The Executioner's Cane (20 page)

Various emotions chased their way over his
face and for several heartbeats it felt as if they were the only
two people in the whole of Lammas. She did not want to explore what
he might want to say.

“Please, Jemelda …”

She shook her head, still stepping back.
“No.”

The sharpness of her retort drew the
attention of the small group huddled by the man she had tried and
failed to kill. The Lammas Lord stared right at her, blocking her
view of the murderer, the red-haired woman and the frail old man.
She did not know either of these last two and did not think they
were Lammassers but neither did she want to know them. She counted
them as the enemy.

“Jemelda, stay with us, please.”

“No,” she said again, not even looking at her
husband, but keeping her eyes fixed on Lord Tregannon. So many
year-cycles of her life she had spent serving him and his
household, as had her mother and her mother before her. Not only
that, but she had stayed here at the castle, with Frankel, after
the terrible war was over when most others had fled. She had cooked
for the Lammas Lord, and though it had only been a short while
before the murderous scribe had returned, she knew she had intended
to cook for him for as long as she could scrape the herbs from the
ground and the crops from the storage, and for as long as the
breath remained to her. Today he had thrown her kindness and
loyalty into the wind, and all her steadfastness had gone. She
would serve the Tregannons no more. Her allegiance with them was
finished and she had other, more necessary, work to perform.

As if he had penetrated her thoughts, the
Lammas Lord flinched and stood up, laying the murderer gently on
the ground as if he were precious goods. He took a few paces
towards her and stretched out his arms. She could see him swallow
before he spoke, and the slight shake of his legs as he tried to
remain still.

“I cannot explain what has happened,
Jemelda,” he said. “And you have every right to hate me, and Simon
also, but for the sake of this village I have abandoned so badly,
won’t you stay, as your husband asks you?”

Jemelda didn’t hesitate, although her heart
trembled at the casting aside of so many year-cycles of tradition
ingrained within her.

“It is too late for such words,” she said,
almost adding his title at the end but saving herself just in time.
“My decision is made. You have used unnatural magic to win your
day, but it cannot last forever. From now on, I will work my utmost
with those I have called together today to destroy the man I have
planned to destroy. Only in that way can our land be saved, through
the will of the people, not by tricks and deceit. You will not see
me here again until I come to destroy that murderer of yours and
all those who follow him.”

With that, she turned away and began to walk
towards the more welcoming woods. Silently, the blacksmith went
with her, but she made no comment and neither did he speak. As she
walked away, Jemelda paid no heed to Frankel’s cry, nor to the
strange sounds of the great bird flapping slow wings in the grey
skies above her. She simply kept on walking, leaving behind the
life she thought was hers, feeling the harsh beat of her heart at
the thought of parting from her husband, bearing the shock of the
water at her legs as she waded across the stream and seeing the
wood drawing ever closer.

Ralph

Again he fails his people; Jemelda has gone,
to do the gods and stars know what with the rest of the villagers
in the woods. The Lammas Lord shakes his head, displacing the snow
gathered on his shoulders. He cannot help his people for the
time-cycle now and immediately to come, but what he can do is try
to keep the scribe alive. The very fact Simon has somehow returned
to the living galvanises Ralph and he turns back to the scene
before him: the fallen man, his frail father, and the Gathandrian
First Elder. Not to mention the mind-cane and the emeralds.

He hunkers down next to Simon, who is
breathing more regularly, he is glad to see, though the scribe’s
eyes remain shut.

“Look after the old man, Hallsfoot,” Ralph
commands, with something of his former authority. “I will take
Simon to shelter.”

Annyeke makes no move to obey, but merely
raises her eyebrows at him. “Interesting,” she murmurs.

“Interesting? How so?” Ralph snaps back, keen
to take action now he considers he may actually have something
useful to do.

“The fact Simon lives seems to have given you
a new lease of life also,” she comments, her gaze fixed on him.
“But there are ways and ways of exercising your power, Lammasser.
You are not the only leader here.”

Ralph has the grace to blush but will not be
thwarted from his purpose. “Forgive me, but we must keep him warm
and dry, and I can brook no argument to that.”

“So I see.” Annyeke allows Ralph to gather
the scribe up into his arms and instead tends to the old man.
Frankel and Apolyon, both of whom Ralph has all but forgotten up
until this moment, help her. “And the Lost One’s father’s name is
Bradyn. Perhaps it would be good for you to remember it.”

He doesn’t respond to this jibe, as already
he is carrying the scribe across the icy courtyard, taking care not
to fall, and hurrying towards the kitchen. Behind him, Ralph can
hear Frankel and Annyeke pacifying Bradyn, who seems hardly to
understand what has just happened. Not that he can blame anyone for
this, as he is experiencing an equally difficult time understanding
it himself.

Simon lies heavily in his arms, and Ralph
finds his legs are shaking by the time he reaches the table in the
middle of the castle kitchen. He is weak from lack of food and
regular exercise. Still, he deposits the sleeping man as gently as
possible onto the wooden surface, glad for the feeble light which
glitters through the small window above the washing area. He hears
the faint hum of the mind-cane as it follows them, keeping as close
as possible to its master, but he does not turn round to square up
to this new potential threat. Not yet.

Instead he leans closer to the scribe’s face.
“I am sorry for it all,” he whispers. “Only let me have the chance
to redeem myself in your mind for what I have done and I …”

The words run from his tongue and he knows he
cannot finish them. Even assuming he knows what it is he most wants
to say. He would start again, use other words, but the time for it
is fast vanishing. He hears the sound of footsteps growing louder,
the harsh chattering of the old man, Simon’s father, and the softer
murmuring of Annyeke. Frankel and Apolyon are silent.

By the time all four of them stand just
within the kitchen’s threshold, blocking out the light, Ralph has
stood and taken a small step away from the table. Only his hand
remains on Simon’s shoulder. Indeed it is entirely impossible for
him to remove it. The mind-cane floats to the other side of the
table and stays there, a fact for which Ralph is grateful. Even
though the mind-executioner is no longer with them, the cane’s
power is not to be mocked. It has brought a dead man back to
life.

Annyeke makes to speak but the old man
plunges across them and all but collapses next to the scribe.

“Please, please,” he says over and over
again. “My son, what has happened to my son?”

Knowing something of Simon’s history with his
father, and what the man did to the scribe so many year-cycles ago,
Ralph grimaces. He is paying the price for his cruelty but, then
again, so is Ralph. That realisation makes the Lammas Lord turn
away as Annyeke and Frankel endeavour to calm Bradyn.

It is then for no apparent reason that the
mind-cane attacks him. By the time Annyeke calls out a warning,
Ralph’s mind is a storm of black and silver heat. He can’t help but
scream and fall to his knees where the stone floor bites into his
skin. The fire from the cane overwhelms his thoughts and he gasps
for breath which doesn’t come. A jumble of impressions: Simon’s
face; the mind-executioner; the Lammas soldiers; his own father;
and finally the Tregannon castle that has both protected him and
trapped him.

The fire disappears, though he doesn’t know
why. Doesn’t it want to kill him for what he has done to its
master? As he struggles to his feet, the ache in his leg almost as
fierce as the mind-cane’s fury, the scribe suddenly speaks. Low
tones, so low Ralph can scarcely catch them, but the urgency of the
words somehow makes the sound carry.

“Leave him be.”

“Simon?...” Ralph can’t hide the need which
flies at once from his thoughts straight into the scribe’s
understanding. Neither can he help the fact his weakness is obvious
to everyone else in the kitchen – to Annyeke and, how much worse,
to Frankel and Apolyon, his servants. This is not the behaviour
expected of any Lammas Lord and he draws himself back, coughing as
the cane hovers around him.

Annyeke shrugs and soothes down the scribe’s
hair from his face. Simon is blinking himself awake, and Ralph can
see the slight tremble of his body. Again the realisation hits him:
this man was dead and is alive again. He died, but he has
returned.

Still, when Ralph reaches out to the scribe,
the cane snaps and fizzes, forcing him to retreat. Simon sighs.

“Leave him,” he says again. “Please.”

The scribe opens his hand and the mind-cane
floats down into it. As his fingers close over the artefact, the
cane’s brightness dims and the silver fizzing ceases. Ralph gains
the impression something like a wild and dangerous bird has flown
back to its handler’s grasp and is at peace again, although for how
long he has no notion.

“Simon …” he says again, testing the
mind-cane’s patience, as by the gods and stars he has much to say
and to his own surprise no longer cares who else is here to witness
it.

“Ralph,” the scribe speaks and his voice is
stronger now. He is half-twisted towards Ralph, supported by
Annyeke and with Frankel and Apolyon skulking in the background.
“Lord Tregannon, I don’t wish to hear whatever you have to tell me.
It is not the time and, besides, I need to sleep.”

Then, without another word, the scribe falls
back again onto the table and, after a few moments, his steady
breathing begins again.

That’s it, Ralph thinks. He has his answer,
and the scribe is right, of course he is: the past is over and it
is time he starts acting not like a foolish lover but like a
Tregannon Lord. The opportunity for rebuilding the land is here,
and it is up to him to take it.

Before he can fully respond to this, Annyeke
touches his hand. “Are you all right?”

Her sympathy is written in her eyes, but
Ralph is not ready for it. He isn’t sure he will ever want to be,
so his answer is sharper than it should be.

“Yes,” he says, “the mind-cane has left me
unharmed. Which is a mercy as there is much we must do, if hope for
the future of Lammas has been granted to us.”

That is, he knows, not what the First Elder
of Gathandria was asking, but her true question is not something he
wishes to consider. For a moment, she frowns and seems as if she’d
ask more, but then, thank the stars, her expression closes and she
lets him go. He can’t help wondering if she has read him, however,
and hopes to the gods she has not; he does not even wish to read
himself.

“Good,” she says, her voice as brittle as a
dead tree. “In that case, I must go. The Lost One is alive and has
fallen into your care, as the Spirit seems to wish it. You have, as
you say, much to do here, and perhaps even internal battles to
prepare for, and I should not delay you. Let me have some of the
emeralds and I will return to Gathandria, for there is much to do
there also. From what I have experienced recently, I no longer
believe our wars are over, though I fear what the worst might be, I
tell you.”

He wonders what she might mean and, despite
his relief that she plans to go, as no land can bear two leaders at
the same time, Ralph hesitates. He has enough of his father’s
political skills to see beyond his own preferences and, for once,
he is grateful. He opens his arms, a gesture of openness and
vulnerability he hopes she will understand.

“Of course,” he nods. “You are right and I
would not wish to keep you here, First Elder, but it strikes me a
relationship between our two countries might be beneficial to both,
immersed as we are in rebuilding our lands after war. Would you
consider a formal alliance?”

It is a daring request, bearing in mind the
battle was between their two countries and Lammas has been the
loser, but the fact everything has changed has given Ralph the kind
of boldness he has not had for many days. Annyeke, meanwhile,
widens her eyes, and the sensation of her surprise hits him when he
least expects it. Then she laughs, and he knows that, yes, this
time she has read him indeed.

He waits for her to finish laughing and to
speak.

“You are more complex than I anticipated,
Lammas Lord,” she says. “Though, knowing the Lost One, I should
have expected it. Your offer is heard, on behalf of all
Gathandrians, and we will consider it. But for now, any alliance we
have should, I believe, remain informal. Agreed?”

He nods, as it is a better result than he
deserves. By the gods, she knows that too.

“Good,” she says again. “Then I must begin my
journey home.”

Annyeke accepts the two emeralds he hands to
her with a brief nod. He hopes they will be enough, but something
inside him has faith in the power she has to make them so.

Then, with a soft word of farewell to Simon
and his now silent father, and an unexpectedly affectionate embrace
for Ralph’s two servants, she steps outside into crisp air, and
throws the emeralds into the sky. They form a perfect circle of
green. The First Elder turns round to where Ralph watches her, and
says five words only that he hears as clear as truth. He opens his
mouth to reply but already she is stepping into the circle and the
next moment she is truly gone.