The Invisible Hands - Part 1: Gambit (18 page)

Dronykas looked at his grandfather who was wagging a long emaciated finger at him.

“We're divided?” he ventured.

“Exactly, exactly,” Quastell crowed. “Very good, my son— grandson. And?”

“And nothing promotes unity more than a common threat, an enemy, preferably a strong enemy.”

Quastell's eyes twinkled in his bald, skull-like head.

“Yes, Dronykas, very, very good. A strong enemy gives you strength in his turn, because you have to become tough yourself or perish.

Strife, petty rivalries for doubtful honors, niggling disputes, narrow— minded jealousies… they all fade away when a community has to struggle for survival. I think it is this what gave rise to politics. The need for consultation and unity in self-defense.”

Dronykas looked up questioningly.

“Oh, my dear boy, I'm afraid I'm a garrulous old man. I'm boring you to death.”

meant it.

Quastell smiled.

“Ah, you're kind to indulge an ancient relic, Dronykas. Where to begin? We always invoke Rhonoma, in speeches on solemn occasions, and its manifest destiny to bring peace and security to its Influence. It sounds magnificent, and maybe it is partly true. But all the old kinships predate the foundation of the City, and they have long memories.

Some under the form of transmitted oral traditions and family legends, some written down in jealously guarded annals. My pet theory is that Rhonoma was an accident, a temporary coalition, born out of the pressing needs of the times, and that it became sort of a habit and hence was never dissolved. As a consequence almost all kinships see Rhonoma as their prize. They serve the City as long as the City serves their purposes, but what they really want is to dominate it and the other kinships.”

“A dangerous situation.”

“Yes, but for the fact that up until now there were enough external pressures to keep us together. The problem is more complicated, though. All the kinships of all the cities react in basically the same way.

We enter alliances for our own purposes, and for as long as we deem them useful. The kinships coagulate into cities, but the cities don't turn into a state because it is not seen as necessary.”

“And within the cities, the kinships fight for supremacy.”

“Yes,” Quastell Meri said, “and our laws are the results of compromises to keep that rivalry within bounds. A finely tuned and balanced set of rules to prevent one particular kinship from gaining the upper hand.”

“Isn't that a good thing?” Dronykas asked, with deceptive innocence.

and slow decision taking. Furthermore, there is always the risk that strife will break out nevertheless.”

“Ah, I see. Kinships within one city could still come to blows, notwithstanding the laws, and cities could go to war with each other although they are bound by treaties.”

“That is precisely why we created our Influence. We respect the polite forms of course, and call them our allies, but they know who has the final word. But too many cities are outside our Influence and relations between them are often problematic.”

“War with Lorsanthia might change all that,” Dronykas said pensively.

“Yes. It might force Aranquorian as well as Nyamethan cities into a coalition. If that happens, someone will have to take the lead.

Rhonoma is the obvious candidate. Can you see what the next question is?”

Dronykas looked up.

“Who will lead Rhonoma?”

self-satisfied grin when he entered.

He had collected all the pieces of the harness in a room on a lower floor and installed a worktable. Even so the grating noises and the clanging traveled up the stairs and the ruckus was clearly audible in their apartments, but, as Anaxantis had to admit, far more subdued.

He turned around in the big chair.

“Yes,” he laughed, looking at his brother, “I can see that. The rust is on you now.”

“Bah, it will soon be gone,” Ehandar said, walking to the bathroom.

Ten minutes later, after a quick wash, he came out again.

“Move over,” he said. “We really should get something for the two of us to sit in more comfortably. You were reading?”

“Oh, this?” Anaxantis said distractedly. “Yes. Actually I was rereading it.”

Ehandar saw that he looked downcast.

“What's the matter? Bad news?”

“It's not news, but it's bad all right.”

“Another letter from your mother?”

“It's not exactly a letter. It's more of a report. She sent it some while ago,” Anaxantis said, proffering him five sheets of parchment.

While Ehandar began reading the document, his brother curled up against him, resting his head on his chest.

He was not a fast reader, so it took him some time to finish all the pages.

“Yes, that's really sad,” he said when he had finished. “But it has nothing to do with you. There is nothing you could have done.”

“I know,” Anaxantis sighed, “and yet, just thinking about it makes me immensely depressed.”

Ehandar caressed his hair.

“Maybe there is something you could do after all, love. It might set your mind at peace somewhat,” he said softly.

The warlord had come to his shop in person to pick out a slab of marble. He had gone for a tasteful, simple, cloudy white piece. He had given precise instructions. Only the first name was to be inlaid with gold. All the other words were to be merely engraved and left unadorned.

It was not a big job. It would be ready for the warlord's final approval the next day. The day after, it would be packaged in layers of straw, to protect it from shocks, and put into a wooden crate to be sent to Torantall, the capital of Zyntrea.

He picked up his chisel and hammer, and looked at the little piece of parchment.

“Well, I thought I'd seen it all,” Varsia said, after emptying her minuscule cup and tendering it towards Renda for a refill. “But, oh no.

Oh, no, no, no. This morning four of those noble snotnoses came into my shop. I swear, Renda love, they're robbing them straight out of the cradle nowadays. Two of them anyway. One with a long face and eyes that make you doubt if life is worth living at all, the other just the opposite, with a roguish smile and curls, curls… you never saw that many curls. Not that many on one boy, you did. And they all moved in different directions. That hair was alive, cross my heart and hope to die.

There were also two older boys with them. Young men, really. There was the one that looks like a disgruntled orange tabby cat that just crawled out of a bucket of pig's fat. That boy is going to have ulcers before he's twenty, I swear. The other one I had seen around, but I don't know his name.”

“The young duke of Landemere?”

“No, love, him I would have recognized. Fine young fellow. Smiled sheepishly as if he wanted to say, ‘I'm only here because they made me

fabric for the new mantles of the head pages. He insisted on maroon.

What with the greasy tabby snorting and me knowing that he decides over the budget and that he's a mean tightwad and all that, I went to the back and came back with a sample of some surplus stuff. I think they once used it as inner lining for the tents of captains. I never thought they would know the difference between maroon and a delicate shade of cow-shit brown, but the little killjoy was on to me. He looked at me as if I had just disemboweled his pet kitten before his very eyes. Fill us up, Renda, love.”

Varsia shuddered while proffering her cup. Renda filled it out of an earthenware flask.

“Really, that boy can look right through you. I swear, Renda dear, he sees us all as walking skeletons. That's why he has that look of per— petual doom on his face. He has the evil eye, I'm sure. The one with all the curls put his arm around his shoulder and just glared at me. I'm sure he was silently cursing me. Together they made my blood curdle and my bones turn to ice. So I went to the back again and this time showed them a roll of maroon silk that was actually meant for the up— holstery of the chairs and banks of the great hall in the tower. But since His Highness never entertains on a large, let alone a lavish scale, the chairs were never needed and thus never made. Frightfully expensive it is too. You would think it doesn't matter since it was already paid for, but it seems the pages have to pay for those mantles out of their own coffers to the general treasury. Don't ask me how that works.

Never had a head for figures. Well, when he heard the price, the other one's face became exactly the same shade maroon as the cloth. Renda, that boy knows an awful lot of curse words. And I mean an awful, awful lot. Not that it made any difference. The two little ones didn't listen to him. The gloomy one fondled the silk as if he was going to make love to it, and the curlicued one looked at him as if the sun was shining 15
out of his depressed keister. Another wee drop if you please, Renda,

love.”

Varsia held up her cup.

“Of course the little dreary one wanted the mantles to be made in Mukthar fashion, with fur trimmings. Guess what he chose? The most expensive sable. The prime one, he insisted, though in my opinion the golden one would have gone better with the maroon silk as it has a nice reddish color with an amber sheen to it. But of course prime sable is more expensive, and the rich brown color will compliment the maroon magnificently as well, although I'm not too sure about that blue cast it tends to have. Ah well, anyroad… When the one with the oily hair heard the price, I thought he was going to explode. He started shouting the most frightful and obscene profanities at the young ones.

‘Do you think I shit gold coins, you miserable, nymphomaniacal, de— luded, wasteful, ruinous, vainglorious, scrotum lickers?’ And more in the same ilk. It didn't do him any good as they simply pretended he wasn't there. Then the other tall one said ‘Give it up, it's all spilled milk under the bridge.’ I was just thinking there was something amiss with that expression, when the greasy one answered ‘You're right, it's too late to fill the pit when the calf has drowned, as we say in Tralala.’

Now I'm wondering all the time whether Tralala is some foreign language.”

She looked questioningly at Renda.

“Don't look at me, Varsia, dear. I'm sure I don't know. Another refill?”

“Don't mind if I do. Any chance of us getting a few of those leftover chicken wings in sweet-sour dressing?”