The Vampire & Her Witch

For the first time in months, perhaps for the first time since her family made the long journey to Lothian March for her sister’s wedding, Jocelynn unburdened herself completely. Her cheek still stung from Isabell’s slap, but Jocelynn rarely noticed as she poured out every secret she held deep in her heart. From Samira the imposter in the Summer Villa to Owain’s intentions to prevent the Guild Masters from gaining significant merits in the Holy War to come, she left no detail out.

For her part, Isabell did her best to listen as calmly as she could, mentally taking notes for all the things she dared not commit to paper. Many of the schemes Jocelynn seemed to be aware of were things that Isabell and Master Tiernan had noticed already, but some of them were especially cruel.

”He wants to press my Lassian into service as a squire?” Isabell said in shock when Jocelynn mentioned how Owain had decided to keep the powerful engineer under his control once she revealed her formidable capabilities for waging war.

The words came out in a strangled whisper as Isabell’s entire body went rigid. Her fingers curled into tight fists and her knuckles turned white as she fought to maintain her composure. Her heart pounded in her chest, and her vision went red in a way that it hadn’t since the days she fought beside the Emerald King when someone attempted to capture Casquas to force her to abandon the king’s side in that bloody civil war. When she finally spoke again, her voice had transformed into something hard and brittle, like ice about to crack.

”He’s only fourteen. He isn’t going to begin his apprenticeship for another two years and we’ve already made arrangements with the Undaunted Shipwrights for him.” Her jaw clenched so tightly between sentences that Jocelynn could hear the faint grind of teeth. ”Why does Lord Owain think he can just force my son into service like this?”

”Because this is the frontier,” Jocelynn said, scooting back on her chair ever so slightly, as if to put additional room between herself and the cold fury radiating from the Guild Master. ”If you become a knight, then your son becomes your heir,” she added, as if it explained matters. ”All knights in the frontier are expected to bear arms and serve in the March’s forces during times of war. And a young man can be appointed a squire at thirteen.”

”So he wants my son as a hostage,” Isabell said darkly. She had known that coming here and participating in this Holy War would be dangerous, but she hadn’t imagined that she’d need to defend her family against her ’allies’ as well as the demons arrayed against them. ”And as soon as I summon my family to join me here, he intends to capture them.”

”It’s good that Issandra is beginning her apprenticeship in Blackwell City instead of following us here. Otherwise, I’m sure Owain would attempt to wed her to one of the pigs that follow him like lapdogs,” she said, not bothering to hide her disdain for Owain’s loyal retainers.

”He, he felt that your daughter, and, and Master Tiernan’s youngest daughter,” Jocelynn said slowly, unable to meet the furious engineer’s gaze. ”He felt that they should be offered as rewards to Lord Bastian Hanrahan or Sir Rian Aleese if they continued to support Owain’s cause.”

”Rewards?!” Isabell said, all but shouting, before she bit back her words and continued in a quieter, but only slightly restrained tone. ”But he can’t just decide who my children will marry,” Isabell said incredulously. ”It is a matter for each family to decide which traditions of marriage they will follow. That’s been the law since the founding of the Kingdom,” she protested.

”That’s been the law for the common people of the kingdom,” Jocelynn countered. ”In the early days of the kingdom, there were too many settlers from too many different kingdoms across the sea. The founding laws are full of compromises to stop the dukes and counts from turning on each other after the First Crusade. But the law for nobles is different.”

”Different how?” Isabell asked, frowning at the young woman. This sort of thing was part of the reason she refused to be awarded a title in the Emerald Kingdom. Relationships between people were matters of the heart, and even if an introduction was arranged between families, the couple themselves should be able to accept or reject the arrangement. ”I understand that most noble families follow a tradition of arranging marriage, but are you saying the law actually requires it?”

”It’s been the law ever since the Shield Breaker Rebellion,” Jocelynn explained, looking helpless. ”A liege lord has the right to dictate the marriages of his vassals and their children if he does so to foster peace and prosperity within his domain.”

The Shield Breaker Rebellion had been one of the greatest tests of the Kingdom of Gaal in its early years, when the nobles stationed at the kingdom’s borders had betrayed their oaths and allowed demon armies to march past them unchallenged, attacking the vulnerable interior of the kingdom. The border lords argued that they were suffering too greatly to protect the kingdom, without the support or recognition that their efforts demanded.

In the end, after years of fighting to purge the kingdom of invading demons and subdue the rebellious lords, the King issued a number of proclamations intended to prevent such an uprising from happening again. One of them had been a law allowing a lord to arrange marriages between his vassals and the king had wielded the law like a club, wedding the sons of border lords to the daughters of heartland nobles in an attempt to create ties that would once again bind together the kingdom in peace and prosperity.

”That law is ancient,” Isabell said in disbelief. ”The Shield Breaker Rebellion happened more than a hundred years ago, didn’t it? Besides, there’s been no rebellion in Lothian March, there’s no need for this sort of arrangement here.”

”It doesn’t matter,” Jocelynn said, shaking her head. ”The law gives every lord the right to settle matters within his domain as long as it fosters ’peace and prosperity.’ You and Master Tiernan are newcomers to Lothian March. Marrying your children and heirs to established families can be considered promoting the ’peace’ of the March.”

”You still don’t understand Owain the way I do,” Jocelynn added. ”He wants to turn Lothian March into his ’sword and shield,’ and he’ll use any method he can find to make sure it behaves like weapons he can wield as he wishes. He, he isn’t just making plans for settling you and the other Guild Masters,” she said. ”He wants to humble the Church as well, and bring down anyone who supports Loman for the throne. If an old law lets him do that...”

In truth, even Jocelynn had been surprised by the extent to which Owain was rooting around in ancient history to find methods to ’bring his vassals to heel.’ It wasn’t until she learned that Sir Hugo Hanrahan had been living a scholar’s life in exile until his father needed a spare heir that she realized where Owain’s knowledge of these ancient laws and traditions was coming from.

If Owain had taken a sudden interest in the laws and traditions of the kingdom because he was preparing to take up greater responsibilities, or if he was trying to find ways that he could use that knowledge to help win his father’s favor and secure their future together, Jocelynn would have been proud to help him.

She knew less about the laws for governing than Ashlynn did, but she knew a great deal about the rules and traditions that governed commerce, taxes, and things that her father said a person must know to create a domain where even the common people lived prosperous lives. Surely, if she and Owain could have found ways to win over the hearts of the common folk by lifting them up, Bors Lothian would have seen fit to approve their marriage and Owain’s inheritance.

Instead, Owain seemed intent on dredging up every method he could to bend the March to his will, and that included controlling the lives and futures of the lords who ruled it. At first, Jocelynn had argued that going too far would provoke the very sort of rebellion that had created many of these old laws in the first place, but Owain’s fury at the notion his lords would rebel against him had been so terrifying that Jocelynn never brought it up again.

”My father could have done any of these things years ago,” Owain had said with a blaze in his eyes that shook Jocelynn to the core. ”The fact that he was too timid, too afraid of his own lords to turn them into a force strong enough to crush the demons is the reason that he could never become a Duke. But I refuse to repeat my father’s mistakes!”