The Gathandrian Trilogy 03 - The Executioners Cane

punish us all to the hilt.”
    Frankel blinked at the scribe, as if seeing him for the first time. The colours Simon sensed from him darkened and twisted together before flowing apart once more. In his hand, the mind-cane suddenly felt warmer, a heat that crept from his fingers, down his arm and then into his whole body. He thought it might almost be like hope, but he could not say for certain.
    The other man took a step back and turned away. Simon felt the tears dampen his cheeks, but then the old man turned again.
    “If you come in, Jemelda, my wife, will not harm you,” he said.
    It was only when, legs trembling, he began to follow Frankel towards the kitchen that Simon felt the brush of someone else’s eyes upon him. But when he looked up at a window high at the corner of the ruined building, there was nobody there.

    Ralph

    Simon is here. Covered in mud, wearied and his beautiful cloak torn from the gods and stars know what kind of terrible journey, but he is here. Ralph has never believed he would come. Simon the Scribe. It is what he has dreamed of. It is what he has dreaded.
    Jemelda upbraids him and Simon sinks to his knees. If Ralph were there on the courtyard now, beside Simon, he would tear his servant apart until she ceased to speak. That kind of courage is, however, no longer his. The pounding of his heart is so great in his ears he is surprised Simon does not hear him and look up. But he does not. Ralph knows with the full intent of his blood it is not this man the cook should be accusing in the way she does. It is Ralph.
    Still, it is what Simon grasps that sends shivers through Ralph’s skin. In his hand, Simon holds the mind-cane, its black length and silver-carved top seeming to be an extension of himself. It fits more naturally there than it ever did in the mind-executioner’s hand. Gelahn is dead. Ralph knows that. He saw it happen. He saw the moment when Annyeke Hallsfoot, the Gathandrian First Elder, took up the mind-sword and he saw the moment when the understanding of death swept through Gelahn’s eyes. He will never forget either of these images; they live always in his memory. He did not expect Simon would take the cane and return here. Whatever comes of this, it cannot bode well for any of them. Perhaps if he had the courage to take his stand in the courtyard right now, it should not be Jemelda, but Simon he would need to fight.
    Why has he come here?
    By now the shouting has stopped and Jemelda turns to go. Another pause and then as Ralph blinks to try to focus on the scene, Simon struggles to his feet and limps towards the castle, following the grey-haired old man, Frankel. Ralph is just about to withdraw from his vantage point when he is sure Simon glances up and sees him.
    Ralph scrabbles backwards, all but stumbling over a small table. If he thought his heart was beating fast before, then it is as nothing compared to the pace of it now. Simon must not see him. When Ralph reaches the wall furthest from the window, he slides down, feeling the harsh stone on his back, until he lands on the floor. He is trembling but has no way of stopping it. Something has begun. Something has begun here today, and he is not prepared for it.
    Without thinking, Ralph finds he is crawling towards the makeshift bedding underneath the fractured sky. He feels as if a great weight is looming above, something to face in the future but he longs to hide from it. As he curls inwards both in body and mind – what he has left of it – Ralph understands two things and two things only: the first is that if Simon comes here to do what is wrong, then he does not have the strength to gainsay him; and if he comes here, somehow, to do what is right, then there is no place for Ralph in his plans. Perhaps there never has been.
    It is true then what the gods tell them. What must be, will be, and always too soon.

First Gathandrian Interlude

    Annyeke

    “ No,” said Annyeke Hallsfoot the First Elder of Gathandria, hands on hips, facing her husband who was sitting at the other side of the eating table and was also, to her chagrin, smiling quietly. “ Absolutely not. Why should I change my name simply because we have taken the ancient vows together? What good have the traditions been to us so far?”
    “Well, I …” Johan Montfort began to reply, but Annyeke gave him no ground. Which was, she fully accepted, unfair to a man who had had no option but to move into her tiny home due to his own being destroyed in the