L. Modesitt - Arms-Commander

“You are, and yet you are not. You look like a young woman, except in your eyes, but you are not. Those eyes have seen what I would not wish to have seen…”

Saryn waited.

“Do not worry about the people of Lornth, except to save them from the worst of the lords. We can live through anything except the worst of weakness and of evil. Even that, we will survive.” Haelora smiled, faintly, but not unhappily. “Thank you for coming. I will tell others, and your guards are always welcome here.”

“Thank you.” Saryn nodded politely. “I must go.”

As she left the public room, she could sense Haelora watching her. Why does everyone watch me leave? Because they want me to go, or because I’m something strange that they’ve never seen? Or both?

She didn’t have an answer to that…or to more than a few other questions.

Early as she had been up the day before, Saryn was up earlier on threeday and meeting with Hryessa in the small space at the west end of the barracks, assigned to the captain as a company officer.

“You’ve checked the platform and the scaffold?” asked Saryn.

“Yes, ser. The ropes are in place, and they’ll hold her tight.” Hryessa looked at Saryn. “I can’t say as I like doing this in public.”

“We do it anywhere else, and someone will claim we were hiding something or that we really didn’t do it at all, and that they saw Fynna in Rohrn or Carpa or who knows where else. It’s going to be a show, no matter what we do,” Saryn said gruffly. “So we need to make it a good show-one that demonstrates that we mean what we say and that no one should mess with us, either. Besides, you have to deal with Sineada.”

“That’s just a whipping. She’ll recover, and she might learn something from it,” replied Hryessa. “You…that’s different. You sure you want to do it, Commander?” asked Hryessa, her voice deferential. “We could use an ax.”

“Do I want to? No. Do I have to? Yes. It sends a message that even the Commander of the Westwind Guard knows weapons…and needs to be treated with the same respect as any male commander.”

“Men don’t-”

“They don’t have to. Everyone believes that they can. In Lornth, they don’t believe that about women, and we have to change that.” As quickly as possible.

At that, Hryessa nodded.

“Now…can we mount three squads?”

“I’d figured that, one squad on each side of the space you’ll need, and one squad behind, with two guards on the platform for each of them to tie her up.”

“They can handle Fynna if she gets wild?”

“Those two can. Zelha grew up tossing steers, and Marha is just as tough. If they’d been with Fynna, been a different matter.”

“Good.”

Once they had the details worked out, Saryn spent some time sharpening both her blades, then doing what amounted to a casual inspection of barracks and stables. Both were far neater and cleaner than when they had first come to Lornth.

At half a glass before noon, the procession from the palace began with a mournful trumpet fanfare from the gate tower. Mournful, but off-key. That was just another part of the palace staff where competence was less than marginal. Is that true of all small kingdoms…or is Lornth worse?

Saryn didn’t have an answer to that question, like she didn’t to so many others, and she watched as the first squad rode out and drew up in a north-south line, each rider facing east, and the first rider close enough to the stone platform that the nose of her mount was even with the west-southwest corner. The second squad rode out and took position in a line opposite the first, the distance between them the width of the platform. Then came three guards, with Rheala and Hoilya from fourth squad escorting Sineada-the girl who had been discovered stealing-with her hands tied before her. Behind them came Zelha and Marha, with Fynna between them, her hands tied behind her. Marha held the leads to Fynna’s mount. Saryn and Hryessa, riding slowly, followed, accompanied by Agala, who rode slightly behind them. Behind them rode the third group of riders-the remainder of fourth squad, led by Klarisa.

Zelha and Marha led Fynna’s mount directly to the stone platform in the middle of the green, from which three gallows trees rose, none of which seemed to have been used recently. They waited until Saryn and Hryessa had reined up, some ten yards short of the platform, and until fourth squad took position as an east-west line, so that the guards formed three sides of a rectangle, with the platform comprising the fourth side.

As Saryn and Hryessa waited, Rheala and Hoilya reined up at the steps on the left end of the platform, and the other two halted the three mounts at the right end. Saryn studied the crowd. From what she could see, there were more than a hundred townspeople present, possibly twice that.

Rheala and Hoilya tied the three mounts, then marched the trembling Sineada up to a space between two gallows tree supports and tied her wrists and ankles in place, then stepped back. Hryessa rode forward to the platform, with Agala riding behind her. When the guard captain dismounted, she handed the reins to the guard and climbed the five steps to the platform, carrying a whip.

“You have stolen from those you were trusted to protect,” said Hryessa. “That is theft, and you will receive ten lashes from the whip. If you are ever found stealing again, you will be executed.”

While Saryn wasn’t totally happy about that, a second offense of serious theft was a death sentence in most of Candar, and she wasn’t about to try to change it.

Hryessa did not shy away from using close to full force of the whip, until the end, when Saryn could tell that the guard captain pulled the last two lash strokes.

After the last lash, Hryessa stood back and raised the whip. “Justice is done. You are hereby banished from Lornth and will be sent to Rohrn to make your way there as you can.”

Hoilya and Rheala untied Sineada and half marched, half carried her to the mount that had brought her to the platform. Then they set her on the horse and mounted beside her, moving close enough to support her, if necessary.

Hryessa returned to her mount, and she and Agala rode back to take position beside Saryn. The three-and all the other guards-waited until Marha and Zelha marched a shuddering Fynna into position and tied her there.

Then Saryn eased the gelding forward, just two yards, and spoke, using a touch of order to amplify her words across the green.

“You have killed two people you were entrusted to protect, and you used the weapon you were given to protect them. That is murder, twice over. The sentence is death by the very weapon you misused.”

Saryn summoned the darkness and the flows, then stood in the stirrups, and drew and threw the short sword, smoothing and guiding its flight.

“No!!!”

The weapon sliced through Fynna’s chest, burying itself to its hilt and cutting off her last scream. Her body jerked but once, then went limp.

The entire green was silent as Saryn rode forward to the execution platform.

There, the two guards moved to the body. Zelha removed the short sword and stepped to the front edge, where she tendered the bloody blade to the commander.

Saryn raised the blade and spoke, once more letting order magnify her stern words. “Justice is done, under the Code of the Guard and the laws of Lornth. Let this be a warning to any who might consider breaking either.”

Saryn remained motionless, still holding the blade, while the two guards cut the body loose and carried it to the horse that Fynna had ridden, laying it facedown and sideways across the saddle before they re-mounted their horses. Saryn tried to use her senses to gather an impression of what the townspeople felt, but the greatest impressions she got were that, while the thrown short sword had stunned most of the onlookers, most felt that the punishments had been too quick and that both women should have suffered more.