Chapter 22 A Captive Knight
A Captive Knight
Lord Niel was silent at breakfast, coughing lightly once before frowning down at his food, his focus clearly elsewhere. Ayla didn’t mind. She was too exhausted for conversation.
The night before, she'd visited the kitchens to tell Sarella, Nyven, and Megh—who was sharing a bottle of wine with the other two—that Lord Niel had decided they must leave. Nyven had been quiet and uncomfortable at the thought of leaving his home, but Sarella had cried from relief at finally getting to see her wife, and Megh had started to argue until Ayla grabbed the wine carafe and refilled Megh’s cup.
“Tell Ditmar you tried to help his soldiers,” Ayla instructed them. “Say that’s why the knight sent you out, alright? Because he could not trust you. Because you stayed loyal.”
She’d declined their offer to drink with them, uncertain if they really wanted her company, and went instead to bed. Except instead of laying down to sleep, like she’d intended, she opened one of the books Niel had forced her to take.
It had been well into the night before she slept. The delight of new words and stories was one she had forgotten. By the pre-dawn breakfast, she was hardly awake.
The farewells afterwards were not easy. She hugged Sarella tight, then Megh.
“Are you sure about this, Lady Ayla?” Megh whispered. “You’ll be alone here. Tell him you want me to stay. I’ll do it. I’ve no husband waiting for me.”
“But you have a niece and sisters,” Ayla whispered against the woman’s shoulder. “I’ll be fine.”
And if you stay, she thought privately, Ditmar will think Niel trusts you, and he will surely punish you for that, after.
Nyven clapped her on the shoulder, his face still flush from whatever illness he'd felt the day before.
“How can I possibly thank you enough?” she told them all, as Sarella dabbed at tears and Megh frowned at her. “You’re worth ten times any noble. I could live to be a hundred, and I still wouldn’t forget…”
“It’s not forever,” Nyven said gruffly, but the cook made no effort to hide the emotion in his eyes. “Mind you don’t make a mess of my kitchen.”
Then Kerr was there, telling them it was time to go.
Ayla went up on the wall, standing amidst soldiers who bristled with pikes and bows, and watched the wide stretch of open ground in front of the castle gates.
There was a creak as the drawbridge lowered in shunts, each turn of the wheel dropping its lip a foot closer to the frozen moat it spanned.
By the time it touched ground, watchers had gathered on the other side, a huge knight in silver armor at the head of them with his sword drawn.
As the servants walked out of the castle, bags over their shoulders, Ditmar shoved to the front of the crowd, pushing Isalde's father roughly aside.
His face turned to peer up at the wall, and Ayla quickly stumbled back and fled down the courtyard stairs, too terrified of him seeing her to even wave goodbye.
She regretted that, all the way back to her room. But it was done. And they were gone. She didn't know if she'd ever see them again. At least they were safe, and with their families, where they belonged.
Around noon, she realized Megh was not going to summon her to lunch with the knight. Perhaps he’d send a soldier. But another hour passed, and forty pages in the book of Hulder-stories, before a soldier at last knocked on the door and told her the knight wanted her company.
The castle felt miserably empty as she made her way down the hall, even though the population had not shrunk overmuch.
She was alone, the only woman and only true Enarian in a castle full of traitorous warriors.
A hostage, even if Niel didn’t treat her like it, and even if she wanted to be there. A cold loneliness crawled into her gut.
She knocked, waited, and entered. The knight was seated already, his face propped up on a fist and his eyes closed.
His eyelids opened briefly at the sound of her approach, then fell again.
Ayla paused uncertainly at the table, hand trailing along the back of her chair.
The knight opened his eyes again and slowly straightened.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
“Sit,” he said with a nod. She frowned and sank into the chair. His eyes looked glassy and unfocused. His long dark hair was loose and a little tangled.
“You look ill.”
“Many thanks,” he muttered.
“It isn’t an insult.”
Between them sat a platter of cold sliced meat, bread Sarella had baked that morning before she left, and more of the quince.
“Nothing for you to worry about,” he muttered, as he watched her fill her plate. “Larkin says something is going about. I know you didn’t poison me. This time.”
She froze with her knife stabbing a piece of venison.
“What?” Ayla whispered. The knight didn’t answer except to drag a slab of cold venison onto his plate and then stare down at it blearily.
She waited for him to accuse her, heart pounding, but he kept staring at his plate.
He was probably waiting on her, as usual.
She quickly took a sample of everything, but the knight still hadn’t moved to eat.
She lifted her eyes from the table to study him, and found that while he remained upright, his eyes were shut again.
His high cheekbones were flushed with color, a sheen of sweat on his brow.
“You really don’t look well.”
“M’fine.” His eyes blinked open again.
“No, you aren’t. You’re sick.”
“I don’t get sick. Eat your lunch.”
“You ought to be in bed.”
“I told you.” He tilted his head down to look at the food he’d put on his plate, which he still hadn’t touched. “I’ll be fine.” He coughed, lifting his elbow to cover his mouth as his forehead creased.
“This is foolish,” she informed him. Ayla stood, her chair squeaking back against the stone floor. “Up.”
“What?”
“You look like you’ve been run through a grain mill. You need to go back to bed.”
Niel glared up in her direction, but his eyes weren’t focused.
“Don’t play nursemaid to me.”
“Then don’t be a fool man who thinks he can avoid resting when he needs to.”
“It’ll pass.”
“Yes, with rest.” She held out a hand to him, demanding he take it and rise.
“I ran the castle wall twice this morning. Could a sick man do that?”
“I neither know nor care. But considering your health stands between me and being returned to him, for Mercy’s sake, will you stop being so stubborn?”
That had his attention. He stared up at her and the trembling hand she offered him, his dark eyes glassy and unfixed and yet pointed unerringly at her.
Slowly he reached out and placed a large, calloused hand on her soft palm.
He rose from his chair, and she was glad he didn’t actually need her help, because she wasn’t sure she could have lifted him, armored, tall, and broad-shouldered as he was.
“I’ll be back with medicine,” she informed him as he staggered towards the doorway to Ditmar’s bed chamber.
“Don’t need it,” the knight said stubbornly without looking over his shoulder.
“I’m bringing it nonetheless,” she called. Ayla layered quince and meat on a slab of bread, then left the sitting room, eating as she walked.
The door to the infirmary stood open. She took her last bite outside, chewed, swallowed, and stepped in.
The first thing she saw was a blindfolded man sitting on one of the beds. His arms were tied behind him, and he was missing the bottom half of one leg. The bandage made clear it was a recent loss.
She gasped and took a step back. The wounded captive was dressed in filthy, bloodstained clothes, likely the same ones he’d worn during the attack. He was brown-haired, with a muscular build, his skin blue-gray from blood loss.
“Luck and Mercy,” Ayla whispered.
“Lady Blackfell.” One of Lord Niel’s soldiers lounged at the healer’s worktable. He stood quickly as her eyes flickered from the prisoner to the soldier, and back.
“Who…?” she asked.
“Prisoner,” the soldier told Ayla, which had already been obvious.
“Lady Blackfell, is that you?” the blindfolded man asked, sitting straighter. “Are you harmed? You must be strong. Help will—”
“Shut the fuck up, unless you want me to gag you, too,” Niel’s soldier said to the wounded man, his voice sharpening.
“Please, don’t do that,” Ayla muttered, a hand going to her throat.
So this was the Enarian knight who’d been taken captive.
Was Lord Niel determined to treat all his prisoners cruelly?
Blindfolding a bound, injured man was little better than keeping Isalde in a dark room.
“Yes, sir, I’m Lady Ayla. I am not harmed. ”
The captive knight wasn’t one of Ditmar’s men.
He was one of the Queen’s men, who’d come with Niel’s brother to take back castle Blackfell.
It was not the captive’s fault that Ditmar was a wretched man, nor that Niel had taken Blackfell in the first place.
Like Ayla, this man was caught up in other people’s conflicts, and he had paid a price for it. She could not help but hurt for him.
“What do you want?” Niel’s soldier asked her.
She feared if she didn’t answer fast enough, he’d kick her out of the infirmary to stop her from talking to the wounded knight. She tore her gaze away from the prisoner and blinked at Niel’s soldier.
“Oh—the healer. For…” she gulped, not wanting to admit she was asking for medicines for Lord Niel in front of a knight who remained loyal to Enar.
She was a traitor, she realized. A fully-fledged traitor. And she was ashamed of it. But she was still going to need the medicine.
“Larkin’s resting. He’s got that same grippe that’s going about,” the soldier said.
“Is there something for it?” she asked quietly. “One of the… men needs it.”
“Dunno. Larkin’s been taking willowbark tea. That jar.”
“Thank you.” She took a tonic cup from the wall and scooped the bark shavings into it. “Sir knight?”
“Don’t talk to him,” the soldier warned.
She gripped the cup tighter and studied the blindfolded man nonetheless.