The Gathandrian Trilogy 03 - The Executioners Cane

the unforeseen dangers that might lie around them.
    He swore, something she had never heard him do, and the effect of it was magnified a thousand times without the dissipating power of speech. Johan.
    I’m sorry, but this is beyond my belief, my love. I wish I had been there at your side when the Chair Maker confessed.
    I am glad you were not. You would have been angrier than I.
    He snorted and sat down at the kitchen table, a deep frown lining his forehead. With due cause. The Book of Blood is the most dangerous of the legends, because it is as yet unwritten. If the Chair Maker and Iffenia have mined its depths then I do not know how we can fight it. You say because of it, Iffenia lives? In another in the Lammas Lands? Who? Is Simon threatened because of it? We must warn him.
    So many questions her husband had, and all of them flocking around her like young wood-sparrows in the spring. She shook her head at herself. The image, for her, was not a pleasant one. Before she made any decisions, they needed sustenance so she busied herself for a while heating up the last of the day’s wheat-soup and sprinkling a handful of ginger into it to provide some spice, and clear their heads.
    Then she poured two beakers, sat down and handed her partner one while she sipped from the other. How different this was from the drink she had shared with the elder, in so many ways.
    Johan laughed. You are inspired by food.
    She opened her eyes wide at him. Always. But who is not? Drink and let us consider how best we can fight this latest battle.
    What about Simon? he asked again and she felt the wave of his concern for his cousin flow over her. Something else too, some deeper puzzle, and it took her a heartbeat or two to discern it.
    No, you are mistaken, she shook her head, reached across the table and grasped his hand. Iffenia’s spirit is not in the Lost One . He has the strength of the mind-cane and his own mission to protect him. I believe it is Jemelda, the one who leads the rebellion. It must be. She is bent on destroying the peace the Lost One hopes to build, and our peace too.
    How?
    Quickly, she allowed him to see what she understood of the Lost One’s experiences in Lammas thus far. He already knew about the strange death and rebirth, but neither of them fully comprehended its meaning, yet. The powers of the gods and stars were passing strange. What Johan didn’t yet know was the mission Jemelda, the cook, had begun.
    So she wishes to kill Simon, Johan pondered when he had listened. Why?
    Annyeke glared at him. Because she is a woman and if I have learnt anything from recent year-cycles it is that in war-time, it is the women who suffer most, and who are most angry. But she might not have had the power without Iffenia’s presence, I cannot tell. Somehow, during the battles and when the link between our two countries was strongest, Iffenia’s spirit clung to Jemelda because of the forces she and the Chair Maker unleashed, and together the two women form an enemy we mustn’t underestimate.
    At this Johan smiled. Women, in my experience, are always a force to be reckoned with, Annyeke, whether or not they have the spirits of the dead urging them on.
    He stood up abruptly, breaking the close connection between them, although she could still sense his mind. She would sense it always. As she watched, he started to stride up and down the kitchen-area.
    “How can it have come to this?” he muttered, speaking aloud. She could only hope he would not wake Talus, who would need the fullness of sleep. “What must we do before peace can break out amongst our peoples? First, the mind-executioner, then the treachery of the elders against us, then the strangeness of Simon’s calling, the battle on our fields, and now this. When will the fighting cease ? ”
    Johan.
    Something in the tone of her voice broke through his rising anger and he stopped at once, a slow blush spreading across his handsome face. Forgive me, my love, but sometimes I think I am a simple man and incapable of dealing with our world as it is becoming. Neither would I wish to wake your son. Forgive me.
    Annyeke smiled as he sat down opposite her once more and drained his beaker of the last of the wheat-soup. The day-cycles are hard, she said, and Talus is our son, not just mine.
    He gazed at her for another full minute, and then nodded. You are right. So, what should we do, First Elder?
    His term of address was said with a smile, and she knew he teased her. How she