Anne Bishop - The Pillars of the World

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. “You were better than nothing, but not by much. A cold toss that wasn’t worth a second try. But I figure the magic in that fancy will warm you up a bit and make things interesting.”

Warm her up? Warm her up ? If she were any hotter right now, she’d burn.

“Leave. Me. Alone,” she said, spacing out her words.

“As the lady wishes,” Royce said, giving her a mocking bow. Then his face hardened. “But I’m going to be riding toward the coast road that night, and I expect to meet you along the way.” He turned toward the village, then turned back and pointed a finger at her. “And if I find out you lifted your skirts for any other man before I’ve had my fill of you, you’ll regret it.”

She waited just long enough to feel sure he was really leaving. Then she grabbed the handle of her cart and hurried down the road in the opposite direction.

She managed half a mile before she had to stop. Feeling shaky and feverish, she stripped off her short cloak. “Don’t get sick now,” she said as she folded the cloak and put it in one of the baskets. “Don’t get—”

She paused, focused, felt the thrum of power waiting to be released.

“Foolish,” she muttered, stepping away from the cart. “Foolish, foolish, foolish. How many times did Mother tell you that drawing power without awareness was as dangerous for the witch as it was for the world around her?”

She closed her eyes, feeling her heart ache as if she had brushed against the bruise that had been left on it by her mother’s death two winters ago.

Taking a couple of deep breaths to steady herself, she slowly, carefully, grounded the power she had unthinkingly summoned, giving it back to the Great Mother. When she was done, she felt depleted and fiercely thirsty, but also calmer.

There was a time, her grandmother had told her, when a witch could command the power of all four branches of the Mother—earth, air, water, and fire. But something had happened over the years, and the witches’ strength had waned. For the past few generations, the women of her family had been gifted with one primary branch and a trickle of power from another. She was the first in a long, long time who had almost equal strength in the two branches of the Mother that were hers to command—earth and fire.