The Gathandrian Trilogy 03 - The Executioners Cane

gently at his side. All he could do was wait until peace should come. He suspected it would take a while, and he hoped there would be wisdom enough to guide him through it.

    Jemelda

    They did not see the murderous scribe again all that day-cycle, and the fact of his return kept Jemelda awake all night. In the alcove in the kitchen, with the smells of bread and the faint hint of the remaining spices around her, she turned from one side to the other, and back again, never finding the comfort she sought. Occasionally the soft snores of Frankel accompanied her watching and once he shuffled across to her and held her gently in his arms. She didn’t dare move as she guessed he still slept. After a while though, he returned to his side of the makeshift bed and she was free to ponder on her own once more.
    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