The Vampire & Her Witch

”This...” Aubin said with a sharp intake of breath as he struggled to think of a reason that Bors would have demanded that Percivus take such an... aggressive approach with the women from Blackwell. ”Why would the Marquis want to see you suffer? Why would Lord Bors want to see a Confessor dead?”

”Because, in his illness, Lord Bors wasn’t in his right mind,” Jocelynn said, expressing the only conclusion she’d been able to reach about Bors’ strange behavior, both before and after he’d attacked her. ”I came to his chambers three times a day to help care for him,” she explained. ”I brought his meals and talked to him to keep him company.”

”At first, he didn’t care much for my company,” she admitted, remembering how sharp his tongue had been and how little he trusted her motives. She hadn’t blamed him for it. By the time his health had begun to fail him, she’d come to terms with how wrong she’d been to betray Ashlynn.

Bors hadn’t been wrong to mistrust her, but she’d hoped that her actions would make up for her misdeeds. That she could prove to him, as Eleanor and Master Isabell had said, that she could still grow into the kind of woman her sister had been, one who was willing to work hard and dedicate herself to improving life for the people of Lothian March.

”The second day I visited him, he seemed to have changed his mind about me,” Jocelynn said, trying to be charitable to the man who had nearly taken her life and caused her endless misery when he loosed the Inquisition on her. ”I thought that he was giving me a chance. I didn’t realize that he’d begun to see me as his late wife.”

She’d been so happy that he was listening to her ideas. They spent hours together, even after he’d finished the bland meals that Master Hess had ordered Master Baden to prepare for the ailing marquis.

Jocelynn spoke with Bors about everything from establishing fisheries in the lakes of Leufroy Barony to the construction of an Academy for tradesmen in Lothian City, and countless other things she felt would benefit the march. She’d even recommended launching a carriage service between the major towns of the march, like the ferry service that carried people between the islands of Blackwell County.

”Then,” she said, raising a hand to the faint scar on her chest that was all that remained of the wound Bors had inflicted with his knife. ”One night, the fever dream ended. He saw me for myself, and he accused me of witchcraft. He called me a demon for taking the appearance of his late wife, and he attacked me,” she said, pulling back the fur cloak and the neckline of her rough, wool dress in order to reveal the scar where Bors had cut her.

”Cousin Eleanor healed me,” Jocelynn said, pursing her lips together and turning back to the women preparing her cousin’s body as she fought back the tears to continue her story. ”We thought that would be the end of it. Even when we learned that he’d summoned an Inquisitor, we thought that Eleanor’s miracle of healing would be enough to prove our innocence.”

”But Percivus rejected your proof,” Aubin said with a deep frown. ”But I don’t understand why he would do that. The Inquisition seeks truth. Even if Percivus is known to be somewhat... overzealous,” he said as he struggled to find a way to walk the line between the duties of his office and his private opinions of the most notorious Inquisitor in all of Lothian March.

”The truth should have been as obvious to his eyes as it was to mine,” the High Priest said. ”Your cousin performed a divine miracle of healing... There shouldn’t be any doubt that either of you are witches or that you consort with demons.”

”The Inquisitor didn’t throw me in a cell and feed me the tongues of the men Percivus executed because he was seeking truth,” Jocelynn said bitterly as she wondered what cruel torments the fanatical Inquisitor had subjected Eleanor to before her cousin finally decided that death was preferable to suffering under the Inquisition’s care for even one more day.

”He was seeking an agreement with Lord Bors to move the Inquisition’s abbey into Lothian City,” Jocelynn said, remembering the way Percivus had explained his need to find as many ’conspirators’ as possible. ”He wanted to prove to Lord Bors that the people around him were plotting against him and that he would only be safe if he kept the Inquisition close.”

”So, if Inquisitor Percivus has brokered a deal with Lord Bors for his support,” Jocelynn said, returning her attention to the High Priest. ”Will you still stand up for me and my cousin? Even if it means driving a wedge between the Church and the Marquis?”

”I won’t make you any promises that I can’t keep,” Aubin said as he struggled to keep a look of profound disgust and fury from showing on his face. Percivus had fed the tongues of the men he executed to Lady Jocelynn? Just how depraved had the torment she endured been? No wonder Eleanor had needed to make such an extreme sacrifice to keep her lady safe, he realized. The women had likely been at the brink of death before Eleanor used her ritual to ensure that one of them survived.

”If need be, I can write to Grand Inquisitor Ramaz in Keating, or to...”

”Don’t bother,” Jocelynn said, shaking her head in disappointment at the High Priest’s powerless promise. As soon as she said it, she bit back the next words that were ready to spring from her lips, condemning the man for the weakness of his faith if he refused to take a stand against the mad marquis of Lothian March.

High Priest Aubin had already received her and Eleanor as victims of a great tragedy instead of treating them as dangerous heretics suspected of witchcraft and consorting with demons. He’d promised to give Eleanor the funeral rites she deserved, as a Confessor and as a Blackwell. He had even promised to seek support from people with the authority to take a stand that he couldn’t risk taking himself...

Aubin wasn’t her enemy, even if his support couldn’t accomplish what she wanted. There were limits to how far the High Priest could go without upsetting the delicate balance between the Church and the Marquis. She understood that, but that didn’t mean she had to accept his limitations.

”I’m sorry,” she said after letting out a deep, shuddering breath. ”You’re already doing so much for me. Asking you to fight against a Marquis is taking things a step too far.”

”We aren’t powerless to take action against Inquisitor Percivus for what he’s done, Lady Jocelynn,” Aubin said carefully. ”I can still summon the Abbot here to account for Percivus’s actions, and I can impose a period of penance on him. For the next year at least, Percivus will spend his days in solitary prayer where he can contemplate the scriptures and the errors of his ways.”

”I know that isn’t sufficient punishment for what he’s done,” Aubin said, raising a hand before Jocelynn could protest. ”But it will give me time to discuss the matter with Lord Bors, and to report it to his superiors in the Inquisition outside of the march. During that time, he won’t be able to harm anyone else in his search for ’conspirators’ against the Marquis.”

”I see,” Jocelynn said, biting her lower lip as she held back the arguments that sprang to her lips. She hadn’t come here to demand justice for what Percivus had done... She’d already accepted the fact that if she wanted justice, she would have to obtain it for herself. At this point, anything more she said would only cause an argument, and that was the last thing she wanted to do while she waited for the temple to finish preparing Eleanor for her pyre.

Besides, Aubin’s offer wasn’t entirely useless. Jocelynn had arrived in Lothian March with Sir Elgon and three other knights, and Owain had brought her a number of additional loyal men from Blackwell, like Captain Albyn. Alone, they weren’t enough to make a move against the abbey in Maeril, but she had also arrived in the march with a small chest filled with silver and gold... more than enough to raise a small army from among the mercenaries and demon hunters who were often forced to wait out the winter without work.

Rhys Blackwell had taught his daughter well. Providing for the prosperity of the common folk was the best path to stability for the realm. People who lived comfortable, prosperous lives were unlikely to rise up against the lords who ruled over them. But conditions in Lothian March were far from prosperous, and there were too many men who had lost fathers, brothers, even sons to the wars that the Lothians and the Church insisted on fighting against the demons every generation.

It wouldn’t be easy to recruit the men she needed, but if Aubin could confine Percivus to the abbey for an entire year, it would give Jocelynn more than the time she needed to assemble a force that could lay siege to the abbey. Given the choice of spending a winter under siege or surrendering a single Inquisitor, she was certain that she could convince the abbot to make the right decision. And if he wouldn’t, then she was willing to throw everything away in order to see justice done.

But the time to confront Percivus and the Church that sheltered him would come later. Right now, it was time to say her last goodbyes...