The Gathandrian Trilogy 03 - The Executioners Cane Read Free Page B

broom as he chased the rat away echoed the strain and push of her shoulders as she continued to prepare the dough.
    “Frankel? Let it go, won’t you?” she snapped at last, pushing her hair away from her eyes and, no doubt, streaking flour over her face. “The rats will always be with us. So what is the use of it all?”
    To her annoyance, Jemelda found her eyes were wet. Ridiculous. She never cried. She wasn’t the crying kind. This too was no help whatsoever. As she heard the clatter of her husband’s broom where it fell to the floor, she gave the undulating dough one great pummel and hissed between her teeth. Best that than the words she might say. Nobody ever knew when either the gods or stars were listening.
    When Frankel’s thin arms went round her, she leaned back against him and sighed, trying to put the dark and murderous thoughts away. He felt frail but warm. He didn’t say anything and she was glad of it. She couldn’t think of any words which might improve the situation they and all the Lammas people found themselves in. This year-cycle would be spoken about – if there were any left to speak about it anyway – as one in which many curses had been laid upon their heads. Firstly, the way the Lammas Lord had turned against his own people, aided by the murderer and mind-delver, Simon the Scribe, and the terrifying mind-executioner. Jemelda could never think of his name without shuddering. The loss of so many friends and neighbours, killed for no good reason she could see or understand. What was so special about mind-skills in any case? Then the way Simon had vanished, spirited away at his own hanging by the mysterious people of Gathandria. At once, the Lammas Lord and the mind-executioner had pursued him and it was then that the land and home Jemelda loved began to disintegrate before her very eyes. Homes torn down and field crops ruined. Even the plants already stored for the winter had rotted away for no reason and many of the animals had died. The autumn-cycle planting had come to nothing and it was a sky-mystery how the people – what there were left of them – would eat at all when the spring-cycle arrived. If it did. And this terrible destruction and death – for yes, yet more strange disease and death had swept over them and only a handful of her once thriving village were left to mourn – had happened with no visible enemy attacking them, with nobody to fight against. Something to do with the Lammas Lord’s journey to Gathandria, something to do with the mind-wars. She could make no sense of it. Nothing like this had ever occurred in her parents’ or grandparents’ time; no stories were told of such things.
    Back then she had thought it could not get any worse. But then Lord Tregannon had returned, alone, an all but defeated man. And after him had come the mind-executioner and his army of wild dogs and undead soldiers. When they had departed in an overwhelming storm of magic and terror, the skies above the village had turned to night and the trees themselves had wept. Stone had roared and rivers had flooded their banks and poured as red as blood through the village byways and paths. She hadn’t even known if she, Frankel and the Lammas Lord’s young steward, Apolyon would survive but somehow they had.
    When, after a day of hiding in the woods, she had finally gained the courage to return, with her bedraggled spouse and fellow-servant, she had heard the Lammas Lord’s weeping as she had approached the ruined castle.
    She had not thought to comfort him. She was a cook. She baked and fed people. That was her calling and she was no comforter. Certainly not of one who had betrayed them so.
    “Hush,” Frankel whispered in her ear. “I know, my love, I know.”
    Jemelda shook herself. She hadn’t realised she’d been whispering aloud some of her thoughts. No matter. Only Frankel was present to hear them. He had always kept her secrets. Turning towards him, she half-smiled. He squeezed her