The Invisible Hands - Part 1: Gambit (49 page)

41
“I will. I will. And, Rullio…”

“Yes, kitten?”

“You’re not old, Rullio. And you’re not ugly.”

“I’m glad you think so.” Rullio felt touched, without wanting to.

He looked out of the window at the comings and goings of people, animals and wagons. He wondered what Aldemon was like. He had looked it up on a map, but there weren’t many details. There should be a forest or a wood, and the castle lay in the bight of a little stream. It would be fun to go explore it together with Merw, but the little warlord counted on him and his information. And he had promised his friend.

Ehandar trusted him.

He paled and leaned back in his chair, so that he wasn’t visible anymore from outside. Not that the rider who passed was looking in his direction.

Gorth.

Maybe Ehandar didn’t trust him all that much after all.

Rullio had left for Nira more than a week ago, and every day Merw had gone to the Merchant Guild Station for his riding lessons.

Notwithstanding his firm resolve not to do so, once or twice he had been tempted to explore his old hunting grounds. But he hadn’t given in. The lessons helped to distract him, and they took place in the early afternoons, a time most of his old acquaintances were still asleep in whatever hovel they had made their nest in. So Merw kept to his own routine. He slept late, went for a stroll through the more reputable parts of the city, and splashed out on a good meal at midday. Then he went to the Merchant Guild Station. After his riding lessons he walked back at his ease to the Leather Bucket and soaked in his hot tub for more than an hour. He avoided all contact with the other patrons and took his evening meal at a little table in a dark corner, trying not to draw attention to himself. Which suited the landlord just fine, and kind of gave the lie to all the feelings of foreboding he had harbored towards the young scoundrel. Some of the refinement of the young lord must have rubbed off. Maybe too much so. He didn’t even wipe 41
his mouth or his nose on his sleeves. And taking a bath each and every day was just decadent.

After dinner, Merw went up to the room, undressed, and lay down on the bed. Learning how to ride a horse proved more tiresome than he had imagined. More painful as well. Especially in certain places, like his buttocks and his inner thighs. The salve Rullio had left for him did indeed stink, but it soothed the sore spots almost instantly.

Tired as he was, most nights he didn’t fall asleep immediately. He spent the time mulling over his future. Rullio was nice, he had long ago decided. Moreover, he had money, he seemed to have taken a shine to Merw, and he was hot, hot, hot.

“I mustn’t ruin this. I must not ruin this,” he often repeated to himself, over and over.

He wasn’t going to.

This was the best thing that had ever happened to him in his entire life. It was his chance to get out of the squalor and poverty that were his only prospects besides an untimely death. He had seen his future clearly. He had seen it in the cynical, tired eyes, devoid of life and hope, of guys barely five years older than he was himself. He had seen it in their insincere smiles, full of rotten teeth. He had seen old men of twenty-five. There was some kind of camaraderie in shared misfortune, and misery did love company. But it was all fake. He had seen how an older guy had stolen the shoes of a sleeping boy of barely fourteen years old. He had witnessed fights to the death over a few coins or a handful of food.

Up until now the soul-rot hadn’t gotten to him, but it would, it would. Inevitably, it would. His last vestiges of self-respect would dwindle away over time. Honor would become a hollow word, meaning nothing. Friendships would be short, self-seeking and conditional 41
upon mutual benefit. Love… love didn’t even enter the picture. Love

would be a luxury, as superfluous as it would be unreachable.

Somehow Rullio had changed that outlook. Rullio wasn’t just nice and rich and hot. He was funny and fun to be around. He was patient with Merw. Indulgent and undemanding. He didn’t want anything from Merw. He doubted Rullio needed him even for sex. Rullio could get more dick and ass at the snap of his fingers than Rullio needed or wanted. Rullio was a fucking count, for fuck’s sake. Nevertheless, Merw had the distinct feeling Rullio understood him, that he could relate, different as they were.

Rullio liked Merw. Was there more? Friendship, surely. Still more?

Merw didn’t want to go there, for fear of finding out there wasn’t.

Could it last? He didn’t want to go there either.

“I mustn’t ruin this. I must not ruin this,” he repeated softly to himself.

He wasn’t going to.

“Horsey likes me.” Merw grinned as he pushed a quarter of an apple between the animal’s lips.

“That horse likes everybody. Why do you think we use him for training?” Grallam, the riding instructor scoffed. “He likes those apples and carrots you keep feeding him more than he does you.”

“Horsey likes me,” Merw repeated, caressing the animal’s muzzle.

He turned to Grallam. “So, when can I take him out on my own?”

The instructor looked doubtfully at the slender young man.

“Afraid I will steal him, are you?” Merw asked, not particularly insulted.

“No, not at all,” Grallam replied. “Your master paid a bond for such eventuality or in case you should harm the animal.”

42
“Rullio is not my master,” Merw said, indignant now. “He’s my

friend.”

“Yeah, sure he is. Anyhow, I suppose sooner or later you’ll need to go for a ride on your own.” The riding instructor smiled broadly, revealing yellow-brown teeth. “Why not today, eh?” Grallam fancied a nap in the hay, and anyway, the horse knew its way home.

Merw jumped up and down with excitement.

“You can ride up to Troncton and back. Ride slowly, at the walk, to begin with. Don’t try anything foolish. The Highway is in good condition, so after a while you might try a trot. Don’t overdo it though.

Don’t break one of the horse’s legs or your neck. Especially mind the horse’s legs. I could get into trouble for that, bond or no bond.”

As he entered Troncton, Merw slowed down his horse. In a few days a Trade Caravan would be leaving for the Northern Marches, and already some small, independent traders were gathering in the town.

He stopped and dismounted when he reached the great square. It was a cold, crisp winter day, but Merw felt warm from riding the horse and his cheeks glowed rosy-red. Keeping the reins firmly in one hand, he paid a stall owner for a beaker of weak but hot mix of herbal tea with just a touch of spiced wine. It tasted a tad too much of clove, he decided, but otherwise it was pleasant enough.

Nipping from his beaker, his eyes darted energetically back and forth, over the square and the stretch of Highway it bordered on.

People of all sorts, rich and poor, young and old, were coming and going. Merw felt very much alive. He looked at his clean fingernails, then at the horse that was quietly waiting beside him. Even the occasional loud cry didn’t seem to perturb it unduly. Who of his erstwhile chums had ever ridden a horse, he thought, very pleased with himself.

Nobody, that was who. Hard to believe that only weeks ago he had 42
been one of them, one of the lost youth of Ormidon, nothing else but

gallows bait without a single sarth to his name, and a life expectancy measured in months rather than years. Look at him now, him and his fine clothes. Him, holding the reins of a beautiful horse, and with coins of the realm in his purse.

His eyes fell upon a group of men. They were unusually quiet and seemed to know where they were going. All were between twenty and thirty-five years of age, Merw estimated.

“All right, men, you have half an hour to get some drinks and food, then I want you all back here,” a burly fellow, clearly the leader of the group, said.

Now, that was strange, Merw couldn’t help thinking. The man hadn’t said it very loudly or with much emphasis. He just expected to be obeyed. Nevertheless, there was nothing to distinguish him from the others. They all wore long gray hooded cloaks, with a sword jutting out from under it. A group of traveling performers, jugglers and the like, with brightly colored clothes, passed by and momentarily distracted Merw. But something kept gnawing at the back of his mind. Then he got it.

“Soldiers. They’re soldiers,”
he thought.
“They’re not wearing their
uniforms or marching in columns, but they’re definitely military
men. They’re too disciplined.”

Rullio had been interested in troop movements, hadn’t he? He had told Merw he was on some kind of fact-finding mission for his friend, Prince Ehandar, and the warlord. He had come to Ormidon to find out if the high king was planning to reassert his authority over the Northern Marches, or whether part of the army was really being disbanded.

These were most definitely soldiers, but soldiers who were trying not to appear as such.

42
Merw’s heart missed a beat with excitement when he realized what

he could do to help his friend. He was going to make Rullio proud of him.

Gorth had arrived at Troncton three hours before Merw. He had chosen an inn at one of the corners of the square. He had sat down near a window from which he had a splendid view of both the Highway in the direction of Ormidon and part of the market place. Like Merw, he as well had seen the group of soldiers and had identified them as military professionals. When he saw them disperse and wander among the stalls to buy drinks and forage, he settled his bill and went to the adjacent stable to get his horse. He remained standing just inside the courtyard, waiting for whatever might happen.

Merw saw the men reassemble around their leader and put his beaker down on the counter of the stall, ready to follow them. When they started moving upon the Highway in northern direction, he guided his horse through the crowd and went after them on foot. It was then he noticed he was not the only one interested in the group of soldiers. A pale young man, about Rullio’s age he guessed, with curly red hair with blond tips, was after them as well it seemed.

He thought for a few moments and decided on a bold action. They were taking the Northern Highway, weren’t they? There was no way he could lose track of them then. He would simply ride past them in northern direction. Nobody would see anything but a well-to-do young man going for a ride in the country. Merw grinned. He liked the idea of being a well-to-do young man. A few miles down the Highway, he would look for a hiding place from which to watch them march by.

What exactly all that would accomplish he wasn’t too sure of, but he felt thrilled with anticipation nevertheless.

About four miles north of Troncton he ran into a problem. A small road forked off the Highway in eastern direction. Half a mile down, it 42
ran beside a wood. Merw dismounted and guided his horse deep into

the trees where he fastened the reins to a hardy looking bush.

“Be quiet now, horsey,” he whispered as he fed the animal another quarter of an apple and a chunk of carrot.

He made his way back to the edge of the woods and hid in the un— derbrush. If the soldiers took this road they would have to pass within an hour or so, he figured. If they didn’t, that meant they had remained on the Highway.

Merw was about to give up, when he heard the men approaching.

In Troncton they had been tight-lipped, but now they were talking animatedly among themselves. He held his breath when they passed his hiding place at a distance of just a few feet.

“They say there are still wild tribes in the Morradennes. Makes you wonder why the higher-ups insist on making us take that route,” one of them grumbled to the man walking beside him.

The other man shrugged.

“Who knows why our superiors do anything? They swore us to secrecy, and when I went to the scribe of the company to send a letter home, he changed what I wanted it to say. My folks now think I will be coming home soon. Instead I’ll be doing the Gods know what.”

“They say we’ll be serving under the command of Prince Tenaxos, but nobody seems to know why we had to go through that sham of being dismissed. The king is negotiating a peace after all.”

“That’s not for us to know,” his mate replied philosophically. “As long as we’re paid, I suppose we better do as we’re told. But it is obvious they don’t want anybody to know just how strong the army is, nor that we will be back in the south before long.”

42
Merw had no idea where the Morradennes were, or even what they

were. He just silently repeated the name a few times to himself to memorize it.

“So, they’re actually going in half a circle,” he mused. “They are let go in Ormidon, but not really. They make as if to go northwards, home, but then they veer back south. Hm.”

He went over the conversation he had overheard for a second time.

Rullio would know what to make of all this. He smiled to himself.

Rullio was going to be so pleased with him.

Merw was just about to leave his hiding place under the shrubbery, when he heard the sound of an approaching horse. The pale young man, clearly a lord of some kind, was following the soldiers. Once and again, the man rose upright in his stirrups, nervously straining his eyes. He rode by and Merw decided to rather be safe than sorry and wait for some time before moving again.