The Vampire & Her Witch

”They were innocent,” Eleanor said, and she could hear the desperation creeping into her own voice when she spoke, but she forced herself to continue as calmly as she could in the hopes that the Inquisitor would listen. ”Brother Percivus, those men were trying to help the Marquis, not harm him. If you would only listen to what actually happened...”

”Such men are insignificant pawns,” Percivus had said, finally looking up from his plate to meet her eyes. His hazel gaze had been hard, pitiless. ”Easily sacrificed in the opening moves of the game in order to expose the vulnerabilities of the masters who make them move.”

That was when Eleanor had finally begun to understand. This wasn’t about a search for truth at all. In Percivus’s mind, he already knew that Master Baden and Master Hess were guilty; he only needed their confessions so he could move on to the executions... And he needed those executions to apply greater pressure to the other people he’d decided were guilty.

”What I’m really after,” he said as his eyes seemed to smolder with the intensity of his conviction. ”Is a confession that will expose the conspirators who helped you and the other woman from Blackwell. It isn’t an easy thing to manipulate a Marquis into believing that his dead wife has returned from the grave, and you two must have had some reason for doing it. So, Confessor, let’s make this easy and painless,” he said as he took a small bite of roast beef.

”Just give me the names of the noblemen or the clergymen within the Church who are conspiring against Marquis Bors,” he said, as though he was asking for the name of a good tailor or a nice inn to have a meal. ”Then we can put all of this unpleasantness behind us. If you’re helpful enough, and if you can give me the name of a Priest or High Priest who gave you orders to enter into this conspiracy, then I might even be able to convince my superiors that you were an unwitting accomplice rather than a heretic in your own right.”

Eleanor’s heart froze when she heard the Inquisitor’s ’request.’ He wasn’t looking for truth; he was looking for names. He’d already arrived at all the conclusions he needed. In his mind, guilt was obvious, and it had already been proven. He was already moving on, seeking others who could be dragged down by the tragedy that had afflicted Marquis Bors, and once he succeeded in wringing names from his current prisoners, they would share the same fate as the Master of Kitchens and the Master Physician.

Percivus was nothing like Diarmuid, she realized. When she arrived in Lothian March, Diarmuid asked her sharp, insightful questions, turning over every fact and scrap of information like a stone in his hand, examining it from every side before reaching any conclusions. He was never certain about anything, but he constantly sought out answers that would help guide him to the truth of Ashlynn’s birthmark and whether or not she’d truly been a witch.

He was willing to offend people to find the truth. He was willing to venture into the forests near the vale of mists to exhume Lady Ashlynn’s body, risking discovery by demons in order to recover evidence of Lord Owain’s crime... He was a good man and a good servant of the Holy Lord of Light.

But Percivus, Percivus was someone else entirely. Someone who couldn’t be reasoned with, someone who wouldn’t change his mind even if he were to be presented with a mountain of evidence. He might be someone who hunted the wicked, and he might even believe that he’d found genuine wickedness, but countless innocents would fall victim to his methods in his attempts to uncover real evil.

”Though there is the matter of Marquis Bors witnessing you and the woman from Blackwell transforming into demons before his eyes,” the Inquisitor said, pulling Eleanor out of her thoughts as he stroked the short, neatly trimmed beard that covered his chin and upper lip in a performance of contemplation.

”Perhaps the best you can hope for is a merciful execution rather than burning alive as a consort of demons. I’ve seen heretics burned before, you know,” he added in the same tones a person would use to say they’d seen an interesting bird in the forest. ”The screams last longer than you’d think. It takes quite a while for the flames to consume a person entirely, and the more wickedness there is to burn away, the more the demons have tainted them, the longer it takes for them to die.”

”But, there is no conspiracy!” Eleanor protested as she realized that Percivus truly believed the Marquis’s mad ravings. ”Something is very wrong with Marquis Bors. He’s very sick,” she said in a rush as her words spilled from her lips. ”He suffers from delusions, and he attacked Lady Jocelynn, but she never did anything to cause his illness. She was only trying to help care for him and...”

”Oh, Eleanor,” Percivus interrupted, clicking his tongue and shaking his head as he looked at the woman in her golden robes with the red hood of her order drawn up over her head to ward off the chill.

”I already have the confessions of two men that there was a conspiracy,” the Inquisitor explained patiently, as if he were speaking to a small child. ”And countless witnesses will testify that you and the woman you served have been taking specially prepared meals from the Master of the Kitchens directly to Marquis Bors every night since the Marquis gathered the Lothian Court to make plans for fighting the demons who attacked the Baronies of Hanrahan and Dunn.”

”I’m not looking for evidence of your crimes,” Percivus said as he set down his utensils with an ominous -thunk- on the small wooden table before him. ”I’m here to find out who else is guilty of plotting against their liege lord...”

After all, the Inquisitor thought. Marquis Bors would never acquiesce to the Inquisition’s demand to move their temple from Maeril to Lothian City unless he believed that there were countless conspirators surrounding him that only the Inquisition could root out. A pair of servants, a single noble woman from far away, and her Confessor cousin were hardly enough to make Bors relent on his determination to keep the Inquisition from establishing a presence at the heart of his domain.

But Percivus knew his mission well. Even if they had not conspired against the Marquis, these noblemen were almost certain to be guilty of other crimes. Crimes that a Confessor may have learned of in confidence from her sisters in Lothian March, or perhaps from the daughters of the corrupt lords who spent their time taking tea with Lady Jocelynn.

It didn’t matter whether they were guilty of this crime or not, so long as they were wicked men, Eleanor should be grateful to see them pulled down for their crimes... and if convincing Bors Lothian that they were part of this conspiracy against him could secure both their deaths and advance the needs of the Inquisition, then as far as Percivus was concerned, whatever transgressions or excesses he might commit in the process could easily be forgiven.