The Gathandrian Trilogy 02 - Hallsfoots Battle

through him once more. Simon heard himself cry out, his voice a long keening of released desire.
    Do you want more of that, scribe?
    He and Gelahn both knew the answer was yes . But the scribe did not voice it, refused to allow it space to breathe amongst his thoughts. If he did, something told him he would be truly lost, beyond the rescuing of the whole of Gathandria, perhaps.
    A chuckle at his ear. You fight me? You have more courage than I suspected.
    The mind-executioner’s laughter cut into the river almost threatening to drown him. For a moment, his body and thoughts were clear. Just long enough to save himself from what he knew he wanted.
    “And perhaps more honour than you anticipate.” As he spoke aloud, all but shouting the words so he could hear himself above the storms of his flesh, he grabbed Gelahn’s hand and tore it from his skin. The river roared in protest and nausea overtook him, but he somehow kept himself free. The executioner cursed and lunged at him, but Simon ducked underneath his arm and rolled away. Gelahn did not follow. As the waters subsided and all their strange passions dampened down, the scribe could not help but regret the loss.
    By the time he recovered himself, Gelahn was sitting calmly at the table where the candle glinted as if nothing at all had taken place.
    Simon rose to his feet, walked towards his companion, hoping his gait was steady but knowing it was not, and stood opposite him. “Don’t ravish me like that again.”
    The mind-executioner raised his eyebrows. “Not even if you desire it?”
    “It is not I who desire it, but you who force your will upon me.”
    Gelahn laughed. “If that is what you think… But no matter. My interest in you does not manifest itself by way of the body, though the game is amusing, I must confess. However, your honour, such as it is, is safe enough as I have quite other wishes for you, if you will listen to them. But, first, will you drink? There is water. Wine, too, if that is your pleasure.”
    “I will never drink with you. Not willingly.”
    “A shame,” the executioner shrugged, “as what I have to say to you may take a while and will leave you much to think of.”
    “On the contrary, I don’t think you have anything to say to me that would carry any meaning at all.”
    A long pause before the mind-executioner spoke again. “Simon, look around this room. Tell me what you see.”
    The unexpected use of his name made the scribe blink. Without thinking, he gazed round the walls that trapped him with his enemy. He saw rough stone lined with shelves of bottles in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. All of them were empty. Near the table where the executioner was sitting lay a selection of manuscripts written in a language Simon couldn’t recognise. Rugs and matting, green and gold, covered the floor and provided the only splash of colour, while a simple bed-area filled the opposite corner.
    “You said this was your home?” the scribe asked, not looking at his abductor.
    “Yes,” Gelahn replied. “When I was a child.”
    Simon took a breath and sat down. Questions filled his thoughts and he was unsure which to voice first.
    “Yes,” the executioner said. “It is not dissimilar to your mother’s home, is it not?”
    “My father’s, also.” The scribe raised his head, stared at Gelahn, who dismissed his words with a wave of his hand.
    “Your father is not important. It is your mother’s Gathandrian blood that matters here. We are more alike than you imagine, Simon Hartstongue of the White Lands. Our childhoods were both poor, and neither of us fit comfortably with the environment into which we were born. My parents were wine-makers, as you can see by the bottles stored here. Their profession was important enough to take over even the bed-chamber of their only child. The manuscripts I loved to read and write, too, as you do, had no place in the measured existence of their lives, and neither did I. My lack of any interest in the delights of wine was a great burden to them. But, no matter, I quickly found my own path and walked it without them.”
    “Killing and torturing other people as you did so,” Simon interrupted, unable to hold back the protest on his tongue. “Perhaps your parents were right.”
    “Ah, Simon,” Gelahn leaned back in his chair and took a sip of ruby wine from his beaker. It stained his lips crimson. “Bearing in mind your own blood-soaked history, it surprises me to hear you say thus.