The Vampire & Her Witch

”The first thing you have to know,” Ollie said, helping himself to a few slices of roasted duck as he spoke. ”Is that Lady Ashlynn was never a resident of the Summer villa. The woman who was there, the one who’s carrying Owain Lothian’s child, is named Samira,” he explained before pausing, allowing the people at the table to digest his first explosive revelation.

Eira, the young woman sitting on the other side of Liam, pressed her hands to her lips in wide-eyed surprise as she imagined the scandal that would spread across the march if word of what Sir Ollie had just said got out.

Her mother had warned her that some noblemen had a habit of siring children with women who weren’t their wives, and that it could lead to all manner of heartaches and headaches if she wasn’t able to ensure that her husband had no reason to wander astray. That was why she’d hoped to win over a man like Sir Liam, who didn’t seem the sort to have wandering eyes and had always treated the ladies of the court with courtesy.

For a moment, she tried to imagine what she would do if she’d just gotten married to Lord Liam only to find out that he’d sired a child with another woman. Just the thought of it was enough to break her heart, and she imagined that it must have been a thousand times worse for Lady Ashlynn to learn that her husband had been unfaithful after she’d come all the way from Blackwell to marry him.

”I was working in the kitchens at the Summer Villa when I met Lady Ashlynn,” Ollie continued once people seemed to have digested the first shock he intended to give them. ”The real Lady Ashlynn. She posed as a servant to spy on Lord Owain and to learn what he was plotting by having Samira impersonate her in the Villa.”

”I didn’t know who she was at the time,” he added quickly. ”Lady Ashlynn had dyed her hair black, and she worked side by side with Head Cook Otis and me from the time we arrived in the Summer Villa to prepare until the day after Lord Owain arrived with Samira and his knights. We fled together when Sir Kaefin tried to force himself on her, and Lady Ashlynn killed him to protect herself.”

”Sir Kaefin did what?” Eira exclaimed, while several of the women at the table looked horrified.

”So the story they told about a witch killing Sir Kaefin and conspiring with demons to kill Sir Broll,” Loghlan said, knuckling his brow in thought as he could feel a headache building. ”It was all a lie to cover up the fact that Lady Ashlynn had discovered where Lord Owain was hiding his pregnant mistress?”

”Lady Ashlynn is the one who killed Sir Broll,” Ollie said, carefully avoiding commenting on the part about it being a witch who was responsible. ”He chased us through the woods while we were escaping, and when he caught us, she challenged him to trial by combat and killed him in a fair duel.”

”Lady Ashlynn killed Sir Broll in a duel?” Morwen asked from the second table, turning around in her seat to stare at Sir Ollie. ”Wasn’t he supposed to be Lord Owain’s strongest knight?”

”Sir Broll was a very strong man,” Sir Gavin said, remembering the last time he’d fought the late Sir Broll in a duel. ”But he wasn’t Lord Owain’s strongest knight. Sir Tommin might have been shorter and weaker than Sir Broll, but he was a much, much better swordsman even before he became a Templar and obtained a Holy Light Blade.”

”Remember what I’ve always told you,” Sir Brennus reminded his daughter. ”Physical might is only part of what makes a knight great, and skill at arms isn’t everything a knight should be measured on. But Sir Ollie,” the well-dressed knight said, turning back to face the flame-haired knight. ”You’re saying that Lady Ashlynn was able to overcome Sir Broll’s strength, to defeat him in a trial by combat?”

”Lady Ashlynn was trained in the sword by the same knight who trained me,” Ollie said, side-stepping the question with a statement that was true, but would once again lead people to draw conclusions that weren’t. ”She wasn’t very skilled yet at the time, and it was a close duel. I think even Lady Ashlynn would agree that she was very lucky that night.”

”I heard that Sir Broll was dismembered by demons,” Sir Bedwyr said, looking at Ollie with a face that looked a little pale. ”They never found all of the pieces of his body...”

”Bedwyr!” his wife Esme said, giving him a sharp smack on the shoulder. ”There are children at the second table,” she hissed quietly, turning bright red in embarrassment at the way her husband had brought up something so disturbing at the dinner table.

”Sir Broll died in his duel with Lady Ashlynn,” Ollie confirmed. ”As to his, erm, remains,” Ollie said awkwardly. ”That was a misdirection. Captain Lennart, Sir Lennart now, wanted to throw off Owain’s hunters while we escaped through the wilderness.”

”That’s... that’s cold,” Sir Gavin said, giving a low whistle. ”Effective. But cold.”

”Information is a blade as deadly as any knife,” Ollie said, quoting Marcel. ”Giving your enemy a lie that he’s afraid is true can be more effective than confronting him with a truth he would never accept.”

”Lady Ashlynn doesn’t like unnecessary bloodshed,” Ollie added. ”If she can deceive an opponent into surrendering, dividing their forces or abandoning pursuit, she’d rather do that than slaughtering their armies.”

”Lord Loghlan,” Ollie said, turning to face the baron who had yet to touch his roast duck or any of the vegetables that Mairwen had helpfully piled on his plate. ”You asked how I knew that the things you knew about the raid on the Summer Villa were a lie. One of the reasons I know this is because it was one of my men, Constable Daithi, who wrote the report of the Villa’s fall and sent the messenger birds to carry that report to Lothian Manor.”

”Those messages are supposed to be written in code,” Sir Brennus said, frowning at Ollie’s statement. ”Are you saying that your man, Daithi, knows the Lothian’s codes?”

”He does,” Ollie said with a wry smile. ”Because on the night that Lady Ashlynn and I fled the Summer Villa, Daithi was one of the men hunting us. Lady Ashlynn has a just and honorable cause, Sir Brennus,” Ollie said, appealing to the virtues that were commonly held by many knights.

”Just as she doesn’t want to see unnecessary bloodshed and works hard to capture enemies rather than killing them, she has a way of turning former enemies into willing allies,” Ollie said, giving Liam a pointed look.

”Sir Ollie isn’t exaggerating,” Liam said, shaking his head at the level of understatement involved in Ollie’s claim that Lady Ashlynn had a way of turning enemies into allies. She didn’t just have ’a way’, she had at least a dozen of them, and Sir Ollie’s terrifying power was one of them, but the young knight was probably far too humble to admit it.

”And as distasteful as you might find some of her methods,” Liam said, turning to face Sir Gavin. ”I’ve seen firsthand what happens when you offer a more straightforward demonstration of overwhelming force and ask for a surrender. Dame Sybyll Hanrahan called for Ian Hanrahan’s surrender at least three times by my count, and a good many people would still be alive today if they’d accepted her offer of surrender before the battle started instead of forcing her to conquer Hanrahan by force.”

”Conquer... Hanrahan? By force?” Loghlan said, staring at his son in shock. ”Liam...” he said softly as pieces began to fall into place in his mind. ”Just what exactly are you saying, son?”