Ehandar looked around. What Anaxantis had called pegs turned out to be three rusty nails in the wall. The straw bag occupied most of the floor of the minuscule closet. He looked up. There were no windows, but high up in the wall there appeared to be some slits that let in fresh air.
“Well, that's it,” Anaxantis said, turning around and going back upstairs.
A stunned Ehandar looked unbelievingly around.
“Does he really expect me to sleep here?”
Then it struck him. He would be sleeping here alone. He hadn't slept by himself for months. He wouldn't hear the soft breathing of Anaxantis beside him, nor feel his body warmth anymore. It would be lonely, cold.
When he entered the room, Anaxantis was already seated again at the table, reading.
“It's awfully small,” he ventured.
“It's only temporary. Besides, when time permits, and if I am not too tired, I will invite you into my bed, once in a while.”
The matter-of-factly spoken words stung, deep, deep in Ehandar's heart.
“This is not temporary, this is how it's going to be from now on and I should be grateful that he hasn't sent me away further still,” he thought bitterly. “It is not even our bed anymore, it is his bed and he will invite me into it when it pleases him. When he wants me to... to have sex with him... when he wants me to service him.”
It didn't matter. The moment Anaxantis called him, made the slightest gesture, the merest indication with his eyes, he knew he would respond. Willingly. Salvaging whatever he could. Doing whatever needed to be done to feel his flesh against his own. To feel those hands on his skin again. To see the rapture in those eyes again.
And to vainly try repaying an infinitesimal part of his debt. Of his enormous, prodigious debt.
He dropped his shoulders and looked at his brother, his lover, his beautiful tormentor.
As if Anaxantis had felt his eyes resting on him, he looked up.
“Go to sleep, Ehandar,” he said with a thin smile. “Don't forget to take sheets and a blanket. The nights are cold. I will come and get you in the morning. Stay there until I do.”
“But it's still early,” Ehandar said before he could stop himself.
“I know. Do as I say.”
Lying in his little cell like room, on the straw sack on the floor, feeling lonely and forlorn, Ehandar cried himself to sleep. It might have been of some comfort to him, had he known that a few hours later someone else was crying himself to sleep as well, in the big bed upstairs.
It was New Year's eve. Anaxantis had ordered the kitchen to prepare a festive meal for the by now eighty or so members of the clan and to provide ample wine. There was also ale and mead for those who preferred it. The kitchen had done an excellent job. There were broiled, roasted, grilled, baked, fried and poached meats. There were four different kinds of pot pies filled with mixtures of meats, poultry or fish and vegetables, herbs and cheese. There were also six different kinds of bread and three soups.
Early in the evening Anaxantis went to the barracks where the men were having their feast and mingled among them. Later, he and Bortram went back to the castle, where a room in one of the guest houses was prepared for the festivities of the lord governor and his friends. Marak and Tomar were already there when they arrived, and soon after Iftang and Lethoras, who had come back from Landemere for the occasion, joined them. Hemarchidas was away on personal business for Anaxantis. Arranulf and Obyann served the food and drinks. Anaxantis had made sure that there was a table prepared for them in the kitchen, so they could eat from all the dishes they served. Since he had specified nothing about the drinks, Renda let them have wine, though she took care to water it so much down as to become almost tasteless for anybody but the boys.
After the meal, encouraged by wine that was not watered down at all, the friends in turn told tall stories, except Anaxantis who listened smilingly to the others. Rather late in the evening Renda appeared in the door opening and gestured that she wanted to speak to him. He obliged and went over to her.
“I was wondering, my lord, whether I could bring a little something upstairs, him being all alone and all. It doesn't seem right when everybody is having a good time. With your pardon, my lord, I don't want to overstep myself, but what can it hurt after all?”
Anaxantis thought for a while. His first inclination was to flatly refuse her, but after some consideration he relented.
“Very well. Prepare something and I will come fetch you in fifteen minutes. I'll bring you to the tower myself. The door to my apartments is locked and only I have the key.”
“I'll be right back, My Lord,” Renda said when they entered the hallway.
Anaxantis didn't answer immediately as he thought he heard a noise. He shook his head and dismissed a vague feeling of unease.
“Do you want to stay a while with him?” he asked.
“Oh, if it wouldn't be too inconvenient I'd gladly—”
“You have an hour,” he interrupted her curtly, while mounting the stairs to the second floor. “Be here waiting for me when I come back to fetch you.”
He unlocked the door, let Renda through and locked it again behind her. He turned to descend the stairs, but kept standing before the door for a while. Nothing moved and he could hear no sound. After a short while he left.
“That was a close call,” Gorth, who had hidden in one of the niches with a door as soon as he heard the noise downstairs, thought. “The little butcher himself, and that pudgy lady must be that cook's help Ehandar has befriended.”
Suddenly he got a wild, outrageous idea. When the little tyrant came back to open the door for the woman, he could jump him from behind and kill him. His blood raced through his veins. Why not? It was New Year's eve and nobody expected trouble of any kind. They could reach the stables of the cavalry unseen in the dark, steal a couple of horses and be far away before anybody missed the little creep.
Then he thought it over. Would Ehandar thank him for murdering the love of his life? Not very likely. It would be in his best interest of course, but the immediate effect would be most probably a hysterical Ehandar. What about the kitchen help? Surely the little beast would tell his companions that he would be back in a few minutes, and then when he failed to do so his friends would come investigating. All the while he would, in all likelihood, still be trying to convince a mourning Ehandar to let go of the body and come along. No, golden as the opportunity was, unique even, the risks were too great. It was ironic, but it seemed the little monster was protected by friendship and love.
About an hour later, after he had returned from getting Renda back from the tower, Anaxantis had trouble concentrating on his surroundings. The little group became more ribald and boisterous with every cup of wine they drank. They had started to teach each other dirty songs from their homelands.
Lethoras had a fine singing voice, he noticed randomly, but the same could not be said of the others. Nevertheless he kept smiling until his face muscles began to hurt. He stood up and walked to the windows. From the room on the second floor he had a perfect view of the inner court yard and the tower on the other side. There was a light still burning on the top floor.
He excused himself, saying he was tired, and wished them all the best for the new year. They made the obligatory noises to make him stay, but didn't insist long. He grabbed a wine flask, and left, followed by the lusty sounds of a song about some girl called Rose, you know, she was one of those, whose legs would never close, and for who no man was too old or too gross.
“That's the second time the little adder almost caught me,” Gorth thought, once again hidden in the niche. “Well, that's it for tonight. I'd better go. There is no chance he will be able to return now.”
Ehandar looked surprised when Anaxantis entered the room. He had been nibbling at some sweet cakes.
“I'll go to my room,” he said hastily. “You'll want to be alone.”
“No, stay,” Anaxantis said softly. “Unless you are tired and want to go to sle
ep.”
Ehandar looked inquisitively at him.
“If you want me to, I'll stay,” he answered cautiously, not certain what was expected of him.
Anaxantis seemed to hesitate.
“I'd like you to share my bed tonight,” he whispered. “If you want to, that is. You don't have to, of course.”
“You know I want to.”
“Good. Let me get some cups. I have brought wine.”
They sat together uneasily on the rug before the fire, sipping wine. Ehandar didn't want to presume and run the risk of disturbing the fragile situation by making a perhaps unwelcome gesture. Anaxantis didn't want to take the initiative for fear his advances would be misunderstood for orders. At long last Ehandar took his free hand and brushed it lightly with his lips. When he looked up Anaxantis responded by kissing him on the lips.
“Let's go to bed,” Anaxantis said. “I'm going to freshen up a little first.”
When he came out of the bathroom he saw that Ehandar had already undressed and lay naked upon the bed on his belly.
“Does he think that this is what I want from him?” he wondered silently.
“Come under the covers,” he said as softly as he could, after he had taken his clothes off. “It is cold.”
Ehandar did as he was bid.
“He lies there passively, waiting for whatever will happen.”
He had no clue at all how to elicit a response, and so he let his instincts take over. He laid himself outstretched upon Ehandar's body and began kissing him, first on the mouth and then slowly working his way down, over his neck, nipples, chest and his bellybutton until finally he reached his member. At least that reacted in the desired manner. When he looked up he saw that Ehandar was more surprised than anything else. He worked his way back up and finally he felt Ehandar's hands caressing him back. He turned around, dragging Ehandar with him until their positions were reversed. His partner seemed to have understood the hint and began to take a more active role. When in his turn Ehandar kissed him all over, until he reached his member, he spread his legs to give his lover room to kneel between them. He slid his backside up Ehandar's legs and hoisted himself in an upright position, holding on to his partner's shoulders with one hand while with the other guiding Ehandar's member in his entrance. With a deep sigh he let himself slide over his partner's shaft and embraced him. Ehandar began to move rhythmically in him and Anaxantis sought his mouth and let his tongue explore it.
When he felt Ehandar come inside him, it nearly felt like a triumph, and it brought almost as much satisfaction as if he had climaxed himself. He took his lover's head between his two hands and started kissing him all over his lips and his eyes, where he tasted the wan saltiness of tears.
“Have I reduced him already to this,” Anaxantis thought. “Is this all it takes? And yet, I have to know. I can't stop here.”
He let himself be pushed gently backwards, and, after a while, he felt Ehandar's lips closed teasingly around the tip of his length. His partner took gradually more and more of him, until his hips began to thrust back of themselves. When he erupted and the ecstasy began slowly waning, he looked down and saw Ehandar's luscious black hair spread out all over his groin, lying quietly. He felt his shrinking member still in the warm mouth, not being stimulated anymore, but enclosed, safe.
At last Ehandar released him and looked up, with the expression of a faithful dog who knows he has just done exactly what was required of him and who now expects words of praise or a friendly pat. Anaxantis beckoned him to come and took him in his arms, caressing his hair.
“You were amazing,” he whispered in Ehandar's ear.
“It's easy. It's you.”
It was a simple statement, self-explanatory and naive, almost childlike, and Anaxantis knew that he would disappoint him immensely if he would stop his caresses now. He felt how Ehandar laid his head upon his chest, his ear above his heart and one hand resting beside it, the long, strong fingers stretched out over a nipple.
When finally Ehandar fell asleep, he moved very cautiously from under him and guided his head on the pillow. Anaxantis smiled, enchanted, when he saw him twitch in his sleep and covered him carefully with the blanket. He blew out the candles on the nightstand. Then he lay back, staring in the half dark, broken only by the dying fire in the hearth and the pale light of a quarter moon.
For a long time he lay there ruminating, his thoughts meandering, his emotions vacillating.
He tried to fight it, to reason around it, but he had learned from a very young age that it was pointless to try to deceive oneself. Pointless and fundamentally impossible. But couldn't he just, in the face of uncertainty and with all the risks that implied, take a decision? Just decide that how it should be, was how it was? Go a step further than what was right, what was just? Than what was wise?
It took a very long time, but at last his mind was made up.
“I can't afford the luxury.”
Chapter 19:
Burning Questions
Sobrathi arrived on the first of January of the year 1453 after the Ending of the Darkening in Ormidon, the capital of Ximerion. She had brought three companions. The same men who had assisted her in the liberation of Emelasuntha from the castle on Mount Taranaq.
She knew exactly where to go. The city had since long outgrown its walls. Ormidon hadn't been threatened, let alone besieged, in more than four centuries and new districts had sprawled haphazardly outside the fortifications. She guided her little party to a house surrounded by an enclosed garden at the outskirts of the district that lay the farthest away from the city center. Without dismounting she pulled a chain that hung to the right of the gates five times in succession, and minutes later a small hatch opened. Then the gate itself opened and the little group rode inside.
The house was the headquarters of the Tribe of Mekthona in Ximerion. The Tribe was a group that had formed around Emelasuntha during and after the Rebellion of the Warring Barons, more than twenty years ago. It's members were selected because they were fiercely loyal to the royal House of Mekthona and not a few were related to the reigning dynasty, albeit sometimes very tenuously.
Two years after the actual fighting had stopped, the last of the Warring Barons had been captured on the farm where he had been hiding, posing as a hired help, and had been summarily executed. His corpse was beheaded and flung on a dung heap, while his head was put on a stake and brought to Torantall where it hung, for years, from the southern gate, until the bleached skull itself disintegrated one stormy night in winter.
The Tribe had outlived the purpose for which it was formed, but Emelasuntha kept it alive. By nagging and bullying she appropriated the necessary funds, first from her father and later from her brother Kurtigaill, to keep the group operational. She acquired several remote domains cheaply all over Zyntrea, where the Tribe could exercise in relative privacy. She used the organization mainly as her personal instrument to eliminate nobles who she thought were potential risks to the throne and who her father and brother were too weak hearted or too scrupulous to tackle.
Later when she had married the high king of Ximerion, one of the first things she arranged was the acquisition of the house with the walled garden at the outskirts of Ormidon. Later a few others followed. From early on the Tribe had begun infiltrating the Royal Administration and keeping tabs on a variety of important and less important people in the kingdom of Ximerion. By now its network had become nothing less than vast, and the Tribe had agents on almost every level, except the most high, of the administration, the military and the government.
Sobrathi wasted no time. She had arrived in the late afternoon and had ordered a hot bath to be prepared. Meanwhile she went to the Master of the House. She needed no documents since she knew all the names of Anaxantis's friends, and the few things that were known about them, by heart.
The next day, shortly after midday and about an hour before Hemarchidas entered Ormidon by the northern main gate, The Master of the House came to her room with
the first results of his investigations.
“We're still investigating and speaking to our contacts. Things seem to be a little more complicated than we thought they would be. There is one clear cut case however, Bortram Gronnick. His father owns a medium sized farm in Great Tracthon, a village some fifteen miles to the north west of Ormidon. He bought it twenty eight years ago with a loan. In two years the loan should be payed back in full. However, since he had no collateral at the time he couldn't get the money from a regular banking firm or the more reputable lenders. He signed a contract with some stringent clauses. Basically the land serves as collateral and payments have to be on time. Even one late payment gives the firm the right to exact the remaining sum in its entirety or, failing that, to confiscate the land.”
“Aren't such contracts illegal?”
“They are now. You see, my lady, twenty eight years ago the previous king was still on the throne, and this kind of arrangement was completely legal. In the last years of his reign the present king already managed most of the affairs of the kingdom. Corruption was rife in many sectors and the then prince Tenaxos did all he could to eradicate most of it. The rapacity and irresponsible behavior of banks and great financial firms, coupled to a virtual absence of strict legal instruments, made that a lot of the common people became the victim of absurdly stringent, even unscrupulous contracts. Tenaxos put an end to all that and had laws enforced to protect the subjects of the crown, and particularly the weaker ones, from being exploited. For Gronnick it came too late, I'm afraid.”
“The new laws were not made retroactive?”
“That was the compromise. The dynasty was — still is — very young, and he probably didn't dare antagonize the great financial institutions. Don't forget that many noble Houses are silent partners in some of the greatest banking firms. And regimes tend to fall when financial backing is withdrawn.”
The Invisible Chains - Part 1: Bonds of Hate Page 31
