The Gathandrian Trilogy 03 - The Executioners Cane

smiled at Frankel and gestured to the outdoors. “I must meet them in the courtyard. Then they will see I have no weapon to cloud their judgement.”
    He began to walk towards the dividing curtain.
    “Wait,” the old man said, and Simon stopped and turned to face him. He could not stay long. Something had begun which he could not stop and did not wish to. Perhaps not even the Spirit of Gathandria could stop it.
    “What is it, Frankel?”
    “It is cold and already it is snowing. You will need your cloak, Scribe.”
    Before Simon could reach for it himself, Frankel shook out the cloak and stepped behind Simon, placing it on his shoulders.
    “No man should go to his judgement without some small comfort,” he said.
    A pause between them, in which no other words were necessary. Finally, the Lost One nodded and fastened the cloak around him.
    “Thank you,” he said. “I am grateful.”
    Then he turned again towards the day, drew the curtain to one side and walked out into the air’s winter chill. The first sensation was the call of the mind-cane, even locked where it was in the bread-store. It cried out to him, pleading for release, even though Simon knew it had the power to free itself if it wished to. Was the choice he’d made to lay that source of protection to one side the reason it did not come to him? He could think of no other explanation.
    The second and more pertinent sensation was the continuing wave of emotions from the approaching villagers. They had not yet arrived at the stream which bordered the courtyard, but Simon could see their figures hurrying towards him over the fields. In front of them was Jemelda, her darker colours a contrast to the snow which tickled his skin and mouth. Behind her was Thomas the Blacksmith, and Simon shut his eyes as the memory of their last encounter filled his thoughts. While still under Ralph’s command, Simon had given over to death the woman the blacksmith loved, although at the time he had not known this fact. When he had fled from the Lammas Lands with Johan and Isabella, Thomas had almost killed him.
    Simon could not blame him. Perhaps here the blacksmith would finish the task he’d begun. He waited for the people to come wading over the water towards him. Half the courtyard away, Jemelda stopped and shook out her skirts as the people following gathered around her, for the most part.
    There was one who did not stop. Thomas kept on walking. It seemed to Simon as if this had always been meant to happen; something in his blood, something the mind-cane had left there, expected it. He stood taller as the blacksmith continued towards him. He felt Frankel’s gasp in his thoughts rather than heard it, and then Thomas raised his hand, and a stinging slap sent the Lost One sprawling to the icy ground. He tasted blood on his tongue.
    “Get up,” the blacksmith said, his voice low and hoarse. “Now.”
    Simon did so. But this time, when the blacksmith raised his arm, he caught it before the blow could fall again.
    “Do you not think that too much violence and injustice has already taken place here that you should bring it to fruition before it is ready?” he whispered, so only he and the blacksmith might hear.
    Thomas shook him away and stepped back. Simon could sense his fear in having his thoughts read by the contact, but in any case they needed no mind-interpretation. The blacksmith hated him and wanted him dead. It was obvious.
    “We have come here for justice,” Thomas said. “And, if the voice of the people is truly heard, then it will be a long and bloodied one.”
    “Yes,” Simon replied. “It is as you say.”
    And then neither had time for more words as Jemelda stood beside them, her eyes darting from one to the other.
    “Come,” she said. “It is the midday-hour and we must start the judgement if we are not to lose the day-cycle. Follow me.”
    He did so. Behind him came Thomas and the remaining villagers, at least the ones Jemelda had been able to find in such few short hours. No more than twenty or so but this was still enough to give the death-judgement, even without the customary drums. The Lost One’s journey to the Place of Judgement, and Tree of Execution, was a silent one, but the beat and pulse of his own blood was accompaniment enough.
    At his side, but keeping his distance, Frankel tracked him. Simon slipped only once on the forming ice but managed not to fall. The action took him back to the last time he’d been here: the day when