CHAPTER 1098: FATHER AND SON

The extra logs that Owain had thrown on the fire had turned the dying embers into the hearth into a warm, lively fire that pushed back against the chill that seeped into the office of the Lothian Marquis. The sound of popping and crackling flames filled the air along with a faint smell of woodsmoke that pushed back against the scents of sickness and unwashed clothing that wrapped around Bors Lothian like a heavy winter blanket.

Outside the office, the sound of hail tapping at the glass windows had faded away to little more than occasional bursts and the fierce winter winds had grown quiet, as if it were afraid to overshadow the quiet words that tumbled from Bors’ lips between sips of heady, intoxicating wine.

"It’s better that you fight in the north," Bors said, gazing at his son with misty eyes that turned the flickering firelight into a faint golden halo. "The Demon Lady of the Vale isn’t someone who can be defeated with simple steel, you know. The Church’s Templars, Inquisitors and Exemplars will be the ones to bring her down, and there won’t be enough glory left for the lord who leads them into battle."

Bors still remembered the night the Demon Lady of the Vale descended from the darkness of the night to teach him that he would never be safe so long as he camped with his army in demon lands.

In the first year of the War of Inches, Bors’ only objective was the construction of a frontier fortress with high wooden palisades and a deep trench filled with sharp stakes that surrounded it. There were tall watchtowers both inside and outside the camp and his men felled every tree within a hundred paces of the walls to ensure that no demons could sneak into the fortress.

But trenches and walls meant nothing to the Demon Lady of the Vale. Bors never knew why she waited until the third year of the war to intervene... Perhaps it was because Airgead Mountain belonged to another Demon Lord who had to plead for her help. Perhaps she’d been waiting for Bors to relax his guard as men spread themselves out even farther across the mountain in search for wealth.

Whatever the reason, when the time had finally come for her to make her move, she’d emerged from the darkness of the night like a pagan goddess, flying over his walls and trenches on black, feathered wings that seemed to blot out the moon and stars. She’d nearly claimed his life that night, and if not for Head Priest Pyrderi sacrificing himself to drive her away, Bors might very well have followed in Cellach Lothian’s footsteps, leaving two orphaned boys behind, one of whom would have been too young to even remember his fallen father’s face.

"I was lucky to survive encountering her, son," Bors said as he sipped at the wine. "She tore through the armor of my knights like it was made of thin tin, and she turned the darkness of the night into an axe that could cleave a man in two. She’s a demon beyond what the strength of steel can fight..."

"I don’t believe there’s a demon in this world that can survive having its head separated from its shoulders," Owain said as he surreptitiously topped off his father’s cup. "But the Demon Lady of the Vale won’t trouble me in the northern marches," he added, as though he accepted his father’s plans for escaping the Church.

"This is the other reason you want me to run, isn’t it, Father?" Owain said carefully. "Loman will have the full support of the Church if he takes the throne. He’ll be able to summon the greatest of holy warriors to fight the Demon Lady of the Vale, and they’ll obey a fellow priest in ways they’d never obey me," he said bitterly.

"Don’t, -COUGH-, don’t let that trouble you," Bors said, coughing as he reached out to give Owain’s forearm a reassuring squeeze. The gesture was weak and feeble, feeling more like the tentative touch of a child or a much older man than the strong reassurance of a proud warrior like his father, but Owain plastered on a faint smile that didn’t truly reach his eyes and placed his hand over his father’s in acceptance of the gesture, just as a dutiful son should.

"The Church has been trying to put a priest on our throne since the days of Odhran and Leon," Bors said as he pulled back to his chair and took another deep swallow of wine, barely tasting the complex flavors of the expensive vintage as he gulped it down to suppress the coughs that tore at his throat.

"I tried to pull us free of their clutches," Bors said, shaking his head at the futility of his attempts to free the march from the gilded chains that bound his domain inexorably to the authority of the Church. It was yet another failure that could be etched into a monument to the many things that Bors had tried and failed to change in his tenure as the Lothian Marquis.

"I never wanted Loman to be a priest," Bors confessed as he stared at the dancing flames in the hearth. "When the war ended and the treasury was full of gold and jewels, I thought that we could send him away to the Royal Academy. We don’t have enough friends in the Royal Court you know," he added bitterly.

"When the Crusade finally comes, if you’ve found a good woman to give you sons, you need to fight for a chance for at least one of them to make friends with the noblemen of the heartlands," Bors said sagely. "I learned too late that we’d need the support of a family like the Blackwells to push the demons back any further than we did in Cellach’s days, and you saw how that turned out," Bors added with a snort that provoked another fit of coughing.

"So why didn’t you send Loman to study at the Royal Academy?" Owain asked as he refilled his father’s cup yet again. Already, the expensive bottle from the Emerald Kingdom was nearly empty, but Owain didn’t seem bothered by how little of the rare vintage had passed his own lips. Instead, he retrieved another bottle and quietly broke the seal, replacing the nearly empty one with a fresh bottle as he ensured his father’s cup was never less than half full.

"You had the wealth," Owain acknowledged. "Even after hiring so many tutors to come from Keating and Trevarthen to teach me, you could have sent Loman and half a dozen sons of loyal barons or knights along with him if you’d wanted to. So, why didn’t you?"

"Your mother," Bors said with a wistful smile on his lips. "Your mother couldn’t bear the thought of sending her son so far away when he was young, and every time I brought it up, she pointed out how outstanding you were, with just a few tutors from outside the march."

"Your mother was a remarkable woman, Owain," Bors said with misty eyes that stared at something only he could see. "You should find someone like her instead of a scheming, demonic witch like that Blackwell girl," he said, though it wasn’t clear whether he was referring to Jocelynn or Ashlynn with his statement.

"You’ll have more freedom as a knight errant to marry for love, you know," Bors added. "I was lucky to find a good woman among all the scheming, social climbers who just wanted to wed and bed the mightiest lord they could seduce... There were so many of them, all tarted up in fine silks and expensive perfumes. But your mother... Your mother was something special..."