The Gathandrian Trilogy 03 - The Executioners Cane

ridiculous fashion at the Lost One, Annyeke eased round and faced Tregannon, feeling the words already crowding her tongue.
    “Now we have hope,” she said.

Chapter Eight: Beginning Again

    HOPE

    Jemelda

    She breathed deeply, feeling her whole body tremble. Since the war, she had dreamed of nothing but destroying this man if she ever had the chance, and she had spent the whole morning gathering together the people who would help her do it. She thought she had done it, in spite of the Lammas Lord, the cane and the strange green fire. He had been dead, she knew it; the blacksmith’s slow rope and the winter-sour beer had made the murderer of their people suffer and die.
    Now he was alive again, as in the quiet of the snows she heard his breathing, the cries of joy, saw that moment of true betrayal from the mouth of their supposed Lord. The injustice of it took her insides and twisted them so Jemelda could no longer name any of the emotions within her blood. It was as if she had created the best meal she could imagine and laid it out on a pure linen tablecloth and then the wood-wolves had satisfied their hunger on it.
    It was beyond her endurance. She became aware Frankel was gripping her hand and must have been beside her for some time.
    “Jemelda,” he whispered. “Jemelda, my love?”
    Behind his simple words lay something deeper, a plea, but she refused to acknowledge it. She had gone too far down this road of vengeance to turn back and, besides, she owed it to the decimated villagers. Somebody had to die: an ancient law but a true one. She slipped her hand from her husband’s and took a step away from him.
    Various emotions chased their way over his face and for several heartbeats it felt as if they were the only two people in the whole of Lammas. She did not want to explore what he might want to say.
    “Please, Jemelda …”
    She shook her head, still stepping back. “No.”
    The sharpness of her retort drew the attention of the small group huddled by the man she had tried and failed to kill. The Lammas Lord stared right at her, blocking her view of the murderer, the red-haired woman and the frail old man. She did not know either of these last two and did not think they were Lammassers but neither did she want to know them. She counted them as the enemy.
    “Jemelda, stay with us, please .”
    “No,” she said again, not even looking at her husband, but keeping her eyes fixed on Lord Tregannon. So many year-cycles of her life she had spent serving him and his household, as had her mother and her mother before her. Not only that, but she had stayed here at the castle, with Frankel, after the terrible war was over when most others had fled. She had cooked for the Lammas Lord, and though it had only been a short while before the murderous scribe had returned, she knew she had intended to cook for him for as long as she could scrape the herbs from the ground and the crops from the storage, and for as long as the breath remained to her. Today he had thrown her kindness and loyalty into the wind, and all her steadfastness had gone. She would serve the Tregannons no more. Her allegiance with them was finished and she had other, more necessary, work to perform.
    As if he had penetrated her thoughts, the Lammas Lord flinched and stood up, laying the murderer gently on the ground as if he were precious goods. He took a few paces towards her and stretched out his arms. She could see him swallow before he spoke, and the slight shake of his legs as he tried to remain still.
    “I cannot explain what has happened, Jemelda,” he said. “And you have every right to hate me, and Simon also, but for the sake of this village I have abandoned so badly, won’t you stay, as your husband asks you?”
    Jemelda didn’t hesitate, although her heart trembled at the casting aside of so many year-cycles of tradition ingrained within her.
    “It is too late for such words,” she said, almost adding his title at the end but saving herself just in time. “My decision is made. You have used unnatural magic to win your day, but it cannot last forever. From now on, I will work my utmost with those I have called together today to destroy the man I have planned to destroy. Only in that way can our land be saved, through the will of the people, not by tricks and deceit. You will not see me here again until I come to destroy that murderer of yours and all those who follow him.”
    With that, she turned away and began to walk