The Vampire & Her Witch

For a moment after Bastian made his plea the hall went quiet and even the crackling of the fires in the great hall’s hearths and the tapping of rain and hail against the windows felt loud while the Marquis contemplated Bastian’s request.

Next to the young Hanrahan lord, Liam Dunn fumed quietly. The Dunns had already made their tithe for the autumn but if his father was right, the losses to their herds of sheep and cattle would be extraordinary. Men were still scouring the countryside in the wake of the storm, but early estimates were that they had lost more than three hundred head of livestock.

To the whole of the barony, it might sound small, but for the individual hamlets, the losses were devastating. Replenishing the sheep that produced so much of the march’s wool would take at least a year, and the cattle would take between two and four years to replace, so while the most recent tithe had been met, when the next ones came due it would be much more difficult.

By contrast, the Hanrahans had lost crops of vegetables and grain. Their losses amounted to a single harvest and while they would doubtlessly suffer a lean winter, by the end of spring, it would be as if nothing happened to them. Yet they were already begging to be excused from their obligations and even had the gall to ask for the Marquis and the Church to guard their caravans from the demons!

”Your request isn’t entirely unreasonable,” Bors said, provoking another fit of coughing intense enough that he briefly clutched his chest. ”The winter weather doesn’t agree with me,” he said mildly after taking a moment to collect himself and sip more of the steaming mulled wine. ”Pay it no mind.”

”Father,” Loman said, standing up from his seat and looking at the aging Marquis with genuine concern. ”Perhaps we should take a brief recess. The news has been... significant. I’m sure that many of us would benefit from a few moments to compose ourselves,” he added with a brief glance at High Priest Aubin. Unfortunately, his subtle request for support was met with nothing more than a non-committal shrug, as though the aging priest didn’t care either way.

Jocelynn, on the other hand, didn’t bother with asking for permission. She knew the old man’s pride well enough by now to know that he would never ask for anything that implied he was weak or required support, especially in front of High Priest Aubin who was older than him by decades and Baron Leufroy who had been his companion in arms.

So while Loman tried to convince his father to call a recess, Jocelynn strode across the room to the racks of fur cloaks hanging next to the hearth. The garments had dried long ago and now radiated a pleasant warmth that complimented their softness when she felt each of them.

”Forgive me, High Priest Aubin,” Jocelynn said, wrapping the first of three cloaks she’d retrieved around the back of the aging priest’s chair so he could pull it around his shoulders if he wished or ignore it as he pleased. ”I’ve been negligent to my elders and remiss in my responsibilities,” she said as she brought the next cloak to drape across Bors’ lap while bringing the third one to Baron Leufroy.

”Thank you, Lady Jocelynn,” the baron said as he draped the warm cloak around his shoulders, smiling affectionately at the young woman who had already taken his darling daughter under her wing.

”The cold has a way of troubling every old soldier and I’ve grown so used to the aches, I hadn’t even noticed the chill taking hold of me,” he added with a pointed glance at the young lords at his table as if to suggest that one of them should have been so courteous to their seniors.

”Lady Jocelynn is always thoughtful and courteous,” Bors agreed from his throne as he pulled the cloak close for warmth against the chill that had nothing to do with the wind and hail outside the hall. ”But I doubt we need to take a recess, Loman. I’m sure everyone would prefer that this session end sooner rather than later, and young Bastian is right to prompt us to action instead of speculation.

”Owain,” he said, turning to his eldest son. ”I’ve placed you in charge of seeing to the accounting of tithes and our preparations for the war,” he said, as if he was preparing to drop the responsibility for the shortfall squarely on his son’s shoulders. ”Tell me, how much will this set us back and what should we do about it?”

”Of course father,” Owain said with a calculating gleam in his eyes and a half smile tugging at the corners of his lips. ”Thankfully, even though your Grace commanded my personal guard and steward leave Lothian City for a more important mission during this time, my sister-in-law, Lady Jocelynn Blackwell, is well versed with methods of accounting.”

His reminder about Sir Hugo and Sir Rain leaving under his father’s orders served several purposes for the young Lothian Lord. First, it made it clear to everyone that his father had removed one of the most important supports he would need to take command of receiving the tithes, though that piece of information drew different responses from each of the barons present.

Baron Leufroy nodded in understanding, as if this sort of thing was to be expected from an aging lord grooming his successor. Forcing Owain to handle matters personally would ensure that he was deeply aware of the individual pieces that made up the larger whole of the March’s administrative operation and Valeri found himself nodding in silent approval at his old friend’s methods for grooming his heir.

Baron Otker, on the other hand, looked horrified at the notion of being forced to do such work without the support of the highly trained men under his command who managed such affairs. He’d spent lavishly to have his own steward trained in the finest academy in Keating Duchy after all, and if his father had made him do without that sort of support, he wouldn’t have known where to begin.

When Owain moved on to mentioning Lady Jocelynn’s support, however, both men arrived at the same conclusion about Owain’s second point. The young lord was already capitalizing on his marriage alliance with the affluent Blackwell family who seemed to have sent their younger daughter here to support the Lothian family while the elder daughter prepared to give birth to Owain’s first child.

All of which made Owain’s final point loud enough that it forced both men to reassess the frequently single-minded Lothian Heir. This was a man who would carve his own path forward, both on the battlefield and off... and he was making powerful allies who would help him to do so.

”My Lady,” Owain said, extending a hand to the elegant young woman sitting next to him. ”Please explain to my father and the rest of the court where matters stand and the plan I’ve devised to make up for the shortfall,” he said with a charming smile that fooled no one who knew him well.

Of course, most of ’his’ plan had come from Jocelynn, but the most important parts, the things she hadn’t been clever enough to think of, had all come from him. His father might have taken away his steward and tried to push him into a trap by foisting responsibility for ledgers and accounts on the son who was least concerned with books and learning, but Owain wasn’t about to go down without a fight.

Especially not when he had a convenient and compliant weapon like Jocelynn available. All she needed was a little bit of his guidance and Owain was certain she would prove as deadly as any sword... and his father would learn all too late that he’d been out maneuvered from the beginning.