Chapter 759: A Stolen Throne (Part Two)

"Almost no one knew me mother were with child," Sybyll said slowly after taking a deep pull on the bottle of wine. "But me father, he told his brother Aiden when the second month passed an’ mother didn’a get her moonflow."

"So yer grandfather, he brought the strongest wine he could," Sybyll said, shaking her head at how simply her father had been defeated. But then, he’d never grown up needing to defend himself from the people who were closest to him. He’d never had to watch the person sleeping next to him for a hand in his purse or a knife in his back. And he’d never thought his brother would turn against him instead of celebrating with him.

"I weren’t even born yet, but me mother saw first hand when Aiden strangled his own brother in bed after gettin’ ’im drunk that night," Sybyll explained. "She only barely got away from it all by throwin’ herself out the window. She broke her arm in the fall an’ walked with a limp the rest ’o her life after that, but she got away an’ fled the barony."

"Aiden never stopped huntin’ her, neither," she added bitterly. "We was always runnin’ those years. Runnin’ an’ hiding ourselves away from his knights an’ their hounds," she said with a pointed look at Sir Carwyn.

The young knight shuddered at the thought of what Baroness Caitlin must have endured. His own wife was only a little bit further on in her own pregnancy than the Baroness had been she’d been forced to flee and he couldn’t imagine Owlyna walking from one side of their village to the other without taking a rest, much less fleeing through the wilderness.

"The, the records say it was the Red Cough," Hugo said numbly as his mind grappled with the version of events that Sybyll related. But as soon as he thought about the Red Cough, he realized why Aiden Hanrahan might have chosen that particular sickness to blame for the deaths of his brother and sister-in-law.

"He wanted an excuse to burn the bodies quickly, before anyone could see how Brighton really died," he said as he forced himself to meet Sybyll’s crimson gaze. "Or that the woman’s body they burned wasn’t really Baroness Caitlin. Everyone would have insisted on a grand funeral for a baron’s death, but to stop the spread of the Red Cough..."

A year ago, Hugo might not even have thought of such a thing. But, a year ago, he hadn’t entered Owain’s service or conspired to poison an innocent mother and her child using spider-demon venom, just because Sir Tommin had offended Owain.

A year ago, things like plotting to murder family members over the right to inherit had seemed like fantastical tales told by minstrels about the schemes of corrupt noblemen in the old countries. They were things that couldn’t happen in places like Lothian March where good and godly men still held the line against the real enemy, the demon hordes who would wipe out their kingdom and their way of life if they had the chance to.

Against the backdrop of the war against demons, internal strife within the kingdom was seen as a mortal sin and even the Church would decry a man as a heretic for fighting his fellow man when he should have pointed his sword at demons. Now, however, after spending a mere half-year in Owain’s service, Hugo no longer suffered from the delusions that noblemen were immune from schemes that required betraying their own kin.

"Marcel said you were a clever one," Sybyll said as she leaned forward to pour more wine in Hugo’s cup. "An me new little brother begged me ta spare yer life, at least until ’is liege lady kills yer current master."

"Little brother?" Sir Carwyn said, finally managing to speak after spending several minutes regaining control of his breathing. "Do, you you mean Sir Ollie? Then, is he, is he also a child of Baroness Caitlin? Is she a, a vampire like you?"

Other than the similarity of their hair and stature, Sir Carwynn had a difficult time saying for sure that they looked enough alike for siblings. But Dame Sybyll was a vampire and Sir Ollie was a witch and who knew how much that had transformed either of them? Sybyll’s crimson eyes certainly weren’t anything that belonged to a human after all.

But, if Sybyll really was the daughter of Brighton Hanrahan and Baroness Caitlin, then she was almost as old as Hugo’s father, yet she looked as young as a woman who was barely twenty. If the same was true of the Baroness... could she still be young enough to have given birth to Sir Ollie?

"Sir Ollie looks ta be a good lad who’s done more honest work than I ever did," Sybyll said with a shake of her head. "But he’s no blood kin o’ mine. Sir Thane’s the one who trained me up into a knight, and he’s done the same for Ollie too, an’ that makes ’im my little brother in arms."

"I, I suppose it does," Sir Carwyn said. "But, Dame Sybyll," the young knight continued, unable to let some matters lie. "Even if Bar, er, even if Aiden Hanrahan was a murderous usurper, Ian Hanrahan was only a young child at the time. He and his sons shouldn’t be guilty of anything other than being born the children of a murderer."

"Don’t speak of what you don’t know," Sybyll snapped, snatching a butter knife from the table and flinging it at the table in front of Carwyn with enough force to embed itself half way to its hilt in the solid wood of the table top. "You think me mother never tried to return ta Hanrahan Barony ta reconcile with the bastard that took the throne from Uncle Aiden? Ta have me recognized as kin so I could live a lady’s nice life an’ not beg on the street with me crippled mother?"

"Like father, like son," Sybyll spat. "That bastard, Ian, finished what ’is father didn’a do an’ me mother lost her life from try’in ta find me a better one. So don’t tell me who’s innocent an’ who’s not till ya’ really know," she said, pushing off of the table to stand.

"Ya don’t hafta fear nothin’ from me," she said as she turned to leave. "Not fer the next four nights at least. I’ll be busy with Lady Ashlynn. It’s good to have kin in this world I might not need ta kill, Hugo," she said, sighing heavily when she reached the door. "Don’t make me change me mind."