenly like his body was made of stone. Stupid Maker-damned idiot, he thought. Is this all it takes to make you snap?
He was a ruined mess of a man, born wrong and made worse with time. He was his father’s shame, his brother's target, and Hannes’—his former knight-master’s—prey. He was no better than the men who had beaten or drugged him into submission, no matter what he wanted to believe.
“Lady Blackfell,” he rasped, and fell, hard, down to his knees before her. “I have disgraced myself with my tone. I did not mean to threaten you.”
“It’s no matter.” He knew the shadow in her voice. He’d heard it before. She was resigned, not believing him. It was a tone that said anything to make this man stop talking and leave my sight.
“No,” he countered, through gritted teeth. “I had no right to shout. That was not honorable.”
“It’s only words.” She wouldn’t meet his eyes now. She stayed pressed to the wall, looking off to the side.
He was never going to make this mistake again. The sight of her cowering from him in fear would stay just as firmly in his head as the sight of a man in armor dragging her around a corner. She had believed that he would hit her. That Niel would hit her.
Idiot. Monster. Savage. Better off dead.
“No. It is never only words, as if our words do not matter.”
She frowned, but she didn’t say anything to that. Niel bowed his head. He still had to keep her in the castle, to protect her. Which meant he had to make it right.
Ayla did not move as he silently ran through the oaths a knight could make.
Pain of lash, sleepless vigil, and fasting were not wise choices, when he might need to defend her again at a moment’s notice.
So, too, he could not pick exile or death.
Not that he had any intention of breaking this oath, but the punishment was important.
He had to mean it. He could not shy away if it came to pass.
“I swear an oath that I will never raise my voice to you again.” He quickly added: “Unless it is to warn you of danger, or the room is very loud, or you are far away. But not in anger. Never in anger.”
“Alright,” she said quietly. He could tell she didn’t believe him.
“On pain of never speaking to you again,” he added.
She blinked, and glanced his way then.
“Is that meant to be a terrible punishment?”
The answer was obvious, but he couldn’t very well tell her: I stayed here and risked every one of my men dying instead of just some of them, because I couldn’t stomach handing you back to him.
He couldn’t say: I think something is wrong with me, because every time you walk into the room you have the whole of my attention until the moment you leave.
Nor would it be appropriate to inform her: I kept begging for someone to save me, and it killed me inside that nobody did, and I think you are better than I ever was, and if I cannot protect someone like you from someone like him what’s even the point of this wretched world?
“It would make our meals a dull affair,” he said awkwardly.
“Ah.”
“Lots of chewing and blinking and long, drawn out silences,” he added, and felt immediately like a fool for saying that. But Ayla looked thoughtful, one eyebrow raising.
“I could still talk to you even if you couldn’t answer,” she said.
“Well. That’s true. Never dull, then. But if you asked a question, you would think me terribly rude when I refused to even acknowledge it.” He was still on his knees, looking up at her.
“People can speak without words.” She was looking at him now, and pressed less hard against the wall. “You could use your hands, or write.”
“Then it is still speaking,” he said, “and thus, it will be forbidden to me.”
“How would you get me to eat the bread, if I had not yet tried it and you wanted a bite?”
“I will have to ensure it never comes to that.” He rose slowly from his knees, and took another step back from her, hands clasped behind him to show he was no threat.
“I know you think I am a traitor, Lady Blackfell. I know the world thinks that too. But I have never broken an oath without good cause to do so. And since there can never be a cause to break this one, I will take it with me beyond my grave.”
He could hear her breathing, and he stood frozen, waiting for her response. Hoping against hope for the fear to fall away from her. At last Ayla spoke.
“If you say so.”
She still did not sound like she believed him. And she still stood against the wall. Niel’s exhale came out shakily. He felt certain she would prefer he leave.
Besides. He needed to wash the death from his skin.
Niel bowed, deep and low as he felt was her due, and left the Lady of Blackfell to her peace.