The Robber Knight's Secret

22. Underground

Fritz the soldier didn't like the way things had been going for him lately. Being stabbed in the leg during the battle of the breaking bridge had been bad enough, but that was to be expected. Wounds were part of a soldier's job. Even being captured by the Luntberg soldiers being thrown into their lady's dungeon he didn't mind so much. It was quite a nice dungeon, all things considered. There were fewer rats than in Fritz's cottage back home, and the food wasn't covered in mold, which Fritz had believed was more or less mandatory for dungeons. And even if Luntberg's dungeon had been a rat-infested hovel, Fritz wouldn't have complained. He was a warrior of stout heart, and was used to the privations of war.

But this...

This was something entirely different.

Horrified, Fritz watched as the dungeon door opened and women—actual, honest-to-God women, with children milling all around them, started filing into the windowless room What was this? Where were the torturers, the enemy soldiers that spat in your food, the merciless executioners? Those he could deal with. Those were simply part of a soldier's life. But a flock of chattering females and their howling little brats? That was a low blow! Did people around here have no conscience, no mercy whatsoever?

One of the little brats, sensing his rising panic with the unerring instincts of a child, detached herself from her mother's hand and marched over to him. She stopped about two feet away from him and tilted her head back to stab him with her accusing glare. At least Fritz supposed it was a she. All he could really see was a scowling little face behind a tangled curtain of black hair, and two small fists clutching a doll each.

"Are you one of the baddies who want to chop off our heads?" the little girl demanded, glaring up at him.

"I, um... can't chop off any heads," Fritz replied, desperately praying for an angel to come and rescue him. "See?" He held up his manacled wrists. "My hands are tied."

"Aye. Because Sir Reuben caught you down at the bridge, before you could start trying to chop off our people's heads! He won't let any baddies chop off any more heads!"

This little monster apparently had a one-track mind. Fritz tried his very best to think of something to say that didn't involve severed heads. Finally, he asked: "Who is Sir Reuben?"

"My knight. Here, that's him!" She held up the uglier of her two dolls, proudly. It looked like cross between a squirrel and pile of scrap metal, with a blackened mop for a wig. "He's the handsomest and bravest knight in all the world. He's going to skin you all alive and then roast you slowly over an open fire. Maybe he'll even spice you up with a little pepper and mustard."

"Err... how nice of him."

"And then he'll feed you to the crows, and they'll eat you veeery slowly. They'll go for the eyeballs first, you know. I heard a bard sing a song about the crusades and there was this great battle, and afterwards the crows came and ate all the squashy bits and..."

"You there!" A woman appeared in front of Fritz, glaring from him to the child and back again. From her face he would have thought she was normally a kind and gentle woman. Just now, however, she more resembled a fury from hell. "You monster!" Trembling, she shook a finger under Fritz's nose, and he retreated against the wall to which he was chained. "How dare you frighten my daughter? How dare you! Come, Fye! Let's get away from this evil man."

Picking up the little girl, the mother hurried away, leaving behind a bedraggled, lonely soldier. Over her mother's shoulder, the little girl threw him an evil grin.