The Vampire & Her Witch

”Will you hear what I have to say?”

Loman’s question hung in the air for a tense moment while Bors Lothian stared at his son as if he was truly seeing him for the first time.

”No,” Bors said bluntly. ”You’ve grown, son, I’ll give you that. It takes a set of stones to try to blackmail your own father into following your scheme. Maybe the apple didn’t fall as far from the tree as I thought.”

”Father, I,” Loman started only to be cut short by his father’s fierce reproach.

”No, you sit there and you listen to what I have to say,” Bors snarled, pointing an accusing finger at Loman. ”Your father asked you a question. Your liege lord, if you still remember what that is, asked you a question. Yes or no, does the Inquisition intend to charge your brother with the crime of magnicide? Will they drag him before the king’s justice and the ruling council of dukes?”

Bors voice grew louder and louder the more he said and his face grew redder and redder from the combination of wine and fury. For a son of his to come to blackmail him, just how weak had he become in his children’s eyes?

”I don’t know,” Loman admitted, lowering his head as he felt the full weight of his father’s fury. How long had it been since he’d seen his father this fierce? Since mother died? Or even longer?

”Right now, only a few people within the Church know the truth,” Loman explained. ”Inquisitor Diarmuid has shared a report with the Inquisition in the Holy City. I know, as does Sir Tommin, and Confessor Eleanor has been assigned to investigate Lady Jocelynn and to ensure that nothing which might have affected her sister comes to taint the remaining Blackwell daughter.”

”So what you’re saying is that no one who can make a decision is aware of the truth,” Bors said, slumping back in his chair. ”No one has made a decision yet. But if they know everything you’ve said, then why haven’t they?”

”Because Owain is good at killing demons,” Loman said with a heavy sigh. ”For all that went wrong with Brother’s raid, and Inquisitor Diarmuid acknowledges things that went wrong, two things were very clear to him.”

”First, Owain is very, very good at killing demons. You may not have heard, but Sir Tommin has mastered a Holy Sword of Light. Diarmuid said that Owain kept pace with him even without a holy relic of his own,” Loman said.

”Your brother is a madman with a sword in his hand,” Bors acknowledged with a hint of pride in his voice. Even in his youth, Bors wouldn’t have considered himself to be Owain’s equal. Hearing that the Church shared his assessment of his son’s skills both filled his chest with pride and blunted the anger he felt. ”If only he were aware of the battlefield around him. What was the second thing that the Inquisitor saw?”

”He saw the strength of the flat-tailed demons first hand,” Loman said with a heavy sigh. ”Inquisitor Diarmuid believes that the Church has been underestimating the strength of the demons in the mountains based on what they knew of the demons encountered in the lowlands. Because of that, and because Brother has demonstrated incredible skill at killing them...”

”The Church may decide it’s better to keep his matters quiet,” Bors said. Taking a sip of his wine, he stared at his younger son for several minutes before he spoke again. ”You’re still too young, Loman. You tell me all this and you think I’d still support you in contending to be my heir?”

”I do,” Loman said. His hands gripped the well worn arms of the chair tightly enough that his knuckles turned white but he forced himself to relax and continue to make his points. His father was a wise man and a veteran lord of many decades. If he could see the logic of things, Loman was certain that he could still guide his father to the right decision.

”Whether the Church charges Owain with a crime or not, the opinion of the people will matter greatly when he begins to conscript an army,” Loman pointed out. ”A popular ruler with a reputation for slaying demons can raise a banner that many would rally to. But a ruler who loses half his men in battle who is rumored to have slain his wife...”

”You’re playing with fire, boy,” Bors said, his brows lowering as he saw where Owain was heading. ”You haven’t seen what happens when the common folk rebel. It isn’t a pretty sight. Men pick sides for the strangest of reasons, unable to discern the truth from the lies and the things in between that fly about like arrows on a battlefield. Neighbors with grudges kill each other in the name of the lord they chose because their neighbor believed differently than they did...”

”The will of the mob is a dark thing son,” the Marquis said as he looked at Loman with flinty eyes that seemed to see right through him. ”Are you certain that you can wield that blade without it twisting in your hands?”

”The Church has always stood for truth in the light, Father,” Loman said calmly. While it was true that he’d never seen the common folk revolt, he’d read the sealed histories of the Church. More than once in the centuries since Lothian March was founded, common folk had risen up against the Church.

Some even began to trade with demons and advocated for peace with the enemies of the Light. Those rebellions had been suppressed brutally and all but a few records of the events expunged from the history that was taught outside the temples.

”If I speak from the pulpit to share the truth of my brother’s deeds, then the people will know what is true and what is false,” he said. ”This is the difference between someone who has been a priest and someone who has only ever been a lord.”

”You’re naive,” Bors snorted. ”You’ve thought long and hard and you’ve come a long way to reach this point, but you don’t know the church the way a lord does. You can declare your ’truth’ all you want. Someone else will point out that the Inquisition hasn’t charged Owain with a crime.”

”The longer the Church does nothing, the more rumors will circulate that you’re attempting to replace your brother as the heir,” Bors said, his strong fingers tapping firmly on the ancient wood of his desk as he made his points. ”And before you protest, that rumor would be just as true as the one you’d spread. Because that’s what you are trying to do and you can’t deny that.”

”Further,” Bors said before his clever son could respond. ”Your support as a priest is strong but the people know nothing of your ability to rule, or to keep them safe from demons. You’ve never gone to war, never set foot on the battlefield. You’re untried, unproven and ultimately, that will make you unconvincing.”

”I don’t doubt that you can stir up the rabble, son,” Bors said. ”But if you want to rule this march, you have much, much more that you must demonstrate before you’re ready.”

”Now, it’s my turn to ask,” Bors said, leaning over his desk to peer into his son’s eyes. ”I might be willing to give you a chance, but I won’t follow your scheme. If you want to inherit my throne, you do it MY way.”

”So, now it’s my turn to ask. Will you listen to what your father has to say?”