The Invisible Hands - Part 1: Gambit (5 page)

He saw his brother was looking down.

“And he is indeed ashamed. He’s blushing. Why is he doing it
then? I didn’t ask him to, did I?”

He felt Ehandar taking his hand and guiding it to his half-erect member.

“Take me in your hand,” he whispered, still not looking up.

“Yes. Yes, of course, love,” Anaxantis mumbled, confused.

He put his fingers around his brother’s now fully erect shaft.

“Firmer.”

“Shall I…”

He didn’t finish the question, but moved his hand gently upwards.

“No. No, just hold me,” Ehandar whispered.
“Lest I forget.”

For a long time they sat like that, Ehandar leaning his head against Anaxantis’s chest. Then he made to stand up and felt the hand let go.

He knelt beside the chair to open his brother’s breeches. Anaxantis lifted himself and was about to pull down his pants.

“No, let me, please,” Ehandar said, almost whispering.

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He freed his little brother’s fully erect member, but left his pants

and other clothes in place, turned around and leaned over.

Anaxantis was stunned.

“He hated that. He hated that I was looking at his entrance, and
now…”

Ehandar sat down and impaled himself on his brother’s shaft. Anaxantis saw him twitch and knew he must be grimacing. He wasn’t using oil. Then his big brother leaned with his back against him.

“Put your legs under mine, and lift them.”

As Anaxantis did so, he felt Ehandar glide even deeper, and he heard a long sigh. Again he felt his hand being guided to his brother’s member. He took it in an iron grip. Ehandar once more sighed and put his head backwards on Anaxantis’s right shoulder, eyes closed.

The sight of having his brother draped naked all over him, while at the same time invading and holding him, drove him almost crazy.

Vaguely he heard the monsters rumble, deep, deep inside him. He let his eyes wander over the strong, beautiful body, the flat belly, the still short pubic hair, the shaft he was holding and the long legs. With his free hand, he caressed the only nipple he could reach.

“Oh, Gods. It’s as if he’s saying, ‘Look. Look at me. This is me. This
is all of me and I am yours.’ I know he hates it, being looked at like
this, and yet he gives himself to me completely.”

He felt Ehandar move gently sideways and somewhat upwards and then down again.

“Love,” he whispered in a hoarse, guttural voice, “Don’t. I’ll—”

“I want you to,” his brother said softly.

Groaning, grasping his left arm around his brother’s chest and clasping his member even firmer, as if holding on to it, Anaxantis

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came, drawing Ehandar with him in his jolting, shaking movements.

He felt his brother look sideways at his face in the glow of ecstasy.

“You? Shall I?” he asked, when he had caught his breath.

“No, not yet. Just keep holding me.”

Anaxantis tilted his head against Ehandar’s. He was exhausted in a contended, warmly gleaming way. He felt satisfied, wanted and loved.

And slightly worried.

Riathona read the short message again, but there was nothing more its pedestrian wording could reveal.

She let her hand with the parchment sink into her lap and stared out of the window into the garden. From some distance she looked like a statue. She sat straight up, not leaning against the back of the chair, austerely and immaculately dressed, her hair pulled back flat against her skull and wrought in a tight bun. It made her look older than the early thirties she actually was. She knew, but didn't care about such frivolities.

She did care about the kinship, the Deynarr kinship into which she had married. They were of prefectorial rank, with her husband, Bur Deynarr, standing a good chance of attaining a seat in the senate of Rhonoma and thus ennobling the kinship. All with her help of course.

And her money. Even so, it wouldn't be easy.

The Deynarr kinship didn't even have an honorific third name. The Tembars, one of the oldest and most venerable around, had three.

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They used only one though, Brannicall. Apparently one of their forebears must have had a hook nose. They could have attached the honorific Tanavaro to their name ever since a Tembar led the successful siege against Tanava, but they didn't. Except at solemn occasions like births, funerals, marriages and such.

That was very clever, Riathona thought. Everybody knew they could, but since they didn't, it almost drew more attention to their kinship's accomplishments than if they had.

Nothing like that in the past of the Deynarrs, who were merely respectable in a thoroughly unremarkable way. Through the centuries they hadn't produced one senator as yet. Her husband would be the first, she hoped, so that her son would automatically enter the Senate when he reached the required age.

Her own kinship she wanted to forget, or at least keep in the background as much as possible. Though they did have a third honorific, Soranzia. It was hardly something to be proud of, as it proclaimed their original provenance, the city of Soranza, thus advertising they had been immigrants at some point in time. She never used her full name, Alla Riatho Soranzia. The last one who had called her Alla, was her late father who had given it to her to begin with. It meant ‘the fourth,’ although she was an only child. It seemed early Rhonomans had numbered their children after the second or so. Luckily, except in the family and among very close friends it was never used. She herself preferred the traditional way of calling a person by his or her kinship name.

It didn't matter. Her son was a Deynarr, and one day he would inherit all that entailed. So she'd better concentrate on the advancement of her easy-going, unambitious husband.

This letter complicated things. A poor branch of the Riatho kinship, a branch that, until recently, she hadn't been aware existed had come from hard times on even harder ones. Sickness and bad luck had 4
thinned the family out. All that remained was a young man of seventeen and his grandfather. The young man had lost his parents, a younger brother and the miserable hovel they lived in. He had found temporary refuge with his grandfather, who hadn't the means to keep supporting him.

A strange story, to say the least. If the young man was seventeen, surely, he was old enough to work, wasn't he? The grandfather must love him though. He seemed to be in dire straits himself, and as head of the kinship he could have sold his grandson. Granted, it was frowned upon in Rhonoma, but perfectly legal and certainly not unheard of. In those backward villages, the practice must be common.

Instead, he was looking for a safe place for the boy.

Of course, she hadn't accepted the story at face value. She had looked through the kinship records, and had indeed found traces of a younger brother who had left Rhonoma for the little town of Marovi five generations ago. Then she had asked for a genealogical record from the town officials. That seemed to pan out, which was, at least, troublesome.

There were a few things to consider. To begin with there was the duty to one's kinship. It wouldn't do to let word get around that the Rhiatos neglected their poor relatives. For that matter, she'd as soon have it not known that there was such a thing as a poor Rhiato. What if the wretched boy decided to come to the City and prostitute himself?

She shuddered at the thought. No, that wouldn't do at all.

On the other hand, the young man could hardly expect that she would give him a free ride, could he? Not that she minded another mouth to feed, another body to clothe, or another mind to educate.

Money was no object. It was a matter of principle.

Her thoughts turned to Yorn, her son, and immediately her features mollified. He was a tad lonely, shunned as he was by some of his peers. Well, that would end soon enough, once his father entered the

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senate. Meanwhile it wasn't easy for him, although he didn't complain.

Maybe a sort of younger brother, a demi-sibling who could never become a rival, who would have everything to thank his adoptive kinship for, would alleviate some of those dark moods Yorn seemed to sink into once in a while.

She pondered all this, and many other factors some more, until finally her mind was made up.

It could do no harm to investigate the matter further, could it? No, it couldn't, she decided. She would send an invitation, accompanied by a modest, a very modest sum of travel money, to this Antybion and his grandfather to visit her, here in Rhonoma.

When Tomar entered the war room he found Anaxantis studying a map as usual.

“Looking at our borders?” he asked.

“No,” the prince answered. “Here, look for yourself, and tell me what you think.”

He shoved the parchment across the table. It was titled Lorseth Harbor in bright crimson letters.

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“You're having a harbor built? Without consulting me? Do you

know by how much that will set us back?”

Anaxantis grinned.

“Oh, you'll find the money somewhere, and look, it's not much of a harbor anyway. It's basically just a breakwater, a pier to moor a ship and a wharf. And a road between it and the castle. That's it really.”

“That's it, is it?”

“Well, obviously, I'll need a ship as well.”

“A ship. Obviously, he'll need a ship as well,” Tomar said, rolling his eyes. “One is tempted to inquire why you need all that.”

“Is one? Then one is entitled to an answer, isn't one? Because it's faster. We're having part of the army digging out the silted-up harbor of Renuvia, by way of peacetime duty and to keep them fit. By the time they're finished I will be able to travel from Lorseth to Renuvia in a few days, at most, by ship, instead of almost two weeks on horseback.

From Renuvia I can take a tow barge to the great bridge that is being built over the Mirax.”

“You're planning to travel a lot, then?”

“Not if I can help it, but it can't hurt that I will be able to manage great distances very fast if I have to. The crossing place of the Mirax is more or less in the center. Usually that's a good place to be to keep an eye on things, and in time it will be. For the moment I think I'd better stay here, in the Highlands, not too far away from our southern border.”

“I see. Let me think it over. I'm sure we'll find a way to build you your little harbor.”

“I know Timishi is building his. Rodomesh found him a place on their coast that is almost a natural harbor. It has hills in a crescent formation, jutting out into the sea, gently sloping down to a calm 4
beach. They just have to build some wharves and they're good to go. I

understand he wants his people to go into the trading and transporting business. So, I need Renuvia to be operational before he monopol— izes the southern trade. I'm not letting the Mukthar king get away with all the good contracts.”

“I'm so glad you're not forgetting that we need to have money coming in as well.”

Anaxantis nodded, ignoring the sarcasm in his voice.

“Anyway,” Tomar continued, “that's not why you called me in, is it?

Could it have anything to do with your father's troop movements?”