The Vampire & Her Witch

Recared rose from his seat and bowed his head in acknowledgement, his hands clasped before him in the posture of a man at prayer. His fingers were interlaced so tightly that the knuckles had gone white, and beneath the crimson robes, his whole body was rigid with the effort of maintaining his composure.

”The Church is honored by Lord Owain’s trust,” Recared said, adopting an air of humility that had served him well in the years before he earned the stole and staff of an abbot. His body still remembered how to bow and scrape, and his tongue still knew how to flatter and praise even as his stomach twisted at the thought of doing either.

”Inquisitor Percivus’s actions were a stain upon our order,” Recared said as though it were a great tragedy. ”And his fate serves as a reminder that no man, however exalted his calling, is beyond the reach of justice.”

The words were smooth and hollow, polished to a sheen by repetition. Recared had practiced them in the mirror of his chambers at the abbey, whispering them to his own pale reflection until they sounded natural enough to pass for sincerity. He’d had plenty of time to practice. He’d barely slept since learning the full details of what Owain had done to Percivus and the acolytes.

’His fate serves as a reminder.’ Recared had almost choked on that phrase the first time he’d rehearsed it. Percivus’s fate wasn’t justice. It was butchery, performed with the casual expertise of a man who had spent years skinning demons and who had turned those skills on a different kind of prey.

The Church should have rallied against what Owain had done. There should have been condemnation from every temple in the march, from the most common village acolyte to the Templars and the Temple Guard... Every Head Priest should have spoken out against the actions of Owain Lothian lest the barons begin to feel like they could treat the clergy in their baronies the same way Lord Owain had just treated Percivus.

Aubin’s silence was what haunted Recared most. The High Priest was the highest ecclesiastical authority in the march, a man who had served the Light for longer than Recared had been alive. If anyone had the standing to denounce what Owain had done to members of the clergy, it was Aubin. And Aubin had done nothing.

That told Recared everything he needed to know about the balance of power in Lothian City. There had been rumors, after all, that Owain Lothian was favored by the Church. He was a butcher, but he was a butcher who slaughtered demons like no other, and the Church wanted to see him at the head of their army in the coming war.

Perhaps Owain would die in that war and justice would finally be done, but until then, the Church wanted Owain Lothian alive, and it was willing to tolerate a great deal more than it would have for any lord.

Recared had survived decades in the Inquisition by reading the currents of power the way a fisherman read the tides. He had served under three Abbots, outlasted two internal purges, and navigated the treacherous waters between the Church’s ideals and its pragmatic needs without ever capsizing. He was not a brave man, but he was a perceptive one, and what he perceived now was very simple.

Owain Lothian was the most dangerous man Recared had ever stood before. He was far more dangerous than the demons the Inquisition hunted. At least with demons, a man knew that he was facing evil that had come to slaughter and maim anyone in their path.

The same couldn’t be said for Lord Owain. Owain smiled, spoke calmly and reasonably... And then Owain carved out your eyes with a table utensil and staked your body on a hillside for the crows.

Whatever the new Marquis asked of him, whatever service he demanded, Recared would provide it without question and without hesitation. His faith demanded that he seek truth and serve the Light. His survival demanded that he serve the man standing at the pulpit.

At this moment, standing in the most sacred temple in all of Lothian March, Recared knew which master he would choose.

”Thank you, Abbot Recared,” Owain said with a magnanimous smile that never reached his eyes. ”I’m certain that we can look forward to a long and productive partnership in the defense of the march and the sanctity of the faith.”

He turned back to the assembled court, the Abbot already dismissed from his attention like a dog that had performed its trick and could be trusted to sit quietly until it was needed again.

”Now,” Owain said, and his voice shifted from the somber register of the eulogy to something harder, more purposeful, the voice of a man who was finished mourning and ready to lead. ”My father left behind more than his legacy. He left behind his final wishes for the march he served, set down in his own hand during the last weeks of his life.”

He stepped away from the pulpit and descended the three broad marble steps to the cathedral floor, his boots ringing against the stone as he crossed to the great altar where a stack of sealed parchments sat in a neat pile. Wax seals in Lothian blue pressed with the Lothian crest held each one closed, and ribbons of deep yellow silk bound them shut.

Of course, Owain knew the contents of each and every one of these decrees. His father’s mark and seal on each of them were real enough, but Owain would never have allowed any surprises in his reading of his father’s ’last wishes,’ just like he would never allow some of those final decrees to see the light of day.

But some of them were useful for this moment, and the ones on the altar represented the few shining jewels he could make use of in the pile of madness heaped upon his father’s desk on the night the old man finally gave up his miserable life.

”It is my honor,” Owain said as he placed his hand reverently upon the stack. ”To carry out those wishes today, in the presence of the lords and ladies who served him.”

He lifted the first decree from the pile, holding it up so the candlelight caught the wax seal and the silk ribbon for everyone to see.

”And I trust,” he added, with just a trace of the smile that had never reached his eyes. ”That you will honor his memory by receiving them in the spirit in which they were given.”