Read The Invisible Hands - Part 1: Gambit for Free Online

wouldn't be easy.
    The Deynarr kinship didn't even have an honorific third name. The Tembars, one of the oldest and most venerable around, had three.
    4
They used only one though, Brannicall. Apparently one of their forebears must have had a hook nose. They could have attached the honorific Tanavaro to their name ever since a Tembar led the successful siege against Tanava, but they didn't. Except at solemn occasions like births, funerals, marriages and such.
    That was very clever, Riathona thought. Everybody knew they could, but since they didn't, it almost drew more attention to their kinship's accomplishments than if they had.
    Nothing like that in the past of the Deynarrs, who were merely respectable in a thoroughly unremarkable way. Through the centuries they hadn't produced one senator as yet. Her husband would be the first, she hoped, so that her son would automatically enter the Senate when he reached the required age.
    Her own kinship she wanted to forget, or at least keep in the background as much as possible. Though they did have a third honorific, Soranzia. It was hardly something to be proud of, as it proclaimed their original provenance, the city of Soranza, thus advertising they had been immigrants at some point in time. She never used her full name, Alla Riatho Soranzia. The last one who had called her Alla, was her late father who had given it to her to begin with. It meant ‘the fourth,’ although she was an only child. It seemed early Rhonomans had numbered their children after the second or so. Luckily, except in the family and among very close friends it was never used. She herself preferred the traditional way of calling a person by his or her kinship name.
    It didn't matter. Her son was a Deynarr, and one day he would inherit all that entailed. So she'd better concentrate on the advancement of her easy-going, unambitious husband.
    This letter complicated things. A poor branch of the Riatho kinship, a branch that, until recently, she hadn't been aware existed had come from hard times on even harder ones. Sickness and bad luck had 4
thinned the family out. All that remained was a young man of seventeen and his grandfather. The young man had lost his parents, a younger brother and the miserable hovel they lived in. He had found temporary refuge with his grandfather, who hadn't the means to keep supporting him.
    A strange story, to say the least. If the young man was seventeen, surely, he was old enough to work, wasn't he? The grandfather must love him though. He seemed to be in dire straits himself, and as head of the kinship he could have sold his grandson. Granted, it was frowned upon in Rhonoma, but perfectly legal and certainly not unheard of. In those backward villages, the practice must be common.
    Instead, he was looking for a safe place for the boy.
    Of course, she hadn't accepted the story at face value. She had looked through the kinship records, and had indeed found traces of a younger brother who had left Rhonoma for the little town of Marovi five generations ago. Then she had asked for a genealogical record from the town officials. That seemed to pan out, which was, at least, troublesome.
    There were a few things to consider. To begin with there was the duty to one's kinship. It wouldn't do to let word get around that the Rhiatos neglected their poor relatives. For that matter, she'd as soon have it not known that there was such a thing as a poor Rhiato. What if the wretched boy decided to come to the City and prostitute himself?
    She shuddered at the thought. No, that wouldn't do at all.
    On the other hand, the young man could hardly expect that she would give him a free ride, could he? Not that she minded another mouth to feed, another body to clothe, or another mind to educate.
    Money was no object. It was a matter of principle.
    Her thoughts turned to Yorn, her son, and immediately her features mollified. He was a tad lonely, shunned as he was by some of his peers. Well, that would end