The Vampire & Her Witch

Jocelynn was laying out the last of the servings when the sound of footsteps and murmured voices reached her from outside. She straightened and moved to stand near the altar, beside the chest she’d brought from home and the small portion of breakfast she’d set out for Ashlynn.

The crowd of people wasn’t small, but they all moved slowly, taking soft steps and moving with respectful restraint for the deceased. Captain Devlin held the main doors open, and the four noblewomen entered first, just as propriety demanded.

Lady Charlotte crossed the threshold with her eyes already glistening. Her soft face was tight with the effort of holding herself together, and Lady Adala walked beside her, one hand resting lightly on Charlotte’s elbow in a gesture that was both supportive and slightly protective.

Behind them, Lady Ragna moved with the quiet discipline of a woman who knew how to occupy a space without claiming it, while Baroness Sorcha followed at her shoulder, her broad frame somehow made smaller by the care she took to stay unobtrusive.

Jocelynn watched as the four women glanced at the rows of empty pews stretching toward the altar, each seat waiting to be filled. By rights, their noble rank should have placed them in the front rows, ahead of the knights and captains and certainly ahead of the household servants.

The traditions of Gaal held just as true here in Lothian March as they did in Blackwell County, and no one in the chapel would have questioned it if the four women had walked straight to the front and claimed the seats that their station entitled them to.

The fact that they would displace her people in this moment was one of the reasons Jocelynn had hesitated to allow them to stay. She didn’t have the strength at the moment to ask them not to, but...

Jocelynn’s thoughts stopped abruptly as the ladies paused near the entryway. Instead of heading down the aisle toward their rightful seats, without a word exchanged between them, the four women filed into the last row of pews and sat down. They tucked themselves into the back of the chapel like guests who had arrived uninvited to a family gathering and wanted to make clear that they knew their place.

It was, Jocelynn thought with a silent sigh of relief, one of the most respectful things any of them could have done.

She caught Ragna’s eye across the length of the chapel and gave her a small nod of acknowledgement. Ragna returned it with the barest inclination of her head. Charlotte offered a tearful smile from beneath her wool hood. Sorcha sat with her hands folded in her lap, still and steady as stone. Adala’s expression was carefully neutral, but her dark eyes were watchful, taking in the room and its occupants with the quiet attentiveness of a woman who was always cataloguing.

The Blackwell knights entered next, led by Sir Elgon Prowel. He’d only just made it back from Hurel Village, now that Owain no longer had a reason to make a show over discovering who had burned down the family home of Sir Tommin Pyre with his wife and child inside. As far as Owain was concerned, that would be a problem for ’Sir Albyn’ to handle once the former sailor was knighted, and if finding a resolution to that problem kept him away from Jocelynn, then all the better.

Despite the finery they wore, in dark, muted colors, the knights of Blackwell radiated a stormy, lethal fury as they entered the chapel, and for a moment, Jocelynn’s heart went still in her chest. But, while a portion of that fury was directed inward at their own failure to keep Lady Ashlynn safe at the same time that they’d failed to protect Lady Jocelynn, a greater portion of their fury was directed at the Lothians, who had constantly found reasons to prevent them from being where they so clearly needed to be.

There had been a time when Lady Jocelynn made polite, accommodating noises. She even offered up platitudes that were meant to soothe their wounded pride and blunt the insults that so often accompanied the ’requests’ of their hosts.

That had all stopped shortly before Master Isabell went missing, and ever since then, the knights had turned to Sir Elgon for guidance in resisting Lothian efforts to keep them at arm’s length from Lady Jocelynn.

”It’s good to see you again, Sir Elgon,” Jocelynn said, once her rational mind reassured her irrational heart that the violence these men radiated had nothing to do with her. ”I’ve missed you at my side, and I’ll be counting on you in the days to come.”

”You can count on me for anything, my Lady,” Sir Elgon said, lowering himself to one knee and bowing his head solemnly. The knights behind him followed the gesture, each man placing his hand where the hilt of his sword would have been had they not left them behind to respect the sacred space of the chapel. ”You can count on all of us.”

”I know,” Jocelynn said, stepping forward to set a hand on the knight’s shoulders. ”And I’ll need you. Soon. But first...”

”I know,” Elgon said softly as he stood. For a moment, he wanted to wrap Lady Jocelynn in the soft, tender embrace she so clearly needed, just as he would have done for his own wife or daughter if he’d seen their eyes so red and puffy from crying.

But, in front of the ladies of the march, the gap in status between himself and Lady Jocelynn became far too wide to casually cross, so he gave her the best, most reassuring smile he could before leading the other knights to their seats in the front row of pews.

The Templars from Blackwell entered next, their white cloaks marked with the rising sun emblem of their order standing out in sharp contrast with the dull, muted colors of the memorial’s other guests. At the head of the line, the young, sandy-haired Sir Beathan held up a hand for the men he led to stop before he followed in Sir Elgon’s steps and knelt at Lady Jocelynn’s feet.

”One ship, one crew, my Lady,” he said solemnly as he lowered his head. ”After what the Inquisition did to you, we wouldn’t have blamed you for keeping us away from this,” he said, clenching his fist tightly enough that his whole arm shook. ”We failed you both,” he said bitterly, glancing at the offering sitting on the altar. ”And Confessor Eleanor too.”

”We can’t make it right,” he said, speaking around a lump that suddenly formed in his throat. ”Nothing can ever make up for what has happened to your family here in Lothian, under the Church’s own nose,” he said, pursing his lips together firmly and taking a slow, steady breath through his nose before he continued. ”I just want you to know that...”

”Enough, Sir Beathan,” Jocelynn said, struggling to hold back the storm of emotions that buffeted her heart. ”We can speak of those things tomorrow. For now,” she said, gesturing to the pews in the front row. ”One ship, one crew,” she said with a fragile smile.

She’d been worried that these men would choose to stay in Lothian March, standing with the forces of the Church against the demons who terrorized the frontier. Thankfully, it seemed, she’d been wrong to worry. The salt water that flowed through the veins of the people of Blackwell pulled as strongly as the ocean tides, and even their oaths to the Church couldn’t stop them from standing up for their own.

There were just four of them, but in the days to come, four Templars could make the difference between life and death for the people who would be fleeing from Lothian March under their protection. Now that she knew she had their support, for the first time since the morning began, the weight pressing down on Jocelynn’s shoulders felt a little bit lighter as she turned to face the next group of mourners.