"I'll kill you! I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"

Reuben sighed. The peasant's repertoire of threats hadn't become any more inventive during the past five minutes. He was trying to get tired of this.

"And why, exactly?" He asked the man he held tightly in his arms.

The man kicked out, trying desperately to free himself.

"I'll kill you! I'll cut your head off! I'll strangle you with my bare hands!"

"Yes, yes. But why? Look." Taking a calculated risk, Reuben took one hand off the peasant, Reuben gestured uphill.

"I'll kill you! I'll kill you! I'll..."

The peasant's voice slowly died away. His eyes had instinctively followed Reuben's gesture—and they had caught sight of his son Peyr in front of the inner gatehouse. The boy was no longer tied. He was sitting cross-legged on the ground, chatting and throwing dice with the guards that had brought him in just a few minutes ago, wrapped up like a beef roulade.

"How... why..."

The peasant's voice was no longer mad with rage. Instead, it was weak, now, and slightly trembling.

Reuben rolled his eyes.

"Oh please. You didn't really think I was going to chop his head off, did you? I have better things to do with my time."

"But you... you said..."

"Don't you know better than to believe anything a noble tells you? If we couldn't lie and cheat like the devil, how do you think we would manage to squeeze so many taxes and tithes out of you peasants?"

The last bit of resistance went out of the peasant. Reuben calculated the likelihood of Volrad still wanting to chop his head off, and decided it was rather small. He let go, and the peasant stumbled away from him. Trembling, he rounded on Reuben.

"Y-you just pretended? Pretended to want to kill him? He's just a child! You must have scared him to death!"

"Oh, I doubt that, somehow."

The little boy looked up from his game of dice. He saw that Reuben had released his father, and immediately sprang to his feet and came running towards them. Reuben sighed, as the little brat held out his hand demandingly.

"Here." Fishing two copper pennies out of his surcoat pocket, Reuben flipped them towards Peyr, who caught them expertly, a grin on his greedy little face. "Excellent acting skills, by the way. Congratulations."

Peyr's grin transformed into a demure little smile and he fluttered his eyelashes in a way that should be illegal for boys. "Don't I get a bonus for my talent?"

"Piss off, you little maggot!"

"Yes, Sir! Immediately, Sir!" With an exaggerated bow, the boy turned and ran back uphill towards the guards and the little black-haired girl who had joined them by now, and who seemed rather familiar to Reuben. No doubt the brat was eager to gamble away the first money he had ever made, or maybe get drunk for the first time in his life. Reuben smiled. He really loved children. They could be so sweet and innocent.

Next to him, Volrad the peasant looked as if a troll had hit him on the head with a horse-sized cudgel. He gazed from his son to Reuben, and back to his son.

"But he... you... you mean... that can't... I..."

"You should be proud of your son." Reuben patted the confused peasant on the back. "He made his silly father see sense and made two copper pennies into the bargain. Not bad for an eight-year-old, don't you think? Now, if you will excuse me, I have a few matters to attend to."

He started marching through the ranks of the peasants, dividing them into groups, having the guards bring out different kinds of weapons, demonstrating stances, moves, and shouting encouragement where it was needed. Nobody needed to hear Reuben's sort of encouragement twice. It was very succinct, and loud, and efficient.

For a while, he passed his time like this, making sure that the fighting energy he had instilled into the previously peaceful peasants would stay for good. He concentrated fully on his work, not once glancing towards where he had last seen Ayla, watching the proceedings. He kept both ears open, though. Sooner or later, he would have to pay for his latest demonstration of military genius, he was certain.

And he wasn't wrong. He was just showing a young peasant the correct way to ramn a spear into someone's gut, when behind him, he heard the soft footsteps of doom.

"Yes, just like that," he told the peasant boy, and nodded encouragingly. "Find someone to train with, will you? And be careful not to actually skewer him. I have an, um... important conversation ahead of me."

He turned, to find Ayla standing in front of him. Her Finger was extended towards him accusingly, trembling in indignation.

"You!"

He gave her his most charming, devious smile, guaranteed to make any woman faint in delight at ten paces. Somehow, it didn't seem to work this time.

"You...! You used a child!" It wasn't such a terrible accusation, really, from his point of view. More a sort of statement, really. Considering that, Reuben thought it remarkable how Ayla, her sapphire eyes flashing, managed to make it sound like an archangel accusing a worm of a capital sin.

He smiled and nodded.

"You," she said again, her finger still raised, "used a child for a devious subterfuge!"

"Not completely devious," he pointed out. "In the long run, it's meant to save all our lives, so maybe fifty per cent devious, fifty per cent well-intentioned."

"You," she repeated once more, "used a child." She appeared to be fond of repeating that particular statement. For some reason, it apparently was important to her.

"Yes. But I did mention it was in a good cause, didn't I?"

"What kind of monster would threaten loving parents with killing their child to achieve his aims?"

"Hm..." Reuben pretended to think for a moment. "How about King Solomon?"

"What?"

"King Solomon. You know, the fellow from the bible? Son of King David?"

"I know who King Solomon is, thank you very much!"

"Well, didn't he threaten to cut a child in half when two women were arguing about who was the boy's mother? He said he would give one half to each of them. But it was all just a ruse, because the real mother begged him not to hurt her child, and that's how he found out who the child's real mother was, and gave the boy to her." He winked at her. "Quite devious and evil, weren't they, these biblical kings?"

The color rushed to Ayla's cheeks. Her hand dropped to her side and she balled it into an adorable little fist.

"That's completely different, Reuben!"

He nodded, amiably. "I agree. If you think about it, I was being quite a bit nicer than King Solomon. As I recall, he didn't offer the child even a penny for its valuable assistance in the matter—and I gave the boy two whole copper pennies. Solomon must have been quite the miser."

"You... you...!"

"Sage? Just noble? Great leader?" he suggested.

"You baggard! Monster! Blackest of blasphemists!"

Reuben sighed, and, bowing slightly, gave her another of his smiles. "Thy gentle words fall upon mine ears like honey, Milady. I hardly deserve such dazzling praise."

"You... you...!"

He took a step closer to her.

"I hate you, you worm, you devil you....!"

Another step closer.

"You...You...!"

Quick as a flash, he closed the last bit of distance. His arms went up around her.

*~*~**~*~*

"You..."

Ayla felt the fight go out of her voice the moment he touched her and hated herself for it. He couldn't just do something like this and get away with it! It was just that when he looked at her like he did right now, his smoldering grey eyes burning a path straight into her soul, it felt like yes, he actually could get away with it, and would. It felt like he would get away with much more, because she wanted to let him.

"Have you run out of compliments already?" he murmured, leaning forward so his hot breath brushed her ear. What was he doing? There were people all around! "You'll have to do a lot better to impress me, you know."

"You... you are..."

He leaned even closer, so close that she could feel the warmth of his skin on her face.

"You know I love you, don't you?" His voice was low and intense. Ayla suddenly found herself thinking that maybe the people all around them weren't so important after all. Not when he was looking at her like this, his love burning bright in his eyes. And not just love. Need. Need for her.

What had she been angry about, again?

"You... you shouldn't have done that," she managed to say with effort, although she wasn't precisely sure anymore what exactly "that" was.

His expression didn't change. He didn't try to mock or placate her. He just stared at her, into her, with the same love and need as before.

"It was necessary to protect you, Milady. And not just you—all of them." He indicated the training and shouting peasants with a small motion of his hand. "You may think what I did today was harsh and cruel. Well, you would be right. Sometimes you have to do cruel things to stop people from getting themselves slaughtered. There's an army coming to kill you and your people, Ayla. I will pull down heaven and hell before I let that happen. What I did today was nothing, absolutely nothing. All I did was make a few dozen fools follow me. Now I have to make those fools into soldiers. And then..."

He let the sentence trail off. Ayla shuddered. She had heard the steely note in his voice.

"What then?" she wanted to know.

"Then we make war."

Ayla couldn't help it, she shuddered again. Reflexively, she stepped closer to Reuben and pressed herself against his side. His armor felt cold and hard, and so did his mail-covered arm when he put it around her shoulders—but it wasn't physical warmth she wanted. It was another kind of warmth, and she found plenty of that.

"They're right, you know," she whispered, letting her eyes roam over the poor fools who would be going to war soon. "If they meet the enemy in battle on equal terms, they won't stand a chance. They'll all be slaughtered."

Reuben grinned his devilish grin, and this time, Ayla could see more than the usual dose of evil mischief glittering in his grey eyes.

"Who said that they were going to meet the enemy on equal terms? I certainly never did. Equal terms are boring. They leave so little room for backstabbing, treason and slaughter."

Ayla didn't quite know what to say to that. Finally, she settled on: "What do you mean?"

Reuben patted her on the shoulder. "Don't worry. I'll explain it to you when the time is right."

She narrowed her eyes.

"Why not explain it to me now?"

"Don't you trust me, Milady?"

"No."

"Milady!" He placed a hand over his heart in so theatrical a gesture, it almost made Ayla laugh. "You wound me!"

She clamped down hard on the urge to giggle. This wasn't funny! At least it wasn't supposed to be.

"I love you more than anything in the world," she told him. "But trust you?" Raising an eyebrow, she shook her head. "Only a drunk lunatic who had taken a heavy blow to the head would ever trust you, Reuben."

"True."

"So what is it that you are planning?"

Regretfully, he shook his head. "I'm sorry, but for now, I have my reasons for keeping it secret. You'll just have to pretend that you are a drunk madwoman with a bruised head."

Her lips twitched. She couldn't help it! She was powerless when he talked to her this way, and looked at her like he did just then. Reaching up, Reuben gently caressed the upturned corner of her mouth with his thumb.

"That's better," he murmured. "You don't get to smile enough these days. I love it when your mouth lips curve up like that. Not quite as much as I love your lips doing other things, of course, but still..."

"Don't change the subject!"

Why oh why did her voice have to sound so small and breathy? She was supposed to be his liege lady! She was supposed to be in command! "I don't trust you an inch, Reuben, and I want to know what's going on!"

"Of course you don't trust me," he grinned. "You're a smart girl. But... you do love me, don't you?"

And he leaned forward so quickly that nobody saw it, not even Ayla herself, and brushed his lips against hers for just an instance.

"Y-yes." The word was out before she knew it. She had never been able to lie.

His grin widened. "Well then, that's settled."

"W-what? What do you mean? What do my feelings for you have to do with the defense of the castle?"

He shrugged, as if it were obvious.

"Quite simple: I will simply seduce you into going along with all of my battle plans. Most of them will be quite devious, some even downright dastardly and evil to the core—but they'll work, you'll see." Ayla's mouth dropped open. Reuben continued as if he hadn't noticed. "You probably won't approve of a single one of them," he mused. "I can even imagine that they will horrify you. You seem to have an aversion to tactics like pretending to cut children in half, so you'll probably be a bit squeamish about the other things I have in mind. But that won't really matter. I'll... convince you. Trust me. Or rather, don't. You don't actually need to trust me. Just do what I tell you to, that ought to suffice."

Once more, Ayla opened and closed her mouth.

"If you're looking for things to do with your mouth we could go to some place more private," Reuben suggested, his trademark devil's grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"No, thank you very much! We were talking about those one-hundred and fifty peasants you just turned into your own personal militia!"

"Your militia, actually, Milady."

"And who will be commanding them? You or me?"

"Me, Naturally. We want them to win, don't we?"

If Ayla's eyes could have burned, Reuben would have been nothing but a pile of smoldering ashes by now. "Reuben?"

"Yes, Milady?"

"In your training as a knight, were you ever taught the proper courtly manners towards a noble lady?"

"I think so. I was successful in forgetting most of them, though."

"I noticed."

"Don't worry too much about your peasants." He patted her shoulder again. "A few dozen of them will probably actually survive the battles. Some might even make it through with all their limbs still attached."

"Oh, is that so?"

"Yes. And what does it matter, as long as we win, after all."

Ayla contemplated trying to strangle him for a moment. In the end, she decided against it. She did love him, after all.

"And as I said," he continued, "in the beginning the villagers won't fight the enemy on equal grounds. If it comes to that, it will come later. For now, the only men who will make real manouvres in the field are the fifty men-at-arms we have here in the castle."

"And what, Reuben, can fifty men possibly do against a thousand? Even if we build a barricade at the bridge again, how could we possibly hold it?"

Reuben's devilish grin returned in full, hellish force

"Let's just say that we've had more time to prepare this time than the last time an army marched onto your land, Milady. When the enemy arrives, they will find a little surprise waiting for them at the bridge."

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Blow the trumpets! Sound the horns! :)

Sir Rob's mighty army of followers has grown to a hundred thousand! With such forces, we shall easily squash the margrave! Thank you so much, my loyal fans, readers, peasants and knights ;-)

Raise the banners and let us march forward!

Sir Rob