The Gathandrian Trilogy 03 - The Executioners Cane

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.
    Perhaps it was this which spurred my companion on as she lifted her hazel-green eyes and looked at me with a question in her eyes.
    “Will you teach me how to do such work?” she asked me. “I would very much like to learn.”
    Such a question, shattering as it did the traditions of our people, made me take several steps backwards. “Why would you need to learn such a thing? You are a glass-maker. Your skills are far greater than ours. But-but in any case it would not be right, would it? If you insisted, my father could offer you tuition, but I could not do it. I’m sorry, but you see that, don’t you?”
    Indeed there were so many pressing reasons why it would be impossible for one such as I to teach my craft to one such as Iffenia. In our city, people did not change trades unless for reasons of family; glass-makers were better thought of than carpenters; and for a young man to be coaching a young woman would imply a future stability which did not exist between us, and was never likely to.
    My train of thought, muddled and flickering as it no doubt was in that dusty room all those year-cycles ago, must have been as clear to Iffenia as the parkland in the brightest sunlight.
    She smiled. “And cannot things change, once in a while, Bayard? Are we not free to be whomever we wish?”
    The way she said my name made me think of oak trees in the fullest leaf. As if something I had never imagined possible before might by some star-miracle be possible now.
    I drew up a stool and sat down opposite her. The light from the window glittered over her hair and, this close, I caught the smell of lemonwood. A rare perfume.
    There in the seclusion of my father’s studio, I gave Iffenia her first lesson in carving. I found an old apron for her to wear so her clothing would not be spoiled, and I dusted off our best working-stool for her use, angling it towards the light so she might not strain her eyes. Of course there are many tasks a carver must do before the wood can be released into the life it longs for. You must choose the right shape and type of tree for the task to hand. Apple-willow is the easiest for beginners, although its carvings do not last as long as those of an oak or river-cypress. And it is useless for larger items. Next, the wood must be primed with a mixture of olive and winter-grape oil. The one for soothing and the other for clarity. It is best to allow the wood to breathe in these gifts over a course of five day-cycles before one even considers how one’s hands can best mould it. But of course that morning, I longed to give Iffenia something to work with, so she would feel how the wood altered itself to her fingers, and how in return her fingers responded to what the wood conveys. For wood, as the legends tell us, is never silent. Whilst it is rooted to the soil, it whispers in the summer breezes and its moaning is heard during our winter storms. So, when the woodsman cuts the bark, its voice is neither lost nor destroyed. It speaks to us still.
    I gave her the apple-willow my father was saving for our newest apprentice, and the smallest of the chisels. Her fingers were always delicate and white, even in the year-cycles to come, when her carvings became widely known around our city. Iffenia was always proud of her hands. I took an old carving from the nearest shelf. It showed the outline of a bird and a tree-rose that had proved useful in teaching and training for many. And I