The Executioner's Cane (24 page)

“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 Gathandria 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.