Shadows and Light

that could have proved troublesome to their purses. But since those barons had ordered the new procedure done on the females in the counties they ruled ...
    They couldn’t admit they were wrong. Not after that. And if the other barons didn’t vote for the decrees, there was a strong chance that the people in those counties would turn on the barons. It had happened in a few villages in Wolfram after the procedure was ordered—and in Wolfram, the people knew the Inquisitors stood behind the barons’ orders. It had required cleansing two villages of the Evil One’s presence—cleansings that had left a handful of children as the only survivors by the time the Inquisitors were done—before the people had surrendered to the next step in assuring that men would remain the strong rulers of their families, their land, and their country.
    But there weren’t enough Inquisitors here in Sylvalan to carry out such a cleansing to teach the people how pernicious the Evil One could be.
    Ubel pushed those thoughts aside and concentrated on the barons. He was Master Adolfo’s eyes and ears in these chambers, and he needed to be alert.
    Some of the northern barons—the ones who had already stripped the best timber from their lands—were listening to the eastern barons. And some of the southern barons, who had gone as far as eliminating the witches in their counties, seemed interested enough that they could be persuaded to take the next steps.
    But the midlands was rich farmland, and most of the barons who ruled there received a comfortable income from their estates and tenant farms. They had no incentive to change and become true men who didn’t have to pander to the females in their families. And the western barons...
    He didn’t know what to think of them. Silent men. Uncomfortable men. If there was one of them who needed to be swayed to the eastern barons’ argument, it was Padrick, the Baron of Breton. The man listened to everything and said nothing, but Ubel had seen the way the other western barons subtly deferred to Padrick, almost as if they were a little afraid of him. So there had to be something more to the man than what could be seen on the surface. Which meant it was likely that whichever way Padrick voted, the rest of the western barons would follow.
    Which meant the vote would go against the decrees the eastern barons had proposed, and the odds were good that, before the summer ended, the barons themselves would be burned at the stake by the enraged villagers they now controlled.
    But Liam had done something even worse than put the eastern barons at risk, as far as Ubel was concerned. He’d questioned the Inquisitors’ motives. He’d accused them of being the Evil One’s servants. How could the Inquisitors do their great work if they had to fear for their lives every time they rode into a village? What Liam had done was remind the barons of that song that was still being sung in taverns—the song that referred to the Inquisitors as Black Coats and users of twisted magic. It seemed every minstrel knew every word and every note of that song, even when the man couldn’t recall where or when he’d heard it. It was as if it had ridden on the air to lodge in men’s brains. Now a baron was taking up the tune in a slightly different way, but the end result was the same—all the effort that had gone into helping the eastern barons say things in just the right way to get the vote they needed was likely for nothing.
    It was fortunate that Master Adolfo had decided to use the yacht one of the Wolfram barons had put at his disposal. He had arrived in Durham yesterday afternoon, and although Adolfo refused to leave the yacht, Ubel was pleased to have the Witch’s Hammer so close at hand. There wouldn’t be any delay in conveying information or receiving orders.
    There was one thing, however, for which Ubel needed no orders. The Sylvalan barons needed to be shown before they reconvened tomorrow morning that defying the eastern barons was the same as defying the Master Inquisitor. Once they understood how costly that defiance could be, they would also understand the need to vote as they should to ensure that Sylvalan did not remain infested with witches and other kinds of female power. Yes, they needed to be taught that there was a penalty for defying the Master Inquisitor.
    And Liam, the Baron of Willowsbrook, would be that lesson.
    Your father understood the necessity for making changes that will keep Sylvalan