The Executioner's Cane (48 page)

Authors: Anne Brooke

Tags: #fantasy, #sword and sorcery, #epic fantasy, #fantasy series

BOOK: The Executioner's Cane

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The result was to be expected; by the time he
entered the dining hall, Ralph had already put away his work tools
and was in the act of placing the mud-barrel in the corner of the
room. When he saw Simon, he stood upright and smoothed down his
hair, a gesture which scattered a seed-throw of drying mud over
it.

“Are you done for the night?”

The scribe nodded.

“I see,” said the Lammas Lord, and then
seemed as if he wanted to say more but did not know how to
begin.

Simon waited.

“Let us sit,” Ralph cleared his throat at
last and gestured at the side table in the centre of the room. “We
can talk undisturbed here.”

Simon smiled at the tone of command in the
instruction, and sat down, an act both in keeping with and utterly
disrespectful of the former Lammas laws. Obedience to the castle
Lord was part of the make-up of the land, but Ralph should have
been allowed to take his seat first.

He gazed up at his companion. “Thank
you.”

Ralph nodded, and Simon could feel the mix of
colours in his lover’s mind circling and dancing until the blend of
them settled once more: deepest crimson and a startling blue laced
with white. A dangerous blending but one so familiar to the scribe
that it made his blood sing.

Then the Lammas Lord sat also, at an angle to
him. “You seem somehow naked without the mind-cane. You will miss
it.”

In spite of their mind-closeness, Simon had
not expected such a question; Ralph had always had the capacity to
startle him. He laughed.

“Is that something you have gleaned from my
thoughts, or something you ascertained for yourself?”

Ralph frowned. “I know what it is to have
honour taken from me so I can see it in your eyes, Simon. You miss
the artefact.”

“Yes,” he replied simply. “I do.”

“And it will not return to you.”

“No, it will not.” That much Ralph had
certainly discovered from his gifts as a mind-sensitive.

“What then will you do?”

Many things had the scribe expected from this
necessary conversation with Lord Tregannon, both fears and
delights, but in none of his imaginings had the question been this.
He rubbed his hands on his legs and looked away, feeling a slight
constriction in his throat.

I do not know.

Ralph reached across to take Simon’s hand,
cementing the link between them.

In the thought-silence, the scribe allowed
his words to flow: it is as if I have been one person, with the
help of the mind-cane and the raven, and I grew accustomed to being
that person. He was braver and more vibrant than I am, his mind and
spirit were full of hope and power, no matter what happened, and
his growing relationship with his god, the Gathandrian Spirit, was
like the first touch of the dawn sun on a warm spring day. But this
day-cycle I am on my own and I do not know if I can be that man
again. I do not know if I am still the Lost One.

The Lammas Lord smiled; Simon could see it in
his mind and also in truth. One thing I have learnt, Ralph began
though his words came more slowly than Simon’s and the colours of
his thoughts were paler as he gathered them together, one thing I
have learnt from what has happened in the land and between us is
this: we are not the same this day-cycle as we were the one before
and we are unlikely to be the same on the morrow either. Matters
under the sky change like the wind, Simon, and we can only glean
what we can from it and pray for courage for the moment we dwell
in.

That may be true, Simon replied, but I am the
same man who lay in your bed last night, the nights before and, I
hope, tonight also. Even though much both of good and evil has
happened between us and may well do so again, that is an experience
I would wish to repeat without fear.

As Simon finished his thought-words, the
emeralds at Ralph’s belt sparked with fire and began to hum, notes
similar to the mind-cane’s song but with a greater warmth. He
wondered if when the emeralds and cane had joined in the fields,
something of the giftings of each had been shared with the other. A
thought to ponder on in his heart for the day-cycles ahead.

Ralph too had something of the same idea as
their mind-colours blended and danced together, because he released
his grip and stood to place the bag of emeralds between them.

“So,” said Ralph, his eyes gazing directly at
Simon. “The mind-cane and the emeralds together made something
different, something good.”

“Yes. I think they did.” The words he spoke,
the words both of them spoke, were echoed too in the mind’s deep
channels.

A pause then, but this time – this time after
so much had happened to change them both – Simon found once more he
wasn’t prepared to let the Lammas Lord control it all.

“Perhaps there are other combinations, of
equally unlikely parts, which could form something good also?” he
said. “Both in your land and in ourselves, if we are brave enough
to permit them.”

After another moment, Ralph’s slow answering
smile lit up his expression. And the warm touch of his lips on
Simon’s hand made the Lost One’s skin tingle.

“I think that can be arranged on all counts,”
Ralph replied. “Don’t you?”

###

About Anne Brooke

Anne has been writing gay, lesbian, fantasy and
literary fiction since Y2K. She is the bestselling author of
thrillers Maloney’s Law and The Bones of Summer. Her websites can
be found at
www.gathandria.com
,
www.gayreads.co.uk
,
www.annebrooke.com
and
www.biblicalfiction.co.uk
.