The Vampire & Her Witch

Chapter 1722: Springing A Trap (Part Three)

"Eldritch Antiquities aren’t the only thing you slipped past the crown’s inspectors, are they, Lord Serle?"This time, when Ashlynn asked her question, Serle went completely silent for several heartbeats, staring at the scroll with the midnight blue ribbon as though he were waiting for it to transform into a serpent to bite him.

Ashlynn said nothing, waiting as the silence dragged on until finally, Melsinde spoke up.

"I want to know," she said in a frail, fragile voice. "I want to know what you’ve done... And if our family has ever meant anything to you, then you’ll tell me now, Serle," she said, staring at her husband with eyes drowning in unshed tears.

Still, for several heartbeats, Serle said nothing. His hands clenched into fists in his lap and he swallowed several times but no words came. It took considerable effort just to force a few words past the lump that had formed in his throat.

"You don’t understand," Serle whispered without taking his eyes off the thick scroll. "You don’t understand what it takes to hold on to what we have."

In Serle’s eyes, he’d kept himself well in the black all through the War of Inches. He’d been young then, but the favors he’d accumulated had kept him far from the front lines, and even though the spoils he’d received for his ’logistical support’ had been less than what men like Valeri Leufroy brought home, he’d still turned a tidy profit.

Only, he hadn’t accounted for the real dividends of fighting beside Bors Lothian during that short, vicious war. The past twenty years had seen the Lothian Marquis favoring his ’blood brothers’ again and again and again. If not for the constant trading of favors he’d done for other members of the Lothian Court, he might have found himself ousted from his throne before the Holy War ended.

Or worse, he’d have to watch helplessly as he was forced to send his only son off to die. At that point, whoever had been fortunate enough to marry Charlotte would likely have the most legitimate claim to inherit his throne, and that would be the end of the Otker name. All because he hadn’t ridden off to fight for ’glory,’ and riches that he could earn just as easily at home.

"What don’t we understand?" Melsinde asked as the tears finally began to flow. "What could be worse than what you’ve already said? You, you had people killed for trying to find a new route through the canyon... What could be worse than that?"

"The people in the canyon were nobodies," Serle snapped, looking briefly at his wife’s wounded eyes. "They were people who would hardly be missed. No one has ever cared that they died except to worry that they might die the same way if they tried to... You don’t understand," he said as he looked away from her, hoping to find some sympathy or understanding in Ashlynn’s eyes.

She’d killed people with her own hands, which was more than he’d ever done. She had to understand that sometimes you did things that... He couldn’t even finish the thought. Not when he saw those hard emerald eyes staring at him as if she already knew everything. But if she knew, then why make him go through all of this?

"Before he was executed for his crimes," Ashlynn said slowly. "Ian Hanrahan gave a full confession to Dame Sybyll."

"Ah," Serl said, swallowing heavily as Ashlynn’s words fell on him like another boulder, crushing him beneath their weight. "If, if you know what I’ve done for Ian Hanrahan, then you know about the rest too, don’t you? About Iestin Badoual, and Kerrien Tangi?" Serle asked, naming two of the wealthy barons in DuCoumont County.

"It’s better if your family hears it from you than if they hear it from me, isn’t it, Lord Serle?" Ashlynn asked pointedly.

"Ian Hanrahan was... indiscreet with the women of Hanrahan. Frequently," Serle explained, looking briefly at his son sitting next to him. "This is why I always told you that no woman is worth what a mistake would cost you. Drink all you want, but keep your hands and your ’sword’ to yourself or it will come back to haunt you."

"Isn’t that what the pennyroyal tea is for?" Serge said. "It’s like Tulori said, you just have to watch them drink it, and then it’s fine," he said defensively. "It’s not even that expensive."

"You...!" Serle started, ready to launch into a stern rebuke for his son’s carelessness until he realized that it was likely pointless. What little control of his family he’d had after last night had crumbled when they walked into Ashlynn’s sitting room.

"Not everyone can be forced to drink pennyroyal tea," Serle said. "And not everyone wants to wash away the results of their... proclivities. Hugo Hanrahan wouldn’t be here today, your Dominion, if Ian Hanrahan had forced Hugo’s mother to drink pennyroyal after their night together," he said, turning to face Ashlynn.

"I’m well aware of Hugo’s circumstances," Ashlynn said coldly. "We’re already helping him to reach out to his half-sisters. The ones we know about at least. Whether they want anything to do with him, Sybyll or the rest of the Hanrahan family is up to them, but at least they’ll have the option."

"I see," Serle said in defeated, deflated tones. "Do you want my records on the others that I’ve helped to hide away? Not just Ian’s but everyone’s..."

"Everyone’s?" Melsinde said with a trembling voice. "Serle, you helped to conceal what these men, these beasts of men, were doing?"

"Tell them, Serle," Ashlynn said. "And tell them about the assassins too."

"Assassins?" Charlotte said, looking from her father to Ashlynn and back again. "Not just the bandits but assassins too?"

"Sometimes," Serle said with a heavy sigh. "Sometimes a man wants a bastard or two, the way Ian wanted Hugo left alone... Just in case. Other times, when a man has plenty of sons, a bastard can’t be tolerated and has to be ’dealt with.’ I... made the necessary arrangements when it turned out that a young lady bore an inconvenient son."

At first it had felt simple... Clean. Serle would find a place where he could settle a young woman down, funding her lifestyle with a portion of what he’d received from the lord who’d spoiled her, and then he just needed to have her watched until the child was born. If she gave birth to a daughter, then nothing happened, and she was free to live out her life.

If she birthed a boy, however, Serle would make arrangements to ’resolve’ the issue of the inconvenient infant. So many children born to commoners never survived their first few years, it hardly felt like a tragedy.

Things had changed more than a decade ago, however, when Baron Iestin Badoual’s wife finally managed to give birth to a son. Suddenly, the six-year-old bastard growing up in one of the more well-to-do quarters of Otker Town wasn’t an ’insurance policy.’ He’d become a liability that Baron Iestin wanted off his books.

The men Serle had entrusted with the task did good work. There were a series of break-ins across Otker that winter before the woman and her son were attacked. To almost everyone, it looked like a simple robbery gone wrong. No one ever found the bodies, but when the break-ins stopped, many assumed that whoever was responsible wanted to escape before they were hanged for murder.

Just like an infant dying in their crib, it was something that happened all too often across the march, noted only by a few people who were closest to it and forgotten by most by the time the winter snow melted.

It was only later that Serle realized the opportunity that had been wasted by seeing the deed done so... efficiently.

"You did a great deal more than that, Lord Serle," Ashlynn said, shaking her head at the man who still attempted to minimize and conceal the extent of what he’d done. "For years, Serle hasn’t just ’hidden women away," Ashlynn said.

"He’s built his own stable of them, adding their names to the village rolls under families that died out to illness to hide where they really came from," Ashlynn explained. "He’s hidden some in Otker, some in DuCoumont or elsewhere in Keating, and a few in Lothian villages as well. He keeps tabs on all of them, acting as a go-between for the lords that sired illegitimate children and those children, just in case the philandering father wants to retrieve one of their children."

"But knowing where they all are gives you leverage over those lords, doesn’t it, Lord Serle?" Ashlynn asked. "Leverage that you’ve been using to expand your reach far beyond your barony."

"You didn’t just smuggle people in and out of the march," Ashlynn said sharply. "You used them as hostages to hold over the heads of every lord who used your ’services’..."