The Invisible Chains - Part 1: Bonds of Hate (27 page)

Lethoras took the ring and walked over to were the smith was waiting beside his anvil. He lay the ring down on it and the smith let his sledgehammer descend on it several times. When Lethoras returned, he laid an unrecognizable, shapeless chunk of gold before Anaxantis.

The soldier who had left a moment ago, returned carrying some piece of cloth. On a sign of Lethoras he carried the eagle flag to the open hearth and threw it on the fire. The moist fabric hissed and produced dark clouds of smoke.

“Your sword,” Lethoras said, while he started ungirding it from Ehandar's waist.

Held by the smith's assistants in an angle on the anvil, it shattered in several pieces on the first blow.

“Remove that tunic,” Lethoras ordered.

Ehandar did as he was told, his face still impassive. The green tunic with the eagle crest followed the flag into the fire. The dagger Ehandar had carried under his tunic was now clearly visible.

“Hand over that dagger,” the curt order came.

“No,” Anaxantis intervened softly. “No, that was a gift from me. He can keep it.”

Lethoras looked for a moment at him.

“I said that he can keep it,” Anaxantis repeated, in a commanding voice this time.

Ehandar stood in his shirt, straight, impassively looking at the faces that stared back at him. Only a pitiful few seemed to feel sorry for him. Quite a lot, the majority, was visibly enthralled by the loss of his status and standing. They made not the slightest effort anymore to hide it. Only Demrac seemed more surprised than anything else. He wanted desperately for this painful ceremony to be over, but he daren't move without having been given permission to do so. Finally the deliverance came.

“Go to my room and wait there for me,” Anaxantis said softly.

“He has never looked more like a prince than now,”
he thought.

Another slap with the wet towel. What had always been ‘our room’ had suddenly become ‘my room’. Without showing any emotion, he turned on his heels and, feeling the stares burning in his neck, left the great hall. Once on the staircase, out of sight, the first tears began to roll down his cheeks.

The notary thanked everyone for their attendance and the meeting began to break up noisily as people discussed the event they had just witnessed among themselves.

Nobody paid any attention when Lethoras handed over a small object to Anaxantis.

“I switched the ring with the one you gave me. It was easy,” he whispered.

Anaxantis nodded his thanks.

When Anaxantis entered the room about half an hour later, he found Ehandar sitting, curled up, hugging his knees, in the very spot next to the fireplace, where he had spent most of the time while chained to the wall. He was sobbing softly. Anaxantis knelt beside him and started stroking his hair.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” he asked softly.

“Isn't this were you want me?” the answer came in tears. “Isn't this what you intended all along? You can take your revenge now. Look, the chains are still there.”

He held out his neck and his wrists.

“I don't need those chains,”
Anaxantis thought sadly.

“Look what you made me do,” Ehandar sobbed in utter agony.

“I warned you,” Anaxantis replied almost inaudible, all the while stroking his hair. “Several times. I told you not to do this. I told you I didn't want the responsibility. I told you to think again. It was all you, Ehandar. All you.”

The answer was a new outburst of sobs and tears.

“Come, let's go to bed,” Anaxantis said after a while, taking his hand.

Caressing his body against Ehandar's, Anaxantis's love making was caring and tender, where the night before it had been greedy and demanding. It took a while before Anaxantis got his brother to respond, but finally his lips got a shy, timid answer. He kissed Ehandar's tears away and put his arms protectively around him, as if silently promising him cover and warmth.

When later he looked at his sleeping lover, Ehandar almost felt as if it had been worth it.

Chapter 13:

A Traitor in our Midst

Birnac Maelar had sunk in a deep depression. Nothing remained of the fastidious, cultured and civilized near-noble doctor. He was one pig among the swine. It had proven impossible to maintain even a minimum of personal hygiene, let alone dignity. He was forced to live on hands and knees on a constant diet of cabbage leaves, that left him embarrassingly flatulent and made his stool nearly liquid. The nights were so cold that he was reduced to seek the companionship of the swine for their body warmth. The first time he had been afraid, but his cohabitants didn't seem to mind too much. He took care to relieve himself as near the gutter as possible and always in the same corner. The swine were not that choosy and just let nature take its course where they happened to be at the time. He had tried to use some of the cabbage leaves to clean himself after defecating, but they appeared to be disappointingly unsuited for this purpose as he noticed when his fingers ripped through them. The buckets of water the man emptied over the cage were just enough to rinse the biggest chunks of dirt and manure off his body, but they left him all but clean.

And still he didn't know where he was or who had done this to him or why.

From behind the wooden wall Emelasuntha observed him through the gaps in the planks.

“Dear,” Sobrathi whispered plaintively, “we've been standing here for more than an hour now.”

“Patience, dear,” the queen answered soothingly. “Soon now, real soon.”

She saw Birnac crawl to the right front corner of the cage, turn around and crouch with his backside as near the gutter as was possible. With thundering noise he defecated and almost liquid excrement splattered around.

“Now,” Emelasuntha whispered. “Quietly.”

Without making a sound both women appeared from behind the wooden separation that had shielded them and stood before the cage, looking down on the man who crouched down with his back to them.

“Isn't that Birnac Maelar, the good doctor who seeks ennoblement?” Emelasuntha asked, raising her voice to be heard above the rumbling sounds the man who was relieving himself made. “What do you think? Would he make a fine marquess? Or a distinguished baronet, maybe? I can't tell from the shit exploding out of his naked ass.”

Birnac Maelar startled, lost his balance and fell in his own excrement. When he looked up he saw the two women looking down upon him, naked, dirty and soiled as he was with his own fecal matter. He immediately recognized the queen and realized that the two women had been looking at him while he relieved himself messily and noisily. He felt overcome by almost intolerable shame and mortification. He wished the ground would split open and swallow him. Hastily, he covered his private parts with his hands. Then he started to cry from sheer misery and humiliation.

“I don't know just what it is, dear,” Sobrathi said, “but somehow he doesn't look all that noble to me, does he now?”

“I would take a closer look if he didn't stink so awfully.”

Emelasuntha clapped her hands and several men appeared promptly. Birnac Maelar now cringed under their dispassionate stares, while raw fear got the better of him. Two men hauled four big stones of equal hight into the barn and laid them on the edges of an imaginary square. A third brought in a large metal grille. Two others waited near the queen for her instructions.

“Get him out of there,” she said curtly.

The men opened a small door at the side of the cage.

“Come, piggy, come,” one of them said.

Birnac crawled hesitatingly out of the cage. The men grabbed him, with visible distaste, by the arms and led him to face Emelasuntha. When they let go he arched forward, his hands covering his private parts again.

“Stand upright, master Maelar, and look me in the eyes. Have you no pride?” Emelasuntha said dispassionately.

Birnac righted his back a few fractions of an inch.

“How is this possible?”
he thought miserably.
”Wasn't she supposed to have fallen from grace and kept prisoner by her own husband, the high king? Have they reconciled? Am I in Ximerion? They assured me nobody would ever find out. They swore the Sisterhood would protect me. The Gods help me, the Lioness of Torantall has scented my blood.”

“I have a few questions for you and how you answer them will determine your future, which admittedly could be very short. Why did the herbs and the pills you gave my son make him sick instead of curing him?”

Birnac trembled.

“Your majesty, what are you talking about? Your son fell ill, remember? The herbs maybe didn't cure him completely, but they made him better and kept his condition stable. Weak, but stable nevertheless.”

“Wrong answer, master Maelar. Since he stopped taking them he completely recovered.”

She turned to the men and made a sign.

They took Birnac again by his arms and led him to the wall where the grille was placed in a leaning position. Two other men shackled his wrists and ankles and fastened them to the grille, which the four of them then lifted, with Birnac upon it, and laid upon the four stones. Dry grass and twigs were scattered under the grill and set afire. The stones were so high that the flames didn't reach Birnac's back immediately, but he felt the warmth quickly turning into heat.

“Care to change your answer, master Maelar?” the queen asked.

“Your majesty, I swear...”

On a sign of Emelasuntha fine chopped wood was thrown under the grille. The flames began to reach higher.

“No, No... I was forced, your majesty... I was threatened...”

“By who?”

“The Order of the Great Mother, by the First Daughter herself. I could do nothing but obey them. They had learned that I was your son's physician. That I prepared his medicines. They threatened me. They said they would send the Sisterhood after me.”

“You could have come to me. I would have protected you. Besides, I don't believe you. Not entirely. What was your price?”

Since Birnac didn't reply promptly, she again made a sign, and another handful of wood was thrown upon the fire under the grille.

“Stop, stop. Ten thousand rioghal.”

Another sign, another handful of wood.

“And they promised to send high born patients my way.”

“Ten thousand rioghal,” Emelasuntha snarled ominously. “My son's life is worth ten thousand rioghal. Tell me, why? Tell me everything, and I will spare your life.”

“I don't know, Your Majesty, I don't know. Really. She only said she wanted him in a weakened state. Permanently. Alive but weak. Mercy, great queen, I would never have consented in killing your son. Never. I swear.”

“And the last batch?”

“They said they had your consent. That you were momentarily in the impossibility to deliver them to your son yourself, but that you had asked the Sisterhood to do it in your place. They assured me you knew.”

He tried to arch his back to get farther away from the heath.

Emelasuntha kept repeating her few questions over and over again.

“Why, master Maelar, why do they want my son incapacitated?” she asked at last.

She pointed at his head and one of the men threw a few handfuls of wood right under it. The flames leaped up and licked at Birnac's hair. It caught fire almost immediately. He let out an inhuman howl, and the room filled up with a pungent smell. After a few minutes all his hair had burned up, and angry red blisters began forming on his bald scalp.

“Why, master Maelar?” the queen repeated evenly.

“I don't know, I don't know,” Birnac yelled in agony. “I really don't know.”

Finally she was satisfied that she had gotten everything he knew out of him.

“I told you all I know, I swear it,” Birnac yammered.

“Yes, I believe you did, and that makes you instantly valueless. Here is what is going to happen, master Maelar. You're going to die of course. It wouldn't be fair to impose your company on those innocent pigs after all. But take heart, you're not going to die immediately. We'll begin by burning off your feet, and we'll take care to keep you alive while we do it. For a while at least. Then, when finally the fire has consumed your legs and we roast your ass off, you'll maybe die of sheer pain and agony. I hope you don't expect us to return your remains to your family for an honorable burial. I will not even allow your carcass a grave. My men will chop up your charred remains, and give them to the black swine there. They really eat anything, and their jaws and teeth are so strong they can grind your skull and your bones into powder. They're not fussy, they'll devour your flesh. Nothing of you will remain. Eventually you'll end up as what you always were. Swine shit.”

“Emelasuntha, dear...” Sobrathi gulped, exasperated.

“I told you that I would feed whoever did this to the swine,” the Queen replied quietly. “And I swear, if I ever get my hands on the First Daughter, I'll hang the old bitch by her own intestines.”

“Has she taught Anaxantis to hate like this? If so, may the Gods help him. And us.”

On a sign of the queen the men began to throw liberal amounts of wood under Maelar's feet.

“You promised to spare my life, noble queen,” Birnac shouted in desperation at the top of his lungs.

Emelasuntha looked at him and shrugged.

“So, I lied.”

She started walking away as the flames began licking at Birnac's heels.

“Mercy, mercy, great queen, mercy. Kill me. Kill me now,” he cried in excruciation and terror after her.

Emelasuntha turned around and looked down upon him with immeasurable contempt.

“Mercy?” she said softly. “Mercy?”

For a moment she was quiet.

“You harmed my son,” she then roared at him in a voice that made even the blood of her men curdle.

While the stench of burning flesh and loud, high pitched screams of agony began to fill the room, she left the barn without looking back.

“Maybe it would be better if you stayed inside, for the time being,” Anaxantis said. “I didn't like the look of some of the captains last evening.”

“So, he has noticed too,”
Ehandar thought.

“Couldn't I go with you? I would be safe as long as you're with me.”

“I thought we agreed that the point of all this was to prevent awkward rumors from spreading. It would defeat the purpose if you were to tag along all the time. No, I'm afraid it's out of the question.”

Ehandar felt his spirits sink.

“So, what you're saying is that I'm a prisoner here?”

Anaxantis looked at him and embraced him.

“No, of course not. I just want you to be safe. I don't want to have to worry all day long that something might happen to you. Here I can protect you. I'll tell the guards to let nobody in, except for the servants.”

Ehandar looked around and realized that his world had suddenly become very, very small.

“Help yourself to my books,” Anaxantis said while he girded on his sword. “I wish I could stay with you, but I have things to do.”

“Things to do. No further explanation. No use any longer keeping me in the loop, is there?”

When he had put on his mantle, Anaxantis kissed him.

“You were so brave, yesterday,” he said softly. “Oh, and I will think of a new name for you.”

“A new name?”

“Well, you renounced not only your lineage, but also your name. So, you have no name for the moment. In fact, you have nothing to call your own anymore. We should have a name to refer to you in official documents and such.”

“Is this really necessary?” Ehandar asked unhappily.

“I'm afraid so,” Anaxantis replied resolutely.

When he was at the door of the apartment, he turned.

“Listen, when I said to not leave the room, that was only a suggestion. Of course you can do as you like. But I wish you would stay inside. Nevertheless, any time you want, you can leave.”

“Except, you can't,”
he thought.

“No, that's all right. I'll stay here, for the time being,” Ehandar said demoralized.

“All right, then. Sorry, but I have to go.”

Ehandar followed him with his eyes until he closed the door behind him.