The Invisible Chains - Part 1: Bonds of Hate (15 page)

“Now that you mention it, the same brother wasn't all too happy that you refused to come to Lorseth when the lord governor told you to.”

“Fiddlesticks. Didn't I explain in my letter? No, I probably forgot. Anyway, to get a good idea of your state of health I needed you to make some light, but unusual and sustained effort. A three day trip on horseback fitted the bill perfectly. And, how do you feel?”

“The first day my muscles were a little bit cramped, but now I'm all right.”

“Not feeling abnormally tired?”

“No, not really.”

Murno Tollbir proceeded with prodding him all over his belly, laying his ear upon his abdomen and his chest and tapping with his fingers upon various bones and joints. Meanwhile he kept asking all kinds of questions which Anaxantis answered as good as he could. He seemed to be satisfied with what he had found or not found. He scratched his beard.

“Good,” he said. “Now, turn around, sit upon your knees, lower your pants and drawers and lean forward upon your chest. With... eh... your behind to the window. I need the light.”

“Are you serious?” Anaxantis asked exasperated.

“Quite serious,” the doctor replied. “I have to check inside if there are no ulcers or other deformities and if there are no swollen glands or signs of hemorrhoids. We can skip this, of course, and you will probably be all right for the first fifteen, twenty years or so, but if anything is wrong, we can cure it easily now. If you wait you're setting yourself up for a lot pain and no guarantee that you will ever be cured. Believe me, pain in the butt is a... well, just that. Your choice. Besides, do you really think I like sticking my finger up the asses of boys, even pretty boys like you? Now, if you were a pretty girl that would be a whole different story. But then you wouldn't be wearing any clothes anymore for some time now.”

Tollbir chuckled while he rubbed his index finger with oil. Anaxantis sighed and reluctantly did as he was asked. His face was fiery red. The doctor kept mumbling approvingly while he introduced his finger. Then he touched a certain spot and to his utter devastation Anaxantis felt his member rising.

“Good... good...” Tollbir mumbled, “no abnormal swelling and the reaction is as expected. Hm, while I have you in this position, let me feel... Yes, both testicles are fully dropped, and the tubes don't seem to be entangled.” He placed his fingers behind the scrotum and rolled the balls gently, using his thumb. “No hard lumps and they feel firm. Theoretically the dynasty is safe if ever it would have to depend upon you.”

“Are you deliberately trying to embarrass me?” Anaxantis complained.

“What?” the doctor asked absentmindedly, while scratching his beard with the hand that he hadn't used to examine him. “Well, that didn't hurt, did it? You can pull up your pants and sit upright upon the table, please.”

He went over to a basin and washed his hands vigorously.

“Well,” he said pensively, “just as I expected, you're a boy—”

“Is that your conclusion?” Anaxantis sneered. “You're really brilliant. I could have told you that. While keeping my pants on.”

“Let me finish, will you. You're a boy in perfect health and absolutely normally developed for your age. Oh, by the way, don't overdo it.”

“Don't overdo what?”

“Let yourself be entered or put things up there yourself, which ever it is you do.” Tollbir said, clearly with his thoughts elsewhere.

Anaxantis again became fiery red in the face.

“Why would you think—”

“Oh, dear boy,“ the doctor interrupted, “if you don't want your physician to know such things, then you should groan a little or at least show some signs of discomfort when he sticks his finger up your butt.”

“I'll remember the next time,” Anaxantis grumbled.

“But, that's not important,” Tollbir mused. “Your brother wrote that your mother arranged Zyntrean doctors for you. They're quite capable in Zyntrea, in fact the school at Torantall is famous. So, the question is why would they think it necessary to put you on medicines. Your brother also writes that your medicines were lost shortly after your arrival here. That is, what, somewhat more than half a year ago, and yet, you're in better shape now than then. Very strange, don't you think?”

“What are you implying? That I was poisoned?”

“Poisoned is a strong word. You've taken those herbs and pills for years, and you're obviously not dead. Right after you stopped taking them, how did you react?”

“At first I became very sick. My throat started hurting and then the pain changed places as it were, to one of my ears. A few days later I started heaving up. Really bad tasting stuff. I never have tasted anything like it before. It looked a bit like sticky, slimy threads.”

“Yes, I see. That was your body evacuating long term waste products. Your stool, how was your stool?”

“You really have a knack of abashing people, haven't you?”

“O, fiddlesticks. Don't be such a baby. Your stool?”

“Watery the first days. Then hard, eh, difficult and painful to pass. It returned to normal after about ten days.”

“The hard parts were waste that had been in your body for far too long and had petrified. Good riddance. Could have caused a lot of problems later on. Diet?”

“For months mostly gruel and bread. Some butter, vegetables and once and again a little meat. Strangely enough, I don't seem to tolerate food in great quantities or when it is too rich anymore.”

“That's perfectly all right. Most people dig their graves with their own teeth as it is. So, for months you lived mainly on grains. A sober diet, let's say. That's probably what gave your body the opportunity to cleanse and heal itself. Remarkable. Open your eyes wide, please.”

With his fingers he held Anaxantis's eyelids spread open.

“Look up at the ceiling. Yes, like that. Now try to look at your belly. OK. Open your mouth.”

“So?” Anaxantis asked when he had finished.

“Well, you're boringly healthy as far as I can tell. The question remains, however. Why did they give you herbal concoctions when it is clear they did you more harm than good? You wouldn't happen to have a sample of those medicines for me to examine?”

“No, I'm afraid everything was lost.”

“A shame. Knowing what was in them could have told us a lot. Ah, yes, the sweets your mother send you were lost at the same time, your brother writes. Good. Don't eat sweets. They're poison. The body isn't made for them. And don't drink milk. Not too much and not too often at any rate.”

“I usually don't. But is it really bad for you? That's the first time—”

“Are you a calf?”

“Excuse me?”

“The question is simple enough, I would have thought. Why does everybody insists that I ask them things twice? Are you a calf?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then don't drink milk. Milk is for calves. It is designed to make a beast the size of a very large dog into something enormous within the year. You're far from enormous. And it took you sixteen years to reach even this stage. Don't drink milk. Oh, some milk in prepared dishes is quite all right. Easy with cheese though. Too salty.”

“Any other advice?” Anaxantis asked with sarcasm bleeding through in his voice.

“Yes. Never lie to me. I will misdiagnose you, and that could be dangerous for you. More importantly, you would be wasting my time. As for the rest, keep doing what you are doing. Enjoy your food, but eat sparingly. Indulge yourself from time to time if you must. If what your brother writes is true, you're getting plenty of exercise in the open air, which is excellent. Oh, yes, if you have to fart, fart. Don't keep it in. Very bad for you.”

“You really don't weigh your words, do you?” Anaxantis said, becoming red for the umpteenth time. “Lucky for me, I'm not gassy.”

“Fiddlesticks. You're a boy. You're sixteen. You're gassy.”

“Hm. But basically I'm all right?”

“You're in perfect health. You could live to be a hundred.”

“I'm in perfect health. I could live to be a hundred.”

“According to that insolent quack,” Hemarchidas sneered. “Has he at least examined you thoroughly?”

“O, yes, I dare say he did,” Anaxantis replied. “Believe me, he was thorough enough. He wouldn't let me pay him, you know? He said he had stopped asking money from his patients almost fifteen years ago, on account of that he had enough of the stuff, and that it permitted him to choose who he wanted to treat. But he seems to accept presents, like from that farmer.”

At the first shop that sold them, Anaxantis bought fifty live chickens, to be delivered immediately to the good doctor. He send two of his personal guards with the shop owner's sons, to help and keep an eye on things.

“Just drop them in the hall and be sure to tell him that they're a gift from Anaxantis,” he instructed his men.

“Fifty chickens?” Hemarchidas shouted. “How much did you pay for them?”

“Two moltar, I believe,” Anaxantis replied.

“Two moltar? You little fool. You've been robbed blind. Do you even know the value of anything?” Hemarchidas said, vexed.

“I think I know your value,” Anaxantis laughed. “At the moment you're priceless. Come, there was a bookshop somewhere here.”

Later, when Anaxantis's guards told their colleagues, Ehandar's guards, about their trip to Dermolhea they met first with total disbelief and then with envy, when they recounted excitedly how they had visited a tavern in broad daylight in company of the young lord governor and his friends, how they had delivered fifty chickens to an old physician's house and let them loose in his hall, schlepped more than thirty heavy books from Dermolhea to Lorseth and at their last evening in the city were given permission to visit the local taverns and had received a nice sum of spending money.

Serving Anaxantis seemed a lot more fun than serving their own master, Ehandar's guards concluded downcast.

“The difference is,” Sobrathi said, “that the Sisterhood immediately began systematically searching all the eastern provinces and that we sat down to think first. Since he surrounded your arrest with such secrecy, it followed automatically that Tenaxos wouldn't keep you in a place where you would be drawing attention. That eliminated all castles near cities or with much comings and goings. He wanted you not only secured, but also as inconspicuous as possible. Even so, it took us a while before we began to suspect that you were kept on Taranaq Mountain. But the more I thought about it, the more I became certain. All the while I had to make sure not to blow my cover, or arouse the suspicion of the Sisterhood. That's why I informed them first when you were arrested.”

The two women sat together where they couldn't be seen from the road. The men kept an eye out for pursuers, at the same time giving the queen and the baroness some privacy, although by now they had left the Ximerionian border several miles behind them.

“Where are we going?” Emelasuntha inquired. “I hope not to Zyntrea.”

“No, of course not, dear. Although Kurtigaill wouldn't have minded, even if it would have brought him in trouble with Tenaxos. But I doubt he can oversee all consequences. He occupies himself more with his garden and his boy-toys than with the actual government of his kingdom.”

Emelasuntha sighed. She knew her brother.

“What is it this year?” she asked smiling. “A new rose variety?”

“Strangely enough, no. This year he has planted leeks. Don't ask me why. Believe me, as far as he is concerned the day that he can abdicate can't come soon enough. At least in that aspect our plans are still intact.”

“He'll have to hold on to the throne a little while longer,”
Emelasuntha pondered.
“There is still so much to be done. And I am in a worse position now to control events. First the Devil's Crown, then the throne of the House of Mekthona. No, I can't let him adopt Anaxantis just yet.”

“To answer your earlier question, we are going to Soranza,” Sobrathi continued. “We have bought a vineyard in your name.”

“A vineyard?”

“Yes, it's ideal. The grounds are very large and there are extensive buildings that can be used for housing task forces. In the center is a hill with a splendid villa, a little palace really. The whole complex is easily defensible, although it is doubtful that Tenaxos would dare violate the neutrality of Soranza. Particularly now, with all his troubles on both his southern and northern borders. The Sisterhood, now they wouldn't hesitate a moment of course. Only, I don't see them operating in force on the territory of Soranza. They haven't even got a local chapter there. The Senate has always vigorously denied them a foothold. Very wise of them.”