The Pillars Of The World

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