Chapter 7 Ransom Notes
Ransom Notes
The knock on her door was light, and not demanding. Ayla quickly slipped her book of poems beneath the blankets. The familiar words had not been helping much to sooth her fears.
“Yes?” she called. She was fairly certain it was a servant on the other side, not a soldier, but she couldn’t help but stare nervously as she waited to find out.
Morning light illuminated a bed chamber slightly sparser than it had been a few days ago.
Megh and the other servants had cleaned up the mess Ditmar made just yesterday, but they hadn’t replaced the mirror, or the ceramic jars of cosmetics she’d kept on her desk.
The stilder garland was back up on the wall, but it didn’t drape as gracefully as before.
And there had been glass in the rug, from the vase Ayla had made herself, the very last piece she’d owned from her personal collection.
Ditmar knew how to hit where it hurt. She’d never be able to replace it, since she doubted she'd ever be allowed to blow glass again. They’d taken the rug out to clean it, but what with the traitor’s conquest, it had not yet made its way back into her room.
The floor was strewn with layers of loose rushes over the stone instead.
A moment later the door creaked open and Megh slipped inside. The plump maidservant’s pale brown hair was up in two neat braids that only reached her shoulders.
“All’s well, my lady?” Megh asked, her voice barely more than a whisper, her eyes nervously flicking over her shoulder as she closed the door behind her.
Ayla’s room was smaller than Ditmar’s by a good deal, though she’d always been grateful to have her own space.
Megh stood just past the wooden foot board.
“Well as can be,” Ayla said back, quietly. “How is—well, everyone?”
“The same, lady. We had no more trouble last night.”
No more trouble. The image of Cataerin’s tear-stricken face punched back into Ayla’s mind.
She shivered and let her eyes fall closed for a moment.
But Cataerin was among those who’d left.
She wouldn’t have to see any of the northern soldiers again.
And hopefully the knight’s quick, brutal show of violence meant the other servants would be safe, at least from his men.
She still couldn’t say whether the knight himself would follow the same rules he imposed on the soldiers.
“Good. That’s good,” she whispered.
“The knight wants you, lady. Now, he said.” Megh’s voice was nervous. She twisted her hands into her apron and gave Ayla a pitying look. Ayla's stomach dropped.
“Did he say what for?”
“No. He’s in the hall.”
Ayla nodded stiffly. Even with Ditmar gone, the routine was familiar: Megh, summoning her to a man’s whims.
“Very well,” she said softly. “The castle may have switched hands, but some things never change, do they? You may leave, Megh. I’ll be down in a moment.”
“Do you need anything, lady? Help with your dress, or…?”
“No, thank you,” Ayla said, and forced a soft smile so Megh would not worry.
“I daresay you have enough to fret over just now.” Megh curtsied again and left, quietly closing the door behind her.
Ayla granted herself a moment of peace, breathing deep the cold, crisp air and the woodsmoke from her fire.
A quick glance out the window showed her castle walls lined with enemy soldiers standing sentry.
She couldn’t see any sign of Ditmar, but she knew he was holed up in the village outside the castle walls.
When he’d arrived back the evening before and found the drawbridge raised, there had been a good deal of screaming.
Her bedchamber window pointed towards the castle gate, and she’d heard Ditmar accuse Lord Niel of bedding her.
She hadn’t been able to make out the traitor’s response, but his voice had sounded coldly amused.
She slipped out of the warm nest of the bed, wincing as her stocking feet touched the floor.
Icy cold radiated out from the stone through the rushes.
Gritting her teeth, Ayla pried her fingers beneath the mattress and hauled it up, then slipped the book she’d been reading for the thousandth time underneath, beside the only other one she owned.
The metal ring of the castle keys glittered beside the books.
She’d quietly fetched them from Ditmar’s study the moment she’d been dismissed from the hall the evening before, terrified all the while that she’d be caught.
The mattress wasn’t really the best hiding spot, but the only better places in her room were hard for her to reach.
She’d find somewhere better for the keys later, in a room other than her own.
Ayla pulled a sapphire gown, the bosom embroidered with tiny pearls, over her heavy shift and yanked the laces tight behind her.
No matter if they were crooked, nobody was going to see her back.
A heavy wool cloak went over the outfit.
Gripping the cream-colored cloak tight around herself, she shoved her feet into slippers and made her way into the hall, dark waves loose around her shoulders.
She’d expected to find the knight back on the throne.
Instead, he sat alone at one of the hall’s long tables, bent over a piece of parchment with a quill gripped roughly in one large fist, an inkpot to his side.
A set of folded and sealed letters lay stacked on the table next to him.
Someone had lit the hanging lanterns, but he had a squat candle next to him on the table, too, casting a pool of light in the windowless hall.
If he wasn’t holding an audience, it was a foolish room to work in.
The hall was too big to heat properly. He could’ve holed up in front of a fire in Ditmar’s study if he just wanted somewhere to write.
Especially if he felt the need to keep his breastplate on even in the castle he’d conquered. The metal must have been freezing cold.
She approached slowly through the rows of pillars in the hall, her view of the knight cutting in and out of view behind the large black columns.
He had shaved, and for a startled moment she wondered if she were looking at one of his men instead of him, but none of them were so big or broad. The knight’s jaw, now that she could see it, was sharp and square. His lips were full.
His dark hair was tied half-back, combed and shining like he’d found the time to wash it.
He’d kept on his breastplate, but from what she could see he wore no other armor beneath his heavy cloak.
He didn’t look up as Ayla approached. She paused ten paces from the long table and drew her cloak tighter with her fists.
She was about to clear her throat when he beckoned with two fingers, still not bothering to look at her.
“Come. Sit,” the knight commanded. He spoke like there was no question about him being obeyed. And there wasn’t, not really.
He isn’t going to look at me? Ayla thought.
For all he knows I have a naked dagger in my hands.
Well, he did say there was nothing of a warrior about me.
He was right in that regard, but violence wasn’t the only way to fight a battle.
She wordlessly stepped over the bench across from him and settled onto the hard wood with her back straight.
The rest of him looked cleaner than it had yesterday, too.
No dark bloodstains marred his clothes beneath the armor.
If he wanted intelligence about the Enarian war effort, she wasn’t going to give it. Never mind that she barely knew anything. But then, men never thought women knew anything. He’d probably try getting information from the cook before her.
He kept writing, as if he knew just how unimportant her time was and how little she had to get back to. It must have been a trait lords shared.
Without bothering to look her way, the knight at last drew a fresh page of parchment and set it in front of Ayla. He handed her a clean quill feather-first. She stared at it a moment, then slowly reached up to take it from him.
“My lord?” she asked, holding the quill gingerly by the end.
“I’ll offer your husband a ransom for you today,” he informed her, sounding distracted, or perhaps bored. “You may write to him. Say whatever you like, though mind I’ll read it.”
He pushed the inkpot with his knuckles so it rested between them on the table. Ayla swallowed.
By law, any noble captured in war was to be ransomed, and Ayla was noble, though only by marriage. She hadn’t thought the knight would keep with customs, since warring against his own Queen was about the deepest law a knight could break, a violation of his gravest oath.
If he planned to ransom her, he probably wasn’t going to hurt her.
Perhaps that was why she’d remained untouched by him and his men.
But being returned to Ditmar at the peak of his rage, after she’d spent a full night in the castle with the traitors…
Ayla forced down the swell of terror that threatened to rise in her.
She could hardly tell Lord Niel she was frightened of that reunion.
That she needed more time to prepare, if she was going to survive Ditmar.
No—she couldn’t tell Niel anything, Ayla realized, her fingers tightening on the quill.
On the very slim chance that the traitor’s head didn’t end up on a pike, any information could be weaponry in the wrong hands.
No matter how small or inconsequential the information seemed.
She would give him no aid in his quest to ruin her country.
No matter how grim Ayla’s personal circumstances, she did not want Enar to be ruled by Aronthian law, where peasants had even fewer rights and even harsher masters.
Aronthia was not like her own Enar, where a woman ruled as queen without a king by her side.
“You do not have all morning, Lady Blackfell,” Niel warned, not looking up from the letter he was writing, or even pausing the scratching of his own quill.