The Invisible Hands - Part 1: Gambit (63 page)

Next to the window, on a bank, Angista sat with a basket on her lap and two much larger ones on either side of her. She filled the smaller basket with apples out of the one to her right, inspected every apple individually and put some in the one to her left.

She looked up and squinted her eyes when she heard one of her dogs barking frenetically. The animal was chasing a young horseman galloping towards the house. Her two other, older dogs followed at a more leisurely pace.

“Dad, I think it’s Anaxantis,” she cried out to a man coming out of the barn. Her beautiful face radiated with anticipated joy.

“I can see that for myself, Angista, and don’t call His Lordship by his name like that. He might hear you.”

“He doesn’t mind, Dad. You know that. He’s glad to be away from all that stuff for a few hours and just be a young guy,” Angista replied while waving frantically to the approaching rider.

Anaxantis came to a halt a few feet from the man and dismounted, handing the reins over to him.

“I’ll give him a good rubdown, My Lord,” Deodall said.

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“Thank you,” Anaxantis said. He was already going to Angista,

grinning broadly. With a contented sigh he let himself sink onto the bank next to her. A young cat, its tail straight up, came running towards them. “How have you been, Angista?” the prince asked.

“The same as always, I suppose,” she answered. “Nothing much happens at World’s End, except the changing of the seasons. I like it that way.”

“Ooh, apples,” Anaxantis said, looking into her basket.

“Yes, I’m sorting them. They’re yesteryear’s harvest, and some of them have gone bad.”

“As apples do,” the prince chuckled. “Bad, bad apples.”

“Don’t laugh. One bad apple—”

“Can spoil the whole bunch.”

“Yes. I’m sorting them,” Angista said. “You could take over from me, while I go fetch the message that arrived.”

“Ah, there’s a message,” Anaxantis said, his eyes lighting up.

“The pigeons arrived yesterday.”

“There were several?”

“Three, which means they all made it. And that it must be important, or your man wouldn’t have sent three of them. See? I remembered.” She stood up with some difficulty, trying to spare her clubfoot and deformed hip, putting the small basket in Anaxantis’s lap. “The good ones go into that one,” she added before hobbling away to the door of the house.

A few minutes later she came back, discovering the prince munching on an apple.

“I asked you to sort them, not to eat the lot,” she mock-scolded him.

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Anaxantis looked up at her with a self-conscious expression.

“I was just testing this one. It’s still good. A bit wrinkly, but sweet and a very strong, good flavor.”

“That’s both because they’re dried out,” Angista said. She laughed out loud. “I should be cross with you, but I can’t, and you know that and take advantage of it.”

She sat down again, taking her basket back.

“What was I thinking?” Angista shook her head. “That’s boys for you. Good for nothing.” She rummaged in a deep pocket of her apron.

“Before I forget, here’s your message,” she added, handing the prince three light brown leather capsules.

“Don’t call His Lordship boy, Angista,” Deodall, coming out of the barn, muttered.

Anaxantis had broken the minuscule drops of wax that served as seals and retrieved the tightly folded, very thin parchments. After unfolding them, he began reading them, straining his eyes to make out the compact letters. They were identical. Angista silently resumed her sorting of the apples and let him read in peace. After several minutes the prince stopped and stared into the distance.

“Just one piece of the picture is still missing,” Anaxantis thought.

“I was right. Those troop movements are not aimed at us. Father is taking the initiative and is provoking a decision. He’s trying to deceive Lorsanthia into thinking he is weak, all the while preparing a trap.

And, with any luck, it might work. For the moment. Damn, I wish I knew why he is luring them to the offshoot of the Morradennes. Because that can be the only reason there is no fortification in that area.

The irrigation works probably have something to do with it.”

“Is everything all right?” Angista asked, concern palpable in her voice. “No bad news, I hope.”

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Anaxantis turned to her with a confident smile on his lips.

“No, no. Just confirmation of things I suspected all along. But it’s good to know for certain.”

“It’s also a good thing Father practically forced me to raise more troops and man the border. I wonder if he meant it as a veiled warning that what he is trying to do could turn into disaster. Even if he defeats them in the field, it’s probably only a delay. Lorsanthia can rebound very easily and try again. Father can win a battle. He may even win the next. And the next. Eventually he will lose one. For Ximerion that will be as good as the end.”

“You say that, but you seem worried, all the same.” Angista didn’t look up from her basket.

Anaxantis forced himself to smile again.

“I always look worried when I’m thinking, Angista. It means nothing.”

With a delicate gesture Angista wiped some hairs out of her face.

“You’ll keep us safe, won’t you, Anaxantis?”

“Of course I will, Angista,” he replied, stealing another apple out of her basket. Angista frowned, but said nothing. “For Myrmos,” Anaxantis said, by way of an excuse.

“All right, if it’s for Myrmos. I like him,” Angista said.

“You like all animals.”

“True. They’re good company and they keep their own counsel.

Much like you.” Angista gave him one of her radiant smiles. “Maybe that’s why I like you as well.”

They both looked out over the fields, sloping downwards to a remote forest.

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“The situation has become so complicated. Last year there was a

single enemy, a single threat that needed just a single battle to counter it. Maybe this world has become too big for me. Lorsanthia certainly is too big,” Anaxantis mused silently.

It seemed to Angista the prince was seeing something in the far distance. She searched in the same direction, but saw nothing of particular interest. She looked at Anaxantis out of the corner of one eye and saw his dreamlike gaze change into a resolved expression. Then she heard him sigh.

“There is only one solution. Lorsanthia must be broken. Literally
broken.”

Rullio had left Nira on the sixteenth of February, his letters patent and all the other paraphernalia he had received from the clerk safely tucked away.

A week into his journey he had fallen seriously ill. He had barely been able to reach the next Merchant Guild Station, shivering with fever. He was immediately taken to one of several cabins, which stood at a distance from the other buildings. Experience had taught the Guild that one person could be the cause of an epidemic outbreak.

Over fifty years ago one station had to be closed permanently after such an event. The Guild didn’t like losing money. Neither did it want to alienate guests. The solution was simple. Isolate the sick, give them the best treatment possible, and make them pay through the nose for both privileges.

Rullio ran a high fever for four days, which left him very weak. He was excellently treated. At the height of his illness a young girl came in thrice a day to change his bedding and spoon-feed him. When, after another week, the fever finally abated he felt so exhausted he slept for 53
ten hours straight. A last visit from the local doctor declared him free

of any contagious ailment, and he moved into the main guesthouse for another few days of much needed rest and long baths.

When he asked to pay his bill they said they had taken the liberty to take the necessary funds out of his saddlebags which they assured him were otherwise untouched and safely guarded. They had gone through his things, Rullio knew, for they had addressed him as “My Lord Count.”

He set back onto the road.

He passed the Guild Station where he had met Yonnick, the straw— blond stable boy. He was not in the least tempted to repeat his sexual encounter, so he rode on. After a mile he changed his mind. Yonnick’s salve, though stinking and sticky, had proved very efficient, and Merw might need some more of it as he was bound to have used a lot of it by now. When he entered the stable he was greeted by a thickset stable hand with a severe case of facial pustules. He ordered two jars of the ointment and asked where Yonnick was.

“Under the ground, My Lord.” The stable hand shrugged. Yonnick hadn’t been a dear friend of his.

“What happened?” Rullio asked, taken aback.

“They found him one morning, oh, months ago, over there in that shed. Bludgeoned to death.”

Rullio had become white.

“Do they know who did it?”

Again the stable hand shrugged.

“Who’s to say? Could have been anybody.” He smirked. “Found him with his pants around his ankles, they did, lying in the hay with his ass in the air.” He gave the young count a leering wink.

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Rullio nodded, paid for his salve, and took to the road. Although it

was nearly noon he decided to eat somewhere farther down the Highway.

He was in a very pensive mood for the rest of the day, his thoughts jumping hither and thither, while he rode his horse at the walk. He felt not so much tired, as weary. Disappointed in the whole of humanity, for all that he should feel contented. Just over a year ago he had been a prisoner with a very uncertain future, if any at all. A co-conspirator of a minor prince who was his last friend on earth but who had disappeared. And look at him now. He had been elevated above the rest of his House, and as count of Brenx-Aldemon he needn’t lift a finger for the rest of his life. He had yet to become twenty. His was a success story whichever way you looked at it, and he should be rejoicing in his good fortune and his own acumen.

Yet he felt empty. He couldn’t stop thinking about Yonnick. What could have happened? A chance encounter with a sadistic lover that had gotten out of hand? Or had he been raped? Maybe he had threatened his aggressor with exposing him. A jealous lover perhaps who had surprised him in an act of infidelity. Whatever had happened, he felt deeply sorry for poor Yonnick. He remembered thinking how he could have seen himself staying with the naive, simple, eager stable hand.

He was glad though he hadn’t become attached to him. It wasn’t worth it. Once you became attached to someone, they had a hold over you. It didn’t matter whether they left you out of their own accord, or whether some stupid coincidence or cruel fate took them away. He remembered the heartache all too well.

The dog. He saw himself running through the fields around Brenx Castle with his dog yapping beside him. It had been the last carefree 54
summer of his life. The last months of innocence and freedom of obligations. It hadn’t even been his dog, strictly speaking. It was his brother’s. His older sibling had gotten it for his birthday. A cute puppy. Very predictably big brother had fawned over it for a few days, then tired of it. Rullio had taken over caring for the poor thing. Of course, his brother had been jealous when he discovered the dog wagged his tail excitedly whenever he saw Rullio, but cowered away from his rightful owner. Rullio had known better, even at that age, than to comment, or ask for anything. Eventually his brother had said in disgust, “I don’t want him anymore. You can have him if you want. You two mutts go well together.” Rullio had said nothing, but had just nodded, afraid to anger his older brother even more by the slightest noise, or worse, a display of joy. From then on he and his dog had become inseparable.

They went everywhere together, and Rullio had taken to letting the animal sleep in his room, on the rug beside his bed, though his mother had frowned in the beginning.

One day, at the beginning of September, the dog was gone. He had left it in the care of a servant while he took his riding lessons. The dog bothered the horses too much. When he came back and asked for it, the servant had said his brother had taken it. There hadn’t been a sense of foreboding, just a certain knowledge that his friend was dead.