The Executioner's Cane (9 page)

Her reaction to the scribe had surprised her.
Yes, she wasn’t a fool. She knew only too well her responses to
situations or events, particularly if unexpected, could be
impassioned. You couldn’t run any kind of a kitchen in a castle
like this without breaking a few sheaves of wheat. Not to mention
pots and pans. No good cook she’d ever known had been calm. Not
that a good cook was needed now. There was so little food and only
the Lammas Lord, Apolyon, her husband and herself to feed. With all
of her spirit, she longed to be able to feed the lost villagers of
Lammas too, but they kept to the outlying fields and woods,
gleaning what nourishment they could from the winter berries and
only occasionally venturing back for what shelter they might find.
Their source of food was unlikely to last long, with the snows
beginning to threaten to the full, and the wars had destroyed the
field-gleanings, consuming them with fire and darkness. Soon they
were all likely to starve, or be torn apart by the wolves. Gods and
stars preserve them. She had denied the truth for as long as she
could but she had no choice but to admit that what was needed was
not food, but a saviour.

Something wet flowed from her eye and she
brushed away her weakness, cursing herself for being nothing but an
old fool. Because she and Frankel had both assumed Lord Tregannon
would be the one to bring peace and healing to the lands and people
he owned. This had failed to happen. Instead, their Overlord had
hidden himself away in his shattered private rooms and only taken
the minimum of the food she’d prepared for him, barely enough to
keep a child alive. Something else was needed.

Maybe, with the terrible lack of any other
choice, that something was the scribe.

No. She clenched her fists under the thin
blanket and tried to breathe calmly. That murderer had brought
misery and death to these lands when he arrived here. She could
never forgive him for it, no matter what Frankel said about the
need to let hatred go. For how could she ever let it go when so
many of her friends and neighbours lay dead and their families
destroyed? No, she would never forgive him. She would hold onto the
knowledge of what the Lammas Lands had once been and she would
never let it go. Whatever plan the scribe had to work his devious
way into the confidence of the remaining villagers, she would stand
firm against him. She swore it to herself. There and then, in the
darkness, next to her sleeping and unsuspecting husband, she
promised herself she would not allow the scribe to go unpunished,
she would not allow him even to live. No matter if the fearful
mind-cane destroyed her for it. The sacrifice they needed would be
the murderer himself, and nothing else could save them. Odd how the
acknowledgement of her decision and this new understanding brought
her the kind of peace inside she had not known for a long season.
It made her smile.

And so, finally, in the lighter hours of the
morning-cycle, Jemelda slept.

When she woke, the space in the bed next to
her was empty. That in itself was unusual but, this day-cycle, not
surprising as she had only fully slept the last quarter of the
night. So she gathered herself together, clutching her night-tunic
around her, and padded into the kitchen.

Her husband had already washed. She could see
the faint sparkle in his grey hair, and the basin and jug stood
off-centre on the work space next to him. He was staring out of the
window and did not hear her approach. For a while she stood next to
him, quietly, appreciating the warmth from his skin. Both of them
stared out at the snow. It was the first solid fall of this
winter-season.

She took hold of his hand. His fingers curled
around hers and it was then she spoke at last.

“How long will it be before we begin to die
now that winter is truly here?” she whispered.

Frankel had no answer for her, not to that
question. He only squeezed her fingers and sighed.

After a while, she extricated herself from
his comforting hold and busied herself preparing breakfast for Lord
Tregannon. Frankel watched her. She could feel his eyes on her
every movement.

When she could stand it no longer, she
dropped the wooden spoon she had only just taken up. It fell with a
dull clatter into the washing basin. Then she swung round to face
him.

“All right,” she grumbled. “What is it you
want me to do? Make food for the murderer also?”

He simply smiled. “Jemelda. I know you will
do the right thing. I have been married to you for too long not to
understand that. But it seems to me if you are to test the man in
some way, then he may need strength for what is to come.”

It was always the same, she thought.
Frankel’s pure reasonableness unwomanned her each time. He knew too
well the path through her defences. Still, his trust in her made
her smile. Though, right now, she knew there were secrets hidden
behind it which neither of them could fathom.

“I will feed him what we have to spare,” she
answered, lowering her gaze from her husband’s steady eyes. “For
your sake only. Then we will do what we have to.”

“When will you gather the people, my
love?”

Jemelda lifted her head to the ceiling, as if
she hoped she would find inspiration there. She knew she would
not.

“At the midday hour,” she whispered at last.
“The old traditions tell us that is best for great matters.”

“Yes, and for deadly ones too,” her husband
replied.

Third Gathandrian
Interlude

Annyeke

The Square of Meeting was covered with
freshly-fallen snow and Annyeke shivered in the familiar warmth of
her cloak. She had been waiting here for nearly three hour-cycles
now since the sun had been bright enough for walking, although she
had occasionally retreated into the nearest remaining safe area of
the ruined Council building when the cold became overwhelming.
Slowly the people had gathered and, one by one, the elders had
joined her, beginning with the Chair Maker, a fact that had for a
moment made her smile. In Gathandria, you could always rely on a
carpenter to be early. He must have been hard at work even before
his arrival as his hair was sprinkled with wood-shavings. Annyeke
had to quell the urge to brush it off him. She didn’t like to think
anyone brought out the maternal urge in her, foster son or no
foster son.

Still, thinking about family had brought to
mind the deep truth she should have remembered yesterday morning
when the elders had arrived. The Chair Maker’s wife, Iffenia, was
dead. How she had betrayed them at the last, and the terrible
reasons for it. What kind of a First Elder was she if she had
forgotten it, however temporarily? She must remember to think of
other people too, in their individual needs, not just of the land
and her immediate family.

Now she reached for the Chair Maker, put her
hand on his arm. “I’m sorry about Iffenia. I should have spoken of
this yesterday, but your sudden arrival here – the presence of all
the elders – surprised me. I have no excuse, but I’m sorry.”

His eyes clouded and he nodded. She could
feel his grief stirring from the depths of his mind – flickering
shades of dark green and black – and she withdrew her hand to avoid
intruding on what would be private. Sometimes thoughts were shared
without the intent to do so. Before she could step back, however,
the Chair Maker grasped her fingers and spoke, again aloud,
although she could hear his words echoed in her mind.

“I understand, and I am grateful for your
words,” he said, and his voice was low and hoarse, as if the dust
from his studio had lined his throat. “But was your forgetfulness
due to anger as well, Annyeke? If it was, then it is a dangerous
thing. I do not warn you of this. I simply tell you.”

Biting her lip, Annyeke nodded. The
chastisement – for she could well recognise it for what it was, no
matter the soothing phrases accompanying the sting – was well
deserved.

“Thank you,” she said.

For a moment, she thought a sharp surprise
glittered from his mind but it was as swiftly packed away. Perhaps
he was unused to First Elders accepting any kind of correction from
their Council. Well, a woman was now in charge and things were
different.

“Indeed, First Elder,” the Chair Maker said
with a smile, and Annyeke realised she had been interpreted –
correctly – once more.

In the cold half-light of morning over the
city she smiled back. And said what she hadn’t anticipated
saying.

“Tell me about your wife.” She blinked. “If
you wish to, I mean.”

He looked at her fully, for the first
time.

“I would like that very much,” he said. “But
here I think words might be a barrier to our thoughts. May
I?...”

After an almost imperceptible pause, Annyeke
nodded, and the Chair Maker lifted his hand to her forehead, to
facilitate the connection between them.

There, in the morning’s chill quietness, and
for the length of the start of a summer story, he told her his
tale. About his wife, about himself and about the carving they had
made.

******

I never expected to be married to one such as
she, tall and elegant and beautiful, the Chair Maker said. Why
should I when I am and have always been as you see before you?
Round and small, like a stone smoothed by the rushing waters over
many year-cycles. I loved the woman who would become my wife for
many moon-seasons before she even knew I lived. When I was learning
my trade in my father’s workshop, she would come from the region of
glass-makers to choose offcuts for the fires her people needed. The
first time I saw her, she was wearing a long green dress and the
sky lit up her hair. In those days, it was bright yellow, with a
hint of gold. Later of course, as is the nature of the seasons, her
hair became grey, as it was when you knew her. But what you see in
one instance of knowing is never the sum of what a Gathandrian, or
indeed any person, can be.

So I treasured the moments when she would
come to us, not knowing then why I did so. I was too young to
understand fully the ways of the mind. How love comes when it is
least expected, and how it can root itself in your thoughts, so it
can never be broken away. Then, one day, when the autumn-season had
begun to wrap the trees in red and gold, my father was out selling
our wares at the market, and I was in the workshop alone.

I knew something was about to happen even
before I saw the shape of Iffenia at the threshold. I sensed a
change in the air, something tingling my skin, and I dropped the
chisel I held and turned to greet her. She, a daughter of the
glass-makers, and I a son of a mere carpenter. So far apart in the
city and peoples we moved in. For Gathandria was not equal and full
of justice, as it still isn’t.

Back then, her presence thought-startled me.
I did not have my father to act the part of host, for however short
a time, and neither could I think that today we had any offcuts
large enough for burning. She had only visited three day-cycles
previously. We were not expecting her for at least another five
daybreaks. Stumbling upward to greet her, I could sense the dust
settling over my hair and I brushed it away as best I could.

It was then she spoke my name, for the first
time, I think.

“Bayard,” she said. “I saw your father at his
market stall, but I did not see you.”

And then she stopped, as if she had already
said too much, and looked away from me. I did not want that to
happen. No, I wanted her to keep looking at me until my father
returned, and beyond. I wanted her to keep looking at me always. I
was only twenty summers old and she just nineteen, but I knew then.
As if it had always been obvious.

To keep her there, I spoke. My voice sounded
too rough and I had to say the words again before she understood
me.

“If you wish, I can show you some of my
father’s carvings,” I muttered. “I am afraid we do not have enough
offcuts for your glass today.”

She smiled at me and nodded. “Thank you. I
would like to see those.”

I led her to the smaller room at the side of
the studio. This morning, neither we nor the few men who worked
with us had had time to tidy the carving-space before leaving for
the market, and I had put off the chore until nearer the evening.
Now I wished I had done it at once. The low benches covered with
woodshavings and the temporarily abandoned table-work seemed
shabby, and I hurried to open the window wider and clear a space
for her to sit.

She did so, gathering her skirts around her
and gazing up at me in expectation. It felt as if my tongue were
too big for my mouth, and I reached for my father’s latest work in
order to cover the flush on my face.

“This one,” I said, showing her the panel of
a door on which my father had carved a delicate amber tree in full
flower. “This one he is still working on, but it will soon be
finished. It is for the theatre.”

Iffenia took the panel in her hands, her
fingers brushing against mine for a moment, and I remember holding
my breath for a heartbeat. She laid the carving on her lap,
unmindful of the dust settling onto her clothes, and gazed down at
it.

“It’s beautiful,” she said. “The feel of it
is so much warmer than glass.”

I had never thought about how different
materials might be before. I was so used to working with wood,
carving it and drawing out the hidden shape of it, that I had made
no comparison with other trades. If I had thought of it at all,
then the way glass was fired from heat would have made me think the
opposite from her, but of course the glitter and near invisibility
of its final state was very different to that of wood, which is a
comforting presence wherever it may be.