The Pillars Of The World (3 page)

” against those families that allowed him to confiscate the land and add it to his own holding.

“There’s only one copy,” Hirstun said.

“I retain the other copy,” Adolfo replied. And
that
copy confessed to one other thing, which would only be brought to light if Hirstun proved to be a difficult man to deal with.

“I expect you’ll be leaving soon.”

That tone, both dismissal and command, infuriated Adolfo, but his voice remained mild when he said, “

Unless there are others in Kylwode who are suspected of practicing witchcraft.” He made the words almost a question.

“Those three were the only witches in Kylwode,” Hirstun said coldly.

Which is not the same thing
, Adolfo thought.
Not the same thing at all
. That was the error the gentry in Arktos and Wolfram had made when they had first started dealing with him. They had treated him like a servant once his duties had given them what they wanted. But they had learned, as the gentry in Sylvalan would learn, just how hard the Witch’s Hammer could strike a village, how far the frenzy of accusations could spread with the right incentive, how even a gentry family was not immune.

Hirstun opened a drawer in his desk, pulled out a hand-sized bag of gold coins, and dropped it on the desk.

“When we first discussed the trouble in Kylwode, you agreed to pay two bags of gold for my services,”

Adolfo said quietly.

“You only had to deal with one of them, not all three,” Hirstun said sharply. “And the other two won’t be coming back. Half the fee for one-third of the work seems more than fair.”

So that’s how it would be.

Adolfo sat back in his chair, turning his head just enough to look out the window at the baron’s children, who had gathered on the lawn with some of their friends.

“The Evil One is a pernicious adversary,” Adolfo said. “Sometimes a person becomes ensnared without realizing it until she—or he—is persuaded to open her soul and confess. Sometimes a person becomes Evil’s servant through carnal indiscretion. Pain is the only spiritual purge for someone who has been misled by a witch’s lust.”

Hirstun looked out the window, stared at his eldest son for a long moment, then swung back to face Adolfo. “Are you accusing
my
son of having carnal acts with a witch?”

“Were we speaking of your son?” Adolfo said mildly.

The way Hirstun paled was confirmation enough about why there was a resemblance between the witch they’d just condemned and Hirstun’s daughter.

A long, strained silence hung between them.

Adolfo waited patiently, as he’d done so many times before. He was a middle-aged, balding man who had the lean face of a scholar and the strong body of a common laborer. His clothes, as dull-colored and simply cut as a common man’s, were made of the finest wools, the best linens. His voice held the inflections of a gentry education as well as the roughness of a man whose education had been acquired in the alleys. People like the baron were never sure if he had been a younger son of a prominent family who had fallen on hard times or some backstreet brat who had spent years learning to mimic his betters until he could pass for one of them. While their lack of deference infuriated him, he understood the value of letting the gentry think they were dealing with a cur only to discover a wolf had them by the throat.

Finally, reluctantly, Hirstun pulled out another bag of gold.

“My thanks, Baron Hirstun,” Adolfo said. “I do what I must because it’s the task I have been given, but there are expenses to performing that task.”

“You seem to make a good living being the Witch’s Hammer,” Hirstun said, eyeing the small jewels that completely covered the large medallion Adolfo wore over a brown wool tunic and white linen shirt.

Adolfo brushed a finger over the medallion. “I have spent the last thirty years of my life doing this work.

Each of these stones represents a village in my homeland that I cleansed of witches—and all other signs of witchcraft.”

“We understand each other well enough,” Hirstun said harshly. “I trust that understanding will continue.”

“That is my hope as well,” Adolfo said, gathering up the bags of gold. “If you will excuse me, Baron, I must send a message to my assistant Inquisitors.”

“Why?”

Adolfo smiled slightly. “The work we do is filled with dangers. It is our custom to inform each other of where we are as well as our next destination. That way, if something should happen to one of us, the others would know where to begin the hunt for the Evil One’s servant.”

“I see,” Hirstun said tightly.

You begin to see
, Adolfo thought as he made his bow and left the room.
For now, that is enough
.

In the gray, predawn light, Morag let the dark horse pick its way across the sodden field toward the young woman sitting on a small mound of earth.

Seeing the fear and tension in the woman’s face, she reined in a few feet away and let a gentle silence build between them.

“You can see me,” the woman said.

Morag’s lips curved in a hint of a smile. “I am the Gatherer. I see all the ghosts.”

The fear and tension drained from the woman, replaced with something close to hope. “You’ve come to take me to the Summerland?”

She said nothing for a moment, not quite sure what to make of humans who spoke of the Summerland.

This was her first extended journey in the human world since she had become the Gatherer less than a year ago—her first journey at all to the northeastern part of Sylvalan. Until recently, none of the humans she had gathered had asked about the Summerland. “I can guide you to the Shadowed Veil. The place beyond it has been called by many names. Perhaps it is many places. Your spirit knows its home. If that is the Summerland, then that is the place you’ll find.” As she extended her hand, the sleeve of her black gown opened like a raven’s wing. “Come.”

The woman floated over the ground, floated up behind the Gatherer. Once she was settled, she asked softly, “Do you think I’ll see my mother and grandmother in the Summerland one day?”

As she turned the dark horse to go back the way she had come, Morag thought of the two women whose bodies had been left near the road that led to this village, the two women whose spirits she had gathered and taken to the Shadowed Veil. When the mound and field were out of sight, she finally said, “

You’ll meet them there.”

Ari tried not to sigh out loud as she set her heavy baskets on the floor of Granny Gwynn’s shop and sincerely hoped Odella and the other young women from Ridgeley’s gentry families would conclude their business quickly.

Seeing the movement, Odella gave Ari a sharp look before turning back to the small, wrinkled woman standing behind the wooden counter at the back of the shop. “Do you have it, Granny?”

Granny Gwynn huffed. “Wicked girl. You wound my heart, indeed you do, to think that I’d forget to make the fancy for my pretty misses. Of course I have it. You wait there.” She disappeared behind the heavy curtain that separated the storage rooms from the front of the shop.

Odella and the others girls began whispering and giggling.

Trying to prevent it was as easy to ignore them as it was for them to ignore her, Ari waited. She should have heeded the strange feeling in the air this morning and stayed home. She should have worked in the garden or finished cleaning her cottage. She should have taken her sketchbook and colored chalks into the woods and spent the day quietly making the swift drawings that would be transformed into the woven wall hangings that provided her with some income.

But loneliness had slipped into her dreams last night, making her crave even the illusion of company. So she had rolled up the wall hanging Mistress Brigston had commissioned and the bottles of simples she had made to sell at Granny’s shop, packed her baskets into the small handcart, and made the three-mile walk to the village.

Granny Gwynn reappeared, her hands full of small items wrapped in brown waxed paper.

“Here you are, my pretty ladies. A little fancy for a little fun during the Summer Moon.”

Odella and the other girls leaned over the counter while Granny Gwynn unwrapped one of the packages.

A couple of the girls gasped, then giggled behind their hands.

“Now tuck those safely away until they’re needed,” Granny Gwynn said after handing a package to each girl. She narrowed her eyes. “Where’s the last girl?”

Odella waved an impatient hand. “It doesn’t matter. What do we do with the fancy? How does it work?”

“It matters, Miss Odella,” Granny Gwynn said darkly. “Seven were asked for. Seven were made. Seven must be taken.”

“Then I’ll take the other one, too.”

Granny Gwynn shook her head. “There’s no way to tell what will happen if one is left or if two are taken by the same person.”

Odella paled a little. She glanced around the shop. A predatory look came into her eyes. “Then give the last one to Ari.” She made a come-forward motion. “Come on, Ari. It’s just a bit of fun to celebrate the first moon of summer.”

Ari studied the other girls, who were now watching her with avid interest. An inner voice whispered,
Beware. Beware. They do not mean you well
. The loneliness coiled around her heart, and whispered,
It’s a chance to belong, even if only for a little while
.

She stepped up to the counter.

“Hold out your left hand,” Granny Gwynn said.

When Ari hesitated, Granny grabbed her hand and tipped the package’s contents into her palm.

Ari hissed as a small jolt of magic shot up her left arm and stabbed her heart. A moment later, the feeling was gone. Then she looked at the fancy, and uneasiness washed through her.

Two pieces of brown-sugar candy. One was shaped like a full-bodied woman. The other was shaped like a phallus.

“Wrap them up now,” Granny Gwynn said, smiling slyly as she handed the brown waxed paper to Ari.

Ari hurriedly wrapped the fancy and would have left it on the counter if Granny hadn’t watched her closely until she tucked it into her skirt pocket.

“Now,” Granny Gwynn said, crossing her hands over her sagging belly. “The full moon rises in two days’

time. You must go out walking that night. Choose your path well because you must offer the female half of the fancy to the first male you see that night who isn’t close kin, and say, ‘With this fancy, I offer the affection of my body from the full moon to the dark. This I swear by the Lord of the Sun and the Lady of the Moon. May they never again shine upon me if I do not fulfill this promise.’ ”

Ari shivered. Not a bit of summer fun, then. Not if a promise had to be sworn in the name of
those
two.

“If the male accepts his piece of the fancy,” Granny Gwynn continued, “then the choice has been made.

You
must
eat the male half of the fancy in his presence to complete the magic, and you must give him as much affection as he wishes until the dark of the moon.” She smiled slyly again. “You’ll have no trouble doing that.”

“What if we don’t want the first male we see?” Bonnie, a plump blonde, asked.

Granny gave her a hard look. “The
first
. If he refuses, you’re free to seek another. If he accepts . . . the magic is binding, pretty miss. Defy it, deny it, refuse it at your peril. If you do not use that fancy to draw the brightness of affection, then you’ll draw the dark feelings to you.”

The girls shuffled nervously. Even Odella looked worried.

Ari felt sick.

Granny patted Odella’s hand. “For the next two days, take a few quiet minutes for yourself before you retire and think of what you’d like in a lover. Don’t try to draw a specific man,” she warned, holding up a finger. “Just the qualities you want in the man who will be your lover from the full moon to the dark—

and, perhaps, for much longer if you’re clever.”

“But—” Odella began to protest.

“The men of Ridgeley aren’t the
only
ones who wander the roads the night of the Summer Moon,”

Granny said, grinning wickedly.

“Oooh.” Odella wiggled. Then she smiled maliciously at Ari. “I’m sure my brother Royce will have some business that evening.”

Ari felt her throat close until it hurt to swallow.

“Now be off with you,” Granny Gwynn said, shooing the other girls out the door. Then she motioned to Ari. “Back here.”

Ari picked up her baskets of simples and followed Granny Gwynn behind the curtain.

As soon as she set the baskets on the table in the center of the room, Granny Gwynn waved her aside and began to unpack them. “Good. Good. I sold the last bottle of that yesterday.” She continued commenting and muttering while she read each neat label. Finally, she stepped back, crossed her arms over her belly, and narrowed her eyes at Ari. “I’ll give you one and a half coppers for each bottle.”

Ari stared at Granny for a long moment before she found her voice. “Our agreement was three coppers a bottle.”

“That was before Squire Kenton bought a bottle for his delicate wife. Perhaps you added a little ill-wishing when you stirred that brew, eh? Because Mistress Kenton became desperately sick after she took a couple of spoonfuls. Sick enough that the physician had to be called in. And who do you think the squire raved at and threatened to bring in front of the magistrate’s court unless I paid the physician’s fee?

”

“If it was taken properly, there was nothing in that simple that would have made her ill,” Ari said.
Except
what you may have added in order to claim it was of your own making
, she added silently.
If,
that
is, Mistress Kenton had become ill at all
.

Granny Gwynn’s face reddened, as if she’d heard the thought. “One and a half coppers. That’s all you’ll get.”

An icy calm filled Ari as she quickly repacked the baskets. “Then I’ll sell them elsewhere.”

“Elsewhere?” Granny’s voice rose. “Who do you think will buy from
you
! No one in Ridgeley will buy a simple if they have to admit it came from
you
.”

“Then I’ll sell them at Wellingsford or Seahaven.”

“A full day’s coach journey there and back to reach either one, and more time to peddle your goods.

You’d leave your place for so long?”

The touch of malicious knowledge in Granny’s voice made Ari look up.

Last spring, she had made arrangements with Ahern, a gruff old man who was her nearest neighbor, to have one of the men who worked in his stables tend her cow and chickens so that she could make the journey to Seahaven to sell a few of her wall hangings. The merchant she’d shown the wall hangings to had been impressed by the quality of her work and had bought them all—and had promised to look at anything else she had. Lighthearted and full of plans to sell her work for the fair price she couldn’t get from the gentry in Ridgeley, she had danced up the road after the night coach that traveled the coastal road from Seahaven to Wellingsford had let her off at the crossroads that led to Ridgeley—and to Brightwood, her home.

Then, in the early-morning light, she had found the “welcome” that had been left for her.

Her animals had been slaughtered, hacked to pieces. The cow’s head and two of the chickens had been dumped in the home well. Some of the gore had been splashed across the back of her cottage.

Ahern’s man arrived shortly after she did, took one look, and ran back to tell his master. Ahern and all of his men showed up a little while after that. The old man had walked through the cottage with her, but her warding spells had kept the inside of her home protected.

The men cleaned the well, removed the dead animals, even cleaned up the back of her cottage. Still, for weeks afterward, she went to the nearest stream each morning to bring back drinking water.

Later that year, when Ahern asked her if she was going to Seahaven again to sell her weaving, she had made excuses. She had understood the warning. The people in Ridgeley would tolerate her living outside their village on whatever scraps they chose to throw her way, but they wouldn’t tolerate her slipping the leash unless she forfeited Brightwood, the land that had been held by the women in her family since the first witch had walked the boundaries.

She couldn’t forfeit the land. It was her heritage . . . and her burden.

“All right,” Granny Gwynn said, bringing Ari back to the present. “All right. Two coppers. That’s the best you’ll get.”

Ari held out her hand.

Granny’s face darkened. Muttering, she pulled a coin pouch out of her skirt pocket. She looked like she wanted to spit on each copper before she dropped it into Ari’s hand.

Saying nothing, Ari slipped the coins into her own deep skirt pocket before she again unpacked the baskets.

When she picked up her empty baskets and pulled the curtain aside, Granny Gwynn said spitefully, “I hope that fancy brings you everything you deserve.”

Or at least no harm
, Ari thought as she left the shop.

Odella and the other girls were still gathered nearby. When none of them even looked at her, Ari breathed a sigh of relief.

“I’m going to try one of the paths through the woods,” Bonnie said. “If any of
them
are about, they won’

t be on the main road.”

Another girl fanned herself with a lace hanky. Her voice quivered with excitement and fear. “Do you really think
they’ll
come for the Summer Moon?”

“You’ll probably end up with Eddis or Hest,” Bonnie said with a touch of malice.

“Not Hest,” the hanky waver whined. “He has spots.”

“Well,” Odella said with a sharp smile, “you know what all the boys say is the best cure for spots, don’t you?”

The girls giggled.

Dropping her baskets into the handcart, Ari left as swiftly as she could without seeming to run away.

She should have heeded the strange feel in the air.

Mistress Brigston had tried to cheat her out of the payment for the wall hanging. Having learned the hard lesson that the gentry tended to see nothing dishonorable about trying to cheat anyone but one of their own, Ari had refused to let the woman bring the wall hanging into the house “to check the colors” before she had received payment. Then there was dealing with Granny Gwynn, who was a hedge witch with just enough skill in magic to be dangerous to anyone who trusted her potions and spells, and more than enough greed to never deal fairly if she could get away with it.

So now she was on her way home with a wall hanging no one would buy, a few coppers, and an intense desire to escape before anything else happened.

She didn’t escape fast enough.

Royce, Baron Felston’s heir, was waiting for her outside the village, just beyond a slight bend in the road.

Most of the girls sighed over Royce’s trim figure and the handsome face framed by golden curls, but Ari knew the temper that lurked behind his blue eyes, the meanness of spirit that no amount of flattering words could sweeten.

Ari gave him a cool, civil nod, hoping he’d let her pass.

Wearing a satisfied grin, Royce fell into step beside her. “I hear you got a fancy for the Summer Moon.

Let’s have a look at it.”

She dodged his hands, putting the cart between them. “Stay away from me.” She was so intent on watching him, she barely noticed the power beginning to rise inside her—the strength of the earth and the heat of fire.

“Why should I?” Royce sneered. “You’ve lifted your skirts for me before.” His eyes raked over her. “