The Vampire & Her Witch

Morwen blinked, caught off guard for a heartbeat before she remembered herself and the small purse tucked inside her threadbare winter coat. The total was only a few snips, but she counted them carefully into the fishmonger’s calloused palm.

She supposed she looked a little reluctant, digging through her purse to find a few loose snips, but the truth was that she didn’t carry more than a few strips from getting change in the markets, and the rest of her purse was full of small silver pennies that she didn’t want the fishmonger to see.

The fishmonger swept the coins into his apron, passed Morwen a rough burlap sack containing their purchases, including the bucket full of heads and tails, before he turned to begin closing up his stall. Morwen held the sack at arm’s length for a moment, wrinkling her nose at the smell, before Ashlynn gave her a look that suggested handmaidens didn’t get to be squeamish about fish.

”Be glad it’s winter instead of summer,” Ashlynn said as she watched Morwen shifting her grip on the sack so she could carry things properly. ”You don’t want to smell the end-of-day leftovers when they’ve had all day to stew in their own juices under a hot summer sun.”

”I, I imagine not,” Morwen said even as she struggled to picture how much larger the fish markets of Blackwell must be compared to the market in Lothian City. The river Luath was large, cold, and swift, and it teemed with fish for much of the year, but the fishermen of Lothian March only harvested enough fish to feed the towns and villages of the march.

Blackwell, on the other hand, caught so many fish that they sold barrels of fish, packed in salt or brine, to almost every corner of the Kingdom of Gaal. Compared to what Lady Ashlynn was accustomed to, the winter market in Lothian must have seemed meager indeed.

By the time they reached the carts, Ollie and Liam had finished the loading. The crates and trunks were lashed down tight, and Ollie was wiping his hands on his trousers while Liam checked the knots with methodical care, the same way he’d have inspected the ropes of the tents pitched by his soldiers when they pitched camp in the wilderness.

Hugo sat on the driver’s bench of the nearest cart, holding the reins loosely while his eyes lingered on the distant spires of Lothian Manor. The sun had dipped entirely beneath the castle walls now, and the feast would surely be starting soon.

From the look in his eyes, there was at least a small part of Owain’s former Steward that felt like he should be rushing back to the manor even now, and he was struggling to ignore the echoes of the life he’d turned his back on now that he was close enough to hear their siren call.

Morwen and Ashlynn climbed into the back of Hugo’s wagon, settling themselves among the crates. The convoy was nearly ready to move, and torches flared along the quay as the evening watch assumed their patrols. Ahead, the first of Loghlan’s wagons was being waved through the city gates by guards who gave the Dunn banners a cursory inspection before stepping aside.

”Lynnda,” Morwen said carefully, once the wagon lurched into motion and the creak of wheels on frozen cobblestones gave them enough noise to speak without being overheard. ”May I ask about the fish? Aren’t we going to Sir - er, to spend the night in a restaurant in the city? Even if the cooks aren’t there, the larder should hold enough for the few of us, shouldn’t it?”

Ashlynn glanced at her. In the shifting torchlight, the servant’s disguise seemed to flicker, and for a moment, Morwen could see the woman beneath it, tired and steady and carrying a homesickness so deep it had become part of the way she breathed.

”Where I’m from,” Ashlynn said quietly as she gazed into the distance. ”On the night before a battle, or a great voyage, or any moment when the people you love might not all come home again, you have a great feast. You do the same thing when everyone comes home again,” she said with a smile.

The fleets of Blackwell had only sailed to war twice in Ashlynn’s lifetime, both times against pirate fleets that had grown large enough to threaten trade from across the sea, but she remembered the feasts that had sent them off and welcomed them home just as well as she remembered the sights of a harbor full of dromons rigged for war.

”Whenever we feast, we make a stew,” Ashlynn said, wiping a stray tear from the corner of her eye. ”You take whatever you have, the heads, the tails, the scraps from butchering the larger fish, mussels or crabs from the shore, and you put it all into one pot.”

”One ship, one crew, and one giant pot of Low Tide Stew,” she said with a smile. ”Everyone eats the same meal, from the captain at the helm to the boy hauling rope on the deck, from my father’s high table to the servants who set the tables. It’s a tradition, and I intend to keep it. Even here, even tonight.”

”We might not have a real ship,” she said, glancing back at the row of small cogs along the quay. ”But we’re still a crew, and we’re all pulling together to do what must be done,” she said before she paused, shaking off the memories of the past and the weight of tomorrow as much as she could.

”I’m also making it because my hands need something to do tonight besides fretting,” she said, allowing herself to be vulnerable for a moment, even though she didn’t know Morwen very well yet. ”If I don’t keep myself busy with a knife and a chopping block, I’ll wear a hole in the floor pacing until dawn.”

Morwen looked down at the sack in her lap, the fish heads and the meager perch and the undersized steelhead, and for the first time since leaving Maeril, she felt like she understood something essential about the woman she had offered to serve.

Lady Ashlynn didn’t command loyalty from a throne or demand devotion through displays of power the way the Lothians always had. She bought fish heads with a few loose snips and cooked for the people she led from the same pot she ate from, because she believed that what you shared mattered more than what you held above.

”I’d like to help you cook,” Morwen said hesitantly. ”If, if you’ll have me. But if I’d just be in the way, I, I’d understand...”

”Of course you can help,” Ashlynn said with a warm smile that did more to dispel the winter chill than the threadbare servant’s coat that Morwen wore ever could. ”If you don’t know what to do, I’m sure that ’Cy’ can give you some pointers, too,” Ashlynn said, nodding in Ollie’s direction.

For a moment, Morwen felt her face heating, but she firmly clamped down on the reaction. Lady Ashlynn had said to start with friendship, and cooking together... That sounded like a great way to become better acquainted, but if she fumbled about, mooning after the handsome Cypress Knight, she was certain to spoil both the mood and her chances of making a friend.

As the wagon rolled beneath the shadow of the city gate, Ashlynn reached into her cloak and pulled out a larger silver coin that she pressed into Morwen’s palm. It was heavier than she expected, and when Morwen tilted it toward the nearest torch, she could make out the impression of a serpent’s coiled tail stamped into one face.

”For the fish,” Ashlynn said quietly. ”I couldn’t risk spending Eldritch coins in Lothian City on the night before Owain’s Grand Ceremony. Even a fishmonger might notice the wrong coin crossing his palm, and if word of it reached the Church, you can imagine the trouble it would cause,” she explained.

Morwen closed her fingers around the silver and tucked it carefully into her purse. It had never occurred to her to ask Lady Ashlynn to pay her back for the fish... it had only been a few snips after all. But the coin in her hand represented far more than just repayment for the money she’d spent, and Morwen had no intention of ever spending that coin.

After all, whatever happened tomorrow, the coin was proof that, in some small way, she’d helped Lady Ashlynn do it, and to Morwen, that made the simple silver coin more precious than gold.