The Invisible Chains - Part 1: Bonds of Hate (18 page)

When Ehandar came into their room, Anaxantis sat in the big chair by the fireplace, lost in thought.

“What a remarkable woman she is, mother,”
he thought.
“Even then she must have foreseen that the time would come that a secret system to authenticate letters could become useful. She didn't send the medicines. That also means that it is anybody's guess whether she is free, or still a prisoner. Damn it. To what end would somebody want to incapacitate me, but not kill me? Surely, I'm not that important.”

Ehandar had taken off his mantle and tunic and gently nudged him to make place in the chair for him. Without looking at him Anaxantis obliged.

“Don't worry,” Ehandar said softly while putting an arm around him. “At least now we know for certain that somebody tried to intentionally harm you and that this someone is not your mother. That's something, isn't it?”

“I suppose so. I've taken these damn things since I was twelve. I could have had a normal youth, you know? I could have trained in arms. I wouldn't have been such a burden to you.”

“Shht, it was not your fault and I wasn't much help. You don't know how many times I wished that I could—”

Anaxantis laid a finger upon his lips.

“Anyway,” he continued, the finger still on his mouth, “tomorrow I will personally interrogate that hag, and I promise you, one way or another we will find out who did this to you. You're not alone in this. Not anymore. You have me to protect you now.”

He kissed the finger lightly.

“I love you,” he whispered.

Anaxantis sighed and lay his head against his shoulder.

The next morning, when the dungeon guard wanted to check up on her, he found the woman who had brought the medicines dead in her cell, her face a blackish blue color. The hastily summoned army physician could do nothing more than confirm that death was caused by poisoning.

The cell was searched and in the straw on the floor a small vial was found.

Ehandar was furious, but ultimately powerless.

The woman had escaped him, and with her death the only opportunity to find out who had sent her had gone up in smoke.

Chapter 9:

The Road to Soranza

Renda had been a cook for five years in Lorseth Castle. She was an outgoing woman in her mid thirties, beloved by her colleagues for her sunny, yet quiet disposition. Since the Army of the North had arrived the kitchen had been busier since they now had to prepare the food for the two lord governors and the higher officers. The kitchen-staff had been enlarged in the prospect that the two princes were likely to organize dinners and banquets. Until now they had not done so on a great scale and their own needs were modest. The chief-cook had ordered that every day about double the amount of food was to be prepared than what was expected to be needed, just in case guests of the lord governors should arrive unexpectedly. Since that also didn't happen very often, most days lots of food was left over. The kitchen staff ate very well at Lorseth Castle. But even so not everything got eaten.

Renda hated throwing away perfectly good food and she had taken to bringing what was left to the dungeon guards. They thought she was a gift sent from heaven and made it a point to always offer her a beaker of wine, which Renda gladly accepted. Soon the guards anticipated her daily visits eagerly, not only for the delicious leftovers she brought ,but also for the cheerful company that broke the monotony of their long, boring days. Renda often excused herself for being such a babbler and blabbermouth, but the guards didn't mind. Her stories were always exciting and a great diversion from the daily drudgery. She also made a point of asking how their day had been, which offered a welcome occasion to complain about everything, from the low pay to the dampness of dungeon and everything they could think of really.

This day they had an exciting story of their own to tell, and tell it they did. They even reported what their colleagues of the personal guard of the lord governors had told them. Renda ooh'd and ah'd in all the right places and went away duly impressed, right to the chief-cook. She asked him for three days off, since her sister was sick. As she almost never took days off, and she was a good worker who never complained, the chief-cook gladly granted her permission. If it took four or five days, that was all right by him too.

Renda's sister lived in a village called Drogogha, fifteen miles from Lorseth. Being one of those people that are instantly perceived as likable, she had no trouble finding merchants and farmers to offer her rides. She had started out in the morning and arrived at her sisters' in the late afternoon.

Ten minutes after Renda had arrived, her sister's twelve year old daughter, Sirona, left the house and walked to the crossroad with the highway. There was an old stone statue of a minor god who guarded intersections. Sirona tore a branch of a sapling and fixed it with a piece of string to the statue, as if making an offering. She returned regularly to check if the branch was still there.

The next evening, near midnight, a man knocked softly at the door. He was quickly let in, and half an hour later left again, unseen. He walked surreptitiously to the nearby woods where a companion awaited him. Both men mounted their horses and began the long ride to Soranza.

Anaxantis frowned as he rifled through another box of parchments. It was utterly disheartening. He could reconstruct what the then lord governor, the count of Whingomar, had eaten for dinner on a given day twelve years ago, but as to the movements of the army in the crucial days before the attack of Mukthars, the archives remained mute. According to Marak, his father had sent word of the imminent attack, yet he couldn't find a trace of such a notification. It was as if someone had taken great care to remove all documents that could give an indication as to when the warning was received. There was also nothing to be found about the subsequent army movements.

Finally after hours, he unearthed a note of the master of Supplies and Provisions instructing some underling to lower the orders of food since the army would be leaving Lorseth that day. It was dated May 7th, 1440. Two days before the sack of Dermolhea. Anaxantis couldn't almost believe what he'd just read. The lord governor had wasted four or five crucial days. Even had he started out upon receiving Theroghall senior's warning, it would have been touch and go. At the very least it would have required forced marches to meet the Mukthars in time to prevent their onslaught on Dermolhea. But instead of making haste, it seemed as if his predecessor had deliberately wasted valuable time.

“So the army makes as if coming to relieve Dermolhea but at the same time someone insures that it will be late. It simply makes no sense. Equally stupefying, long before they could be sure the army wouldn't arrive in time, the Dermolhean elite abandons the city and its inhabitants to its own devices. What the fuck was going on at the time? Did the Forty know beforehand that no aid was coming? Or at least not in time? There is only one possibility. There must have been a traitor. Someone whose task it was to ensure that the Mukthars would not meet with any resistance at all. That is the only explanation. And yet, who could ensure that the army wouldn't march on time? And how did he or they do it? And why? Were they paid by the Mukthars? That seems so unlikely. I'm missing something here. What is it that I am not seeing?”

Without knowing it, Ehandar employed the same crude ruse as Anaxantis. A few miles outside the camp he rode into the woods and changed his tunic with the eagle crest for an equally rich but neutral one. Some five miles further, on a craggy hill, surrounded by open fields, stood the remains of an ancient watchtower. Even now, in its dilapidated state, it dominated its surroundings. Hidden in the ruins, one could see for more than two miles in every direction. It was impossible to approach the remains unseen.

When Ehandar dismounted, Gorth came out to greet him.

“Quick, lead your horse inside the ruins.”

The young men hugged. Gorth had met with no difficulties enlisting in the cavalry of the Army of the North. His explanation that Serimar Delono was the fifth son of a minor Zyntrean noble, who stood to inherit almost nothing, and was involved in a bitter quarrel with his older brothers was readily accepted. It was not even that far from the truth. Gorth of Sidullia was the third son and effectively would inherit nothing but a small sum of money, and the pious wish of his father that his eldest brother would take care of him. In lieu for service and obedience of course. It was one of the reasons why he had become friends with the young prince, also a third son with a bleak future. They understood each other perfectly.

Since Gorth preferred to maintain his cover, it was too dangerous to meet in the camp, or even too often outside the camp. They had decided to get together in the ruins every month on the first Sunday. Again like Anaxantis, it was Ehandar who brought the food.

They sat down on a giant stone that lay against one of the few remaining walls.

“You seem tense, Ehandar,” Gorth said, partly stating an observation, partly asking.

“I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, Gorth. And I have made my mind up. At last.”

Gorth didn't answer, but looked expectantly at his friend.

“I... I want out, Gorth,” Ehandar said looking at the ground. “I just can't do it any longer. You're disappointed in me, aren't you?”

Gorth hesitated for a moment.

“I'm not overly surprised, but I can't say I saw it coming either. I knew of course that the fierce Ehandar was mainly an act. A role you perform well, though.”

“What you don't know is what it has cost me all these years. How suffocating it is. How afraid I am to lose myself. To become my mask. It is... it is like continuously walking around in heavy armor. In the long run it weighs you down. It chafes you.”

Ehandar's voice broke at the unhappy association. Gorth didn't notice.

“You must despise me,” Ehandar added unhappily.

“No, not at all. You are my friend. I didn't expect it, that's all. But, if this is what you want... You know, until a few months ago I really thought we had chance, we the underdogs. I really believed that we could outwit and outmaneuver them. How naive. See how quickly and easily Portonas made us flee in all directions.”

They remained silent for a few minutes.

“What now?” Gorth asked, after a while.

Ehandar shrugged.

“I was thinking of going to Soranza and asking asylum for Anaxantis and me.”

“Anaxantis? You're taking him?”

“We've come to know each other better, these last months. We've grown... quiet close.”

Ehandar blushed. Gorth frowned.

“You do know what your little brother is up to, don't you? He and his band of young bucks?”

“He never had friends. He never could train in arms. It's all quite innocent.”

“I wouldn't be too sure of that. As far as I can tell he is carving out a personal strike force. He's plundering the army of it's best elements, right under the nose of the old commander. He befriends peasants, horse breeders and merchants. He permits them to call him by his given name. The troops are starting to notice. He seems the only one who is doing something. My own general is smarting, because he hasn't been called yet since Anaxantis recovered. I tell you, Ehandar, little Anaxantis has plans of his own.”

“He's just playing at lord governor. But deep down he knows what I know. I'm certain of it now. Father has set us up. He wants to make sure who will succeed him. And that is not one of us. He wants to prevent a battle to the death for the throne after he's gone. It would weaken the kingdom fatally or, the Gods forbid, divide it. That's why he took Portonas and Tenaxos with him, and why he sent Anaxantis and me here. He's just looking on from afar in which way exactly we will destroy ourselves. Will we murder each other? Will we die in battle? Will we be ignominiously defeated by barbarians and have to flee? Whatever the outcome, we will have either eliminated or disqualified ourselves. He's certainly not planning to let the Devil's Crown fall into the hands of a little bastard.”

“Bastard?”

“Oh, come on, don't tell me you haven't heard the rumors. And besides, look at us. Father, me and my older brothers, we all have black hair and dark eyes. Anaxantis is blond, with light eyes.”

“He could have those from his mother.”

“Or from his father,” Ehandar grinned sadly.

“It doesn't matter too much, I suppose. He wouldn't be the first and he won't be the last. That would make him still a prince. A prince of Zyntrea, that is.”

“He has been raised a Tanahkos. Maybe that matters more, in the long run.”

Ehandar sighed.

“You could always go alone if he refuses to come,” Gorth said after a while.

“No... No, I couldn't. If I can't convince him to come, I stay as well.”

Gorth looked inquisitively at his friend.

“Now why do I get the feeling that you are not telling me everything?”

Ehandar kept looking at the ground, debating with himself whether he would tell Gorth the truth, the whole truth.

“Ehandar,” Gorth said softly, “keep what's in your heart in your heart. When you feel like sharing, I'll be there. For now, I don't need to know.” He fell silent. “Now, tell me, how are you going to proceed?” he broke the uncomfortable silence in a more practical tone.