The Executioner's Cane (10 page)

Perhaps it was this which spurred my
companion on as she lifted her hazel-green eyes and looked at me
with a question in her eyes.

“Will you teach me how to do such work?” she
asked me. “I would very much like to learn.”

Such a question, shattering as it did the
traditions of our people, made me take several steps backwards.
“Why would you need to learn such a thing? You are a glass-maker.
Your skills are far greater than ours. But-but in any case it would
not be right, would it? If you insisted, my father could offer you
tuition, but I could not do it. I’m sorry, but you see that, don’t
you?”

Indeed there were so many pressing reasons
why it would be impossible for one such as I to teach my craft to
one such as Iffenia. In our city, people did not change trades
unless for reasons of family; glass-makers were better thought of
than carpenters; and for a young man to be coaching a young woman
would imply a future stability which did not exist between us, and
was never likely to.

My train of thought, muddled and flickering
as it no doubt was in that dusty room all those year-cycles ago,
must have been as clear to Iffenia as the parkland in the brightest
sunlight.

She smiled. “And cannot things change, once
in a while, Bayard? Are we not free to be whomever we wish?”

The way she said my name made me think of oak
trees in the fullest leaf. As if something I had never imagined
possible before might by some star-miracle be possible now.

I drew up a stool and sat down opposite her.
The light from the window glittered over her hair and, this close,
I caught the smell of lemonwood. A rare perfume.

There in the seclusion of my father’s studio,
I gave Iffenia her first lesson in carving. I found an old apron
for her to wear so her clothing would not be spoiled, and I dusted
off our best working-stool for her use, angling it towards the
light so she might not strain her eyes. Of course there are many
tasks a carver must do before the wood can be released into the
life it longs for. You must choose the right shape and type of tree
for the task to hand. Apple-willow is the easiest for beginners,
although its carvings do not last as long as those of an oak or
river-cypress. And it is useless for larger items. Next, the wood
must be primed with a mixture of olive and winter-grape oil. The
one for soothing and the other for clarity. It is best to allow the
wood to breathe in these gifts over a course of five day-cycles
before one even considers how one’s hands can best mould it. But of
course that morning, I longed to give Iffenia something to work
with, so she would feel how the wood altered itself to her fingers,
and how in return her fingers responded to what the wood conveys.
For wood, as the legends tell us, is never silent. Whilst it is
rooted to the soil, it whispers in the summer breezes and its
moaning is heard during our winter storms. So, when the woodsman
cuts the bark, its voice is neither lost nor destroyed. It speaks
to us still.

I gave her the apple-willow my father was
saving for our newest apprentice, and the smallest of the chisels.
Her fingers were always delicate and white, even in the year-cycles
to come, when her carvings became widely known around our city.
Iffenia was always proud of her hands. I took an old carving from
the nearest shelf. It showed the outline of a bird and a tree-rose
that had proved useful in teaching and training for many. And I
instructed her how to begin and how to keep the lines in
perspective so the demands of the whole were not abandoned. The
secret of carving is never to urge oneself onward. The importance
of each cut, each moment of pressure between hand and tree cannot
be underestimated. It is better to spend many day-cycles creating
one simple piece than to create many pieces in a day. That is what
the great sculptors know in their blood, and that, I tell you, is
what Iffenia knew from the start. I am not a true sculptor and yet
I saw how she was the moment the chisel nestled in her grasp. The
colours of her mind flowed outwards through her skin and into the
wood. Bright yellows and deep greens. I had never seen such
combinations in anyone’s mind before, and I have not seen them
since in anyone else. Others may say this indicates the division in
her thoughts between what is and what should be and that this was
the reason why she betrayed you all to the mind-executioner. But I
saw these colours as beautiful, and I still do.

Back then, the apple-willow responded to her
presence in a way I had never seen for anyone in my father’s
studio, and certainly not for me. It glowed first gold, as if some
strange form of sunlight was warming it into life, and then into a
steady cream colour. Like the ripening corn when the wind flows
through it. Iffenia laughed and raised her dancing eyes to mine. I
couldn’t help but laugh too, although my heart beat faster and I
felt as if I were about to shout or run or perform some other act
which would make those eyes smile at me again. I did not tell her
that what was happening was so new and strange I did not know how
to teach her anything she did not already guess at or understand.
In a way I would never be able to.

And she was of the glass-maker’s family. I
watched Iffenia carve her bird and her rose for the whole of that
afternoon, and I remember it now as one of the best days of my
life. The wood responded to her touch, melting its voice into her
skin and freely giving her whatever she demanded of it. I too heard
the wood’s song and lost myself in its warmth and calling.

That day, she created the best and most
vibrant carving I have ever seen in a beginner. And though in the
years to come, she was to surpass such work many times, it is the
one I think of when I think of her. I have always kept it and I
keep it with me now. She never knew that and I wish with all my
mind I had told her so while I still could.

Five year-cycles after that, we became
bond-partners. My father grumbled at our joining ceremony but his
words were empty. He was brought up to think those who worked with
wood were not suited for the makers of glass, but he saw the way
Iffenia and I looked at each other – the bond which flowed between
us – and he did not gainsay our desire. She gave me joy and I gave
her laughter. It was a wise balance.

Without her, I would not have had the courage
to turn from my background and the many sculptors whose bloodline
mixes with my thoughts, and to become the elder you see before you
now, Annyeke. It was always Iffenia who thought I could do
anything, she who believed in me. For such a gift, I gave her what
little wood-learning I could and she far surpassed my skills in it.
In her, I found my own peace of mind, and the place I should be.
Without Iffenia, I would never have thought to offer myself as an
elder to this once-mighty city of ours – it was she alone who gave
me the confidence and heart to do so. But, by the great stars, I
wish with all my mind I had not done it. For look where we elders
have taken Gathandria now.

But that is in the past and we must look to
the future, or else we will never survive, neither ourselves nor
the countries and people under our jurisdiction. How we restore our
streets and buildings and people is a decision you, Annyeke, must
take and we must support. Still, I want you to know whatever
Iffenia did, or tried to do, she did because of me. I miss her with
every thought, with every breath, with every dream. The moments you
knew of her are not the wholeness of the person my bond-partner
was. She will be with me always. Remember that when you look into
people’s minds, Annyeke. Because in life and in death, Iffenia and
I have kept faith with each other, and nothing else truly matters.
We have kept faith.

*****

As he finished speaking, the Chair Maker’s
eyes filled with tears, and Annyeke stretched out her hand to touch
his arm. He might have been about to say something else, she wasn’t
sure, but the next moment a loud cry came from the direction of the
parkland – a cry not just of the voice but of the mind too – and
she spun round towards it. Jagged ribbons of mind-colour swung
through the air – yellow, crimson, black – and for a wild heartbeat
Annyeke thought the mind-executioner had returned. But no, that was
impossible. He was dead, truly dead, and his blood was on her hands
alone. It could not be him.

Allowing herself one glance only at the elder
beside her, she began to run towards the park. A moment’s
hesitation, and she heard the sound of his feet behind her. And
beyond him, the noise of the gathered people accompanying them.
Both she and the Chair Maker struggled and slipped on the packed
snow lining the streets. Under her breath and as the noise of pain
became louder, Annyeke cursed the war which meant the
street-cleaners no longer plied their trade.

When she turned the corner near the
winter-pines, she almost fell, but the steadying hand of the elder
kept her from harm. That brought back an echo of memory – of she
and Iffenia in the snow at the battle – and by the time she
acknowledged it she was too late to stop the widower from catching
her thought.

I’m sorry. She launched the words at him,
hoping he would see them for what they were, but there was no time
for any other nicety. Because scrabbling like wood-cats under the
trees were several Gathandrians and two of the returning elders.
The Maker of Gardens and the Silent One. It was the latter who was
screaming – in thought only – but the shouts had come from the
people of the city. Annyeke could hear their words plunging through
her blood: traitors! cowards! murderers!

All of which was arguably true, she had to
admit, but the Gathandrians prided themselves on being a peaceful
people – the arbiters of what was right. Or they had done so once.
This terrible anger, understandable though it was, would be useless
to them. Perhaps it was the most destructive force of all.

Now she was close enough to pull the fighting
men apart. Shutting down the high-pitched screams in her head, she
reached forward. And found herself held back by something, by
someone.

No, the Chair Maker whispered, his voice
seeming to come from the depths of her own blood. They could harm
you.

She swung round and shook off his restraining
hand. All her sympathy for him vanished temporarily away. Do you
think we haven’t all been harmed enough by other forces? And do you
think I care if they injure me?

And the truth was she didn’t. Annyeke knew
this fight must stop. For if the people rose up against their
former elders, then there might never be peace, or at least not in
her lifetime. So, with that, she lunged at the nearest fighter –
one of the Gathandrians – and tried to drag him away from the
beleaguered elders. It was then she realised that even though short
red-haired women were on any other occasion a great force to be
reckoned with, they were not, sadly, any match for a Gathandrian
male in the prime of life. She found herself kicked and scratched
and beaten in the body, whilst her mind tackled the combined and
unfocused rage of the city people.

By the gods, perhaps the elder’s warning had
been wiser than she’d given him credit for. She didn’t want Johan
and Talus to be mourning her loss before they’d even properly begun
to be a family. Sending out a small mind-pinch, which she used to
push her assailants away without harming them, Annyeke managed to
struggle clear of the fray.

Gasping for breath, she rose to her feet and
blinked. The Chair Maker was standing nearby. She thought there
might be a look of wry amusement on his face but he said nothing,
neither out loud nor in the mind. His expression did not change one
flicker as he handed her the branch he must have discovered under
the wood-pines. Annyeke nodded her thanks. She took the strange
offering, turned round to the battle, tried not to think of the
last time she’d wielded a weapon far more dangerous than this, and
swept it across the writhing backs of the men.

She did this not just with her own physical
power, but with all the sharpness of her mind. Not only that, but
as the wood-pine’s rugged branch slashed into the fighting men, she
realised the colours flowing over her skin were not just the
calming colours of green and lilac, but possessed an added darkness
from the elder also. For a heartbeat, such darkness puzzled her and
made her think of things, even legends, she should not think of,
but she crushed the thought as it gave her the edge she needed. The
combined forces split open the angry crimson of the scrapping
Gathandrians, bringing a temporary respite to the pointless
fighting. The mind-screaming ceased and Annyeke felt the sudden
return of peace to her thoughts like a welcome river over a thirsty
land.

“Get up,” she said, and glared at the
menfolk.

They obeyed. She allowed them no other
choice. The snow began to fall more heavily but Annyeke took no
notice. She dropped the branch and waited until they had finished
shuffling and looking furtive.

“You are all fools,” she said at last. “I
understand you, the people of Gathandria, have grievances against
our elders. But do you really think fighting amongst ourselves will
help any of us? It is we who have chosen those who have governed us
and so in the eyes of the gods and stars above, we are all guilty
in some way or other. I know we have suffered great losses, of our
houses, our lands, our businesses and, above any of these, the loss
of those we love. The elders too are not immune from this, as you
well know. Hatred will not heal our country or our minds. When I
consider it, the very fact the elders have returned to Gathandria
for an accounting of their crimes is a mark of courage none of us
expected to witness. I cannot myself tell whether I would have had
the courage to return so quickly though I hope my mind would have
guided me. I hope I would have left my pride behind.