The Invisible Hands - Part 1: Gambit (16 page)
He shrugged.
“It's not on my list of priorities. Let's keep it at that.”
“Coins have a habit of traveling around. By now your father might have seen one.”
“If so, he hasn't complained about it yet. In fact, all his communic— ations are highly official and stylized. As if he himself hadn't read, let alone written them. They all bear the hallmark of the Royal Administration and there is not one single personal note in them.”
It had sounded just a little bit sad.
“Is he just being cold, or downright hostile?”
“He is just being the high king. He knows the limits of his power.
He feigns to not know or notice what he can't remedy.”
Hemarchidas looked out over the bay.
“I wonder what the chronicles will have to say about that.”
Anaxantis looked at his friend.
“Nothing, I hope. I want history to forget me.”
Hemarchidas looked up in surprise.
“That doesn't seem likely after the Battle of the Zinchara.”
The prince smiled.
“You know, Hemarchidas, right after the battle, everywhere I went I was hailed as the Mukthar Slayer.”
"Muktharchtankhar.”
“Yes. Lately I haven't been hearing it as much anymore, thank the Gods. People have a short memory.”
“Still, you're young, very young. Why wouldn't you want to go down in history as a great monarch?”
Anaxantis sighed.
“Hemarchidas, what do you know about the high kings of Ximerion. Or rather, which ones do you know?”
“Cheridonians aren't big on Ximerionian history, you know. But let's see… Ah, yes, Herruwold Long-Sword, then there is Merdinack the Fearless, your grandfather of course… eh, the unhappy Berimar IV… ah, yes, the other Herruwold, Herruwold the Bold. Hm, I didn't even realize I knew that many of them.”
Anaxantis smiled sadly.
“But you didn't mention Orrigar I, the first king of the House of
Chaldarina. He put an end to years of unrest and civil strife. Neither did you mention Ronnick II, the one who reformed the monetary system and forbade the Great Houses to mint their own coins, thus stabilizing our currency. At the time it saved Ximerion from going bankrupt.”
“I'm sorry. I told you we weren't big—”
“It's not that, Hemarchidas. You remembered the fighting kings, those who brought war, destruction and ephemeral glory. Or those who ended tragically. You forgot the wise administrators, those who kept the peace, those who brought prosperity. You needn’t feel embarrassed, though. So did history.”
Hemarchidas looked at his friend as if he saw him for the first time.
“So, all in all, Hemarchidas, I'd rather history forgot me.”
Ehandar had slept in. He hadn't heard Anaxantis leave, and he had woken with a heavy head.
After a perfunctorily wash, he heated up some diluted, spiced wine.
He went onto the balcony, looking out over the waves, nursing the warm cup in his hands, and slowly sipped the hot beverage.
With both Rullio and Gorth gone, the days sometimes dragged on.
There was not all that much for him to do. He remembered his brother had said something about going to the new harbor today and that he had asked Ehandar to join him there. First, however, he was going to go for a ride on his own. He wanted to establish a pattern of being absent, whereabouts unknown, for a few hours a day. Luckily for him, he liked galloping through the fields and the forests. Maybe he could go to the ruins of the old tower.
It was almost midday when he returned from his solitary ride. He rode past Lorseth Castle to the coast. There he kept on the dunes and steered his horse northwards until he reached the cliffs. Once he had reached the plateau, he followed the narrow path that ran along the precipice. Gradually he increased the pace, until he was racing, at neck-breaking speed, only a few feet from the edge of the drop-off.
He looked down and became dizzy, seeing deep down beneath him the beach, strewn with sharp rocks. He raised himself out of the saddle, standing in the stirrups, and leaned over, his head just over that of the horse. Then he gave it the spurs. The sheer speed made him as if drunk and he felt his blood pumping wild with exhilaration through his veins. One false step, and horse and rider would tumble down to a certain death.
Sooner than he had expected he reached the end of the plateau. He reined in his horse and dismounted, man and animal panting in near unison. Beneath him lay the bay where, at the far end, barges were bringing enormous rocks for the foundation of the pier. A half finished wharf of wood was crawling with workmen. He decided to manage the small, sandy path, winding down to the shore, on foot, leading his horse by the reins.
Only when he had reached the beach, did he notice Anaxantis and
Hemarchidas. He hesitated and just when he was about to turn back, his brother had seen him too and waved for him to come over.
He went slowly towards them. It was embarrassing. Hemarchidas knew everything that had happened, probably to the last unsavory detail. All the humiliations he had undergone. The state of abject degradation he had been in. He might as well be naked. He was sure Hemarchidas could picture him as such. He forced himself to smile, but he knew it looked self-conscious.
When he had come nearer he looked at the face of the Cheridonian for signs of mockery, disdain or contempt. But there was nothing.
Nothing in the eyes and not the faintest smile or twitch of the mouth that could betray what Hemarchidas was thinking.
Ehandar nodded in greeting, and the Cheridonian acknowledged him in the same manner.
Anaxantis patted the dry grass beside him as a signal for him to sit down. He wound the reins loosely around a thicket and did so. Immediately his brother leaned against him.
“Did you sleep well?” Anaxantis asked.
“Yes… yes… I went for a ride and then I remembered you said you would be here.”
Hemarchidas stood up.
“I've got to go,” he said.
“Do you have to?” Anaxantis asked, trying to keep the disappointment out of his voice.
“I'm afraid so. I promised Lethoras we would have dinner together.
There's some tribal stuff we've got to discuss, and his sisters are being difficult again. You know how it is,” the Cheridonian said, with a vague smile.
“I'm chasing your friends away,” Ehandar said, when Hemarchidas
was out of earshot.
“Nonsense,” Anaxantis replied. “Besides, I have many friends but only one love. Speaking of friends, where is Gorth? Am I imagining things, or haven't I really seen him the last week or so?”
“I asked him to go to Ormidon for me,” Ehandar said, looking out over the bay. “I needed some things put in order concerning the duchy of Ronickah.”
It wasn't even a lie. It just wasn't the whole truth.
Anaxantis looked at his brother, admiring his strong profile. He wasn't fooled for one moment.
“You must feel lonely,” he said. “Why don't we spend more time together?”
“My two friends may be gone, but your dozens of friends aren't.
You saw Hemarchidas. It… it was awkward. He left because of me.”
Anaxantis laid his head against his brother's shoulder and sighed.
“I had so hoped I could have the both of you, but I see it is asking too much,” he said softly. “Maybe later, after some more time has gone by. Meanwhile, don't worry, love. Hemarchidas will soon be gone.”
Ehandar looked at him with surprise.
“What do you mean? Is he leaving?”
“No. I haven't told him yet, but I'm going to ask him to do something that will take him far away from here.”
“We need some time alone, without the only person, other than
ourselves, who knows what truly happened. And he needs it as well,”
Anaxantis thought.
“He's in love with you, you know?” Ehandar said, ostensibly calm.
“And I am in love with you,” Anaxantis replied matter-of-factly.
He laid his hand upon Ehandar's and squeezed it gently.
“That's one of the reasons I'm sending him away. Keep it between us for the time being, though.”
“You don't have to break up with your friends on my account.”
“Oh, I'm not. He is my best friend and he will always remain that.
As it happens, I really do need him elsewhere, but I also think a separ— ation of a few months will be good for all of us.”
He brought Ehandar's hand to his lips and kissed it lightly.
“When all is said and done, you're the one who is most important to me. You're the love of my life.”
He looked up at his brother from under his long eyelashes.
“You are well aware of your charms, aren't you?”
Ehandar thought, smiling back at him.
“You know the extent of your hold over
me. Or maybe you don't. Do you really know that there is nothing,
literally nothing, I wouldn't do for you?”
“I've often wished we weren't princes. That we could just leave all this behind,” he said.
“We can't. We are who we are. But it isn't all that bad, is it? As long as we are together?” Anaxantis answered, almost pleadingly.
Ehandar didn't answer, but kissed him on the cheek. Anaxantis grinned contentedly in appreciation.
“Come,” he said, “let's go behind that dune there.”
“Why?” Ehandar asked, naively.
“Because I want to kiss you. Seriously,” Anaxantis answered.
“All the same, I'm sorry, love, but I can't let you keep your
secrets,”
he thought.
A servant had announced that there were visitors waiting in the
antechamber. An elderly man and a young boy.
Riathona had been expecting them, and she wasn't doing anything in particular, yet she decided to let them wait. She felt it to be important they should set out on the right foot from the very start. The whole thing proved to be more bothersome than she had expected. She couldn't treat the boy as a slave. Not even as a servant. He was a Riatho after all. On the other hand limits, clear, unequivocal boundaries needed to be established. How to teach the young man to know his place?
She had done some more investigating. The whole region, from Marovi to Naodyma, had suffered epidemics the last years. No doubt the result of several failed harvests in a row. People had been falling like flies. Little villages were completely depopulated, the last ones to leave often not taking the trouble to bury the dead. Kinships, some with a long and venerable past, had died out. Slaves were cheap, because so many were selling off part of their offspring to feed the ones they wanted to keep.
Well, this Antybion should think himself lucky that Riathona took her responsibilities to her extended kinship seriously.
Finally she decided enough time had passed, and she rang a hand—
bell, which promptly made a servant appear. After she had told him to fetch the visitors, while she waited, she straightened her back some more and put her folded hands in her lap.
“Kinswoman,” the old man said, upon entering her room. “Much obliged, I'm sure.”
Just like the country bumpkin he was, presuming to call her kins— woman, based upon a long gone by and tenuous relationship through a good for nothing forebear.
She sighed in an irritated manner.
“This is our Antybion,” the man added, pushing a young man of about seventeen forwards.
Riathona mustered him from head to toe. The first thing that struck her was his short, flaxen hair.
“Lice,”
she thought.
“That's why his hair is so short. They have
shorn it all off, not long ago. It's the only way they know how to get
rid of them in those backward regions.”
“He's a good boy,” the old man said. “Polite, hardworking and no trouble at all. I would like to keep him. It's just I can't afford to.” He made a helpless gesture. “Though he doesn't eat much,” he added hastily. “And selling the only thing that remains of my dear departed son, I could never do. Neither does he deserve it.”
Riathona didn't answer, or give any sign she had heard him. The boy looked clean enough, she decided. At least his simple tunic was.
The well-used, cracked leather belt seemed as if it had been polished recently. The threadbare travel mantle was another matter, but that was to be expected. They had come on foot, no doubt.