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Ré lifted an armored shoulder and let it drop. “Translations.”
Aodh cupped his hands around his mouth and called down, “I remain as clear as ever. Rardove or death.” He paused, then shouted again, “Your westward cannon is sinking.” He pointed.
“Perhaps I can add an additional option to consider.” There was a shifting of the men who flanked the commander, then a lithe figure with blowing skirts was pushed to the front and thrust up to stand on the cannon beside the commander.
Aodh jerked as if punched, and in an instant, his heart fell and fell and fell into the coldest, deepest pit he’d ever known.
“Jesus God,” someone muttered.
“My lady!” someone else gasped. Rippled exclamations of horror and outrage moved down the walls, a wave of curses and shrieks.
Aodh stared down at the sight of Katarina, her hands bound behind her back, her chin up, her small, pale face pointed right at him.
He gripped the stony walls tighter and tighter, until hard bits of rubble broke off in his hands. They bit into his skin like fangs. Blood dripped down his hands, but he didn’t notice. His head pounded.
“We have your stubborn lady, Aodh,” the commander called.
“Reckless
,” Cormac muttered.
“I will see she has a traitor’s death, Aodh, unless you surrender yourself.”
Sickness soured his belly, and he dropped his head as the images held at bay for so many years were finally, finally unleashed on him.
His father, bleeding on the battlefield, clutching Aodh’s shoulder with a mangled hand, making him vow to get Rardove back by whatever means necessary. His father, dragged away by his heels through the mud, black earth mixing with red blood. His father, hanged and taken down while still alive, tied up and cut open, disemboweled, his traitorous parts flung to the far corners of the kingdom.
Katarina, facing the same.
Slowly, his hand fisted tight around the rubble, he started to go down to his knees.
He heard someone curse and there was a jerk on his arm, then Ré was there, holding him, pushing him up against the high crenel with a forearm, his hip against Aodh’s, holding him up. “Aodh. Aodh!”
He shook his head, clearing it.
He jerked free, then wiped his hand over his mouth and swung back to Katarina. Her gown flowed around her. The small figure of Ludthorpe moved, then lifted something to her face. The trumpet. She was to say something to him. No doubt a call to surrender.
“Do not!”’ Thin and tiny, her voice came up. One of the soldiers holding her gave her a hair a shake. Aodh almost lunged over the forty-foot wall. “You promised,” she called again through the trumpet, wrenching free from the constraining arm. “You promised me.”
He whirled back around and stared into the horrified faces of his men. Ré, Cormac, Bran, all staring at him in stupefied silence.
Aodh stared back at them for a heartbeat. Here then was the true danger of Katarina. She could do what armies and mercenaries and kings and queens had not been able to: she could make him give up Rardove.
He turned and hurried down the rampart wall, making for the stairs. “Open the gate.”
Ré cursed and hurried after. “Wait, Aodh, speak to me.”
“Walk with me.” Aodh leapt down the last two steps and hit the bailey ground in a puff of dirt. Ré jumped down after.
As they passed through the bailey, people turned and stared, as the news began moving through the castle. They walked past staring eyes and dropped jaws, the inhabitants and allies of the lord of Rardove struck dumb by this disastrous turn of events. There were more people within the walls of Rardove at this moment than had ever been there in its history, yet silence reigned as he and Ré strode through its center.
The only sound was the squawking of chickens and the jingle of horse tack and knightly gear: bridles, buckles, sword hilts. Somewhere, far back, a dog barked, and drifting in from over the walls, the low murmur of death that an army always carries on its back.
“You cannot go out there,” Ré insisted, his face sweaty.
“I am to leave her out there?” Aodh replied, grabbing hold of a rope that hung by the gatehouse and swinging himself up five or six steps, then taking the rest three at a time, climbing to the top of the gatehouse, en route to the inner stairwell that would lead to the door outside.
Ré followed after. “I shall go in your stead.”
