Chapter 796: Samira’s Secret (Part One)
"So she wasn’t really Lady Ashlynn?"
"Did you hear? Lady Ashlynn was murdered the night of her wedding..."
"Lord Owain forced himself on her?"
"I saw Lady Ashlynn at the wedding, I did. I were carrying dishes ta tha’ lower tables. She looks like Lady Ashlynn did, I swear it!"
"Looks like her? Enough to pass her child off as Lord Owain’s heir you think? Is that why he..."
"Shush now! This sort of thing, it gets a man killed for knowing. You don’t know nothing and I don’t know nothing either!"
The whispers that swept through the crowded kitchen were like a wildfire, spreading rapidly on the heels of Samira’s shocking confession that not only wasn’t she Lady Ashlynn, the real Ashlynn had been murdered the night of her wedding. And most shocking of all, Samira was carrying Lord Owain’s child!
Suddenly it made sense why things had been so strange at the summer villa. If the imposter received visitors the way the real Lady Ashlynn would have, people would have found out she was a fake. But if Owain returned from the Summer Villa with a bouncing baby, maybe one with Lady Ashlynn’s signature blond hair and Lord Owain’s charming features... Everyone would believe the child was his proper heir!
But the secret they’d just heard was far, far too dangerous to know. Perhaps it was more dangerous than the demons outside the walls! After all, Sir Ollie seemed to have a plan for dealing with the demons, but how would he deal with the heir to the Lothian March if he disrupted Owain’s plans?
Even a powerful knight like Sir Ollie appeared to have become would have to fear the consequences of knowing this secret, to say nothing of what would happen to common servants who knew!
"Everyone, quit yer yappin!" Otis yelled over the noise of the crowd. "Didn’a ye hear Sir Ollie? He said ta go an’ fetch yer things! So go, git an’ hurry back before the demons swallow us whole! Save tha’ lords gossip for tha’ lords and mind yer tongues."
"Otis is right," Ollie said as he shook off the shock. "We need to move quickly. The further we’re able to go today, the safer we’ll be," he explained. After all, he had no way of knowing if someone had sent a carrier pigeon or other messenger bird when the attack began.
Reinforcements could be on their way by the end of the day if the Church got word of things and he’d learned enough in the visions of his trial of witchcraft to have a healthy amount of fear for the things their priests and Inquisitors could do if they were truly determined to hunt down the demons who destroyed the villa. The sooner he could get these people behind the walls of the Vale, the better.