Reuben fully expected Ayla to come after him when he made his escape. She didn't. Puzzled, he looked over his shoulder. He would have thought that she'd come after him with claws extended.

"What's the matter?" Fye asked from beside him, peeking up at him curiously.

"I'm thinking about Ayla," Reuben told her.

Fye chewed her lower lip, deep in thought. "She's a nice lady. A bit silly, sometimes, but nice."

"I'm so glad you approve."

"You could beat a bit of sense into her with a nice stick."

"Probably. I must admit the thought has crossed my mind."

"But you're not going to, are you?"

"No."

"I could lend you my stick," she offered.

"No, thank you. You see, I love her. You don't beat people you love with a stick no matter how much you might want to. Unless you're sparring, of course."

Fye nodded, approving of his logic.

"And she loves you," she determined.

"I definitely hope so."

"Don't worry, she does. She gets goo-goo eyes when she looks at you."

Glancing down at the little girl, Reuben raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?"

"Aye. And you get goo-goo eyes when you look at her, too, only yours look different. Hers go all wide and soft and stare at your face. Yours go all dark and flamy and stare at her bos—"

"Maybe I have gone a bit too far with educating you," Reuben interrupted her hastily. "I think it's time to return you to your mother."

"Not you, too!"

"Well, where should I bring you, then?"

She tugged at his hand, towards the courtyard. "Take me with you to the recruits? Oh, please, please, please! I want to watch them shoot at straw people!"

"All right." Reuben sighed. "But only if you promise to behave. That means no grabbing a crossbow and trying to shoot real people."

Fye looked disappointed, but finally nodded.

For a while, Reuben walked in silence, still carrying Fye on his arm. When they had turned a corner and where approaching the training grounds, the shouts of the recruits echoing in the distance, Fye suddenly asked:

"Are you going to marry her?"

"Marry?" Reuben stared at her. Maybe this child was crazier than he had originally presumed. "Why on earth should I marry? And for the Devil's sake, who?"

"Lady Ayla, of course." Fye frowned up at him. "Well, you said you love her, didn't you?"

"Yes, and? What has that got to do with marriage? It's just an expensive nuisance, and some priest mumbling a couple of words. I'm sure Ayla doesn't care about any of that."

Fye rolled her eyes.

"You know, I really like you..."

"Thank you."

"But you're even sillier than Lady Ayla."

*~*~**~*~*

Ayla did not go looking for Reuben, but instead went attending to her other duties. She didn't want to come face to face with her red knight until she had untangled her confusing and contradictory feelings of love, relief and anger.

When all her work was done, she went to visit her father, who had been restored to his usual quarters in the upmost tower chamber of the castle. With everything that had been happening, she hadn't had a chance to have an extended conversation with the kind, gentle old man. But now they were doing nothing but training and waiting for the storm to break, it felt good to seek comfort in her father's presence. And she could tell that it brought him comfort, too, to see her again.

"You look... older," he murmured, raising his hand and gently stroking her cheek.

Ayla gave him a half-sarcastic smile. "Well, thank you very much. That's a compliment every lady wants to hear, I'm sure."

He chuckled, and his weathered old face morphed into an answering smile. "Not like that. You don't have wrinkles or anything. Trust me, I know—I'm an expert on having wrinkles." Once more, he stroked his hand over her face. "It's just that you look more mature. It's not on your face. It's in your eyes."

Ayla's smile turned sad. "Well, they've seem some rather horrific things, recently."

The Count's expression darkened. "I should be there for you, there to protect you. Accursed illness!"

"Don't worry," Ayla assured him. "I'm as save as I can be. Reuben won't let anything happen to me."

And as she said it, she realized with a start that she actually meant it. In spite of her recent doubts about Reuben's loyalty, in spite of the anger at him that still boiled hot, in spite of the lack of a proposal, she didn't doubt for one second that Reuben would sacrifice his life to protect her.

Though, she had to admit, she also didn't doubt he'd prefer sacrificing every single one of their enemies' lives to protect her. But that was fine with her.

"Will he, now?" The Count raised a bushy white eyebrow. "Not that I mean to pry—" He broke off, and frowned. "No, forget that. Actually, I do mean to pry. I'm your father, after all. Prying into your life is what I'm supposed to do. So, tell me, how do things stand between the two of you?"

"What do you mean?"

Her father gave her a withering look. "You do know that I was married once, right? Don't give me that innocent look! You always blush when you're trying to hide something from me."

That, of course, only made Ayla blush more, and she silently cursed herself for it.

"I... I'm not sure how things he stand," she admitted. It was the truth, after all.

He scrutinized for a face for a moment, and then seemed to decide that there was a sufficient lack of blushing.

"Do let me know when you find out," he said, with a wry smile. "Fathers want to know these things, you know."

"Yes. I'll do that."

"And what about the fighting?"

Ayla shrugged. "We fight all the time. But what I'm supposed to do? He's an arrogant, opinionated, devilish lout who won't listen to reason!"

One side of her father's mouth turned up.

"I meant, what about the fighting against the Margrave. You know, the feud? That little war you're fighting?"

"Oh, of course." Quickly, Ayla pulled her thoughts away from the long list of uncomplimentary adjectives she had still to bestow on Reuben. "It's actually going quite well."

"Indeed?"

"Yes. For the first time I belief we truly have a chance of not dying. Well, some of us, at least."

"How impressive. Do send this army commander of yours up to me one day. I must congratulate him on his thorough understanding of the concept of military strategy."

"I'll see what I can do, but he's very busy right now. If he does come up, don't be too hard on him," Ayla said, gently squeezing the Count's hand. "He has—the two of us have—made a lot of unpopular decisions. But I won't be stopped from doing what's necessary to save our people, just because a few stubborn fools don't agree with what's happening."

In brief words, she told him what Reuben and she had done, anxiously watching the play of emotions on the Count's face. The only thing she left out was Reuben's torturing by the Margrave, telling her father simply that he had managed to escape. If the Count already suspected there was something going on between Reuben and her, he didn't need to hear about Reuben's unnatural abilities. The last thing Ayla needed was for her father to suspect that Reuben came straight from Satan's court.

She ended with the crossbows, and their argument with Gernot, the fanatic. When she was finally finished, he breathed out, heavily.

"Well, Ayla, I can't say that I agree with everything you have done." He paused. "But I also can't say that you had any alternative. Well done. I doubt that in your place, I would have done half as well."

"But you're a knight!" She protested. "If you still had your strength...!"

"Even if I had my strength," he cut her off with a surprisingly impish grin for the venerable old men she had always believed her father to be, "I doubt very much that I would have been able to get Sir Reuben as my army commander. I'm sure I lack your persuasive skills."

*~*~**~*~*

"Marriage..."

Reuben rolled the word around in his mouth.

"Marriage... Marriage..."

He started chopping it up into letters: M, A, R, R, I, D, G, E. Then he tried it backwards. E, D, G, I... no wait a minute, there was supposed to be an A in there, somewhere, wasn't there?

Satan's hairy ass! He'd never been good at spelling. But regardless, it didn't make any more sense backwards than forwards.

Marriage?

Why would anyone want to marry? Why would anyone want to stand in front of a church, listening to some priest drone on about chastity, virginity, divine love and the Devil only knew what else, while incense clogged up your nostrils and a mob of nosy people stood around watching you, displayed like a prize goose on a market fare?

Reuben knew about the kind of divine love that priests doled out. He knew ever since he had been in the dungeon under Palermo, and the bishop had made his henchmen try and force a confession from him. That was what you could expect from the church. Blood and spiky metal implements.

Reuben would be dead before he let any of those bastards have anything to do with what he shared with Ayla. Surely, she must see that. Surely, she felt the same.

Fye's tiny voice echoed in his head:

"Are you going to marry her?"

As if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"Bah!" He growled, and made a sign to one of the men on the training grounds to shoot higher. Even in the fading sunlight, Reuben could clearly see the man pale and rise his crossbow higher immediately. "Children! What do they know?"

No, the quicker he seduced Ayla, the better. They were simply wasting time. Marriage were just meaningless words. Her soft, warm curves, preferably without clothes covering them—now those were not meaningless.

*~*~**~*~*

"Persuasive skills!" Ayla muttered, marching down the tower staircase. "Persuasive skills, ha! As if anybody could persuade that thick-headed, dastardly devil to do or don't do anything. Teaching fighting to a little girl... unbelievable! Persuasive skills my foot!"

She passed an embrasure in the wall, and saw red light flooding in through the narrow slit. Was the sun already sinking? She must have been upstairs with her father longer than she thought. A smoky smell invaded her nostrils, suddenly. Was someone baking?

It wasn't until she reached the next embrasure in the wall that she realized the red light coming from outside was flickering. This wasn't the sunset.

"Milady!"

The distant shout was followed by hurried footsteps, coming up the tower fast. Ayla hastened her own steps, heading downwards.

"Milady! Milady, come quickly!"

Halfway down the tower she met him: Sir Gregor, red-faced and out of breath.

"Milady... you must..." The next few words were lost in a series of pants. The knight was in full armor, and weighed down like that had run up all this way. He was near to collapsing. "You must... come now... Emergency!"

"What is it?" Ayla demanded, grasping him by the shoulders to steady him. "What has happened?" 

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No time for an author's note, today, my Lords and Ladies! I'm working like heck on my new secret project! :)

Farewell

Sir Rob