The Gathandrian Trilogy 03 - The Executioners Cane

became something revealed for all to see at this place of execution where we stand today.
    “Here in this place of terror and grief, we lost friends and family to the beat of the soldiers’ drum and the whim of a stranger’s mind. Blood was spilled which should never have been spilled, and I know there must be a reckoning for the one who caused it. This man, this murderer. Today, I am the first to speak judgement and my judgement is this. Let him die. ”
    With that, Jemelda gathered herself up to her full height and spat directly at the scribe’s face. As before, her aim was true and her saliva struck his left cheek before tracing a slow journey downwards. She felt herself smile but he did not move.
    After that, the stories and verdicts of her fellow-villagers came quickly one upon another, like a spring flood. Most of these stories Jemelda knew or guessed at, but some came as a surprise. How had the Lammas Lord allowed such acts to happen? The answer was the mind-executioner, now himself dead, and the man standing before her. It struck her for the first time that the power one man had over another was beyond any measurement she could guess at.
    Whilst her thoughts drifted through such vast matters, too vast for a simple cook such as herself, she listened to the stories of her friends. The baker had seen his brother killed, merely for helping one of the group of young men who had fled to the woods when the murders had started. Where had they gone? She had not found them in her search. The night-women, who spoke in her hearing for the first time, their voices low and husky from lack of use, told them about the fear of the soldiers who came to them, how the Lord’s commands had baffled his men but they had no choice but to carry them out. Even so there had been hidden conversations and the terror of discovery which in the end never came. The night-women also told how more than once men they were with had been snatched away to their judgements and death, unable even to put on their boots before they were taken. It surprised her that when their tales were done, the decision they made was not for death: and so they became the first of the villagers who had cast their judgement this way. She did not approve, but she let it go. She had asked the people she knew for their choice and she would not let it count for nothing.
    It surprised her less when her husband also, after he had spoken his quiet and measured story, turned to stand with the night-women, revealing his judgement to be as theirs. At his decision she could feel the people behind her grow quiet but she did not acknowledge them. Instead she nodded at Frankel and, after a moment, he nodded back.
    Finally, the story-telling came down to Thomas. Jemelda knew he had taken the loss of the woman he loved deeply into his blood and she had seen only this morning how he would never be free of it. When it was his turn, the blacksmith strode the few paces needed to stand directly in front of the scribe, blocking her view of him.
    “You and I and all of us know what story I would talk of,” he said, his voice ringing out like the field bell warning of wolves. “It is written in my heart, not on the parchment you used to write with, Scribe. I have no need to shape it to the day’s liking again. Ever since the woman I loved died, I have longed to see you punished for that crime. I have nothing more to say to you, but I stand in the company of those who wish you dead. This is all you need to know.”
    With that, Thomas came to join Jemelda and the villagers huddling around her. There were only three people on the side of those who would not judge him; the rest were with her. It was time for her to give the death penalty to the condemned man. She opened her mouth to speak, but the murderer was there before her.
    “You are right in what you say and in the decision you have taken,” he said, his gaze flowing over each of them as if weighing them in the scales. “I came here to die, if that was your will. Come then, do it quickly and may the gods and stars grant your land and your village a resurrection from the evils I have brought upon them.”
    When he finished speaking, the condemned man stretched out his hands and looked at her. Jemelda understood this was her cue to speak, although it was strange he could exercise the power to grant it, when he should have no such power. She straightened her shoulders and stared back at him.
    “In this place of execution, the