The Pillars Of The World

escape. But it was water, not earth, that was the branch of the Mother from which she drew her strength, and her efforts had gained her nothing.
    Why had things changed? Why ? For generations, the women in her family and the rest of the people in Kylwode had lived and worked peacefully in each other’s company. How many of the common villagers and tenants on the baron’s land had been helped by her grandmother’s simples when they didn’t have the coin to pay the physician, who was really only interested in tending to the gentry and the merchant families in the area? How many had she helped by showing them where to dig their wells? And this was how they showed their gratitude for all the help that had been given?
    She tried to breathe slowly, tried to make the air last, knowing it was useless to hope, and still unable to keep from hoping that some of those men— any of those men her family had helped over the years—
    would defy Baron Hirstun and return to free her.
    Why had resentment begun to simmer in Kylwode? Was it because people had looked at the sparse crops they were scraping out of their own overused land and then had turned envious eyes on the rich meadows and forests—and the game that lived there—that belonged to the women of her family since the first witch had walked the boundaries and marked the Old Place that was in her keeping?
    How many years had they been telling people, over and over again, that the Mother was bountiful, but one must give as well as take? The people in Kylwode simply didn’t want to listen. The Mother gave—
    and should keep on giving and giving. And lately, the response to any suggestion of giving something back to the land was, “witch words,” followed by uneasy, suspicious looks—and the suggestion that the
    “giving” was some kind of blood sacrifice. And that the bounty of her own garden was payment from the Evil One for carnal pleasures.
    She’d never heard of the Evil One until Master Adolfo came to stay with Baron Hirstun. But she knew with absolute certainty that there was such a creature, that the Evil One did, indeed, walk the earth.
    And its name was Master Inquisitor Adolfo, the Witch’s Hammer.
    He was the very breath of Evil with his quietly spoken words and the gentle sadness in his eyes. Those things were the mask that hid a rotted spirit.
    Oh, yes, treat the witch gently so that she may repent. Don’t look upon her limbs so that you won’t be swayed by lust.
    The soul-rotted bastard just didn’t want those men to see the welts, the cuts, the burns he had inflicted on her to “help” her confess. The hobbles provided a clever excuse for why she couldn’t walk well. And he certainly hadn’t hesitated to indulge his lust. His rod was as much a tool as the heated poker and the thumbscrews.
    Three times he had led her to the small writing table in the hated room in Baron Hirstun’s cellar that he had changed into his Inquisitor’s torture chamber. Three times he had insisted that she must confess her crimes against the good people of Kylwode.
    Twice-she had refused to sign the confession he had written out, had even demanded the first time to know who had accused her of doing harm. She had done none of the things listed as her “crimes.”
    Harming others was against the creed she and her family lived by.
    Twice she had refused. But the third time, he had shown her the other bridle, the one she would force him to use if she continued to resist his attempt to lead her to repentance. That bridle had what he called “
    witch stingers”—spikes that would pierce the cheeks and tongue. He had shown her the other things that would have to be used to persuade her to “freely” confess.
    When she finally signed the confession, he told her he was grateful she had relieved him of the burden of continuing such an onerous task. And by signing, it was she, and not he, who had condemned her to this death.
    Bastard!
    Tears filled her eyes.
    So hard to breathe now. So very hard.
    She was glad her mother and grandmother had gone to a neighboring village to help with a birth when the baron’s men—and Master Adolfo—had come for her. She hoped one of the Small Folk had warned her family while they were still on the road home so that they could flee.
     
    Not much time now. Her body struggled for air.
    Water was her strength and her love. But they had planted her in the middle of a dry field on the other side of the village, too far away from the Old