The Vampire & Her Witch

Ashlynn smiled faintly as she returned to her seat. While the weight of what she’d said pressed down on Loghlan and Mairwen, Marcel’s departure relieved her of yet another burden she was carrying. Two of them, if she was honest with herself, but she had no idea how her sister would respond to the letter Isabell was sending with Marcel.

They didn’t dare reveal Ashlynn’s survival to Jocelynn. As much as Ashlynn wanted to believe that her sister deeply regretted what had happened and that she would be relieved to hear the news, she couldn’t bring herself to extend that much trust to the sister who had betrayed her.

Instead, Jocelynn would have to make do with the news that Isabell would be returning with Marcel and his men to free her from Owain’s clutches. So long as her sister was willing to accept Isabell’s help, things would work out in the end.

Until then, she still had matters to address with her newest allies, so she did her best to set aside her worries about Jocelynn in order to focus on the matters at hand.

”I know that poisoning knights is far from the most honorable way to fight,” Ashlynn said, nodding her thanks to Isabell when the older woman passed her a fresh cup of steaming, mulled wine. ”But Owain has never fought with anything that resembles honor, and neither has his family in all the years they’ve waged their wars against the Eldritch,” she said.

Her words came out sharper than she intended, and she could see Baron Dunn starting to bristle, but she pressed on anyway.

”The potion Heila made for this purpose won’t cause any lasting harm, Lord Loghlan,” Ashlynn added. ”It should only last for two or three days at most, and it will leave anyone who consumes it suffering the same ailments they would from over-indulging in strong wine,” she said with a slight smile and a brief glance in Isabell’s direction.

”Sluggish, aching, uncomfortable in bright light and sensitive to loud noises,” Isabell said, thinking of how she’d felt her first morning waking in the Vale of Mists after drinking the potent wine Ashlynn had offered her. ”Will they actually get drunk from the poison? If this is like the Thornberry wine...”

”No, no drunkenness,” Ashlynn said quickly. ”And it will take several hours before they begin to feel the effects,” she explained as she turned back to face the Dunns. ”The intention isn’t to incapacitate anyone, it’s to weaken enough that they can be more easily subdued without harming them.”

She was also hoping that none of them would raise an alarm the following morning. If she’d inflicted something that more closely resembled illness, fevers, joints that felt like jelly, loose bowels, or violent coughs, there was a chance that someone would summon a healer from the Church. Once they did, if the poison was discovered, her plans would begin to unravel, and the entire city would be on its guard for an attack by ’demons’ and witches.

But a simple hangover... The knights would likely blame it on themselves.

”You seem very confident, Lady Ashlynn,” Mairwen observed. ”But poisoning plots are prone to a number of failures, especially if any poison reaches the high table. If High Priest Aubin is in attendance, he could expose your plot before a drop of poisoned wine passes anyone’s lips.”

”We aren’t poisoning the wine, Lady Mairwen,” Ashlynn said. ”And we have the Inquisition to thank for this opportunity,” she added in a slightly darker tone. For a moment, the knuckles of her fingers turned white as she gripped the cup of wine tightly, until she took a deep breath and forced her racing heart to slow.

”Inquisitor Percivus murdered the Lothian’s Master of Kitchens,” Ignatious said, stepping in to give Ashlynn a moment of respite. In Ashlynn’s eyes, murdering the Master of Kitchens and Bors’ personal physician had been the least of Percivus’s crimes, but now wasn’t the time to reopen those wounds.

”The man whom Owain has put in his place is one of Marcel’s nephews,” Ignatious explained. ”He’ll have control of everything being served at the feast, and Marcel is confident that Jean can slip a poison into a dish that’s served to the knights.”

”A witch’s potion isn’t the same as ordinary poison, Lady Mairwen,” Ashlynn added once she’d composed herself. ”Most poisons break down in the cooking process. The heat of the hearth burns away their potency, so the poison must be added after the dish is cooked, but even then, it risks altering the odor or flavor of a dish and giving itself away.”

”But your poison will be baked in from the beginning,” Loghlan said as understanding dawned on him. ”But if it’s baked into a dish, how will you... No, I see what you’re planning,” he said as his eyes opened in surprise. ”You’re going to poison the Lord’s Gift!”

”Exactly,” Ashlynn said with a slow smile. The plot would never work in Blackwell. In Blackwell, when the lord provided a centerpiece dish for the feast, made from whatever beast or fish the lord had hunted, it was shared by everyone. The same thing couldn’t be said about Lothian March, however, and it was especially true about Owain’s feast.

”I know my ’husband’ well enough, Lord Loghlan,” Ashlynn said with a cold gleam in her emerald eyes. ”He spent today hunting a beast for his coronation feast, but he’ll have given the ’honor’ of hunting a beast for the Stag Feast to one of his vassals. It doesn’t matter who hunts the beast,” she said, glossing over the detail as unimportant.

”What matters is that whoever hunts for the Stag Feast needs to walk a fine line between hunting a prize worthy of Owain’s feast and hunting something that will overshadow whatever prize Owain captured today,” Ashlynn explained.

”I’m sure if he’d been there, Owain would have forced Liam to hunt for the beast,” Loghlan said with a snort. ”Just to grind him down a little bit. But I see the opportunity this gives you,” he said as the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. ”Since the trophy beast won’t be too impressive, the meal served as the Lord’s Gift will be humble... A stew, sausages, or mince pies. Things that can be made from ground-up flesh or off-cuts.”

Owian would never let a dish made from the ’leftover’ bits of a beast reach the High Table, but by custom, it would be served to everyone else attending the feast, and since the Stag Feast would be restricted to male guests, most of the other attendees would be knights, whether they were Lothian vassals or the knights who had accompanied their lords.

”As much as I dislike resorting to poison, it’s a very good move if it works,” Loghlan said cautiously. ”But there isn’t a knight alive who hasn’t struggled against the aftereffects of strong wine,” he said. ”It gives our forces an advantage, but it’s not enough to turn the tide of a battle,” he said, resting his elbows on the table and leaning forward.

”So what else do you have in mind?” Loghlan asked directly. ”And how else can my people help?”