The Vampire & Her Witch Chapter 1790: Announcements From The Manor (Part Two)

How did Owain Lothian die, and what did it mean for the City of Lothian and the rest of the march? To the people clustered in the market, those were the most important questions.

"Ah-hem," the balding man said, adjusting his spectacles as he turned to face the crowd. "It says that, nine months ago, Lord Owain tried to murder Lady Ashlynn and she’s been living in exile ever since," he explained, holding up his hands to stop the crowd from asking questions until he’d finished.

"It also says that he tried to kill Sir Tommin Pyre’s family with poison, and that he poisoned Lord Bors with Spider Demon Venom," the man said. "There are more crimes here too, some of them from Blackwell City where it says he assaulted women and paid to keep them quiet."

"If he did all that, and he was guilty, there should have been a trial!"

"Yeah, and we should have seen his execution. They always make a show of executions but we ain’t heard nothin’."

"It says there was a trial," the balding man said quickly. "Two trials. The barons sat in judgment and called him guilty. It says Lord Owain fought a duel in a sacred trial by combat and he... he lost."

"Hog’s spit! I don’t believe it!"

"I don’t believe it either! Lord Owain was the greatest swordsman since Lord Templar Caleb, he was, an’ everyone knows it!"

"But ain’t that how it works? If he was guilty, the Holy Lord of Light wouldn’t let him win, no matter how great he is..."

"Who killed him? Who fought the duel with him?"

"It was Lady Ashlynn who killed him," a young man in a leather work apron said, frustrated with the pace at which the man in spectacles was doling out information, prolonging his importance in front of the crowd just because he could read. He wasn’t the only one in the market who could.

"It says that Lady Ashlynn reclaimed her throne as Marchioness and Lord Owain’s legal wife. She demanded justice for his crimes, asked the whole Lothian Court to judge him and then fought a duel against him when he refused to accept what the court decided," the young man said.

"Lord Owain lost to his wife? I still don’t buy it..."

"But the Holy Lord of Light..."

"Do you think he really killed his father?"

"Lady Ashlynn lived in exile? Where did she go?"

"Didn’t old Ren say he saw Blackwell knights in the street on Midwinter’s night? I bet she went home to fetch her father’s men..."

"I heard a rumor that Count Rhys once dueled with Duke Huchon and won... Do you think he came to kill Lord Owain for hurting his daughter?"

"I think it was more poison. Lady Jocelynn left in such a hurry after the wedding, I wager she did Lord Owain in on their wedding night."

"Wouldn’t you, if you had to marry your sister’s husband? Don’t pretend you weren’t saying it just three days ago!"

"I’d sooner gnaw my own hand off than see it fastened to my sister’s man! Don’t you dare say such a thing!"

When the first announcements had gone out at dawn, the murmurs it provoked died down fairly quickly, like a candle flame snuffed out by the wind of whispers. This time, whispers acted like the bellows of a blacksmith’s forge, and the flames of rumors only grew hotter and hotter as they spread.

"Did you see it, the day after Midwinter’s night? Right at sunset, great plumes of dark smoke rose from Lothian Manor," a housewife called as she leaned out of her window, speaking to a neighbor on the opposite side of a narrow, nameless alley. "I say they were funeral pyres, they were. People died that night for certain."

"Oh, people died for sure," the neighbor agreed as she beat the dust and dirt out of the rug she dangled out the window. "Lord Owain, Abbot Recared for certain, but criminals don’t get pyres, so who was they burning to make that much smoke? I say something else happened, maybe the manor caught fire..."

"You think that’s why they waited so long to share the news? Patching things up and gettin’ their story straight?"

"I think they’re plastering over a scandal they are," the woman with the rug said. "Lord Liam went rushing off with Lady Jocelynn, you know, and now look at the knights patrolling the streets. Dunn’s men they are. You just watch now, next notice, I have two snips that say Lord Loghlan’s the next Marquis, I do..."

But while the common folk gossiped and speculated, in more than a dozen tall buildings across the city, men and women rushed to the top floors or onto the rooftops, their hands filled with tiny slips of paper covered in neat handwriting and cryptic markings that would only have meaning to the recipients of their messages.

"Lord Owain dead in sacred duel."

"Abbot Recared executed and excommunicated."

"Lady Ashlynn came back from the dead..."

Each message was so important that the spies who wrote them out wrote at least four copies, emptying their pigeon coops to ensure that even if something happened to one or two birds, there were still enough carrying messages for the vital news they’d ever sent to reach its destination.

From one of the towers of Lothian Manor, Ashlynn looked out across the city, watching dozens of birds taking flight. A few had taken wing following the news of Recared’s death, likely flying toward the Holy City and the Hall of the Inquisition in Keating, but few of the spies in Lothian City were spying for masters who cared about the actions of the Church.

This time, however, she watched ten times as many birds leaving their coops, enough that they were impossible for someone with her keen eyes to miss.

Some of the birds flew north, toward the March of Crew, or northeast towards the Duchy of Trevarthan and beyond it, the Royal Capital of Gaalen. Others winged due east, even veering to the southeast as they made their way toward the Duchy of Keating.

A few might even be headed for Blackwell... she wouldn’t put it past her father to have a spy or two in Lothian City to keep an eye out for news of Jocelynn. Perhaps, if things had worked out differently, he would have told her who those spies were before he returned home, but as matters stood, neither she nor Jocelynn knew what agents her father might have left behind.

Eventually, once a full quarter of an hour had passed without a sign of any additional birds flying, Ashlynn turned to address the room’s only other occupant.

"I doubt we got them all, but at least a few coops should be empty after all that, and what remains may not be enough to get more than another message or two to their destinations," Ashlynn said.

"I’m still amazed you can see something as small as pigeons taking flight from this far away, your Dominion," Loghlan Dunn said, revising his estimations of his new liege lady’s capabilities upward yet again. "But I agree. The disciplined ones will have held back a few birds for further news, but the death of a marquis and an abbot and your return from the dead are shocking enough and important enough that most spies won’t dare hold back more birds than they have to if they want to make sure the word gets through."

"It’s time then," Ashlynn said, turning away from the window and smoothing her skirts. "Send the pages to post the next announcement. I’ll address the people of the city from the plaza outside the manor at high sun. It’s time that they learn the identity of the ’mysterious guests’ who will be arriving tonight..."