Chapter 44 Rescue
Rescue
She’d known he was in poor condition during the march.
Ayla had seen his eyes go dull, seen how differently he carried himself.
She cursed herself every time she didn’t take an opportunity to get the shackle-keys, but the knights leading him had kept those on their hips.
She’d kept following, waiting. And then they had gotten to Liron, and it was too late.
She had never been there before. But it was easy to be a mouse in a building as big as the royal palace, taking food from the kitchens and clean clothes from the laundry. Trying to feed herself on the march had been harder.
Anticipating an escape, she'd stolen flint, candles, soap, and a waterskin to add to the bag Niel had left for her. She didn’t feel guilty for stealing from the palace.
With the unicorn cloak over her shoulders, there was plenty of room in the sack.
He’d left her a heavy bundle of gold from Ditmar’s treasury, and a dagger, neither of which was of much use to an invisible woman hiding in the castle’s shadows.
She wore the dagger on her hip all the same, just in case someone realized she was there and tried to grab her.
She’d found a cold, unused bedroom with a sheet draped over each piece of furniture: reassurance enough that a servant wouldn’t be in for daily tidying.
She’d have preferred to sleep in front of the door they’d led Niel through, but there was too much risk of someone tripping over her and revealing her presence.
And then where would Niel be, with his only would-be rescuer gone?
So she slept in the empty bed chamber, and spent her waking hours in front of the door they’d led Niel down.
It was locked and guarded day and night.
The servants who came with food twice a day slipped through the door so fast Ayla could not sneak in without touching them, which would alert the guard to her presence.
And then, a knight had come, one who swaggered when he walked and wore a fur and velvet cloak.
There had been a glint in his eye Ayla didn’t like, but when the door was opened for him, he held it for a moment while he spoke to the guard.
Ayla, who’d risen to her feet in grim optimism, saw her chance.
She rushed through as quietly as she could manage, holding her breath as she slipped past them onto the dark stairs.
Not to be disturbed… questioning, need an hour… she heard the man say behind her as she descended swiftly, skirts raised and unicorn cloak clasped around her. The air was stale down here, and thick with the smell of unwashed men in cages.
And then the man came behind her, and he spoke to Niel, and she realized who he might be. She'd drawn the knife. And though it seemed impossible to kill another human being, one look at Niel's broken expression had steeled her heart.
Now the man was a body, and Niel was straightening up from her desperate grasp, even though Ayla wanted to keep clinging to him. His chains clanked as he moved.
“We have to get those off you,” she said, her voice trembling. He looked unwell. She needed to get him away, far away, before anyone could come down here.
“You weren’t supposed to be here,” Niel said raggedly. “You were supposed to run. Why didn’t you run?”
“The same reason you didn’t, I expect,” Ayla said, and crouched down. She still could not believe she’d killed a man, and she did not particularly want to think about it. But nor did she feel any guilt.
Searching a body was an unpleasant business, but she couldn’t very well ask Niel to touch Hannes.
She turned out his pockets, her skin crawling and her hands shaking.
But the only key Ayla could find was the one to Niel’s cell.
She ignored the shouts of the other prisoners, begging for their own cells to be opened.
She couldn’t see them from where they stood; the cells of the Queen’s dungeons were solitary places.
Niel slumped against the wall, his hands limp in front of him. The terrible chains on his wrists and ankles clanked every time he moved.
“It’s no good,” Ayla admitted, backing away from Hannes and looking at Niel. “Maybe we can use cloth to muffle them. We’ll have to manage getting them off without a key. Could tools from a smith’s shop do it?”
“You killed him,” Niel said. He was staring at her, the shocked look still in his eyes, like he had yet to accept it.
“Yes. Hold your hands out. I need you to be as silent as you can when you move, if we’re to pull this off. Or people will know you’re there.”
“No use,” Niel said. “I’m not letting you risk yourself for me, again. You wear the cloak.”
“You’re mad,” Ayla informed him. “Anyone who sees me will just see a woman they don’t know walking down a hallway. They see you…”
It was obvious enough she didn’t bother putting it into words. A notorious traitor to the crown, clinking in shackles and covered in grime and blood, was bound to stand out.
“You’ve got blood on your sleeve,” Niel said. “You can’t—”
“Oh. That’s no problem,” Ayla told him, noticing with a grimace.
She’d opted for heavy layers, since there was no fire for her to sit in front of while she waited for a way to reach him.
Now she was glad for it. Ayla stripped off the long-sleeved tunic that had gotten the blood on it.
Next she stripped the overskirt. Beneath both, she was still wearing a perfectly serviceable winter gown, albeit one made for someone a bit wider and shorter than herself.
She started wrapping the discarded skirt around the chain connecting Niel’s hands.
He winced and she slowed her movements, trying to muffle the chain without tugging on it.
Bile rose to her mouth at the thought of what he'd endured.
She knew they ought to move, to get him out of the dungeon as quickly as they could. The guard at the top of the stairs would be a problem. Ayla didn’t fancy killing another person, particularly someone who might be innocent. But they had to get out somehow.
A set of angry voices echoed down from above, distorted by the long, coiling chamber of the stair.
“Don’t care what orders he gave,” Ayla could barely make out a man saying. “...should not have been permitted…”
With a curse, Niel shook off the cloth she’d been wrapping and dove for the bloody dagger on the floor.
“Put the cloak on,” he hissed, straightening with both hands grasping the hilt. Niel's neck looked corded from tension.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You put it on, I’ll say I came down to find you gone—” Ayla hissed back. Her breath came fast, nearly hyperventilating. It wasn't big enough for both of them.
“And let them think you killed the fucking margrave’s brother? Ayla, please—”
She grabbed the cloak and tried to force it on him, but Niel stepped back, chains clanking.
“Please,” Niel begged. “You can’t be here. I need you safe.”
If there was nothing she could do to make Niel hide, the best choice was for Ayla to vanish instead. That way she could wait for another moment to help him again.
But it was too late. She hadn’t even gotten the cloak halfway over one shoulder by the time the first figure emerged from the stairs. Every muscle in Ayla's body tensed. Niel shouldered in front of her, brandishing the knife. She recognized his older brother.
There were two people with Sir Corin. One was a red-haired knight, lean and in his early twenties, wearing embroidered court clothes that seemed at odds with the longsword on his hip.
The other was a plump blonde woman of a similar age, her hair braided and her dress simple, bearing a basket over one arm.
All three of them stared in wide-eyed shock at Niel, Ayla, and the body of the nobleman on the ground beside them.
“Well, that’s one problem taken care of,” Corin said, breaking the silence.
“You’ll have to kill me,” Niel rasped. “You won’t touch her. She—”
Corin held up an iron key, small in his large, scarred hands.
“Do I look like I’m here to fucking kill you?” he said. “Put down the damned knife, Niel. We don’t have much time.” Ayla exhaled hard, knees weakening.
“Why, so you can take me to be executed?”
She couldn’t blame Niel for his stubbornness, after everything he’d been through. She was scared too.
“I’m getting you out of here,” his brother growled back, dark eyes glinting. “Drop the knife and give me your hands. I’m sorry Hannes got here first, but I came as soon as I heard.”
Niel snorted in cynical disbelief.
“You told him I was here, didn’t you? When you went to Ashbrin.”
“He’d be dead already,” Corin said, his voice cold and far calmer than Niel’s. “He wasn’t at Ashbrin. But I still learned what I needed. Why didn’t you tell me, Niel?”
“You?” Niel asked disbelievingly. “You’re the last person I trusted to have my back.”
Ayla knew a standoff when she saw one. She stepped around Niel, and held her palm out towards Corin.
“Would you give me the key, please?” she said quietly. Niel’s brother barely even looked at her as he dropped it into her palm. Tension crackled between the two men as Ayla turned and fit the metal teeth into the band around Niel’s left wrist.
“Do you honestly think if I knew, I’d have ignored it?” Corin asked.
“You made your loyalties clear.” Niel stiffened as Ayla cracked the left shackle open. The knife was still in his hand. She moved carefully around it as she fit the key into the shackle on his right wrist.
“And did she know?” Corin asked. “Did our aunt know?”
“We’re taking too long,” the pretty knight with red hair commented. He was of a height with the two brothers, but leaner, and had a less brutal look about him. “The Queen knows you’re back, Corin. She’ll be summoning us all at any moment.”
The blonde woman put her hand on Corin’s bicep as she passed him. She paused two feet in front of Niel.
“Will you let me touch you?” she asked, her voice soft. “To treat your wounds.”