The Invisible Hands - Part 1: Gambit by Andrew Ashling

the last.”
    “Oh, Father wouldn’t mind an affair. He does mind me wanting to marry her. I wrote him we were engaged.”
    “I see. Ambitious fathers can be a pain in the, eh, neck,” Anaxantis commiserated.
    “I have three younger brothers, so it’s not as if he needs me to continue the House of Tarnwood. That made his decision all the easier, I suppose. Anyway, I’ll be out of your hair soon.”
    “Where were you planning to go? To your future in-laws maybe?”
    Eynurm grinned lopsided.
    “Not likely. She dumped me as soon as I told her Father had disinherited me. She’s seeing a rich merchant’s son now.”
0
“I’m so sorry,” Anaxantis said, for want of more substantial help.
    “Well, maybe the old man was right after all. Whatever. My allowance won’t be coming next month. I must look for a place to stay, since I’m not welcome anymore in what used to be my home.”
    Just for one moment Anaxantis thought Eynurm might cry.
    “I have no money of my own. I suppose I’ll need work. It’s not how I pictured my future,” the page said miserably.
    At that moment the door opened and Arranulf and Obyann entered.
    “You’re taking the curly one,” Obyann said. “He gets on my nerves.”
    “Everybody and everything gets on your nerves, Ramaldah,“ Arranulf replied philosophically.
    “Yeah, well—”
    “Come in, guys, no need whatsoever to knock as civilized people would do. You’re at home, after all,” Anaxantis interrupted them in a biting tone.
    “Oh, yes, sorry, Anaxantis,” the young duke of Landemere said.
    Then he saw Eynurm. “I mean, My Lord,” he corrected himself.
    Anaxantis looked imploringly at the ceiling.
    Eynurm nodded at the two new arrivals.
    “Your Graces,” he said.
    “It’s us, Tarnwood,” Obyann said. “Remember us?”
    “Of course, but I thought, since you’ve been knighted you’re no longer pages, and propriety—”
    “Nobody cares about all that, Tarnwood. Nobody cares,” Obyann said offhandedly.
0
Arranulf smiled at Eynurm. Anaxantis looked questioningly at him.
    “Do you mind?” he asked.
    “It will be all over the pages’ barracks soon enough,” Eynurm shrugged.
    Anaxantis explained the situation.
    “Major bummer, Tarnwood,” Obyann said after the prince had told them. “Maybe the soup won’t be eaten as hot as it is served.”
    Eynurm gave him a confused look.
    “It’s something they say in Ramaldah,” Arranulf explained. “It means—”
    “He knows what it means, Landemere,” Obyann snarled. “Anyway, what kind of father does that to his child? To his son, no less?”
    “Mine, apparently,” Eynurm said despondently.
    Obyann snorted with contempt.
    “So, you have nowhere to go, no special obligations and you need gainful employment?” Arranulf said pensively. “As it happens, Obyann and I were discussing that being masters of pages is too much of a job for just the two of us. There are over a hundred forty by now, you know?”
    Obyann looked at him indignantly.
    “We discussed nothing of the kind, Landemere,” he fumed. “Have your weak, degenerate brains turned completely into porridge? We can manage just fine. Certainly with four head pages instead of two, although the little ones will prove to be completely useless at best and a hindrance more likely, but so, what else is new?”
    Arranulf coughed discreetly.
0
“Think again, Ramaldah. Weren’t we saying, just before we came
    in, how we could use a third master of pages? To help us? Surely you remember how worried we were that Anaxantis would refuse us, since master of pages is a paid office, that comes with lodgings at the castle?”
    Obyann suddenly understood.
    “Ah, yes, I seem to remember us tossing a few ideas like that around.”
    “Gentlemen,” Anaxantis intervened. “Have I understood what you’re saying? Only a few days ago I knighted you, appointed you joint masters of pages, you still have to move into your new quarters, and you’re already extorting