The Invisible Hands - Part 1: Gambit (34 page)

The second duke of the House confined the last Grammont descendant, who happened to be his mother, to her apartments until her dying day, and quietly dropped the Grammont part of the title. Nobody, least of all the weak high king of the day, gainsaid him. It was all highly irregular, but over time custom and habit trumped all legal considera-tions. It couldn't conceal that the title, much like the Tanahkos fortune, was illegally appropriated, but nobody cared. Might was right, and in this case possession was, not ninety percent, but all of the law.

The dukes of Tanahkos were content to let the Morradennes be the Morradennes. They were of little economical value, and the few small villages were too poor to go to the trouble of taxing them. Its mountains and forests served as a thick defensive wall, running for hundreds of miles along Ximerion's eastern border, down to the southern one. The ambitions of the House of Tanahkos were geared in another direction, but they took great care to nip every attempt to develop the savage, hilly region into a viable, organized demesne in the bud. Over time a strange symbiosis between the aggressive dukes and the un— tamed Morradennes developed. The villages and the few small tribes that eked out a precarious existence there, did so by the grace of the 28
protection from all intervention by their mighty northerly neighbor. It

amounted to an awkward autonomy. The isolated and unsociable inhabitants of the Morradennes were all too aware that they weren't just independent. They were dependent for their independence upon the good graces of the House of Tanahkos.

Nothing much in that tacit relationship had changed when Duke Bordomach ascended the throne as Portonas III and promoted his duchy to an archduchy.

After leaving the Damydas demesne, the high king and his party of seventy horsemen had ridden south. They had avoided the great roads so as not to draw attention to themselves. They had taken a detour around the archduchy of Tanahkos. When they had passed it, they drove as far eastward as the terrain permitted, and continued their journey where the mountains of the Morradennes gave way to a less forbidding, still hilly, but manageable, landscape.

As the high king had expected they didn't meet anybody much during their long ride. Nobody was interested in the forbidding heights that loomed on their left, and the few people that lived in the valleys between the mountains didn't venture outside them. Neither were there trade roads.

When the mountains and the woods receded eastwards, they followed the curvature.

“We've been spotted,” Dennick said, pointing out a flashing light upon one of the hills.

“Yes,” the high king replied. “I noticed. Remind me to tell Tenax to have his men cover their shields with a non-reflecting material.”

They rode on until they came to a narrow passage between two ridges. There was just room enough for two horses to ride abreast.

Once they had emerged from the ravine, a valley, protected on all sides 28
by steep hills, covered in dense forests, unfolded before them. They

could make out several groupings of tents, and pens for horses, and what seemed to be a wooden fortification, standing on a low hill, roughly in the center. The place seemed relatively quiet, though some activity was going on. They saw a horseman dismounting and entering the wide-open gates of the main encampment. The high king and his party rode right to it and got off their horses in their turn.

A young man with a broad smile came to meet them.

“Father,” Prince Tenaxos said, “I trust your travels were propitious and successful.”

“We saw no guards at the gorge leading up to your camp,” the high king replied brusquely.

“That you didn't see them doesn't mean they weren't there, Sire. In fact it is to their credit you didn't detect them.”

“We did detect some conspicuous flashing lights up the hills, though. Rather careless.”

“Ah, yes, but it can't be avoided, I'm afraid. The flashes you saw were coded signals, warning us of your arrival. Should you have been an enemy, you would have found the ravine heavily defended. In fact, I doubt you would still be alive. I have fifty longbow archers on permanent guard there, hidden in a small hollow between the hills. They're my first marksmen and their aim is remarkably accurate. You're only wearing chain mail shirts, not even hauberks. You could as well be wearing satin tunics, for all the protection they offer against an arrow shot from a longbow.”

The high king laughed out loud.

“I see at least two of my sons are not complete idiots,” he said.

”Come, get me inside and offer me something to drink. Give orders to have my men and the horses taken care of. Dennick, join us.”

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Servants brought wine and food to the prince's private quarters in

the wooden main building. Tenaxos the younger dismissed them after they had put everything on the table and served his father himself.

“The bread is baked here, in the camp, and I shot the boar myself.”

The high king arched his brows.

“You have time to go hunting?”

The prince shrugged.

“I practice archery with the men. Little brother also trains in arms with his men, they tell me. That's where I got it from. The men seem to like it. And the hunt? We need food after all, and it is good exercise, shooting at moving targets. I've become quite a decent shot, if I do say so myself. Ah… the brown sauce is made with pepper out of my private stash. Goes very well with the gamy taste, though the meat has been marinated of course. It was a young hog, so it should be tender.”

“You're not denying yourself the good things in life I see,” the older Tenaxos said, but it didn't sound as a reproach.

“I didn't see the need to live as a savage if I could avoid it, Father.

That's all.”

The high king pricked his two-pronged fork into the meat and cut off a piece. After having sampled the food and having made his approval known with a nod in the direction of his son, he wiped his lips with a napkin.

“We might as well conduct business while we're eating,” he said.

“How are things here? Are you ready?”

“I think so, Father. We're preparing encampments in the neighboring valleys, though the new arrivals will still have to do a lot themselves. We also need to train them. Any idea when they will be arriving?”

29
“Not too long, son,” the high king said with a satisfied smile.

“We have also been investigating safe routes into the territory of the independent city states, mainly the realm of Rhonoma,” Dennick intervened.

“They call it their Influence, I believe,” the younger Tenaxos said.

“I know,” the confidant of the king replied. “They also call the subject cities allies. It doesn't change the facts. Anyway, we don't need to fetch the armaments all the way from Rhonoma itself. I doubt if they even produce that much there. More likely they themselves import all kinds of weaponry from cities, towns, even villages, nearer to our border. More importantly, Lorsanthia seems to want to keep Rhonoma, and for that matter all the Aranquorian city-states, neutral. The last thing they want is that they should band together before the time is ripe. Which is fortunate for us, since it means they keep a low profile and respect the Rhonoman territory scrupulously.”

“So, we should be able to operate there without raising any suspicions?” the prince asked.

“Let's hope so,” Dennick said.

“To get here, we've followed the route your forces will be taking,”

the high king added. “Lorsanthia can't have agents everywhere, and we certainly didn't see any, although I was under the impression that we were being watched from high up the Morradennes.” He shrugged. “If anything, the wild tribes should be on our side. Most probably they'll want to stay out of the conflict altogether.”

“The trick will be coordinating everything. We're counting on the new arrivals to bring most of the, ah, wares, with them,” Dennick said.

“And how are we for money?” the prince asked. “The treasury must be running low, I suspect.”

Both older men smiled knowingly at him.

29
“The poor treasury is as good as depleted,” the high king explained,

“but not just yet. We should still be good for another three months or so.”

“And Lorsanthia knows this, of course,” Tenaxos the younger said.

“The Royal Administration leaks like a sieve. But I made extra sure they know.” The high king smiled, curling his upper lip. “We have managed to acquire the services of someone very near and dear to their ambassador. With any luck at all we should be able to manipulate just when they will attack. When the treasury is empty, I expect an ultimatum. I'll have our man tell His Excellency the exact day the money starts running out. The money they know about.”

“They are not aware… of the rest?” his son asked.

“Of the privy purse? I would think not, no. They must know I have some money set aside, though. They probably think it's an emergency fund for securing my personal safety.”

“Nevertheless, we're playing for high stakes. The Tanahkos fortune was hoarded, and jealously guarded, over centuries. A year of warfare, and it could all be gone.”

“Four years, at the very least,” the high king corrected him. “But we shouldn't touch it, unless in direst need. It should indeed be treated as an emergency fund. In that respect you are right. But, as luck would have it, we were not the only ones who were amassing riches. The late baron of Damydas has considerably added to our financial means.”

“Ah,” was all the prince replied.

The three men ate in silence. The younger Tenaxos was the first to lay down his fork. He dipped a crust of bread into some remaining gravy.

“What about little brother? Where does he stand in all this?” he asked between two bites.

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“I made sure he knows what we're trying to accomplish. I talked to

his mother and gave her just enough information to piece together a more or less complete picture. I expect the first thing she will do is tell everything she knows, and suspects, to her precious son. They will not be sure they've got it all though, which will make them cautious. They will understand that what I have asked of him is just eye-blinding, and that they are merely pawns in a much bigger game.”

“And you're sure he will do as he's told, Father? He doesn't exactly have a track record of compliancy with paternal authority.”

“In this case he will. What could be the harm in manning his border? He will do so, all the more because there is always that minute chance that I have been lying to his mother, and that I will attack him.”

“But you won't. For now.”

“For now. First Lorsanthia. Anaxantis can wait. And wait. All the while having a sizable part of his forces penned down at the Amirathan border. Frightfully expensive, I can tell you that much.”

“Always learn from your enemies,”
the prince thought.
“What
Lorsanthia did to us, you're doing to the warlord. Make him spend
money for a threat that might not materialize, unless he stops preparing for it.”

29
“I never realized Landemere Castle was this big,” Sobrathi said as

they were riding through the gatehouse.

“It is the most important fief of the region after all,” Emelasuntha replied, without much enthusiasm. She was looking for her son in the courtyard. “They were serious contenders for the Devil's Crown when the House of Chaldarina was in decline. Go further back in time, and they were independent rulers until they were brought into the Ximerionian fold by the House of Ronnoumark. I forget by which king exactly. One of the Herruwolds no doubt.”

Only a few of the Tribesmen and the honor guard Anaxantis had provided followed them into the inner courtyard where they dismounted.

“How strange,” Sobrathi whispered to her friend. “He isn't here.

Wouldn't they have told him about our arrival?”

“I'm sure they did, dear,” Emelasuntha said. She kept her voice even at a considerable effort.

One of the great doors to the main hall cracked open, and a self— important looking man appeared, descended the few stairs and walked briskly to the queen and the baroness.

“My name is Parrimar Weckstall, Your Majesty, and I am the steward of Landemere Castle. The warlord has been informed of your arrival. He asks me to tell you he is being detained by urgent affairs of state, and he bids you to wait just a few moments. He will come shortly to greet you personally.”

He took a deep bow, walked a few steps backwards, his head still down, turned around and went away.

Emelasuntha stood rigidly, her arms beside her body, with clenched fists.

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“He must be conducting very important business,” Sobrathi said in

a soothing voice.

“Of course he isn't.” Her voice sounded like the rumblings of a distant avalanche. “There are no urgent affairs of state. None. None whatsoever. My son is not here because the warlord wants us to know that he doesn't appreciate that we arrived several days after the date he wanted us to be here. We kept him waiting. He keeps us waiting.”

“Maybe we should have explained our reasons, dear. He's not our little Anaxantis anymore.”