The Executioner's Cane

by Anne Brooke

  “What’s going on?” she demanded from the nearest Gathandrian. “Tell me, by the gods above us.”

  The ritualistic question and the fact she’d asked him and not the elders startled the man, whose fists were clenched and eyes wide. Some of the darkness around him faded.

  “They do not help us, First Elder,” he muttered eyes downcast as a young woman slipped to his side and grasped his arm. “They only pray while we work to repair our homes and livelihoods. They do not follow the commands you gave yesterday, so what is the use of them to us? They should leave and not come back. In fact, we will make them leave ourselves.”

  With that, he lunged forward and gripped the closest praying elder. It was the Chair Maker, but a flash of crimson from his mouth made the rebellious Gathandrian cry out and stagger away. It was the catalyst for the rest of the murmuring people, but Annyeke got there first. She leapt over the head of the Maker of Gardens, who at least had the sense to duck, to land in the middle of the circle. At once the prayer link was broken and the elders too cried out, but once more Annyeke ignored them.

  “Stop!” she yelled in a voice that brooked no disagreement. “Listen to me before you fight again.”

  For a vital moment, the people paused in their advance and anger, and Annyeke could sense their determination to thrust out the elders from amongst them vying with their acknowledgement of the leadership granted to her. A delicate balance and she forced her way into it, but not in the manner they expected.

  “You,” she said, her gaze taking in all four of the elders as they stood up, trembling from the exertions of prayer. “You have let me down and betrayed the people’s trust today. I asked you to work with the dwellers of Gathandria and you have not done as I commanded you. Tell me: what reasons do you have for such disobedience?”

  The elders gazed back at her and she could feel the wild swirl of their confusion almost threatening to drown her. She shook it off and stood firm.

  “Tell me,” she said again, “by the gods and stars.”

  Such a command was unheard of in Gathandria. No-one had ever questioned the elders in this fashion and certainly no-one had confronted them in the middle of a near-violent disagreement; it would have been assumed the other party, whoever they might be, was the one at fault. By turning to the elders first, Annyeke had showed how she judged their actions, rather than those of the Gathandrian workers, as carrying the greatest wrong. It was an insult to the city’s traditions, and she waited, not entirely patiently, to see what their response would be, whilst around her flowed the tangible support of her people.

  Into this strange stand-off, a man walked quietly through the throng to stand beside her. She did not glance at him, but kept her eyes fixed on the Chair Maker, although she willingly eased her fingers through Johan’s when his hand touched hers. Being partnered might have benefits even she had not yet supposed.

  “It might be wisest to answer the First Elder,” Johan spoke, his voice no more than a whisper but his meaning and mind-voice clear to all. “Or we are in danger of catching a chill on this winter morning.”

  The Chair Maker nodded and gestured for the other three elders to join him. The distinct groups, the elders, the people, and Johan, Talus and Annyeke, must have made an odd sight in the Place of Meeting, but everything was different now, so they would have to learn to be different also. Annyeke let go of Johan’s hand and took the few steps to stand directly in front of the elders.

  “Speak then,” she said, “as I have commanded it.”

  The Chair Maker stepped forward and looked down at Annyeke. Not for the first time, she cursed her small stature. His round face looked as serious as she had ever seen it.

  “We are elders,” he said. “No matter what crimes we have committed and which we came here to seek forgiveness for, we are still the people appointed to act as a bridge between Gathandrians and the Great Spirit. We may work as you have commanded us to do, First Elder, and we will do so but we must also pray. It is our most ancient priority and our great commission.”

  Annyeke had little argument with that, in the old world before the war. But this was the new world, after the war, and all the ancient priorities and great commissions in the lands would have to find a new place. However, there was wisdom in the Chair Maker’s words and she would use it.

  “Yes,” she said. “You speak the truth, but your vision is too narrow. We must all work as you have said but we must also all pray. Not only you and me, as the elders, but the people with us, men and women and children too. Only then shall the Spirit of Gathandria be pleased to bless our efforts.”

  Such an act had, she knew it, never been suggested in all their legends or days. When praying, the elders prayed alone or amongst themselves and they never mixed with the people. The stories and tradition said those whom the Spirit and the people had chosen must cleanse their minds apart from others. If anyone saw an elder engaged in prayer in public then they would always leave them alone, although in latter year-cycles this sight had become increasingly rare. Annyeke knew the elders had expected the men and women around them to leave when they formed the prayer-link. It was the people who had understood first how things had changed, at the heart.

  She stepped away from the Chair Maker, ignoring the way the colours of his mind sparked and trembled at her words, and gestured to the people. Perhaps her plan would put to rest her fears about the old legends and cancel out any remaining darkness there might be in the land or its rulers. Her actions would at least satisfy herself.

  “Now, the new way of our city really begins,” she cried out, making what she said pulsate in her thoughts too so everyone in the city could hear, not simply those in the Square of Meeting. “It is time for us to link our meditations together, not to keep them apart. So let us pray as one people, not as a divided world.”

  No more speeches now. Annyeke put her feet where her mind was and, reaching out, touched the hand of the Gathandrian next to her. It was not Johan but the young man on the other side who had first answered her questions upon arrival. After a small hesitation, he took her hand in his and then in turn touched the woman next to him. She was his chosen one, Annyeke had known it but now the mind-link deepened and sang with the strength of the love they held together. It reminded her of Johan and how, even in the midst of the changes and difficulties they faced, he was a gift to be grateful for. She could sense him walking towards her, preparing to take his place in this new way of being she had instigated, but she understood the elders as well as the Gathandrian people must prove willing.

  Annyeke smiled and shook her head at Johan and he stopped at once, catching her intent. She stretched out her free hand to the Chair Maker who blinked at her.

  “Come,” she said quietly. “Start this new world with us.”

  For a long moment nothing and she could almost hear the year-cycles of tradition and place battling for supremacy in his mind and in the minds of his fellow-elders too. Her elders, by all the stars. How some wars were fiercest when they were not physical ones, and the hardest won too.

  Then the Chair Maker was beside her, solid fingers touching her arm and sliding, slow and uncertain, up to her shoulder. She nodded, braced herself for his confusion and took the brunt of it, dark and wild and strange in her mind. She could glimpse nothing else underneath it, however, and this gave her new heart. It was what being First Elder truly meant: leading her people into new pathways; taking their pain and hope. By the gods, she was ready for it, longed for it even, for the sake of their great city and for those lands under their care.

  One by one those in the Meeting Place joined their circle, Johan next to the Chair Maker and then another Gathandrian beyond him. Annyeke took the power of the mind-links being formed as best she could and held them in her thoughts, acting as a barrier and a safeguard. Not everyone with them joined her and there were many further away in the city and beyond who could not, but she hoped the strength of their connection would reach them all, and the great Spirit of Gathand
ria who watched over everything would, by their action here, be minded to heed them.

  That was what Annyeke hoped for, and she knew her hope was sound. But the next moment, just as the circle of the willing closed hands and the link became complete, crimson fire ripped through her mind from nowhere and she heard the screams of the people in the day’s harsh truth. She fell, all connection shattered, and her thoughts crying out for release from the flames. She could understand neither where the fire had come from nor where it might go, as her entire world was at that moment comprised of nothing but desert and cruelty, baking heat and fear. Just as it had been that day in her home when the library was lost and the last battle began. She thought she might die, but not as the Lost One had done, to be reborn, as she was not so blessed, but then something else resonated deep within as the fire – greatest of miracles – left her: the memory, the reality of someone who should have been dead but who was somehow all too much alive. Her worst fears were shockingly realised: Iffenia, the Chair Maker’s wife, she who had betrayed them during the battle, was somehow here, in the midst of them. And, with Iffenia, the darkest legend of all Gathandria: the legend of blood and silence held in the Book of Blood which Annyeke had hoped never to see in her lifetime, but which she had felt in her earlier encounters with the Chair Maker, and most powerfully of all at the library. She had not wanted to admit it to herself then, but she had no choice now.

  May all the gods help them, but this changed everything.

  Chapter Ten: Secret Betrayals

  Jemelda

  She waited till nightfall in the cave. Images of silence and blood tugged at her mind and, at each small encounter, she gave in to the thrill and dance of them. Still she wondered if someone from the castle would come looking for them to try to persuade them to return. She wondered if it would be Frankel. Either that or they would come to fight them, but she didn’t believe they would do so, not yet. They would ask for peace, but she would never be ready for that, not while the murderer lived.

  When the fox-star had risen in its everlasting pursuit of the star of the owl, Jemelda knew it was time. Gently she woke those amongst them who were sleeping: Corannan, one of the women weavers and the boy. The rest were wakeful, as she was, and she could see the glint in Thomas’s eyes by the faint moonlight lining the cave entrance.

  “We must go,” she said. “It is time.”

  They already knew what she intended to do this night-cycle. Most had agreed with it at first, Thomas being the most enthusiastic as she had expected him to be as his motives too were based on revenge. Others had not been so willing and it had taken some time to persuade the women. The boy had remained silent, but had nodded when Jemelda had asked him if he would come with them. She would try to keep a watch on him if she could, to keep him out of harm, but she would need his skills. You had to crush seeds to bake bread and risks had to be taken.

  They slipped out of the cave’s safety, with Jemelda in front. Immediately behind her came Thomas and then the boy, and the rest of them found their places as they might. They carried with them no fire-torches but, in any case, the moonlight was enough. All of them knew these woods and a group such as they should keep any hungry wolves at a distance.

  Jemelda made her way down the incline, picking a path between rocks until she reached level ground and felt the softness of earth and grasses beneath her feet. They didn’t have to hurry as the night would be dark for some while yet. Still she wanted to finish her new mission as soon as it had begun; she was exactly the same when it came to cooking. Once she had decided upon the recipe or the menu for the day-cycle, she was reluctant to rest until she had completed it. It had always been so. She would simply have to bring that determination with her tonight.

  They kept to the edge of the woods as they walked towards the village, close enough to the shadows to avoid being seen by any Lammasser cleaving to Lord Tregannon but not too close that the wolves might be encouraged to attack. It had stopped snowing and soon the weather would turn to a milder winter’s end but Jemelda couldn’t help wishing she’d brought her thickest cloak with her. The one in which she had walked away from the castle was too thin for the night, but others in her group must be suffering too, and the younger of the farming wives wore a cloak you could have seen sunlight through.

  On their journey past the woods, they met no-one, but only heard the customary sounds of the night-cycle: the hunting cry of a female oak-owl; the rustle of small nameless creatures in the undergrowth; the distant howling of a wolf. The latter made them stop and huddle together before the realisation the animal was still some distance off and was unlikely to be tracking them. Above, the sky was pierced with stars, and Jemelda had to blink away unaccountable tears at such beauty. Soon, once the scribe was dead, their land and their people would echo such wonder on the earth again.

  Finally, after what seemed the length of two autumnal stories although Jemelda could not tell for sure, the small group reached the outskirts of the village. Even though the night shrouded all things, she could see the jagged shapes and shadows which made up the now ruined homes, the trading areas and, nearest to her, the ancient well.

  “You know what you have to do, each of you,” she turned and whispered to her would-be rebel force. “When you have done it, meet me at the other side of the village in a summer story’s length and then we will go to the fields. Remember: do not hesitate or falter in your purpose as the survival of our land depends on you.”

  They slipped away, hazy figures disappearing into darkness. Jemelda felt the stuttered beat of her heart and hoped to all the gods and stars they would be well; these people were the only army she had. As their leader, she had allotted herself the most difficult task and she knew she must do it quickly, before her courage failed her. Her determination never would. So she slipped along in the shadows of the destroyed houses, hearing the faint movements around and within them, some from her people and others she imagined from those who had stayed.

  Soon she reached the other side of the village and looked up to see the familiar and imposing shape of the castle framing a deeper shadow against the night sky. She had once called it home, but now it was the home of her enemy. Here was the most dangerous part of her journey and the reason she had chosen not to send anyone else but herself: the path from the village to the castle was bereft of places to hide, especially in winter, and even though she knew she was being foolish, anyone who chose to gaze out of any of the windows could very well mark her arrival. Yes, it was night and the darkness would itself be a shield but who was to say what the murderer’s mind-cane could do? Perhaps the murderer knew even now the nature of her plans and hopes. She shivered and, head down, began to walk. Then let him.

  Halfway there, she heard a noise and crouched down at the side of the pathway, stopping the cry which came to her lips. Blinking fast, she tried to adjust her eyes to the low light and see what it was that had disturbed her. If it was a wolf, then she would need to run although it would be impossible to escape, but if a man or woman then perhaps they had not yet seen her. For a long moment, the silence flowed around her, with not even an owl’s cry to break the spell. But then it came again, a shuffling sound followed by a harsh intake of breath. Lammasser then, not wolf. Jemelda crouched lower, and strained her eyes again in the direction of the noise. At first she continued to see nothing, only hear, but then suddenly as if it had always been there but she hadn’t had the wit to mark it, the shape of a man, stooped over, came into view.

  From the way he was walking, she knew he was old, his grey beard glowing a paler shade in the moonlight as he slowly passed her. Something about him seemed familiar, but she couldn’t place it, the memory slipping from her head as she struggled to remain silent. When he was directly alongside her on the path, he standing and she as close to the earth as she could get, he paused, sighed and looked directly at her. For a heartbeat or two of madness, Jemelda was set to run, away from the old man and perhaps even further than that, away from the village an
d the fields, her army and the task she had set herself. How she longed for Frankel. Then the feeling vanished and she stared right back at the traveller, daring him to accost her.

  An owl screeched a hunting cry above them, and the shadow of wings flashed over their heads before disappearing into the dark. The old man sighed and shook his head, as if he had judged her and found her wanting. When in fact what she was doing was the bravest act of all. He was nothing but a fool and she despised his cowardice, and his age also though it could not be far from her own.

  Standing at last, she took a step towards him and she thought he flinched but it might have been a cloud across the moon. She would act the leader, no matter what.

  “So,” she said, her voice cutting through the blanket of the night which stood between them, “are you one who will fight with us to save Lammas or are you a traitor who stays with our old Lord and his murderous scribe? This is your time to decide.”

  The old man did not answer. He merely continued to stare at her as if he was seeing something else entirely. The force of it made her want to step back but she stopped herself. Then he turned away as if she were utterly unimportant to him and recommenced his slow shuffling walk away from the castle and towards the village.