She hoped not; she had walked almost ten leagues through the snow to get here, and the walk back would be quite bad enough without the weather gods adding any further depth to what was already on the ground.
Then the official finished reading, rolled up his message, and tucked it in his sleeve, and the executioner’s axe fell without any further ceremony, so suddenly that Irillon didn’t quite see it happen.
Blood splashed, a really amazing quantity of blood, and Therindallo’s head dropped into the waiting basket. The executioner knew his job, and had needed only a single stroke.
Gasps and a smothered squeal came from the audience. Irillon gagged at the sight of the headless body, then swallowed hard, trying to tell herself that at least it was quick, and Therindallo couldn’t have suffered much. It was over — and now she needed to get Therindallo’s blood and hair, and a piece of the scaffold.
Two of the guards were dragging the body away, though, and a third followed, carrying the basket. The executioner was climbing down one set of steps, the official down the other, and the little crowd was already dispersing.
Irillon blinked in surprise and almost called out; she had somehow assumed that the body would be left there, where she could reach it. She hesitated, trying to think what she should do, and a moment later she was standing alone in the plaza, her feet sinking in muddy slush.
The scaffold was still there, at any rate; she finally collected her wits sufficiently to walk up to it, draw her belt knife, and pry a few splinters from the edge of the platform.
She looked over at the bloodstains that spread out from the block, and hurried around to the side, fishing a vial from her belt-pouch. There she stooped and peered underneath.
Yes! Blood was still dripping through the cracks between planks. She collected several drops, then sealed the vial and tucked it away. For good measure she pried up a few more splinters, this time choosing damp, stained ones.
“Hai!” a man’s voice shouted. “Get away from there!” He spoke with a Coastal accent.
Irillon looked up, startled, and saw a guard coming toward her, one hand reaching to grab. She turned and ran, heedless of direction, out of the plaza and into the narrow ways of the surrounding town. She heard a few heavy footsteps behind her at first, but after a moment’s desperate flight through the winding streets she paused, back pressed against a cold stone wall, looking and listening, and could make out no signs of pursuit.
She was panting from fear and exertion, and she gasped and swallowed, trying to catch her breath. Then she looked down at her hands.
Her knife — her athame, her wizard’s dagger — was in one hand; the other clutched a little bundle of bloody splinters. A vial half-full of Therindallo’s blood was in her pouch.
That was two of the three ingredients she had come for; now she needed some of his hair.
But the guards had taken Therindallo’s head away with them, in that basket — how could she ever find it, to cut a lock of hair? She could scarcely walk openly into the castle looking for it; she was an Islander, and if the guards questioned her her accent would almost certainly give her away — she could try to disguise it, but she doubted her ability to convince anyone.
And if she were recognized as an Islander, she would get much too close a look at that scaffold.
It was such a shame that the king’s father had been a twin, and that the wetnurse had lost track of which boy was the older; if that hadn’t happened this stupid war would never have begun, and Irillon could have gone anywhere in Tintallion in relative safety. If only the Coastal King’s line would die out, so the rightful king could assert his authority...
But that wasn’t going to happen. Serulinor had a daughter. No son as yet, but a daughter would do to continue the feud. And Buramikin had a son, so the Islander line would also last at least another generation.
And people like Irillon would have to choose one side, and be in constant danger from the other any time they left their homes.
She had caught her breath now; she sheathed her knife, and wrapped the splinters in a handkerchief before tucking them away in her pouch.
That severed head was somewhere back in the castle. She had to go back. She couldn’t go back to Ethtallion without that hair! He had already complained bitterly about her ineptitude, cursing his decision to take her on as an apprentice; if she went home without what he had sent her for he might well cast her out completely.
And while she did already know seven spells, she couldn’t imagine making a living from those seven. The only one that had any obvious commercial value was the Dismal Itch, and an entire career of imposing and removing such a trivial curse had no appeal at all.
She adjusted her scarf, turning it over in hopes the guard who had chased her off wouldn’t recognize her, and slogged back toward the plaza.
At least Tintallion of the Coast wasn’t big enough to get really lost in, as she had on her one visit to Ethshar of the Rocks — she could catch a glimpse of the castle’s central tower from almost any intersection, and use that as a guide. She arrived safely back at the square without incident.
Four big men were tearing down the scaffold; if she had waited any longer than she had she would never have been able to get a piece of it. She let her breath out in a cloud at the sight.
Then she looked at the castle, trying to imagine how she might get in. The gates, twenty feet to the right of the vanishing scaffold, were closed, the portcullis down. The walls were cold, featureless stone, thirty feet high, topped with elaborate battlements...
And on those battlements two soldiers were setting a pike into place, with Therindallo’s head impaled upon the pike.
Irillon had heard of people putting heads on pikes as a warning to others, but she had never seen it done before; she blinked, and swallowed bile.
It was truly disgusting. Therindallo’s mouth hung hideously open, and something dark was oozing down the pikeshaft.
On the other hand, now she knew where she could get the hair she needed. She even knew how. The pike was set leaning out over the castle wall, for better display — all she needed to do was stand directly below it, then use Tracel’s Levitation to rise straight up until she could reach out and cut a lock of hair.
But she would, of course, have to wait until the guards left. She leaned back against the wooden corner of a nearby shop, rubbing her hands together to warm them, and watched.
The pike was in place and left unattended within a minute or two; the scaffold was cleared away in perhaps a quarter of an hour. The guards ambled away — except for one, who stood by the gate, looking bored.
Irillon frowned, shuffling her feet to warm them and clear away the slush; was he going to stay there?
Apparently he was. She watched, shivering, hoping he would doze off, or step away for a moment.
If he did step away, she realized, he might not be gone for long. She would need to act quickly when the opportunity arose. Tracel’s Levitation took four or five minutes to prepare — she couldn’t afford to waste a second.
She opened her pouch and rummaged through it. She had brought the ingredients for all the spells she knew — tannis root for the Dismal Itch, dust for Felshen’s First Hypnotic Spell, a whistle and tiny tray for the Spell of Prismatic Pyrotechnics, and so on. For the Levitation she needed a rooster’s toe, an empty vial, a raindrop caught in mid-air, and her athame. She found them all, then stuffed everything else back.