The Gathandrian Trilogy 03 - The Executioners Cane

dragged the Lost One up with him, his fingers scrabbling for the ropes and pushing Simon’s head and hands and feet into the waiting nooses. Then the blacksmith leapt down and pushed the stool away. At once the ropes tightened round Simon’s flesh and he was left hanging from the Tree of Execution, gasping for breath and scrabbling vainly for a hold.
    “There,” Thomas said. “The task is begun and in due time you will die. Let it be so.”

    Ralph

    Today, the scribe will die. His people have proclaimed it. Ralph does not need to hear the words; he can sense the threat in the air, feel the purpose of his villagers’ assumed leader, Jemelda, forcing itself into his mind. The irony it should be her who wields the power instead of himself has not escaped him. The cook and her family, her mother, and her mother before her, have been the Tregannons’ servants almost as long as they have ruled this country, and that she of all of them who has stayed with him in spite of everything should do this thing makes his breath stutter and his skin prickle. But she does not know the full horror of what she is doing, does she? He has no-one to blame for this impasse except himself.
    It’s not a good day. The long line of a series of not good days, since the war, since the day Simon escaped him.
    Ralph opens his eyes onto the wintry depths of what used to be his bedroom. With an energy he has not possessed for many days, he springs to his feet and kicks over the remains of the wash-jug which has somehow found its way in here with him. It focuses him. How he needs that.
    He strides from the bedroom and runs through the darkened corridors of his home, hearing occasionally the scuttle of a river-rat as it flees from his approach. The smell of dust and fear lie in the air. How has he allowed it to come to this?
    By the time he’s in the hallway, the scene of yesterday’s futile encounter with Simon, the shouting has begun. It comes from his courtyard. The sound is familiar: the anger of people primed to kill. He has stirred that in their blood too often for him not to recognise it.
    Ralph stands at the threshold and stares outside. He sees the crowd of people round the Tree of Execution, knows why they are there. The people have made their decision; they will kill Simon today. From the knots they have tied, his death will be a slow, agonising one. Ralph trembles and tries to swallow, but he cannot. His breath is stuttering in his throat. He must do something this time, before the man is beyond the saving. He owes him this.
    If he still had the emeralds, something might be done.
    But Ralph doesn’t have them; Simon does. He stops, holds himself all but motionless in the moment. The scribe doesn’t have them now, does he? Not when he’s hanging on the tree and primed to die. Where would he leave them? He must have picked them up when Ralph flung them at him in the great hall. He has no idea where the scribe slept, but he knows who he has been talking with.
    Ralph begins to run towards the kitchen. His bad leg sends streaks of pain upwards but he ignores it as best he can. Still his progress isn’t as fast as he wants. He uses the servants’ entrance, deciding against venturing outside when the people are at their most violent. Seeing him may make their bloodlust worse.
    The kitchen is dark. No lamps are lit but he knows at once someone is there, lurking in the shadows near the table.
    “Who is it?” The words are spoken with something like his former instinctive command, but he knows the answer before the sentence is fully out. Ralph can sense his colours in his mind, the soft mix of them.
    It is Apolyon, the young steward. His pale hair is a lighter shade in the gloom as he tries to scrabble away. He must have been hiding here, safe from the events of the day, if such safety is even possible, and for that effort Ralph cannot blame him.
    “Wait.”
    Again the tone of command works its ancient magic and the boy halts. The air smells of stale bread and herbs he cannot differentiate. It also smells of emeralds in his thoughts, but he cannot tell where they are.
    “Wait, boy,” he says, this time more gently. He does not want to terrify him so much that he leaves; Ralph has done this so often the boy is probably the only one left. “Apolyon.”
    At the sound of his name, the boy’s breathing steadies.
    “Why are you here?” Ralph continues. “Do you not wish to witness the death of the scribe?”
    “No, my lord. We