The Vampire & Her Witch

That same night, hours after the sun had set on distant Lothian City, a carriage from Lothian Manor clattered across the well-worn cobblestone roadways, splashing through puddles from an afternoon rainstorm as it carried two unique guests of the manor into the heart of the merchant quarter of the city.

Master Isabell of Blackwell County’s Illustrious Guild of Engineers, and Master Tiernan of the Iron Monger’s Guild occupied an awkward position in the social order of Lothian Manor. Neither of them were nobles of any sort, and as such, they should be bound by the rules that required commoners, even commoners who had been invited by Marquis Bors Lothian, to find accommodations in one of the city’s many inns.

But it was an open secret among the servants of the manor that Marquis Bors intended to grant knighthood on the visiting Guild Masters, making them proper nobles as well as his personal vassals. So while their status as noblemen hadn’t been confirmed, and no one among the household staff would dare to address them as ’Sir Tiernan’ or ’Dame Isabell’, they were both treated with the same level of respect and privilege as a junior member of the peerage.

If things had ended there, then the servants of the manor could have adapted easily enough, but the visiting Guild Masters went even further in flaunting traditions, placing Master Isabell in charge of nearly everything while the taciturn Master Tiernan seemed content to only voice his opinions on matters directly related to his trade.

The strange arrangement had led to a number of unsavory rumors about the pair, with some even speculating that Master Tiernan had become a eunuch in some kind of unfortunate smelting accident. After all, to the hot-blooded men of the frontier, nothing else could explain the way such a physically imposing man would act so henpecked around a woman who wasn’t even his wife.

Neither master seemed to care much for what people whispered in the halls and servants’ quarters during their visit to Lothian City. Instead, both of them were more concerned with the strange request that one of Owain Lothian’s knights had brought them to meet with a merchant in the city.

”Who exactly is this Marcel?” Isabell had asked when Sir Hugo Hanrahan brought the invitation to a private dinner. ”And why has he requested to meet privately with us?”

”Who he is is a little awkward to explain,” the timid steward said. ”He’s not a person of importance, but he represents one of the most well-connected businessmen of the frontier. Lord Owain had some business with his master now that we’ve returned to Lothian City, and while I was speaking with Mister Marcel, he mentioned that he would consider it a favor for his master if he could meet privately with the two of you.”

”What nonsense,” Master Tiernan had said at the time, folding his thickly muscled arms over his chest. ”I don’t meet with people for no reason.”

”I doubt it’s for no reason,” Isabell said, placing a hand gently on the burly man’s shoulder. ”I assume, Steward Hugo, that Lord Owain would consider it a favor from us if we were to accede to this request? In the interests of furthering his own business with the man that Mister Marcel represents?”

”Yes, yes,” Hugo said, nodding his head like a chicken pecking at grain. ”If you two would meet with Mister Marcel, I’m sure the goodwill Lord Owain would receive for making the arrangements would go a long way to smoothing out his other business. Very much so,” he said with a relieved look on his face.

”At least tell us who this man represents,” Tiernan said with a dark scowl rippling across his brow. ”That’s not asking too much, is it, Master Isabell?”

”I’m sure we can find out when we meet with this Mister Marcel,” Isabell said, carefully noting the way sweat formed on the timid knight’s brow. Clearly, the young man wanted to say as little as possible about his lord’s business, but facilitating this meeting put him in an uncomfortably awkward position.

In Isabell’s opinion, there was little to be gained from squeezing Hugo Hanrahan. The man had already been badly whipped into subservience to one lord. Squeezing such a man further was little better than attempting to wring water from a stone.

Kindness, however, could go a long way toward placing the poor man in her debt, and it was much easier to ask him for the occasional ’small kindness’ to repay the small kindnesses she’d shown him than to bark and threaten when he was already backed into a corner by Lord Owain.

Now, as the carriage rolled up to the brightly lit exterior of the Gilded Horns, a widely celebrated establishment that catered to the most wealthy among the commoners of Lothian City, the two guild masters were looking forward to getting some answers.

The building itself wasn’t that impressive by the standards of Blackwell City, standing only three stories tall and lacking any of the grand statues or intricate stonework that would have marked a similar establishment in their home city.

What it lacked in common grandeur, however, it more than made up for with the row of gilded horns, each taken from the skull of a horned demon, that ringed the entrance to the stately building. By quick count, Isabell estimated that there were at least a hundred horns on display, making it brutally obvious how the original owner of the establishment had acquired his fortune to open such an opulent business in the frontier.

”I thought they had to hand the horns over to the Church to receive the bounty offered on these,” Master Tiernan said, pausing to admire the grizzly display. ”Do you think these are cast replicas of the original horns?”

”Oh, these are real, friend,” a young, handsomely dressed man in tight breeches and a loose midnight blue tunic said from the doorway as he flashed the arriving guild masters a dazzling smile. ”Cast replicas would come off as idle boasting, don’t you think? Anyone can take a single horn and make replicas, but to acquire these... it takes something different, doesn’t it?”

”That it does, Mister...?” Isabell asked, adjusting the silver rimmed spectacles on her nose and taking a closer look at the dark-haired youth. The steel haired woman was no stranger to spoiled youths with more money than sense, and looking at this fellow, he certainly dressed the part with expensive silk and hammered silver buttons and buckles but when he moved, there wasn’t the slightest hint of carelessness that she was used to seeing from young men who grew up with a silver spoon in their mouth.

”Marcel, at your service,” he said with a graceful, exaggerated bow. ”Now, Master Isabell, Master Tiernan, I’ve reserved a private dining room for us on the top floor. I hope you’ll indulge me in your company for a few hours tonight,” turning to guide them into the lavish interior of the Gilded Horns.

”After all,” he called over his shoulder. ”We have much to discuss.”