The Pillars Of The World

females he was familiar with, she always remained intriguing.
     

 

     
     

Chapter Five

 

     
     

     
    Adolfo secured the latch on the window, then pulled the draperies across it, closing out the coming night.
    The meal he’d ordered sat on the table, cooling.
    Crossing to the table, he poured a glass of wine but didn’t drink.
    Tonight was the Summer Moon, a night of magic and loose morals, a night when any decent man stayed inside once the moon rose and kept himself safe behind stout walls and strong locks.
    Why had one of the carriage horses thrown a shoe late in the afternoon, forcing him to stay at this inn instead of arriving at Squire Westun’s house in Bainbrydge as he had planned? And why would the coachman who had worked for him for the past two years suddenly suggest that they could continue on this evening once the horse got a new shoe, that the full moon would light the road almost as well as the sun? Why would a man who should have known his employer better suggest that they’d be safe enough if they bought a few fairy cakes and a couple of bottles of wine to appease anyone they might meet on the road?
    Mischance or mischief? Had it been luck that this inn had been a couple of miles down the road? Or had the horse lost the shoe precisely as intended so that he would be forced to spend the night here?
    He sensed no magic around this place, and he could sense magic as keenly as a harrier could catch a rabbit’s scent. But just because he couldn’t sense it didn’t mean magic wasn’t the cause. Ill-wishing wasn
    ’t an immediate spell; it exploited a weakness, turning it into misfortune, great or small.
    Had his coachman’s eyes looked too bright, too eager when the man had suggested traveling tonight?

    Fairy cakes and wine. Did the fool actually believe that would keep a man safe from the Fae?
    That had been the thrust of it. The coachman was hoping to meet a creature he’d only heard of in stories, was hoping for a slightly dangerous encounter with one of the Fae.
    Damn fool. The Fae weren’t as dangerous as they sounded in the stories—at least, not anymore—but they couldn’t be dismissed either. They had magic, and magic equaled power to control the world, even if it was only one small piece that responded to a particular kind of magic. Oh, they all had the magic of persuasion, the ability to cloud a weaker mind to make a person do their bidding, and they had the glamour that could hide their true faces and make them look human. Beyond that, their magic was tied to a particular skill or thing in the world. That could make them dangerous, depending on what their magic could command. Still, they were only visitors who rode down their shining roads from the Otherland to amuse themselves in the human world—or seduce foolish young women or lure equally foolish young men to their doom. They were like the Small Folk in that they avoided the strongholds of civilization—the cities, the larger towns and villages. The places where men ruled. And they were like the Small Folk in that, once the land was tamed and scoured clean of its magic, they went away. In Wolfram, there were still new stories of meeting one of the Small Folk in the deepest part of a forest, but it had been many years since anyone had seen one of the Fae.
    Adolfo lifted the cover off his plate, then sat down, intending to consume his meal.
    The coachman would have to be dealt with. Obviously being in a country that stank of magic for even a few weeks had affected the man to the point where he was no longer trustworthy. And having too much idle time to gossip with Sylvalan coachmen and grooms was changing the unpalatable into the romantically intriguing.
    Adolfo sat back, the food untouched.
    Men— human men—were meant to be the masters of the world, but the land was like a coy mistress who would be bountiful one day and withhold her treasures the next. It had to be conquered, stripped of its wildness.
    Rather like women. No man who allowed himself to be captivated by the lures of breasts and thighs could call himself his own master—at least, not until he had torn out everything that needed to be stripped from a woman before she would submit to being a proper helpmate. Then, as with the land, he could enjoy the bounty as a man should. Neither land nor woman was as alluring when tamed, but both were far more useful.
    Twenty years ago, in Wolfram, his homeland, the men had been ripe for change, and he had given