The Pillars of the World

Chapter Twenty-seven

Adolfo carefully refolded the letter. Baron Prescott had gained the land and timber he’d craved easily enough. Too easily. The witch who had owned the land had been old and weak. He had barely taken her through the first level of cleansing torture before she broke and confessed to being the cause of all the village’s ills.

Because she had confessed so quickly, the baron had not been quite as grateful as he should have been. So this new plea for assistance was most welcome— for two reasons.

His courier had disappeared and all the silver coins that the man had been charged to deliver to the other Inquisitors had disappeared as well. Two of his men, riding to their next assigned village, had found the courier’s horse at a farm. The farmer swore that he’d been given the horse by a woman who wore a strange-looking black gown and rode a dark horse.

She had left the next morning, riding south.

He shivered at the memory. He couldn’t tell if it was fear or rage that made him react so, and that infuriated him.

So he would accept Baron Felston’s invitation, rid the baron’s virtuous people of the foul stench of the witch, and refill his own purse.

And on the journey to Ridgeley, he would think of some way to deal with the Gatherer and teach her the penalty for stealing from the Master Inquisitor.