The Vampire & Her Witch

The Great Temple of the Holy Lord of Light sat atop the highest hill in Lothian City like a crown of stone and gold set upon the brow of a king. Its five spires pierced the pale winter sky like spears raised to the heavens. The central spire rose highest of all while the four cardinal spires stood sentinel at the compass points, each one capped with gold that caught the weak morning sun and threw it back at the heavens in defiance of the overcast clouds that pressed low over the city.

Visitors to Lothian City could easily mistake it for the home of the Lothian Marquis, only to learn later that the Lothian fortress stood on a hillside overlooking the river and that even the home of a Marquis couldn’t compare to the splendor of a fortress that was a living, breathing monument to the Holy Lord of Light.

Today, the link between the Temple and Lothian Manor couldn’t be clearer as throngs of people lined the central boulevard and the grand plazas for the entire length of the route between the two fortresses. Blue and yellow banners snapped in the cold winter wind while children scampered and played under the watchful eyes of parents who tried to remind them that the morning was supposed to be a solemn occasion.

That crowd also said a great deal about the distribution of power between the forces the fortresses represented. The densest crowds of people clustered around the Great Temple, where many bowed their heads in mourning and others knelt to offer prayers. The further away from the temple a person moved, the thinner the crowds were until one reached the plaza outside of Lothian Manor, where only a handful of guards stood watch over the impressive iron-bound gates.

Of course, all of the activities of the morning were clustered around the Great Temple where Bors Lothian’s funeral had already begun, but even then, the day would include a procession between the Temple and Lothian Manor yet none of the merchants selling hastily made tokens to commemorate the wedding between Lord Owain and Lady Jocelynn had dared to set up their stalls too close to the manor where the wedding would take place.

Better to shelter in the shadow of the Church’s imposing stone walls than risk the ire of the soon-to-be Marquis.

Within those walls, the temple revealed its true grandeur. The central chamber stretched nearly two hundred paces from the iron-clad doors to the great altar at the far end, and its vaulted ceiling soared so high overhead that the columns of incense smoke rising from the dozens of golden censers stationed along the aisle seemed to dissolve into a haze before they reached the apex of the arches.

Stained glass windows lined both sides of the chamber, each one reaching forty feet or more from the polished stone floor to the curve of the ceiling. In the mornings, when the sun climbed above the eastern wall, the windows blazed with color, casting pools of amber, crimson, and gold across the flagstones in patterns that shifted as the sun moved, turning the floor of the temple into a living mosaic that the most devout claimed was the Holy Lord of Light painting His will upon the earth.

Now, however, with the sun still low and the sky choked with winter clouds, the windows were muted things, their colors dimmed to somber shades that suited the occasion far better than brilliance would have.

The light that filled the chamber came instead from hundreds of beeswax candles set into iron chandeliers that hung from the vaulted ceiling on long chains, their flames flickering in the faint drafts that crept through the stone, casting everything in a warm, golden glow that softened the hard edges of the architecture and lent the assembled mourners an air of reverence that most of them didn’t deserve.

At the center of it all, behind a pulpit carved from a single block of white marble veined with threads of gold, Owain Lothian stood before the gathered lords and ladies of his march and struggled not to let his irritation show on his face.

He was dressed in mourning black from collar to boot, a choice that had required no deliberation at all. The black wool doublet was cut close to his muscular frame, tailored with the same precision as the padded arming jacket he wore beneath his armor, and if need arose, he could buckle his breastplate over it without removing a single garment.

The only ornamentation he wore was a broad sash of Lothian blue trimmed with narrow bands of yellow that crossed his chest from shoulder to hip. He’d left the gold and jewels behind after the Stag Feast, and he let their absence serve as a subtle rebuke to the men who cared more about wealth than they did about victory over the enemies gathering outside their gates.

The march was at war. Its Marquis dressed accordingly, even in mourning. If they couldn’t understand the message he was sending, then they had no place marching to battle at his side in the days to come... Nor did they belong in their comfortable seats atop their gilded thrones.

But the time to winnow the ranks of the march’s aristocracy wasn’t upon them yet. That would come in the opening years of the Holy War. For now, he just needed to send a message and see which among them were perceptive enough and wise enough to mend their ways.

Behind Owain, the great altar loomed like a monument to the Holy Lord of Light’s appetite for grandeur. It was carved from pale stone that had been quarried from the mountains of the old countries where the Great Prophet was said to have lived. It had been ferried across an ocean and up rivers nearly a century ago at great expense, and countless prayers had been said over it ever since.

Above the altar, suspended from the ceiling by chains as thick as a man’s wrist, hung the temple’s greatest treasure: a radiant sun forged from hammered gold, nearly ten feet across, with rays that extended outward like the spokes of a wheel and caught the candlelight until the whole thing seemed to burn with its own holy fire.

It was, Owain had to admit, an impressive stage. A worthy backdrop for the eulogy of a Marquis and the ascension of his heir.

If only the audience had been worthy of the performance...