The next day dawned to the stricken cries of Sister Lydia. Out of some misguided kindness, Abbess Margaret had elected to stay her misery. Sister Ethil had been found the previous morning, placed almost tauntingly before the gates of the abbey. The sheriff believed it to be deliberate, the murderer having killed her while she retrieved candles for the chapel. But it was not the suppositions of the sheriff that were enforced any longer, as they might have been otherwise. Sybil’s father, Randolf, was alderman of Mercia and their abbey was part of a larger trend. His reeves and magistrates had whispered in his ear of druid influence, of spreading heresy. The queen had given orders and her father’s course had been set for him. Not even the menfolk could escape their bonds, in the end.
Sybil carried her father’s requests from the abbess’ office. She ran a conspiratorial eye over them as she moved from the main building toward the disused church that sat upon the outskirts of their property. A makeshift barracks with even the best will, Sybil’s eavesdropping informed her that her father had ordered no fewer than twenty men for the sole purpose of protecting the nuns as they went about their business. Though the abbey was large and the convent’s population broad, she knew her father better than most. Ever had he been a pragmatic man, focused entirely upon the worldly matters of the church. She supposed that was what had stayed her from the stake or gallows. Or perhaps his paternal fire yet burned for the gentlest, frailest of his daughters. She could use that, at least.
As the nun brought her papers to the church, she noticed a few familiar faces from her father’s household guard. She waved to them sweetly, signalling that the woman beneath the veil was indeed Sybil. She gratefully accepted their aid in carrying her burden, opening the doors for them.
Within the church, the pews had been cleared away to the walls, placed facing each other as makeshift bunks for the fifteen men that had arrived with her father. The roof had been patched with tarp procured from the town, a set of sturdy tables fashioned around a miniature, slapdash map of the valley they lived in. Banshire had ever been a quaint little backwater, she supposed. Not like the bustling streets of Liverpool. Her newly acquired desire for the hunt however brought to her attention a singular notion. There were more people in cities. More prey.
She shook her head slightly, passing it off as some ditzy daze. Her father had taken the alter for his table, where he now sat as an island of calm against a tempest of paper. The high-backed wooden chair he occupied sat decorated with his cloak, embroidered with their family coat of arms.
Randolf Arthurson was a man whose brown beard had begun to yield to his encroaching age. He was still a large, strong man who wore his hair pulled back into a series of tight braids. He possessed his daughter’s intensely blue eyes, using them to great effect instilling obedience in all they beheld. Though his hands were callused from decades in the saddle and the parade ground, they held the pen and inkwell with just as much confidence. With a smile, Sybil realised he still possessed a fondness for bright green under the leather armour of his jerkin. His dour and commanding presence that night at the refectory had hidden such frivolity under the ominous black cloak he wore to scare the peasantry.
Bereft of the intense sunlight thanks to the slim windows of the church, Sybil pulled her veil from her face and directed her helpful cadre to reinforce her father’s palisade of parchment. He looked up from his work writing directives to the town, a warm smile coming to his face. He took his daughter’s hands in his own as they greeted each other, Sybil taking her place at his side as any obedient daughter would.
“Abbess Margaret’s account of how she isn’t at fault, no doubt,” her father jovially observed as his men placed her burden before him. He took a few moments to look over the contents before abruptly stopping at the second bound manuscript. Carefully he laid aside the first face down upon his impromptu desk before getting to his feet with a, in Sybil’s opinion, exaggerated grunt of advancing age. “Attend to an old man’s nostalgia a moment, daughter. I shall return shortly,” Randolf smiled to his underlings, indicating with a firm hand on Sybil’s shoulder that his request was anything but. With a sinking feeling she felt herself directed from the main area of the church toward the smaller shrine that had once kept the abbey’s relic. The finger of some saint or similar archaic trinket. With a twisted, barely suppressed grin Sybil supposed it may have been the blood of a saint. Though her smile vanished like lightning in the dark as her father rounded on her with an arched eyebrow. She returned his inquisition with an almost challenging stare.
“You needn’t hide such dalliances from me, Sybil,” Randolf began, seating himself upon a stout chair. His eyes showed surprising compassion which almost broke the façade of diplomacy Sybil had erected. “You were always a child easily moved to love. I hadn’t imagined that your straying had become this. Though I imagine it hurts all the same. I know well the pain of losing a wife,” her father consoled her. And that which had threatened to break previously now lay in tatters. Sybil fell into her father’s arms, clinging to him as the stresses of her new existence washed over her. The blood had been too little, Judith’s consolation too little. Her murderous vendetta too great. Though she kept herself from sobbing, she felt the tears fall all the same. She was actress toward many but beyond Judith, her father had ever seen through her. “Normalcy is an ill-gotten consolation to the heaven we feel in their embrace. I could not content myself seeing you removed from temptation. Rather, whole as opposed to broken. I would not have you sundered as I was,” Randolf confessed with a moved expression, running his hand over her habit. Her locks were beyond his reach now, but he would comfort her all the same.
They abided in each other’s embrace for a time, drawing comfort in estranged familiarity.
“Stop that nonsense,” Sybil sniffed, drying her eye with a thumb. She gently drew herself to her feet, gaining some measure of control. A few short breaths to steady her resolve and she was once again able to slip into sapience. “There is a murderer abound and I would see him hang for his crimes,” she smiled wanly, lies coming far too easily to her lips nowadays. “I can think of nobody more terrifying to injustice than the man who calls himself humbly my father,” the nun added as the gruff man affixed her with a strange stare.
“Take caution against such impulses, Sybil. Vengeance is ever the traitorous brother of justice,” Randolf warned with a pointed finger to his daughter’s chin. He was kind in his warning, yet it stung all the same. He could not have known that his accidental chiding had happened upon the true meat of the issue. Sybil did not begrudge Judith her vengeance. She was lost, succumbing to the same bloodthirst that now strangled her. Whilst she could resist fully in the knowledge of what would come later, the truth was simple. She would have to feed. Sooner rather than later. Mayhap her protector was right, and she merely enfeebled herself in vain.
Father and daughter returned to the men with reddened eyes and an arm on each other. The soldiers understood all too well how lucky Randolf had been for a nobleman. While many of them had married for love, he’d been betrothed at the age of fourteen. The woman who’d arrived from Wales was every part his completion. And for that, Sybil was thankful. Judith’s parentage had been far grimmer by comparison. With that in mind, they understood well the depth of their commander’s loss.
The pair of them took Abbess Margaret’s report on Sybil’s trysts as well as general sinfulness and walked outside, speaking of light matters related to her brothers and her horses. Her father lamented on how she’d been unable to keep up with her archery after taking the cloth. He spoke so pointedly as he threw the bound manuscript in the fire, a hardened stare overcoming him. Sybil wanted so dearly to tell him, to reveal the murderess’ identity and her reasoning. Then surely, he would spirit them to the manor, give a house and lands to cultivate and manage their condition. She fantasized idly about the herb gardens, of cooking for her beloved. It was a wonderful dream. But the wages of murder were far steeper than their merest of sins.
It was upon their idle reminiscing about their final Christmas together and her brother’s antics that night that a watchman made his way frantically up the western path from the town. He ran like a man possessed, caring naught for the satchel that flung about his wiry body. He was so young, Sybil thought as she looked him over. Barely a boy of sixteen. Her slowly encroaching hunger offered her the pithy observation that he wouldn’t even sate her for a few minutes if she drained him dry. She was thankful to have replaced her veil as she suppressed a snarl toward that most savage impulse.
“Milord! Milord!” the youth shouted in a thick Welsh accent. What a curious little journey he must have been on to have wended up as a watchman. “Another nun! Another nun has been murdered!” he bellowed as he came to a stop a few paces from them, heaving breath into his lungs with hands on his knees. His desperation was evident by the sheer distance he had to have run. At first Sybil felt concerned, deeply so, before something began to build within her. Its matured version stood as a blazing phoenix in her father, whose rage was incandescent at the injustice.
“Again, he seeks to disturb the queen’s peace?! He mocks us with his very audacity!” her father bellowed before turning his furious eyes toward the abbey. “I bade that the nuns be quarantined for their own safety, and this is the measure of duty I am owed? To damnation with it, and to hell with her! Men, search the town and instil curfew upon the smallfolk. I will have no more murder done upon my watch,” he ordered through one of the slim windows, prompting his soldiers to emerge moments later dragging their armour into place. Their swords and crossbows jangled as they began the swift jog to the town proper. Then, her father turned to Sybil who looked to be shaking with fear. “Remain inside. I will not have you come to harm most of all,” Randolf insisted, gripping both of his daughter’s shoulders. She could only manage a weak nod before the slight youth was ordered to stand watch over the tower in which she slept.
~
Sybil sat alone in the tower slowly making her way through the bread and cheese the helpful youth had brought her. His name was Aneurin, though she was instructed firmly to call him Nye. It was a shame he was so close to her, really. The food was doing very little, if anything, to improve the broiling ravenousness in her stomach. Even now he sat on his stool upon the landing, spear in hand while he amused himself with a card game. The sun was beginning to set, and the nun had ruminated long over what she would do once she saw Judith. This ruination could not continue as it was. Something had to be done before her father brought the whole shire down upon her head. Or worse, Judith hurt him. She felt the shackles of obligation entrap her, caught between good daughter and attentive sweetheart. No guardian would have cast her into this oubliette. For in her actions, she’d left her with only one way out.
Sister Francis had been the accident. But sisters Ethel and Edith had been targeted. Even now, Lydia pondered what awful vengeful deity she’d enraged to have these misfortunes poured out upon her. Sybil pondered whether Judith should be punished. Though to condemn her beloved was to condemn herself for harbouring her. Even more pursuant to the issue was that the small part of herself that had nestled within her since she woke that morning wanted no such thing. It was primal, animalistic. It saw only her lover and meat. And that simplistic, cruel disposition had wormed itself into every facet of her thinking. While her heart still bled for humanity, and while she wished it all the best in finding their happiness, she felt apart from it. Her empathy had been sullied. Where once there was unthinking compassion there was now a separation. She mourned its loss, as if the law the almighty had written onto her heart were now instead written into her mind’s eye. And it could be erased whenever convenient.
There was a slight scrabbling on the stonework below. Knowing then that her time was up, Sybil stood and opened her door a finger’s breadth.
“Nye, would you do me a service and retrieve some hemlock from Prioress Lora? I fear I shall have trouble sleeping,” Sybil requested with a small voice, frail and deferential. The youth got to his feet with an eager nod, keen to do his duty and do it well. She smiled as she saw his retreating back disappear down the stairwell. At least he would not overhear them now.
Judith appeared at her window fanged grin plastered across her features before she pushed it open. With sublime ease, the healthier of the two leapt from the sill to the ground with a fanciful somersault, bowing mockingly to her lover who affixed her with a disapproving glare. She sighed and rolled her eyes before pulling Sybil to her, kissing her briefly. The blonde bloodthirsty woman felt her instincts take control briefly, fang piercing her lover’s lip as they embraced. She pulled back with a muttered apology, watching with surprise as the wound seemingly sealed itself and vanished.
“Is my songbird hungry?” Judith teased, bringing a wineskin from her satchel and waggling it invitingly toward Sybil. It had been some time since the nun had sung in choir, having fallen out with the others. Elizabeth’s doing, mostly. Though she had kissed a novice, in fairness. “I do wonder when you might get your own meals rather than have me feed you as a mother crow,” she added with a good-natured tone that hid the underlying irritation.
“Would this be from the same dead nun, also?” Sybil asked pointedly, taking the wineskin before it could be petulantly retracted. Judith smirked knowingly as her lover undid the cork. Though she made pretentions to piety and condemnation, there was a savage joy in those blue eyes as they guzzled the blood. Sybil felt her knightess’ approval at the thought of her teeth tearing into a human. It brought great discomfort. Nestled within that unease, revoltingly, an excitement bloomed. She wanted to. And she couldn’t crush that thought quickly enough not to recognize it for the murderous impulse it was.
“Why do you pine for their salvation, Sybil?” Judith sighed, resting her head on the other woman’s shoulder. “I am not by nature a reaper of men. But nor will I shy away from what I am and what I must do. You spurn even a trickle of sustenance. You won’t even leave them a quart of blood less and a kiss to mend their wound. Which we can do, incidentally,” the dark-haired woman added impatiently as she felt her beloved’s attention slipping once more into the wineskin. She knew that she would find it easier to repel the thoughts and control the urges if she refrained from starving herself days at a time.
“Is that what you’ve been doing? Leaving them with a kiss?” Sybil asserted bitterly, almost bringing herself to hysterical laughter at how mundane their argument sounded. As if they were arguing over the contents of a luncheon.
“I could lick them if you prefer,” Judith asserted with a sly grin, kissing Sybil’s jaw almost possessively. “But no, my affections are only for one nun. Infuriating and judgemental as she might be, her good heart is why I abide here,” the merry murderess purred, pressing herself to Sybil and almost bowling her over onto the bed. The creature within her enjoyed such advances, appreciating the food and company both. It brought thoughts of whether there were others like them in the world.
“This must end, Judith,” Sybil commanded, fingers running through soft dark hair. It had such wonderful curls. Shorn of the trappings of her faith, it seemed her paramour had flourished. Sybil had never felt further from her own.
“And it shall!” Judith answered with a firm tone, looming above her in the darkness. Of course, it wasn’t true darkness to things such as them. She could see the excitement on her features, the many fantasies she’d spun in justification of it all. It seemed the edicts remained written upon her soul too, somewhere. “Mark me, my star, once the nuns have fled in terror, we shall go with them. And from Liverpool we shall sail to Francia or Eire or anywhere you wish. The horned one will have her due, she shall leave us be and we will have solace,” she garbled excitably before suddenly stopping, rearing up to cock her head to the side. Sybil, overcome with her lover’s exuberance, felt her ears twitch at the sound of Nye’s return. A dreadful thought seemed to come over Judith as she stared to the door. The nun didn’t imagine she intended to sate her own hunger. Perhaps she wanted to provide for her beloved as a lioness might for the pride. Realising she had but moments, she leaned up and took a fistful of Judith’s hair. Craning her neck authoritatively, she bent the other woman’s head to her lips and kissed her as a peace offering before delivering her order.
“Spare him for me. He is one of my father’s favourite soldiers and I hate to see him despair,” Sybil whispered gently, watching with her preternatural eyes as her lover’s hair stood up along her neck. It seemed she’d awakened something in her wild Francian. Slowly, she uncurled her fingers, allowing her to stare with a surprised expression before the confident grin reasserted itself. She allowed it, if only because it was the first sign of a hawk within her songbird. “If you do any further murder upon this convent, I shall be very disappointed in you,” she asserted as Judith began to make her way from the tower. The other woman looked back disapprovingly before slipping from sight. The nun sighed before falling flat upon her bed with a growl of frustration. She would discern the trick to leashing her beloved soon enough. Perhaps an actual leash. She grinned at the thought, her humanity and her savagery in agreement for once.
As Nye knocked on her door to give her the requested item, she smiled warmly toward him and thanked him before closing it. Her smile faded almost instantly, glass phial uncorking as she took a needle to poke holes within the cheese. The bread would be suitably absorbent all its own. With her skullduggery complete, she took her leftovers to the door an hour later and handed them over sheepishly. She claimed that anxiety had left her bereft of appetite. The truth of the matter was that such a modest repast had no entertainment value for a creature that didn’t need sustenance. Well, not that sustenance.
It took but a few minutes for the hemlock to do its work, bringing the young man to a dreamless slumber. Come morning, he would imagine himself to have fallen asleep at his post. Shame and guilt would do the rest. She would act as if things were completely ordinary, as she did when she opened the door once more. The rooftiles below the landing window were more comfortable to those who had no experience climbing sheer brickwork. She imagined Judith likely used her nails. Though how she summoned them at will was a mystery.
The night air was invigorating, she thought as she stalked the grounds. The moon tickled her senses, illuminating everything within an eerie silver-tinged light. She could see the church clearest of all, the torches hanging from its awning practically blinding even at a distance. She leant on her instincts, swiftly hopping the stonework wall and melting into the forest. She drew her veil over her face, keen to avoid recognition. It also rendered her nigh invisible to the human eye on so dark a night. As she traversed the forest, she was impressed at how quietly she moved. It was as if her body could bear several times its own weight, allowing her to ease her feet soundlessly onto the leaf-strewn floor. With mounting curiosity, she leapt silently from the floor to a branch that would have been higher from the ground than her father’s forelocks. She allowed herself a little giggle, flying between the branches like a squirrel. The only sounds were the faint thuds and creaks of trees taking her weight as she landed on them. All else were perfectly natural sounds. Foxes yipping, badgers snuffling the undergrowth and hedgehogs hunting. As her ears strained, she heard birds breathing gently in the nest above her.
Her nose guided her toward the town. While there were heavy scents of rotting wood, earthy notes and animals, the odour of humans was unmistakable. She could make out the lights of the town through the boughs and trunks, unsure how smell could carry so far. She followed it, pondering whether she should do as Judith bade and hunt for her own meal. A vagrant or wastrel, a drunk perhaps. Someone who would not be believed when she savaged them.
Sybil shook her head violently, clearing such thoughts from her mind. There were more than enough murderous blood drinkers. And she was unsure if she could stop herself. Continuing to hunt her quarry, the nun came upon a low-slung cottage with a thatched roof and shuttered windows. Likely they could not afford glass. Aware that the sound of her movement was far from dulled, Sybil crept onto the drystone wall surrounding the garden. The scent of blood was overwhelming, swarming like wasps from the windows. Realising that there were no silent entry points, Sybil alighted from the wall into the garden. She took in the herbs, both medicinal and culinary, with scent and sight both. There were strange stick figures arrayed about the garden on stakes and hanging from the roof of the cottage, bringing a confused frown to the nun. Heretical, she recalled. Was this Myfanwy’s house?
Realising the foremost wise woman of the area was in danger, Sybil wrenched the front door open with bared teeth, eyes falling upon Judith’s back. She looked about, surprise widening her eyes until they beheld who’d interrupted her. She sighed and returned to her work. A nun beneath her, breathing raggedly and grunting in pain every so often.
“I was getting your dinner for tomorrow,” Judith purred, standing with a wineskin. Sybil paid no mind, rushing over to the nun and ensuring that she was alive. Her name was Sister Henrietta, if she remembered correctly. She gasped with sudden hunger, standing reluctantly as she turned to her love.
“You weren’t to harm anyone else,” Sybil spat, unaware as her claws began to emerge from her fingertips. Judith placed the wineskin on a table, hand brushing some herbs that hung from the ceiling. Where was that infernal druidess? She could care for the nun.
“It seems my Aphrodite has made her proclamation,” Judith jeered, a teasing smile forming on her features. Sybil removed her veil that her beloved might see the dragon’s tail she was intent on tickling. “Now let her enforce it,” the other fanged woman flirted, crooking an inviting finger. Confidence that evaporated as Sybil roared, flinging herself like a lynx upon her.
