Spring was still some weeks off, but away from the coast and further east into the rolling lands of Pontaine, the air was warmer. The trees lining the sides of the old pre-Imperial Highway between Turnitia and Andon were still bare in spite of the milder temperatures and insects were only just beginning to buzz around. The centuries-old cobbles were worn away in most places and overgrown by scrub grass. There was some mercenary traffic along the highway, but those bands all steered clear of the column of religious warriors.
Gabriella and Erak were riding at the head of a group of four mounted Knights of the Order of the Swords of Dawn and forty five men and women on foot. Each Knight had a Squire, and ten soldiers-at-arms as support, plus a sergeant-at-arms. While the Knights rode in front, their squires followed, then most of the soldiers-at-arms.
There was a straggly line of mercenaries camped by the side of the road into the small village of Hallam's Creek. There were a few houses, a couple of taverns, a small Faith church and a smithy all nestled around a well. There were mercenaries among the regular citizens, holding the reins of half a dozen tired-looking horses They wore a mixture of different styles of armour and their tabards bore the hammer insignia of a company from north of the Drakengrat. There were no Red Daggers among them.
Gabriella recognised the insignia as that of a reputable company and one which had fought alongside the Faith several times. While the Faith retainers sought out refreshments and tended to the animals, Gabriella and the other Knights went into the small church to pay their respects. The smell of incense and old stone was welcoming and comforting. There were a couple of mercenaries, unarmed and with bowed heads, sitting in the pews. As Gabriella watched, a mercenary came out of the confession chamber and left the church. The Enlightened One, in his blue robes, emerged a moment later, yawning.
"A long day, Enlightened One?" she asked.
The man nodded. "Very busy. The visiting mercenaries have upped my workload somewhat."
Gabriella noted that a couple more mercenaries were already lining up, ready to confess. "If you need any help…"
The Enlightened One grabbed at the chance. "Could you? I feel quite dry and the chance for a jug of water would be — "
"Don't worry about it," Gabriella said. Like all the Knights, she was qualified to perform any duty an Enlightened One could, if there was no Enlightened One available.
"I won't be long," the Enlightened One promised.
As he hurried off, Gabriella slipped into his place in the confession chamber. It was a small, bare, octagonal room, with two chairs and no other furniture. When one of the mercenaries entered a few moments later, he seemed surprised to meet a person in armour.
"Well met," Gabriella said. She gestured to the other chair. "Have a seat. Has it been an easy journey from wherever you've been?"
"Easy enough," the mercenary said. "We've just come up from Andon, and there isn't much traffic at this time of year. Plenty of other companies though. There are more mercenaries looking to take on escort duty than there are merchants needing guards."
"That's nothing new to the Anclas."
"True enough. Work has been getting thinner on the ground since peace broke out."
That was the price of peace, Gabriella supposed, but there was too much violence inherent in man's nature for peace to be universal. When the Faith guided man to unity with the Lord of All, then there would be peace, but for now there was always a fight somewhere. "You can't all be out of work."
"We're not selling off horses because we got sick of them, Enlightened Sister. We're selling them because we can't support them."
"I imagine that makes you a little jealous of companies who have contracts."
"Not half!"
"I hear the Red Daggers landed themselves a fat contract with a fat merchant…"
"Hah. The Red Daggers got lucky," he spat. "We passed what's left of them half a day out of here, with the bloated sheep who's managing to fleece them, instead of the other way round. Scabby, or something I think he was called."
Gabriella's ears pricked up at that, but she kept her expression neutral. "Scarra?"
The mercenary snapped his fingers, and nodded vigorously. "That was it! Some local landowner. Has a big fat belly he carries in front of him like a wheelbarrow."
Gabriella forced herself to seem no more than curious in passing. "Oh, I think I've heard of him. He has a vineyard somewhere outside of Andon, doesn't he?"
"Yeah, that's where they were heading for," the mercenary confirmed. "Down past Dead Tree Brook."
Inside, Gabriella was grinning. "Now, if you came in here, you must have sins you want to confess…"
The border between the Anclas and Pontaine proper was the White Saw. A fast-flowing river bordered by high rock walls, its frothy peaks cutting a deep gorge on its journey westwards. The Imperial Highway was supported by several bridges west of Andon and a detachment of the Swords crossed the thundering river by means of the Dwarf Bridge.
A small tower stood at the Pontaine end of the bridge. Erak halted the column as a few bored guards, wearing the tabards of Andon's standing army, came out to examine their credentials. Like all the Pontaine city-states the Lord of Andon paid for a private army, rather than drawing troops from a central force as Vos cities did with Imperial troops. Though the troops guarding Andon's lands were simply called the Andon Militia in official documents, the region's people tended to refer to them as the Border Brawlers. Gabriella couldn't help smiling as she remembered that from her youth. She had been a child not far from here, before her parents sent her to safety in Vos during the war.
The Faith was keen to maintain as much a presence in Pontaine as it did in the Empire and, as far as Gabriella was concerned the service of the Lord of All ought to be above such petty things as nationhood and politics, though she had no illusions about the practical truth of that matter. The proportion of Faith devotees among the population in Pontaine was, according to the best efforts of Faith scribes, about half that in the Empire. She wondered whether the Border Brawlers would try to talk the Knights out of proceeding towards Andon, for the simple reason that the Swords had fought on behalf of Vos in the last war. It was before her time in the Order, but Gabriella knew that people tended to harbour deep feelings about such things.
After a few moments of chatting to the soldiers, Erak came back to join Gabriella and the others. "You look happy," he said. "Stop it, you're frightening the guards."
"I thought I had a nice smile."
"They're simple men."
"Is there another kind? Speaking of different kinds of men, did they say anything about Scarra's merry band?"
"They confirmed what the mercenary at Hallam's Creek said. They've offered to request a detachment of the Brawlers to be sent with us."
Gabriella wasn't surprised, but didn't like the idea either. When even one group had bad feelings about another because of past incidents, there was too much risk of accidents or outright betrayals and she didn't want anything interfering with them getting to Scarra. "My first instinct would be a polite refusal."
"Mine too. It's not that I don't trust them not to warn him, but…"
"Neither do I. On the other hand, if we wanted to show a bit of solidarity down here it might make diplomacy a lot easier. Here's a thought: we could send Karlsen on ahead to the cathedral to deliver the messages we're carrying on to Archimandrite Marek. They could escort him. That way they get to do something, and we don't have to worry about them."
Erak nodded. "I'll see what they say." He turned away and went back to the little fortress tower. Gabriella watched, half closing her eyes and enjoying the fresh air. Things were going well. The Lord of All was with her.
The next morning, Gabriella DeZantez held up a hand, halting the soldiers-at-arms as they moved in a skirmish line through a dry olive grove north of Andon. Gabriella reined in alongside Erak, Tanner, Oaks and Komo. Karlsen, the fourth knight who had been given to them, had continued on the Imperial Highway to Andon, accompanied by a detachment of Andon's Border Brawlers.
Neither of the Knights wore their helmets, and their mail coifs hung around their shoulders like unworn hoods.
"What do you think?" Oaks asked. He wore a neatly-trimmed red beard and had a copper-coloured mane. Komo, characteristically quiet, was a flat-faced but powerfully-built knight. Tanner was tall and looked too thin for his armour.
Erak squinted at the next rise across the olive grove. "The estate begins just over there. If Scarra or his hired blades have any sense they'll have people watching the approaches."
"If he had any sense he wouldn't be a member of a heretical sect." Gabriella said disapprovingly.
"No, if he had enough sense he wouldn't be a member of a heretical sect," Erak agreed. "Then again, given his stupidity in returning home, I'm glad he's one of them rather than one of us. I always prefer it when we're competent and they're not."
"Trust you to see a bright side." She tried not to grin back; she was trying to be professional here. "We'll have Scarra tonight, I'm sure."
"I think so — " Erak broke off at the sound of a snapping twig. "There's someone over there!"
Gabriella was already riding towards the source of the sound. As her mount bore down on a pile of leaves and branches, they suddenly flew apart and a lanky boy was sprinting away, over the ridge. Gabriella cursed and kicked her horse into a gallop, but the boy ducked into the undergrowth and through a hole in a thick hedge that the horse couldn't go through. Gabriella looked for a way round, her heart pounding with urgency. By the time she found the end of the hedge, there was no sign of the boy.
She returned to Erak. "We're screwed."
"What?"
"Some kid saw us. He got away."
"Then we have to assume Scarra now knows we're coming."
"He's got mercenaries," Gabriella reminded him. "If we're lucky he'll stand and fight." She hoped so, she didn't want to have to waste more time looking for him. Something told her he'd run though.
The estate comprised a large two-storey house at the centre of an olive grove at one end of a small town. Two streets of residences for the local farmers ran towards a ridge with a small church at the centre of a square. Scarra was ensconced in one of the town houses. That had been the mercenaries' idea. They all knew that the main house was the first place the Faith would look.
A boy in filthy homespun clothing ran in from the street and made straight for Scarra, in a cramped and dark living room. One of the mercenaries made to bat him away, but Scarra caught his wrist. "The children of these villages are the Lord of All's eyes and ears."
"That's what I was just thinking," the mercenary captain, Sarkos, muttered. Scarra had hired the best protection he could find, albeit for half their usual fee now, and a dozen men in brigandine were posted around the house.
"What is it, boy?" Scarra said to the child.
"Soldiers, Master Scarra. Coming along Dead Tree Brook."
"Secular, or religious?" Sarkos asked, suddenly all business.
Scarra was grateful for his alertness, but despaired at his gruffness with such a clearly terrified boy.
"Did they wear a symbol?" Scarra asked.
The boy nodded. "A circle, with a cross through it."
"The Swords. Makennon's private army. As if the true God would need anything so crude."
Sarkos smiled lopsidedly. "The true God can make do with a handful of hired blades?"
Scarra glared. "He can if the hired blades are as good as their Captain says they are." He turned back to the boy. "How many soldiers?"
"Six Knights."
"On horseback?"
"Yes. And almost ten times as many men on foot, with leather armour."
Sarkos snatched up his broadsword and belt from a table. "They outnumber us but we have more horses."
"Have my mount saddled." Scarra said.
"No."
"I wasn't planning to come along."
"I guessed that much," Sarkos said, managing not to sneer too much. "I'm saying don't try running, at least until my men have scouted the routes out of here. They'd have to be as thick as pig shit to not have put guards on all your exits." He sighed. "Hasso was right, wasn't he?"
"They're the Faith," Scarra muttered darkly. "Pigs all right. Pigs who take on the responsibilities of the Lord Of All and think women can tell men how to get closer to God."
Sarkos shrugged. "A woman can take me to heaven any day. Anyway, the Faith may be pigs, but they're not thick."
"True," Scarra admitted.
"So, you just stay here until my scouts confirm an escape route."
Something settled in Scarra's mind. He didn't like that Sarkos had opined that Hasso had been right about being short-changed. Hasso had run out after that, and Scarra had thought he had followed Kell and got himself killed. Now another idea struck him; Hasso might be the one who had led the Faith straight here. The further thought occurred that Sarkos and the other Red Daggers might change sides and join with their old comrade to turn Scarra in. In which case, he didn't want them to know what he would do now. That way they couldn't tell the Faith. "No… Never mind the escape routes. I've run enough. We'll make a stand."
Sarkos nodded. "Good for you."
"I will, however," Scarra said, "return to the main house. If it comes to it, it is more defendable."
"You've got guts, I'll give you that."
"The Lord of All is with me," Scarra assured him. He didn't say that he was simply bone-tired. Maybe he'd been frightened enough over the past few days for the power of that emotion to wear off. He had grown up in Nurn and moved down to Pontaine well before the last war, when his father defected to the Brotherhood and raised him into that sect. He had earned the right to buy this estate from his father, who had handed over the deeds with great pride. The small church would stay in the hands of the Brotherhood this way.
Scarra momentarily remembered the service in which he, his father and several other members of the family had joined the Brotherhood of the Divine Path in the wake of the elder Scarra's failure to become Anointed Lord of the Faith. So much could have been different if that had happened, Scarra knew. For one thing, he would never have ended up subordinate to that arrogant schemer Goran Kell.
Scarra knew that he had been used and he hadn't minded so long as it hurt the Faith, but he knew Kell had kept secrets from him. Worse, he knew Kell hadn't really trusted him, despite his years of loyalty to the Brotherhood. And now Kell had abandoned him instead of protecting him. Intellectually, Scarra knew Kell was protecting himself, but in his heart it was still a betrayal that had to be repaid.
At least his father had died in the war and thus been spared burning in a gibbet at the behest of the Faith. His father had made a good escape and so Scarra would too; preferably without dying though. A diversion would do the job as just as well.
"Good luck, Scarra." Sarkos gave him a salute. "We'll do what it takes."
"I know." With a sigh, Scarra shook Sarkos' hand in a warrior's wrist to wrist grip.
"You paid for a service, you get that service," Sarkos said. Scarra wished he could tell whether the man was being sincere, or making some dig about only being paid half. If it was the latter, then it was a surely a sign that he was about to betray Scarra.
Dead Tree Brook was small but trickled quickly along a wide, stony bed between two slopes of olive trees. The vineyard was beyond it, further upstream. The Swords were progressing on both sides of the stream, creeping towards Scarra's estate.
Nobody was surprised, as they neared the estate, to hear a distant rumble.
"Riders," Erak said. "decent horses too, not farm drays. Form up. We're about to have company."
Gabriella tensed as fifteen riders emerged from the groves on either side of them. They were all in leather amour, some with mail shirts or iron helms, and all carried swords or axes. There were no javelins or crossbows as far as Gabriella could see. Their shields were painted with blood-coloured daggers.
The mercenaries didn't attack, but took up positions in a semicircle in front of the Swords, blocking their path. One of them rode forward. "This is private property, friend," he said firmly. "I'm going to have to ask you to turn around."
Gabriella glanced at her comrades. Erak looked surprised, as did Oaks and Komo, while Tanner kept a poker face. The soldiers-at-arms were all professionally blank, waiting for orders. Erak nudged his horse forward.
"Captain…?"
"Sarkos."
"Captain Sarkos, We are members of the Order of the Swords of Dawn — "
"So I can see."
Erak kept his voice polite but low. "We are on our way to the estate of one Karel Scarra. I suggest you let us past. You may escort us if you wish."
"I'll be perfectly happy to escort you off this land."
"That's not what I meant." Erak kept his voice level, but Gabriella could see in his eyes that he knew which way this conversation was going to go. She was also certain that every moment they spent here meant a bigger lead for Scarra, who was no doubt wobbling off in the opposite direction as fast as his legs could carry his ungainly load.
"I know." Sarkos smiled and Erak's fingers began to flex.
"Let me," Gabriella said, putting her hand on Erak's forearm and gently pushing his hand away from his sword. "Are you religious, Captain Sarkos?"
He hesitated, put off his stride by the interruption. "Depends what you mean?"
"Do you observe the Tenthday?" Gabriella asked. "Make the proper offerings and tithes?"
He nodded reluctantly. "You don't meet a lot of soldiers who don't. It's always a good idea to keep your soul in good shape when you know you might end up in the clouds or the pits any minute."
"Sounds wise to me. So, here's the deal to keep your souls in good shape," Gabriella said, smiling. "You dismount, chat to our Confessor, pay a penance for your sins."
"Or?"
"Or you stay mounted, take on a numerically superior, better-trained force, and make your confessions to the Lord of All when you meet him; which you will, very quickly thereafter."
"You're threatening our employer."
"I'm dealing with a serious morality crime. The attempted assassination of a Final Faith Eminence by a member of a heretical sect." The mercenary Captain paled, clearly shocked by this news. "By rights I should have you under arrest already."
"Then why haven't you?"
Gabriella leaned back in the saddle. "Because you, personally, haven't committed those crimes yet. But the instant you draw down on any of us, you're contributing not just to the morality crime, but to the heresy. And there's only one course of action we can take about that."
"That's what you want, isn't it?"
Gabriella shook her head. "I'm sure that's what Scarra and his Brotherhood friends would want you to think of us but, all things being equal, I'd rather there was another troop of faithful soldiers raising mankind towards the Lord in the world, than another bunch of heretics burning in the pits."
The mercenary stiffened. "I assume you mean well, but your implication that we would betray our paymaster — "
"I wouldn't have used quite those words — "
"Once my men have been paid," he said grimly, "they follow the job through. If we accepted a contract and a payment, then abandoned our client to his enemies, then we'd quickly be out of business."
"You'd be alive."
"If you call that life." He wheeled his horse around.
"Are you going to die for the ignorant?"
"Maybe that's what I take their coin for. I'm paid to protect Scarra from attack, not bring him intelligence. I won't be mentioning our meeting."
Gabriella understood. Sarkos wanted to be honourable and professional. That was fine, but aiding and abetting a heretic was not. The mercenary had made his decision. She wished she didn't have to do what now became necessary, but as her father had always said, if wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.
Sarkos was quick. He actually managed to raise his shield just in time to deflect her first cut, so it barely scraped his ear rather than rip his throat out.
Hanging onto the reins with her left hand, Gabriella couldn't draw her other sword, but she could make her horse rear. It rose up on its hind legs, its front hooves slashing down onto the mercenary's shield. The sheer weight of horse and rider smashed Sarkos clean out of his saddle and his horse staggered sideways under the impact.
Sarkos rolled, frantically trying to get out of the way of his own animal's stamping hooves. The horse finally got its balance and bolted off towards the ridge, and Sarkos gained his feet, drawing his sword. He made a wild cut at the neck of Gabriella's mount, but she pulled back just in time. Gabriella knew that he had the advantage for the moment; she'd find it difficult to lean down far enough to get in a killing blow at him, but he could easily strike at her horse, and try to bring it down and pin her under it.
She jumped down, away from him, ready to face him on more equal terms.
As the other mercenaries drew their swords, Erak spurred his horse forward, followed by the other Knights. They crashed into the line of mercenaries and Erak slammed his shield into the nearest man's face. The mercenary rolled out of his saddle, his helmet flying aside. Erak rode over him, his mount's iron-shod hooves splintering his skull.
The soldiers-at-arms on foot had grouped into threes and fours to box in the mounted mercenaries. They thrust spears at the riders to keep them at bay and try to unhorse them. Meanwhile Tanner had drawn a longsword and was running down the mercenaries on foot. Oaks and Komo circled the fight, trying to draw off some of the Red Daggers and cut them down.
The stream bed rang to the sounds of blade against blade and shield, punctuated by grunts of effort and the screams of pain from those who took wounds. Men were running and swinging swords and axes, dodging horses, while riders slashed downwards at heads that passed by. No-one on either side tried to run from the fight but that was more because they were sensible enough to not turn their backs on their enemies, than because they didn't want to seem afraid.
Gabriella drew her second sword. Sarkos wasn't going to want to give her the chance to come at him again, so she was ready to catch his blade between hers and backhand him in the face with one pommel. He fell backwards, landing with a crash on his tailbone. Gabriella stamped on his wrist and dropped the point of her knee onto his chest. Even through his brigandine armour, the blow knocked the wind out of his lungs and Gabriella jammed her blade through his throat and into the ground below him.
She held him down as he twitched, his mouth opening and closing like a fish.
"Nothing personal," she said. "I'd rather you'd given yourself to the Lord of All than died for Scarra's sins, but…"
Sarkos had stopped twitching. She was surprised how clean the blade was when she pulled it out; all the blood had flowed down into his lungs rather than out of the wound.
Gabriella was so surprised that she paused to look at the blade and almost lost her head for her trouble. There was a rush of air as a mounted mercenary swung at her. She rolled aside, slashing at the horse's legs. It screamed, a disconcertingly human sound and staggered sideways. The rider managed to stay in the saddle, but was unable to control his horse for the moment. This gave Gabriella a chance to scramble up into a stout olive tree and launch him from the saddle with a flying kick.
They crashed to the ground and she was up immediately, cutting his throat. She leapt back up onto her horse and wheeled it around to charge over to where Erak was duelling with two more mercenaries.
Gabriella's arrival distracted one of the mercenaries long enough for Erak to cleave his head clear from his shoulders. He ducked instinctively as the second mercenary's sword flashed overhead, only to be blocked by Gabriella. She caught the blade on hers, and twisted it away as Erak leaned past his mount's neck to run the man through.
The screaming had stopped and when Gabriella caught her breath, she saw that none of the Red Daggers were still standing. Soldiers-at-arms were darting from fallen body to fallen body, making sure they stayed down, while a couple of wounded men of the Swords were tended to by their colleagues.
She moved back to the others. Erak was waiting, mopping his brow with a rag, and looking around at the bodies.
"Did any get away?" he asked.
"Not that I saw. Idiots."
"Idiots?"
"Dying for nothing." She shook her head. "Not for themselves, not for honour, not for the Lord. Idiots."
"For money?"
"For half what they were promised? How are they going to spend it anyway?"
Erak shrugged. "Who cares. Just be glad they had no spell casters with them." He sniffed and spat. "Forget them, we've got more important business here."
"I've been thinking about that," Gabriella agreed.
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to go and have words with Scarra, before he has the chance to work out that his rented muscle isn't coming back."
"You're going to talk to him?"
"Have words with. There's a difference."
"On your own?"
She feigned a look of surprise. "Why? Aren't you lot coming?"
"If you'll give us a couple of minutes."
Gabriella nodded. "I'll ride point. He'll probably play at talking only to you and not to the woman who he thinks shouldn't be doing the Lord's work. Always assuming he hasn't fled already, so let's have the men-at-arms ready to comb the far side of the estate for him."
"I thought as much. And I know how to keep quiet if he's still there and you want the last word."
Erak mounted up and stood up in his stirrups to address the soldiers-at-arms.
"All right, remember what we came for. Karel Scarra must atone for his sins. He should be brought in alive, that we learn more about his fellow apostates. Having said that, it is most important that he is sent to the pits of Kerberos before he can spread the Brotherhood's heresy. So if it comes to a choice between cutting him down where he stands and letting him run…" He brandished his sword. "Well, you just had enough practice."
Gabriella kept her mind centred as she rode into the little village that was at the heart of the estate. Inside, her stomach played host to a whole swarm of butterflies. It wasn't fear of a fight or even of someone in one of those narrow little doorways with a bow. She was still on a high from the clash with the mercenaries and damn well looking forward to more victory. Yet her nerves felt more like fear of disappointment.
What, she wondered, if he had made good his escape while his mercenary guards were buying his life with their blood and she was now just about to discover the extent of her failure to serve?
She could hear the hoof beats of Erak, Oaks, Komo and Tanner's mounts a short distance behind her and the rattle of the soldiers' weapons and armour, and they reassured her.
She rode slowly past the tiny church, admiring the simplicity and beauty of its architecture, and was angered at the thought that something so positive in the world would need to be re-consecrated after being used by the Brotherhood.
People were appearing in the doorways of the little houses. They were all men, and all carried weapons. They stepped out into the street, glaring with obvious hostility, but didn't attack yet. Behind her, the soldiers spread out, making sure a trained man was always in the way of each of the most dangerous-looking of the townsfolk.
There was a sudden clatter from a large house at the end of the road, but Gabriella couldn't see what had caused it. Realising it must have been a back door, she galloped forward and around the house. Half a dozen men in servants' livery were running up a narrow trail, carrying short swords. Further up the trail, a single horse was pulling a two-wheeled trap. She overtook it easily, the other mounted Knights following her and surrounding the trap, which was forced to a halt.
The horse pulling the trap shied nervously, but didn't try to break through, even though the fat man on the driver's bench was whipping it frantically. Gabriella knew that horses had to be trained to run at other animals or people, and this one clearly hadn't been.
She dismounted and snatched the whip from his hand. She could almost feel the horse's sense of relief.
"Karel Scarra, I presume," Gabriella began, stopping in front of him. In her peripheral vision, she could see the townspeople close in. They probably thought they were being intimidating and didn't realise they were giving her an audience to play off. She could hear Erak and the others taking up positions behind her, but didn't bother looking round. She had known Erak since they were twelve year-old squires together and trusted him to be in the right place at the right time.
"That's right," Scarra said. His voice was measured and jovial, but his eyes were wide, the smile a little too fixed. He stepped down in front of her and backed away. "This is one of Makennon's harridans," he called out to the crowd. He looked at Erak. "So, you've come to accuse me of something, I suppose?" Erak stayed silent, to Gabriella's satisfaction.
"Is there something you feel guilty about?" Gabriella asked.
Scarra looked toward Erak again, then to Tanner, to Oaks and to Komo, but none of the men would speak to him.
"Perhaps there's some reason you think a woman shouldn't be talking to you? Or at least a woman in religious service?"
"The Lord Of All needs no woman to spread his word," Scarra snarled. "Only to spread his worshippers."
Gabriella grinned. The man was an idiot. "There's only one worshipper who I want to spread right now. As ashes." The crowd shifted, unsettled. "Just one," she repeated. A few eyes darted between her and Scarra and back.
"She's a witch," Scarra scoffed dismissively. "You know what to do with witches?"
"Burn her!" someone in the mob shouted. A murmur of agreement spread all around.
Gabriella's eyes flicked to the source of the call. A man in green robes recoiled from her gaze and she smiled coldly. "Burning's for heretics, fat man," she said. "Witches are hanged, by the proclamation of the Anointed Lords since time immemorial."
Scarra laughed. "Who cares whether she hangs or burns, as long as the witch is dead?"
Gabriella looked back at him. "Have you seen any heretics lately, Scarra?" Her smile widened slightly, and the murmuring of the crowd took on a more uncertain tone. "Members of the Brotherhood of the Divine Path, for example? Conspirators to assassination?" She surveyed the mob. "So, what think you? If you want to burn someone, then there Karel Scarra stands. If you want to kill me, you'll have to hang me." She smiled coldly. "If you can."
To her left, a few figures began to move and Gabriella gripped the hilts of her swords. Then she realised they were backing off and moving away. A couple of others on the right were doing the same and the men surrounding her were looking uncertain. She pointed to them and snapped "You two!" They froze, startled. "Grab him." She told them.
Looking surprised at themselves, they grabbed hold of Scarra's upper arms and frog-marched him towards her. She could have had soldiers-at-arms do it, but Scarra's own people aiding in his atonement was a better symbol, and one the people here would remember longer.
Gabriella drew a blade and put it to Scarra's throat.
"You could make a martyr out of me," he warned, his voice shaking.
"I could," Gabriella agreed quietly. "Or I could make an example of this village." She let that sink in. "You're not going to tell me you're the one and only member of the Brotherhood here?"
"I'm not going to tell you anything."
"But you'll tell our Confessors a lot."
"What makes you think that, witch?"
"Because you have, shall we say, Brotherly love for your friends here." She gestured towards the townspeople.
His eyes widened in horror as he understood what she was suggesting.
"These people are innocents, employees of my family. They are not…" He swallowed, hard. "They are not complicit in what you and your ilk would call my sins."
"I'm sure most of them aren't. I'm just as sure a few of them are." She paused to let that sink in. "Now, there are two ways we can deal with this situation. You can come with us, have the courage of your convictions and our Confessors will certainly get the relevant names from you for arrest and trial…"
"Or…"
"Or I'm sure I don't have to remind you of the Anointed Lord's decree at the siege of Freiport."
"'Kill them all, the Lord will sort the wheat from the chaff.'" Scarra whispered. He looked at her with revulsion. "You are a monstrous abomination, witch."
Gabriella's leg flashed round and up, a high kick taking him in the face, sending him sprawling. "I'm an angel, sinner. I'm giving you a chance to do your soul some good by saving all these lives."
Scarra spat blood from his split lips and got to his knees. "Very well."
"Good." Gabriella turned and beckoned a couple of soldiers-at-arms to come forward and secure the prisoner. She then rejoined Erak and the other knights. "That's the important bit done. We'll leave some of the soldiers to make sure everyone stays put and have Confessors and reinforcements sent from Andon to take everyone back to the Preceptory for confession. Some of them will be Brotherhood."
"Perhaps one in five, judging by their expressions." Tanner agreed. "I'll see to it. And the estate?"
"These people have been led astray… They need reassurance." One in five of them might belong to the Brotherhood, but Gabriella knew that the rest were victims of the Brotherhood's corruption. They didn't deserve to have their progress towards godliness held back by the minority.
"Guidance?" Oaks chipped in.
Gabriella nodded. "Sequester the estate and all of Scarra's assets for the Faith. These people will earn a more honest living when they're working for a more worthy cause."