The Executioner's Cane (15 page)

Thomas made a sound halfway between a groan
and a curse, though she could not make out the words. For another
moment she thought he would shake off her husband’s restraining
touch, leap at the murderer and tear out his eyes with his own
hands and hatred, it was so strong in the air around them. But then
he shook himself to sanity and moved away.

Jemelda breathed again. She would not stop to
tend any of the scribe’s wounds; if she had her way, he would be
beyond wounds before the moon had risen. She did not wish to waste
her time.

“When this man came and poisoned our Lord’s
mind against us,” she continued, “we grew to fear the pace of the
soldiers’ feet at our gate, we trembled at shadows and we did not
dare think the thoughts we had. For this murderer had the ability
to steal our secret minds, and to know the depths of ourselves even
we did not fully understand. What was doubt became proof of sin in
his eyes, what was only a wish for a future we might long for
became cause for trial and a means for murder. Soon what was
whispered at our tables became something revealed for all to see at
this place of execution where we stand today.

“Here in this place of terror and grief, we
lost friends and family to the beat of the soldiers’ drum and the
whim of a stranger’s mind. Blood was spilled which should never
have been spilled, and I know there must be a reckoning for the one
who caused it. This man, this murderer. Today, I am the first to
speak judgement and my judgement is this. Let him die.”

With that, Jemelda gathered herself up to her
full height and spat directly at the scribe’s face. As before, her
aim was true and her saliva struck his left cheek before tracing a
slow journey downwards. She felt herself smile but he did not
move.

After that, the stories and verdicts of her
fellow-villagers came quickly one upon another, like a spring
flood. Most of these stories Jemelda knew or guessed at, but some
came as a surprise. How had the Lammas Lord allowed such acts to
happen? The answer was the mind-executioner, now himself dead, and
the man standing before her. It struck her for the first time that
the power one man had over another was beyond any measurement she
could guess at.

Whilst her thoughts drifted through such vast
matters, too vast for a simple cook such as herself, she listened
to the stories of her friends. The baker had seen his brother
killed, merely for helping one of the group of young men who had
fled to the woods when the murders had started. Where had they
gone? She had not found them in her search. The night-women, who
spoke in her hearing for the first time, their voices low and husky
from lack of use, told them about the fear of the soldiers who came
to them, how the Lord’s commands had baffled his men but they had
no choice but to carry them out. Even so there had been hidden
conversations and the terror of discovery which in the end never
came. The night-women also told how more than once men they were
with had been snatched away to their judgements and death, unable
even to put on their boots before they were taken. It surprised her
that when their tales were done, the decision they made was not for
death: and so they became the first of the villagers who had cast
their judgement this way. She did not approve, but she let it go.
She had asked the people she knew for their choice and she would
not let it count for nothing.

It surprised her less when her husband also,
after he had spoken his quiet and measured story, turned to stand
with the night-women, revealing his judgement to be as theirs. At
his decision she could feel the people behind her grow quiet but
she did not acknowledge them. Instead she nodded at Frankel and,
after a moment, he nodded back.

Finally, the story-telling came down to
Thomas. Jemelda knew he had taken the loss of the woman he loved
deeply into his blood and she had seen only this morning how he
would never be free of it. When it was his turn, the blacksmith
strode the few paces needed to stand directly in front of the
scribe, blocking her view of him.

“You and I and all of us know what story I
would talk of,” he said, his voice ringing out like the field bell
warning of wolves. “It is written in my heart, not on the parchment
you used to write with, Scribe. I have no need to shape it to the
day’s liking again. Ever since the woman I loved died, I have
longed to see you punished for that crime. I have nothing more to
say to you, but I stand in the company of those who wish you dead.
This is all you need to know.”

With that, Thomas came to join Jemelda and
the villagers huddling around her. There were only three people on
the side of those who would not judge him; the rest were with her.
It was time for her to give the death penalty to the condemned man.
She opened her mouth to speak, but the murderer was there before
her.

“You are right in what you say and in the
decision you have taken,” he said, his gaze flowing over each of
them as if weighing them in the scales. “I came here to die, if
that was your will. Come then, do it quickly and may the gods and
stars grant your land and your village a resurrection from the
evils I have brought upon them.”

When he finished speaking, the condemned man
stretched out his hands and looked at her. Jemelda understood this
was her cue to speak, although it was strange he could exercise the
power to grant it, when he should have no such power. She
straightened her shoulders and stared back at him.

“In this place of execution, the destiny of
the one on trial before us has been decided. More are for your
death, Simon the Murderer, than are against it. So let it be done,
but let it be done slowly so you may know to the full what your
crimes have been.”

Simon

Everything changed with Jemelda’s words. He
could tell by the way the colours of the people’s minds coalesced
from their differing shades of purple, silver, green into the
deepest black, pierced here and there with flashes of crimson.
Death was upon him and upon him swiftly.

And with it, chaos. Simon didn’t know what
he’d been expecting, but up until now the cook had conducted
proceedings with something close to dignity, in spite of setbacks.
The moment Jemelda had spoken the people’s judgement out loud,
although it had been obvious which way his fate would journey, the
villagers launched themselves upon him. They grabbed him and began
to drag him to the Tree of Execution, all the time shouting and
cursing him in the names of the stars. Above their clamour, the
Lost One could hear Jemelda’s triumphant voice. He could not hear
any words from Frankel or the night-women; he could only sense
their terrible shocked silence.

As the people continued to pull him forward,
Simon fell heavily and tore his beloved cloak. The next moment, it
was ripped away from him and he cried out. The first time he’d done
so. With a roar, the people brought him to the tree. This time,
there would be no rescue by the Gathandrians; this time the choice
was his own, not another’s. Finally it was Thomas who snapped out
the order to one of the night-women, who stumbled backwards but ran
to obey.

“Fetch rope,” he said, in a tone that brooked
no disagreement.

The people continued to hold Simon down,
though there was no need; he had no intention of running or begging
for mercy, not like the last time he’d been here. He had every
intention of seeing it through to the end. The need churned in his
blood and its fulfilment would not be denied. As this thought
flowed through him, he heard the distant cry of the snow-raven far
above. He hoped he would see the great bird before he died. The
raven had been with him through so much. The mind-cane too, but
that was very different.

Simon had willed himself not to glance up
toward the high castle windows, or what was left of them. But now
he could not help it. He thought he saw Ralph’s figure for an
instant standing in what had once been his bedroom, but he could
not be sure. The impression was gone almost before he’d credited
it, and left no colour on his mind. Perhaps neither of them had any
colour left either to give or receive.

A commotion at the edge of the small and now
silent crowd, and the night-woman slipped through. She carried a
stool from the kitchen and a length of rope. She handed both of
them to Thomas and the crowd pulled Simon to his feet in front of
the tree. The blacksmith stood on the stool and wrapped the rope
around the branches in a manner the Lost One couldn’t understand.
This was not to be a simple hanging then. He wanted to read Thomas’
mind to uncover his intentions but it was not his place, not any
more. By the gods and stars, it had never been his place with these
people, but because of Ralph he had done it, over and over
again.

It didn’t take long for the blacksmith to
achieve his purpose; above the height of a man, four loops of rope
hung from the tree, the middle one larger than the others. The two
upper loops were for each hand, one for his head and one for his
feet. The intricacy of knots and the beauty of their fashioning
made Simon’s skin grow even colder.

“Stand on the stool,” the blacksmith ordered.
Simon obeyed. “Put your head into the middle noose, your hands in
these outer ones and your feet in the lower, and then our justice
will be complete.”

The Lost One nodded. “Yes, I will do as you
say. But first you must know this: what you do on this winter
afternoon, you do only because the gods and stars wish it to be so.
Their will is also mine. When the deed is done, there will be no
accounting amongst you for it; instead, you will be free. Trust
me.”

Thomas’ face convulsed, and the white-hot
colour of his anger pounded Simon’s thoughts, a piercing
alternative to the chill white snow.

“You have no right to speak with us,” the
blacksmith shouted. “And none to forgive. Do as I say and then you
will die, but slowly enough for you to know it.”

With that, Thomas reached down and dragged
the Lost One up with him, his fingers scrabbling for the ropes and
pushing Simon’s head and hands and feet into the waiting nooses.
Then the blacksmith leapt down and pushed the stool away. At once
the ropes tightened round Simon’s flesh and he was left hanging
from the Tree of Execution, gasping for breath and scrabbling
vainly for a hold.

“There,” Thomas said. “The task is begun and
in due time you will die. Let it be so.”

Ralph

Today, the scribe will die. His people have
proclaimed it. Ralph does not need to hear the words; he can sense
the threat in the air, feel the purpose of his villagers’ assumed
leader, Jemelda, forcing itself into his mind. The irony it should
be her who wields the power instead of himself has not escaped him.
The cook and her family, her mother, and her mother before her,
have been the Tregannons’ servants almost as long as they have
ruled this country, and that she of all of them who has stayed with
him in spite of everything should do this thing makes his breath
stutter and his skin prickle. But she does not know the full horror
of what she is doing, does she? He has no-one to blame for this
impasse except himself.

It’s not a good day. The long line of a
series of not good days, since the war, since the day Simon escaped
him.

Ralph opens his eyes onto the wintry depths
of what used to be his bedroom. With an energy he has not possessed
for many days, he springs to his feet and kicks over the remains of
the wash-jug which has somehow found its way in here with him. It
focuses him. How he needs that.

He strides from the bedroom and runs through
the darkened corridors of his home, hearing occasionally the
scuttle of a river-rat as it flees from his approach. The smell of
dust and fear lie in the air. How has he allowed it to come to
this?

By the time he’s in the hallway, the scene of
yesterday’s futile encounter with Simon, the shouting has begun. It
comes from his courtyard. The sound is familiar: the anger of
people primed to kill. He has stirred that in their blood too often
for him not to recognise it.

Ralph stands at the threshold and stares
outside. He sees the crowd of people round the Tree of Execution,
knows why they are there. The people have made their decision; they
will kill Simon today. From the knots they have tied, his death
will be a slow, agonising one. Ralph trembles and tries to swallow,
but he cannot. His breath is stuttering in his throat. He must do
something this time, before the man is beyond the saving. He owes
him this.

If he still had the emeralds, something might
be done.

But Ralph doesn’t have them; Simon does. He
stops, holds himself all but motionless in the moment. The scribe
doesn’t have them now, does he? Not when he’s hanging on the tree
and primed to die. Where would he leave them? He must have picked
them up when Ralph flung them at him in the great hall. He has no
idea where the scribe slept, but he knows who he has been talking
with.

Ralph begins to run towards the kitchen. His
bad leg sends streaks of pain upwards but he ignores it as best he
can. Still his progress isn’t as fast as he wants. He uses the
servants’ entrance, deciding against venturing outside when the
people are at their most violent. Seeing him may make their
bloodlust worse.

The kitchen is dark. No lamps are lit but he
knows at once someone is there, lurking in the shadows near the
table.

“Who is it?” The words are spoken with
something like his former instinctive command, but he knows the
answer before the sentence is fully out. Ralph can sense his
colours in his mind, the soft mix of them.

It is Apolyon, the young steward. His pale
hair is a lighter shade in the gloom as he tries to scrabble away.
He must have been hiding here, safe from the events of the day, if
such safety is even possible, and for that effort Ralph cannot
blame him.