Aldred regarded her cooly, deciphering her words and accepting them as those of a confused woman who had not only been mislead by her husband but spent the last hour or so locked away in a cellar, hiding from a vicious battle. "There will be no executions. Your husband was slain on the battlements." He decided it prudent not to mention that the slayer had not been himself, nor one of his men. It had been a crossbow bolt fired into his back as he tried run, having lost his weapon in a duel with Aldred only moments prior. Aldred had promised the man a pouch of crowns for that shot, though he slightly resented that it had not been himself dealing the deathblow. It would have been more impressive, he supposed. Still. This way the event maintained a certain level of professional anonymity - that was masculine, to an extent. Even the way he talked to women with the intention of bedding them was tactical, thought-through. He wondered if his way of looking at the world, developed over a lifetime of constant, unremitting battle, was actually of benefit in situations like this. Then again, he supposed not - bedding this woman wouldn't be a matter of talking her into it.<br/><br/>He did, however, take careful note of one of her statements. She did not take kindly to strangers with the blood of her family on their hands. He would have to be wary of this one - the most potent assassin, as the saying went, was a whore with a knife. The best time to strike was as a man emptied his balls.<br/><br/>He had offered her his hand, but she had not taken it. He simply reached further and wrapped his bulky ironclad fingers around her slim wrist. Mindfully, yet decisively, he pulled her along as he turned away at a pace slightly faster than perhaps she'd been expecting. This action wasn't a ploy or thought-out strategy. The simple truth was that he could barely wait to be alone with her behind a barred door. As they moved throughout the halls of the castle, though great halls and long corridors, up spiralling flights of staircases, the pair drew some knowing glances from Aldred's men as they stalked the corridors in groups, hunting for foes that had ran and hid within the depths of the castle, their weapons bloody from the fight. A few gave crisp nods and salutes. To them, there was no surer sign of victory than Aldred taking the lady of whatever place they'd just conquered to her bedroom. His ploughing of her was symbolic of their victory overall, they felt. Aldred enjoyed the metaphor.<br/><br/>Eventually, after ascending the last flight of stairs, they stood in a narrow entryway, facing a door that, while ornate, was less ostentatiously large than most of the doors strewn throughout the castle. The lord's bedroom. At either side of the door, a pair of fully-armoured guards would usually stand on duty - their places had been made evident by coloured tiles, into each a small grove had been dug by the shaft of the heft pole-weapons the guards had hefted. The door was swung wide open. Aldred guided her inside, his pace the fastest yet it had been, and turned around. His actions returned to a state of slow purposefulness as he heaved the door closed, and secured the bolt in place with a heavy thunk. He had discarded the torch some time ago, and with both hands free, reached up to his helm, thumbing the fasteners that kept it in place before hefting the entire thing off his head. He let it clatter to the ground, the sturdy metal unharmed by the fall to cold floor. He turned around, revealing the rest of his head to the woman - what she had not been able to see was his dark, curly hair, somewhat flattened from the weight of the helmet and the arming cap beneath it. Once a hand moved through it, it returned to its wild state. He was not a man who saw a need to constantly maintain his hair - barber-medics were better put to work conducting surgery and cauterising wounds, so he let it grow until it became a nuisance and cut it himself. It suited his features - gave him a decidedly feral element that only built onto his exceptionally warlike appearance.