The Vampire & Her Witch

”Father always claimed that life on the edge of the Frontier was hard,” Hugo continued as his voice grew louder so the entire hall could hear over the voices that began muttering and protesting when he revealed how his father had been exploiting the people of his barony. ”It was his favorite excuse for demanding more and giving less. Life is hard, so we have to tighten our belts,” he said in a mocking imitation of his father’s voice. ”Life is hard, so we have to fill up our stores for when the lean years come.”

”The truth is that he hated Baron Brighton,” Hugo said, slamming his fist into the armrest of his chair for emphasis. ”He always said that our treasuries were depleted by years of his uncle’s overspending, and if there was a failure he could blame on my granduncle, he never hesitated to lay it at his feet. But I’ve read the ledgers and the family histories,” the scholarly young lord continued as he stood to face Dame Sybyll.

”Your father once wrote in a decree that the keep should dine only on the best fish, the finest beef, and the most succulent lamb,” Hugo explained, though his voice contained nothing but admiration for this decree. ”He challenged the fishers and the farmers to offer their best harvests to the keep where he would pay twice the going price for the very best specimens offered each day.”

Many of the older merchants in the crowd nodded silently along with Hugo as he explained the way the old Baron had managed his domain. They had called it the ’Baron’s Bounty’, and it applied to more than just fish and meat. Gaius’s father had sold all of his best ornaments to the Hanrahan family, and it was that wealth that allowed him to commission molds all the way from the Royal Capital, which were responsible for some of Gaius’s best-selling works to this day.

In fact, Baron Brighton refused to spend lavishly on goods imported from the kingdom’s interior. He always said that the best things were the things made by hearts and hands he knew, and he would never short his own people just to enjoy the extraordinary creations of some distant stranger.

”It’s written in the ledgers that harvests grew year over year, and that people competed fiercely to put food on your father’s table,” the young scholar continued from the dais. ”But my grandfather put an end to paying double, and my father changed the rule entirely. Now, my father sends armed men into the markets to find the best fish, the finest beef, and the most succulent lamb, and he demands that they be offered to the baron’s table at a steep discount.”

”Inquisitor,” Hugo said as he addressed the man in crimson and gold robes. ”My father never liked me and he never trusted me, but he used me when it was convenient to do so,” he said. ”I can tell you that he despised the policies of Dame Sybyll’s father, and he always felt jealous of the love that some people in the barony still hold for Baron Brighton and the way they speak of the ’good years’ under his rule.”

”But even I can’t explain all of the cryptic names and entries in his ledgers,” Hugo admitted. ”He was a man of many secrets. He took sacks of silver and sometimes even gold to meet with people whom he would not name, who did work for him that he would never speak of. Sometimes, common folk who had offended him went missing, but if there was anything to link my father to what happened, I never saw evidence of it.”

”I’m sorry,” Hugo said as he looked at his half-brother, sitting on the ground in chains and looking more frightened and pathetic than Ian had ever seen him. ”If it’s my father’s secrets that you’re after, you’ll have better luck with my brother. Maybe Bastian knows more than I do...”

”You may not have all of the answers, Lord Hugo,” Diarmuid said as he processed what the young lord had shared. ”But what you have told us says a great deal about your father’s motives. If his resentment of Baron Brighton is as deep as you say, then he had even more reason to fear the return of Baroness Caitlin and her daughter.”

It wasn’t hard for most people to make the leap to the conclusion that Diarmuid had just drawn. Baron Ian Hanrahan had said that the ’damage’ the portly baron was afraid she could cause would come in the form of people rallying around the tragic, fallen noblewoman, and the pressure they would exert on him for a return to the ’way things used to be.’

Moreover, the Baroness was certain to be familiar with how her husband had managed the barony. She could easily reveal the true costs of running things and expose the lies Baron Ian used to manipulate his people into tithing more than their fair share. To a man who intended to cheat and swindle, the baroness represented a clear threat to his ambitions.

”Lord Bastian,” Diarmuid said as he turned to the young man who had put as much distance between himself and his increasingly disgraced father as possible. ”Is there anything more you can share with us about the secrets your father kept that could explain his actions so long ago?”

All eyes gathered on Ian Hanrahan’s legitimate son, waiting for the greater secrets he might be privy to. Already, the news that Ian Hanrahan had been squeezing even greater tithes out of his people than what the Lothians leveled against them, and that he’d shorted the Lothians on what the barony owed was enough to wear away the feelings of patriarchal fellowship that Ian had stoked in the men in the crowd when he spoke of scheming women who would try to trap them and rob them of their wealth with a child of dubious parentage.

Now that Bastian was about to speak, everyone waited with baited breath for what he was about to say.