The Vampire & Her Witch

Wes and Erling rode in a silence that was more thoughtful than comfortable after that, each of them watching the head of the column for different reasons.

Wes was watching Garrik and Owain, his mind tumbling through the scraps of information his agents in Lothian city had given him when he arrived and combining them with the things he’d seen firsthand since then.

Iriso Barony wasn’t wealthy enough to do much more than gather gossip from servants in Lothian Manor and merchants in the marketplace of Lothian City, but even that had told him a great deal.

The servants who had cleaned the Marquis’s study after his death, for example, had mentioned that Bors Lothian left behind piles of deathbed decrees, though no one seemed to know their contents. A few, however, claimed that some of the decrees looked impressive enough to be grants of titles or lands.

It could be that Bors had simply wanted to bestow the position of Knight Errant on a few of his most loyal retainers as they approached retirement. It would protect their positions should Owain decide to reorganize his household, and it was something that Bors was said to have done for his father’s retainers when he took the throne all those years ago.

But if Bors had left behind a decree pertaining to Garrik Maeril and Owain Lothian intended to follow through on his father’s will, it could explain why the Lothian lord was giving Sir Garrik so much of his attention right now, and it might not bode well for Baron Erling Fayle.

While Wes was preoccupied with thoughts of the late Marquis’ final decrees, Erling was focused on other recent events, pulling together the few scraps of information he’d managed to gather since arriving in Lothian City and lining them up with the very strange set of circumstances they found themselves in.

It was Wes who broke the silence first, nudging his horse closer to Baron Fayle’s and lowering his voice to ensure that they weren’t overheard while he spoke.

”About this morning,” Wes said. ”At breakfast. The thing you said about siblings.”

Erling nodded slightly while his eyes instinctively swept over the people around them. Serge Otker was still leaning awkwardly in his saddle, and it looked like Tulori Leufroy was trying to help the portly young lord to keep his horse on the trail. The only other person who might have been close enough to them that he might overhear was Lord Reynold Aleese, though the burly man seemed like he was putting more distance between them in order to avoid Lord Serge.

”Something happened between Lord Owain and his brother Loman,” Wes said carefully. ”More than you might realize. There are people in Lothian City who believe that Lord Owain and his brother had a falling out before the Marquis’s death.”

”I haven’t seen much of Lord Loman since he returned from the Holy City a few years ago,” Erling said. ”But he struck me as being fairly mild and pious. What could he and Lord Owain have fallen out over?”

”I don’t know,” Wes said with a heavy sigh. ”I was hoping that Valeri or Serle would join the hunt today so I could ask them about what they’ve seen. They’re the only ones among us to have arrived before Marquis Bors’ death.”

The fact that Bors Lothian had summoned Barons Leufroy and Otker at the start of winter was already something that rang warning bells in Wes Iriso’s mind, but he hadn’t been able to get answers from either man about what the late marquis had wanted from them.

In the end, he’d been forced to open his purse strings wider, spreading a bit of silver among the servants of Lothian Manor before he learned that both barons had been instructed to bring their daughters with them while their sons stayed behind.

Not only that, but both Lady Adala Leufroy and Lady Charlotte Otker had been seen meeting privately with their fathers and Lord Loman, which only added to Baron Iriso’s suspicions about the younger Lothian Lord.

”I was able to learn one concerning thing,” he added, glancing briefly at Owain, ensuring that the future marquis was still deep in conversation with his knights as they rode. ”When Lord Loman rode out to investigate the demons in Hanrahan, he didn’t go as a priest of the Church. He rode out under his own banner, representing his father. Sir Tommin was the one who led the Temple Guard, not Lord Loman.”

It was a subtle detail, but one that instantly caught Erling’s attention. Of the two brothers, Owain was the one most suited to hunt demons at the furthest edges of the frontier. If Lord Loman had gone because the Church had ordered it, that would be one thing, but for Marquis Bors to send Loman rather than Owain was strange indeed.

”No one knows the details,” Wes added. ”And no one with any sense is saying much about it, but the fact that Lord Loman isn’t here for his own father’s funeral...”

”Is suspicious,” Erling said quietly. It could just be that Loman had caught the trail of the demons who were raiding the western baronies, and he couldn’t give up the hunt in order to return for the funeral, but the young baron didn’t think that was likely. Sir Tommin and the Inquisitor from the Holy City could continue the hunt without him.

Whether it was as a son or as a priest, Loman would want to be present when his father’s body was placed upon the pyre. He might even want to participate in the rites to prepare his father’s body before the pyre was set ablaze to light Bors’ way to the Heavenly Shores. It wasn’t the sort of thing that a pious man like Loman would miss.

”Extremely suspicious,” Wes agreed. ”And Lord Owain doesn’t react well when people draw attention to things he’d rather keep quiet. I should have warned you before breakfast, but there wasn’t time.”

Erling nodded slowly, absorbing the information and fitting it into the pattern that had been forming in his mind since he’d arrived in Lothian City...