Chapter 401: Breaking Down
Strong winds buffeted the windows of Marquis Bors Lothian’s private dining hall and hail mixed with rain, bouncing off the glass panes with a sharp -PING-PING-PING- sound that echoed like thunder across the small dining room in the wake of Bors’s declaration that Loman might inherit his throne.
It took every bit of control Jocelynn possessed to keep her knife and fork firmly in hand, poised over her leg of grouse without moving as tremors rippled through her body. Just when everything had been going so well, why? Why would this old man pull the rug out from under her when she’d done so much to find her way to Owain’s side?
"You can’t," she blurted, her mind racing from one thought to the next like a frightened mare as she tried to latch on to a reason why Owain had to be the heir and she had to be the one to marry him. "Loman, Loman is a priest," she said, pointing out the first and most obvious barrier to Bors’ apparent plan. "He can’t inherit a worldly position."
"He can’t inherit my throne and retain his position as a priest within the Church," Bors Lothian corrected, swirling the wine in his goblet before draining it to the last drop and holding it out for Jocelynn to refill. "Life is uncertain. Heirs die across the kingdom with some frequency. If a noble family had to cut ties with their sons within the Church and sever their own lines of succession should tragedy strike, do you think any family of note would allow their sons to enter the Church?"
"No, but," Jocelynn started, stumbling slightly as she stood from her seat to fill the Marquis’ goblet with more of the heady, fortified wine that he preferred. "But Owain isn’t dead. The line of succession isn’t broken. There’s no reason for Loman to step in as heir."
"Isn’t there?" Bors said, taking a deep drink of wine and holding out his goblet before Jocelynn could sit down. As power games went, it was crude, but he needed to school this young temptress before she grew overconfident in her manipulation of Owain. "I love both my boys, but one of them murdered his wife on his wedding night and intends to take her younger sister as his bride in her place," he said bluntly.
"My, my sister, she, she bore the mark of the witch," Jocelynn said in feeble protest. The words that she’d once said so confidently into Owains ear now sounded hollow and uncertain, even to her own ears. After months of speaking about Ashlynn with Confessor Eleanor, she was no longer certain that Ashlynn’s mark was a genuine mark of the witch, but it was far too late to take back her words now.