The Invisible Hands - Part 1: Gambit (30 page)

“The double scepter of Trachia. Every king has been buried with them for centuries. These things were probably all they could find to serve as substitutes, under the circumstances.”

“Ha,” the sergeant said. “It must be him then. Look, lieutenant, the ponytail, as worn by the princes of the former royal House.”

He pointed his weapon to the braided strand of hair that lay a few feet from the grinning skull.

“And of course there is the stone.”

Beside the grave lay an unimpressive, flat piece of rock, with an engraving in crude letters. There had been barely room for three words.

For a long time Maurch stared into the grave, storing every grizzly detail.

“Throw the stone into the grave, and fill it up. See to it that no outward sign remains, but make notes so we can find it again if ever we need to,” he said at last.

Deep in thought, he turned around and walked away.

25
That evening they camped near a rivulet. Within two days they

would be back on Lorsanthian soil. Maurch sat, some distance from his men, near the water. Once and again he broke up some dry branches and fed them to a small fire. The murmuring sound of the brook put him into an almost trance-like state.

Silently he was preparing his report. He had brought his assignment to a successful conclusion. The last scion of the former royal House of Trachia lay rotting away in an unmarked grave, in the middle of the woods. His men… probably dispersed to the four corners of the earth. The few that had remained, that is. All in all, it was exactly what his superiors had wanted. The death of the last Trachian royal meant there was no obvious focal point left for a rebellion.

He was poking in the fire with a long stick, when something began to gnaw at his mind. At first he didn't know what caused this uneasy feeling. Then it struck him. Rings. Bracelets. There had been none.

How very strange. These were pieces of jewelry one wore, often day and night, for years. You couldn't leave them behind by accident. Well, not likely anyway. Could his remaining followers have taken them?

This was somewhat more plausible, but still, it didn't feel right. These men must have been steadfast followers. The most loyal of the loyal.

Would they deny their prince the last trinkets he had left? The image of his men, who must have become friends by then, stealing the rings off the body didn't seem right.

The image. There was something wrong with the image he had retained of the open grave. What? He stared into the running water of the rivulet, with its shimmering reflection of the waning moon. He let his eyes go unfocused, and let the mental pictures of the last resting place of Phrademys surface.

He had it. The anomaly was so obvious once you saw it. Yes, maybe, in dire need, they would have taken the prince's rings and bracelets. For that matter, Phrademys himself could have given them

25
to his last remaining men with his dying breath. But… the braided

strand of hair. It had lain detached from the head. More than a foot away, in fact. His lips parted slightly, now that he saw clearly before his mind's eyes that the hair had been of identical length at one end.

There were no two ways about it. The ponytail, the distinctive, princely ponytail had been cut off. Not fallen off through decay. Cut off.

Why? Why would they cut the strand of hair off a body and then lay it next to the corpse in the grave? It just didn't make sense. There was but one conceivable scenario. They had needed the hair to make the body appear as that of the prince. The conclusion was inevitable.

Phrademys was very much alive.

It was against his better judgment. It was against all his instincts.

Standor Riggtar had kept all his life out of politics. Even workplace politics. As a result he had no enemies. Neither did he have friends. He had been promoted, but not to dangerous, dizzy heights, and most of the time the promotions he got were overdue. It didn't matter. Standor was a patient man. He wasn't greedy. He wasn't ambitious. He prided himself on being a down to earth man. Until that evening a young lord had invaded his home.

25
Standor had seen immediately that this young man with his engaging smile, light skin and half long, dark red curly hair with strange, white tips, was not a thief who had come to rob him. He had stood up from Standor's easy chair, presented himself, and shown his creden— tials. Among which the seal of His Highness, Prince Ehandar, which he had handed over so Standor could examine it at his leisure. The young lord had even apologized for the intrusion. Standor had met enough nobles. Most of them had treated him as just another ink guzz— ler of the Administration.

Was it this civil treatment that had planted the seed? Maybe, but Standor knew that if that had been the only factor in play, it would have withered, dried and died soon enough under the scorching light of his practical, analytical mind. Although he wasn't all that sure anymore of his innate pragmatism. Could it be that under all the boring, day-to-day, hum-drum layers another, an emotional, adventurous, maybe even romantic Standor was hiding, abiding his hour to come out?

Or was it some deep-seated sense of loyalty that made him change his attitude of a lifetime? The prince had been as good as his word. His money had kept coming, month after month, whether he was of much use or not. Or maybe it was all those years of carefully hiding his real worth, of being snubbed at by younger, less competent colleagues?

Perhaps the decades of being looked at, and treated, as a negligible non-entity had finally taken their toll and now were striking back with a vengeance.

Negligible? He? He had royal connections, tenuous as they were, and albeit with a minor prince. Maybe that was it. He knew enough from all those years of quietly listening to the prattle of his gossiping colleagues that most people reckoned either Prince Tenaxos or Prince Portonas would eventually don the Devil's Crown. Already the acces— sion of either was a factor in the decision-making policies. Nobody thought the younger princes could make a serious bid for the throne.

25
Even the battle of the Zinchara hadn't changed that. Not in the long run. The victory had come as a surprise. It might have awed the people and given rise to a few good ballads, and many a deplorable one, but the sophisticated wheelers and dealers of the Administration weren't too impressed. They admitted the youngest prince, or more likely his advisors, had managed the barbarians adequately. But it was nothing more than what was to be expected when a well-trained Ximerionian army under able leadership confronted a wild rabble.

Neither was the tendency of the youngest prince to govern the Marches in an almost contumacious manner anything to be excessively worried about. Once the trouble in the south was dealt with, the high king would force the young firebrand back into the fold. After all, it was nothing new. It had all been seen before so many times.

Standor, at first, tended to agree. The past of Ximerion, which he had read about extensively, was rife with these temporary, and all in all, minor shifts in power. Most of the time these situations straightened themselves out, and the course of history flowed back in its familiar bed. But, once in a while it didn't.

It was also vanity, of course. Just the thought that, in however small a way, he could be part of the great affairs of the kingdom, help influence its future maybe, was exciting. The thrill of having a double life was an exhilarating prospect. Excitement, exhilaration… he had despised them. Contentment lay in the quiet, unnoticed, routine life.

Contentment, yes. Fulfillment, no.

He had engaged in a few exercises of calculation of probability. In fact there were too many imponderabilities to come to any but the most generalized conclusions. If the war in the south turned into disaster, it stood to reason the high king would withdraw to the north.

That is, if his older sons let him live. If not, it would be they, or one of them, who would do the withdrawing. The north was in the hands of the younger princes, who, according to all reports, worked together.

25
Very unusual for the Tanahkos dynasty. It was not clear how that actually worked. Maybe they had decided that, with the addition of the Renuvian Plains, Ximerion had become too big to be ruled by one high king. Or perhaps the younger one was just a figurehead, a caretaker, who served as lightning rod until such time his older brother felt ready to declare himself. Who was to know?

However, that was how the cards lay on the table. As far as Standor was concerned the younger princes were a reasonably good bet. Helping Prince Ehandar would earn him the gratitude of both, it seemed.

Backing either Prince Tenaxos or Prince Portonas, brought not only the enmity of the other in its wake, but at least the distrust of both younger princes as well. With the four of them vying for the succession, those who backed one of the older ones had a chance of one in four of seeing their candidate on the throne. Standor Riggtar had two chances out of four to have the next monarch being indebted to him.

Not to mention that he could weigh in on the scales. Ever so lightly.

The risks then. He estimated them to be minimal if he went cautiously about it. His connection with Prince Ehandar was secret, known only to a few men beside His Highness himself. Nobody paid him much attention anyway, and most of his colleagues were all too happy to show off their importance and intimate knowledge of the affairs of the realm. Goading them into indiscretions should be easy, very easy indeed. They would never suspect his cunning, nor his true importance. And somehow that pleased Standor Riggtar immensely, loath as he was to admit it, even to himself.

The officials and clerks of the Royal Administration had their own table in the great refectory of the castle. One day he made it a point to seem both nervous and preoccupied. Sure enough, one of his more pompous colleagues, roughly of the same age, but of a higher rank, picked up on it.

25
“Something bothering you, Riggtar,” Jonval Irrom asked.

“Oh, I'm sure it's nothing. Just some rumor I heard recently, and now…”

He let the sentence dangle tantalizingly.

“A rumor? What rumor?”

“Oh, I'm sure it's just some silly piece of gossip.”

“Just tell me what you heard, Riggtar. I might be able to set you straight.”

He looked with just the proper amount of eagerness, mixed with gratitude.

“I hear the king is withdrawing half the army to the capital, and now I was wondering what's going to happen. Is he abandoning the south to the enemy? Will we be in the front line any time soon? I must admit that the prospect frightens me, Irrom. I've been worried sick for a few days now.”

Jonval took a deliberately long sip from his cup.

“Ah yes, I suppose they don't know the nitty-gritty of these things in your department. At least, clerks of your rank don't. Need to know basis only, I reckon. But I can't see any harm in setting your mind at ease.” He paused for dramatic effect. “First off, it's not half the army.

More like a third. Less even. Between fifteen and twenty thousand men. It's all hush-hush, you know, and plans might change at any moment, but a reliable source — I can't be any more specific — told me they're being decommissioned. Let go. Frankly, the treasury can't afford maintaining such a large army in the field any longer. In addition some high level diplomacy is going on, so the conclusion is clear. His Majesty hopes to negotiate a peace, or at least a truce, backed by just enough troops to not seem totally helpless.”

“Isn't that very, very risky?” Standor asked.

25
Jonval smiled.

“For the king? Probably. For us? I don't think so. You see, Riggtar, His Majesty may sit in the driver's seat, but it is we who keep the wagon rolling. It is we who look after the nuts and bolts, who grease the axles. The country would fall apart without us.” He winked. “And every ruler knows this. Believe me, whoever is in power, now, or next year, or the year after, will leave us in peace and just let us do our jobs.”

“You make it sound so logical, so reassuring. Still, what if all these diplomatic efforts lead to nothing? Can we resist Lorsanthia, Irrom?”

Standor replied, still in a seemingly worried tone.

His colleague shrugged.

“It doesn't concern us. Whoever wins, roads will still need repairs, taxes will still need to be collected, and counted and accounted for.

Edicts will still be promulgated, and official letters will still need to be written. Believe me, we are the people who know how to do these things. They need us, so they will leave us alone.”

Standor pricked his two-pronged fork with a shaking hand into a choice piece of meat.

“So the worst will be thousands of soldiers out of a job swarming Ormidon,” he said.

Jonval Irrom laughed.

“No, no, Riggtar. They're assembling here, in the camp to the east of the capital, but from there they will be marched up north in small units at a time. At different places, along the Northern Highway, they will be given their leave. Small groups, you see? And they won't be armed anymore, of course.”