The man swallowed. “Soldiers came from the woods.” He gestured behind him. “Sir Leon said we all must fight. All who were able, save the women and children.”
“And where are the women and children now?” Otto demanded. Surely Ariana would be with them?
“Gone into hiding, down by the river.” The man staggered to one side and Tristan quickly removed his blade.
“Stand easy,” the young knight said, steadying the farm worker against him. “We will not harm an unarmed man.”
“Is everyone gone?” Otto asked. He spun around his horse so he could take in a full view of the bailey, where not so much as a chicken scratched among the weeds. The fortress was deserted.
Arthur nodded, slumped now against Tristan. His face had turned an unhealthy gray color.
Despair clutched icy tendrils around Otto’s heart. He was too late. Ariana would have already fled. Or worse. But he wouldn’t allow himself to go there.
“Secure the fortress,” he commanded Gaius. “I will take twenty men into the keep. We must search every room for the countess. But first, someone bind up this man’s arm.”
A knight hurried forward with a pot of salve and a roll of bandage pulled from a saddlebag well equipped with medical supplies. Otto sprung from his horse and unsheathed his sword, motioning to a group of nearby knights to follow him and putting one hand to his lips to show they must be quiet. Their enemies appeared to have already fled, but who knew what they would find within the fortified walls?
As one, they crept up the cracked front steps and through the wide oak doors which stood open as if waiting for them.
Was this a trap?
Otto paused to allow his eyes to adjust to the gloomy interior of the entrance hall, which was less than half the size of Darkmoor’s. Narrow stairs ran up to his left, beside an unlit fireplace and a wooden door shut fast. Otto motioned for one of his knights to try the door, braced all the time for attack. But the man returned within moments to whisper that the chamber was empty, and not a sound came from elsewhere. Still the hairs on the back of Otto’s neck raised high. A sour, cheerless air pervaded the keep, which stemmed not from the ravages of battle, more from years of quiet despair. He had always thought of Darkmoor being more a fortress than a home, but compared to this, he had grown up amidst cheer and light abounding.
How had Ariana’s courage and resolve sprung from such a bleak place?
Andreas de Montain lit one of the bracketed wall torches over their heads and crackling orange light flooded the stone-flagged hallway. Otto nodded his thanks and led his men further into the keep. But no sooner had he turned the next corner than he came to an abrupt halt, young Tristan walking straight into his back.
Otto held up a warning hand for silence as he struggled to process the scene before him. Here, the narrow corridor widened into a windowless antechamber, into which what looked like the main staircase led. But the design of the fortressheld little interest for him; what had seized his attention was the fallen, bloodied figure sprawled across the smooth stones. The face was turned away, but the man was instantly recognizable thanks to the color of his hair and the richness of his clothing. Otto took a deep breath.
“Althalos is dead,” he announced to the men behind him, his voice reverberating off the rough walls.
He waited for a pall of grief, for despite everything, this man was his uncle, the last of his kin, but none came. He felt nothing. Not even relief. A small voice at the back of his mind bemoaned that he would never now take revenge on the man who had betrayed his trust and put his bride’s very life at risk, but Otto quietened it down. His was not the hand that had plunged the jeweled dagger into Althalos’s ribs, but someone had. That was enough.
Silently, his men fanned out around him, all quietly considering the dead man.
“He was a traitor to his family,” hissed young Tristan, earning himself a warning look from his brothers in arms. But Otto nodded his agreement.
“That he was.”
“Shall we move the body?” asked another.
Otto thought for a moment. “Aye. Do that. Take him out into the light where any of his remaining army may see him and know their battle is well and truly over.” Immediately his men shifted to do his bidding, one gripping Althalos by the ankles and another hauling up his shoulders.
“Shall we search down here?” Andreas nodded towards the darkening corridor.
“Aye,” Otto agreed again. “I shall go on up.” His eye followed the line of the staircase. “Listen for my shout.”
Before anyone could express their doubt in his solo quest, Otto strode forward, his heavy boots pounding against the stonebeneath them. He made short work of the shadowy staircase, checking every chamber he came to with his sword held aloft, but finding no one within. Eventually, with a roar of frustration, he concluded he had searched to the very top of the keep. Ariana was not here. Nor was there anything to tell him where she might have spent the last weeks, or whether she even still lived.
No. He put a hand to his heart, silencing the thought. His wife still lived. He knew it deep inside.
Weary now, he allowed himself to sink down onto the low bed inside the final chamber. The bed creaked beneath his weight, but Otto hardly noticed. His eyes scanned the room, taking in a solitary wooden closet and a narrow window looking out onto the recent battleground. A footstool had been pulled beneath the window, as if someone had been on the look-out for approaching riders.
Otto’s mind leaped. Could Ariana have perched there? Mayhap looking out for his approach? Immediately he cursed himself for the idea, which only brought him pain. Why had he not ridden out to rescue her days earlier?
It was too late now. Perchance the approaching riders Ariana had seen were the knights of Sir Althalos, coming to attack her father’s depleted army. If so, she might have had time to escape.
Let it be so,he prayed, his hands fanning out over the rough woolen blankets. His fingers snagged on something sharp, and he looked closer, his eyes widening in surprise as he saw the familiar curves of his mother’s broach. The token he had presented to Ariana on that long-ago day in the morning room.
