Polgara the Sorceress (41 page)

By 2350, however, age was beginning to creep up on him. His hair was a kind of sandy grey now, and his hearing was failing him. He took to using a staff to aid his faltering steps and an ear-trumpet to hear with. Increasingly, my visits to my lakeside estate became medical house-calls. I restricted his diet to some degree and stirred up compounds of some fairly exotic herbs to control an increasing number of infirmities. ‘You’re falling apart, Killane,’ I shouted into his ear-trumpet on one such visit in the autumn of 2352. ‘Why didn’t you take better care of yourself?’

‘Who’d a thought I was gonna live s’ long, Lady-O?’ he said with a rueful expression. ‘Nobody in me family’s ever lived past fifty, an’ here I am at sixty-eight. I should o’ bin in me grave twenty years ago, don’t y’ know.’ Then he squinted at the ceiling. ‘When y’ git right down t’ it, though, in th’ rest o’ me family, gettin’ killed in a tavern brawl is what y’ might call dyin’ of natural causes, but I ain’t been in a good brawl since th’ day I first laid eyes on yer Grace.
Y’ve gone an’ spoilt me entire life, Lady Polgara. Aren’t y’ after bein’ ashamed o’ yerself ?’

‘Not very much, Killane,’ I told him. ‘I think you’d better start dropping some of your duties in the laps of whichever of your relatives seems competent. You’re not getting enough rest, and you’re spending too much time worrying about petty little things. Let somebody else take care of the little ones. You save yourself for the big ones.’

‘I ain’t dead yet, Lady-O,’ he insisted. ‘I kin still carry me own end.’

And he did – for another two years. Then a number of things which had been creeping up on him pounced all at once, and I hovered over his sick-bed for several months. I sent word to Alleran asking him to make my apologies to the other dukes that summer. I was not going to leave my friend even for the annual meeting of the Arendish Council.

It was about midnight on a blustery autumn night when Rana shook me awake. ‘Himself wants t’ see y’, yer Grace,’ she said, ‘an’ I’m after thinkin’ y’d better hurry right along, don’t y’ know.’

I hastily pulled on my robe and followed her through the empty halls to the sick-room.

‘Ah, there y’ are, Lady-O,’ the dying man said in a weak voice. ‘Go along w’ y’ now, Rana. There’s somethin’ I’ll be after wantin’ t’ tell our Lady that y’ don’t need t’ hear.’

His youngest sister kissed him gently and then sadly left the room.

‘Now, don’t y’ be buttin’ in on me, Lady-O,’ Killane admonished me. ‘There’s somethin’ I’m after wantin’ t’ get off me chest, an’ I want t’ spit it out before I pull th’ dirt over me fer th’ long sleep. You an’ me, we’ve come a long way t’gether, an’ we ain’t never beaten about th’ bush when we had somethin’ t’ say, so I’ll come right out wi’ it. It might not seem proper, but I’m goin’ t’ say this anyway. I love y’, Polgara, an’ I’ve loved y’ since th’ first time I set eyes on’ y’. There. I’ve said it, an’ now I can sleep.’

I kissed the dear man gently on the forehead. ‘And I love you too, Killane,’ I said, and he somehow seemed to hear me.

‘Ah, an’ aren’t y’ th’ darlin’ girl t’ say so?’ he murmured.

I sat at the bedside of my dear friend holding his hand, and I continued to hold it for quite some time after he’d died. Then, with tears of gentle regret streaming down my cheeks I folded his hands on his chest and pulled the sheet up over his peaceful face.

We buried him in a small grove of trees near the top of the meadow the next day, and the wind, seeming almost to share our sorrow, sighed in the evergreen trees on the hillside above us.

Killane was gone, but he’d left me a rich legacy. We hadn’t really planned it that way, but his extended family, almost without my knowing it, had become my hereditary retainers as generation followed generation in my service. There was a comfortable continuity about that. They all knew me, since I’d personally delivered most of them when their mothers had gone into labor. Mine had been the first hands that had ever touched them, and that automatically brought us closer. They knew me, and they’d been raised and trained from childhood to enter my service.

The benefits of the arrangement worked both ways, since continuity’s very important to someone in my peculiar situation. As Killane himself might have put it, ‘If yer after plannin’ t’ live ferever, yer bound t’ git lonesome once in a while, don’t y’ know.’ My hereditary retainers, both in my house in Vo Wacune and in my country estate on Lake Erat, filled in that enormous gap that the mortality of loved ones always brings into our lives.

Most of my original vassals had also died by the time that the century wound down toward the year 2400, and their successors had somehow learned better manners. The threat of what was wryly called ‘Nerasin’s complaint’ in most of Arendia hovered over their heads, and even though they might disagree with some of my social innovations, they were prudent enough to keep their objections to themselves. The fact that their former serfs were no longer bound to the land in de facto slavery encouraged them to be polite to their workers as well – particularly after a fair number of cruel, arrogant landholders discovered that they had no workers when harvest time rolled around and they were obliged to stand helplessly watching while their crops rotted in the fields. I like to think that I might have played some small part in establishing that polite civility which is
so characteristic of the archetypal Sendar. Experimenting with societies is a very engrossing pastime, wouldn’t you say?

What I did in my duchy was quite deliberate, but what happened in Vo Wacune was almost an accident. I spent a great deal of my time there at the palace, since my position almost demanded that I immerse myself in politics. Politics, however, is a male preoccupation, and there were days when I wanted to be with women. Occasionally, I’d invite certain selected young ladies to my town house so that we could discuss matters that men simply wouldn’t understand. As I’d observed earlier, Arendish ladies were – on the surface at least – a giddy, seemingly brainless group, interested only in fashions, gossip, and snagging suitable husbands. There
were,
however, Arendish ladies who had something between their ears besides fluff. Asrana had been a perfect example of that peculiarity. I winnowed my way through the court of the Duke of Wacune and skimmed off the best and brightest young ladies and, by carefully manipulating the seemingly random conversations in my library or my rose garden, I began to educate them. It’s always a delight to watch the awakening of a mind, and after a while the random discussions at my house turned away from current fashions and empty gossip to more serious matters. My informal ‘ladies academy’ produced quite a few women who had a significant impact on Wacite political and social life. Women instinctively know how to gently guide and direct their husbands, and my little school subtly modified some things I heartily disapproved of.

We’d gather in my rose garden or on the terrace in the evenings as the stars came out. We’d eat chilled fruit my kitchen boy brought us, and we’d listen as the nightingales sang as if their hearts were breaking. And, since I’d gathered most of the more beautiful and interesting young women at court, the young men would come to the street outside my house and serenade us from just beyond the walls in clear tenor voices that dripped with longing. There are worse ways to spend an evening.

The twenty-fifth century was a time of relative peace in Arendia. There were occasional little brush-fires, of course,
usually involving long-standing feuds between neighboring barons, but the Arendish dukes, applying sweet reason and the threat of overwhelming force, were able to smother the flames with only minimal help from me. I
did
make one suggestion, though, that seemed to be very effective. A vassal is obliged to provide his lord with warriors whenever the lord calls for them. The dukes found that peace would break out almost immediately when feuding barons were neatly stripped of all able-bodied men by the calling in of that obligation.

The world was moving on beyond the borders of Arendia. The raids along the Tolnedran coast by Cherek pirates continued through the twenty-fifth century, long after the reason behind them had been forgotten. No one even remembered Maragor, but the Chereks, those most elemental Alorns, continued to sack and burn Tolnedran coastal cities while piously explaining their barbarism by saying that they were simply following Belar’s orders. All that ended rather abruptly with the ascension of the first Borune dynasty to the imperial throne in Tol Honeth in the year 2537. Ran Borune I was far more competent than had been his predecessors of the second Vorduvian dynasty. He rousted his slothful legions out of their comfortable garrison in Tol Honeth and put them to work building the highway that runs from the mouth of the Nedrane River north to Tol Vordue. The construction put legion encampments all along the coast within easy reach of the traditional Cherek targets, and the Cherek freebooters began to encounter much stiffer resistance when they came ashore. It was about that point that the Chereks decided that they’d fulfilled their religious obligations and that it was time to go find someplace else to play.

Since Ran Borune was the first of his family to occupy the imperial throne, his palace still crawled with left-over Vorduvians whose characters covered the spectrum from the near side of rascalism to the far boundaries of outright criminality. The Vorduvians had been much impressed with Ctuchik’s elaborate scheme early in the twenty-fourth century. The ongoing Arendish civil wars had given the Vorduvians all sorts of opportunities to make obscene
profits – largely in the arms trade. What was known in Arendia as ‘Polgara’s Peace’ dried up their markets, and my name was routinely cursed from Tol Vordue to Tol Horb and Tol Honeth. The Borunes were a southern family, so they were not in a geographical position to be much involved in the arms trade in Arendia, so Ran Borune saw no real reason to fall in with some of the more exotic solutions to the problem suggested by the Vorduvians, the Horbites, and the Honethites.

It must have been in about 2560, after the Chereks had decided that raiding the Tolnedran coast wasn’t fun anymore, that a cabal of those three families decided to stir things up in Arendia. They approached the then current duke of Mimbre, a young fellow named Salereon, and opened that box which I’d assumed had been permanently nailed shut. They began by addressing Salereon as ‘your Majesty’ and explained that by saying that since Mimbre was the largest of the four duchies, the Duke of Mimbre was in reality the king of all Arendia – just as soon as he got around to annexing the rest of us. Fortunately, my careful training of the Arendish dukes took over at that point. Salereon, accompanied by only a few retainers, rode north and arrived at my manor house in the late spring to discuss the business.

‘Methought I should consult with thee ere I embarked upon this venture, your Grace,’ he said earnestly when the two of us were alone in my library. Salereon was a nice boy, but fearfully dense. In a way, he was actually asking my permission to declare war on me. I wasn’t sure whether to explode in rage or to laugh in his face. Instead, I carefully – and slowly – explained what his Tolnedran ‘friends’ were trying to accomplish.

‘I do confess that I had not considered that, your Grace,’ he admitted. ‘I had thought that, since the reasoning of the Tolnedran emissaries seemed so sound, it might have been the course of wisdom to present the matter to the Arendish Council at our meeting this very summer. It was my thought that once I had clarified the matter for thee and my dear brothers of Wacune and Asturia, I might be declared King of Arendia by general consent, thereby
avoiding any disruption of our cordial relations.’ He was actually sincere!

‘Oh, dear,’ I said.

‘I do perceive that thou hast found some flaw in this most excellent proposal,’ he said, looking slightly surprised.

‘Dear, dear Salereon,’ I said as gently as I could, ‘what would you say if Nanteron of Wacune or Lendrin of Asturia came to the meeting this summer, each declaring that
he
was the natural bom King of Arendia?’

‘I should immediately surmise that they had taken leave of their senses, Lady Polgara. Such declarations would be absurd.’ Then the sunrise of understanding began to dawn – faintly – in his eyes. He looked a bit sheepish. ‘Bad decision there, wot?’ he suggested.

I impulsively embraced the startled young duke. ‘Your decision to bring this to me before you dropped the matter on the council table verged on sheer genius, however, Salereon,’ I complimented him.

‘That characterization hath not been applied to me previously, my lady,’ he admitted. ‘It seemeth to me that mine understanding might be somewhat deficient. Such being the case, mayhap I should be guided by thee in this.’

That’s another good decision, your Grace. You’re getting better at this.’ I considered it. ‘I think I’ll call in Nanteron and Lendrin,’ I mused. ‘Maybe this year we should hold the meeting of the Arendish Council here, instead of at the fair. I’ll take steps to keep Tolnedrans away while the four of us talk this out. Let’s keep the Arendish Council meeting in the family this time.’

Within the week, Nanteron of Wacune and Lendrin of Asturia arrived. I took them individually aside and threatened them with all sorts of horrors if they so much as cracked a smile when I announced the full extent of Salereon’s mental deficiencies. I’m sure they got my point.

After we’d discussed the matter at some length, I decided that the best way to keep the Vorduvians, the Honeths, and the Horbites from meddling in Arendish internal affairs would be to place the whole business before Ran Borune I himself, and I volunteered to go to Tol Honeth and have a little chat with his Imperial Majesty in person.

I decided to skip over all the tedious formalities that would normally precede such a meeting and flew south to Tol Honeth. It took me a day or so of fluttering around the extensive grounds of the imperial compound until I found an opportunity simply too good to pass up. As it turned out, Ran Borune and I shared a hobby. The first of the Borunes was as passionate as I was about roses, and he spent several hours each day in his garden. I settled on a tree limb there and resumed my own form while he was carefully examining a somewhat sickly rose-bush.

‘I think it needs more fertilizer, your Majesty,’ I suggested quite calmly.

He spun around with a startled oath. He was a small man, even for a Tolnedran, and his gold mantle, the badge of his rank, seemed just a bit showy for the task in which he was engaged.

‘Help me down, if you would please, your Majesty, and I’ll have a look at the poor thing,’ I said pleasantly.

‘Who are you?’ he demanded, ‘and how did you get past the guards?’

‘You probably know my father, Ran Borune,’ I replied. ‘He’s a seedy-looking old fellow with white whiskers and a tendency to tell people what to do. He’s been acquainted with your family for about five centuries now.’

‘You mean Belgarath?’

That’s him.’

‘That would mean that you’re Polgara, the Duchess of Erat.’

‘Exactly. I thought it might be best if we spoke privately. Would you give me a hand, please. A tree limb’s not the most dignified place to perch while one’s discussing matters of state.’

He helped me down, and his eyes were a little wild.

I looked at his sickly rose-bush. ‘Bury a dead fish in amongst its roots, Ran Borune,’ I advised. ‘You planted it a little too close to that overhanging roof. The rain water’s been leaching all the nutrients out of the soil. You might give some thought to moving it next winter after it’s gone dormant. Now then, there’s something going on that you ought to know about. The Vorduvians, Honeths, and
Horbites are meddling in Arendish affairs, and we’d like to have them stop it.’

His look became exasperated. ‘What are they up to
now?’
he demanded.

They approached Duke Salereon of Mimbre and filled his head with royal ambitions. The poor boy was completely taken in by their flattery, and he was right on the verge of declaring himself the king of all Arendia. That would have re-started the Arendish civil wars almost immediately. I’ve spent a great deal of time and effort imposing peace on Arendia, and I’d really like to keep things up there quiet.’

‘Those
idiots
!’ he exploded.

‘My sentiments exactly, your Majesty. Your northern nobles are a greedy lot, and they’re involved in the arms trade. Peace in Arendia’s cutting into their profits, so they’re trying to stir things up. I’m going to do something rather radical about it, and I thought I ought to let you know why I need to take those steps.’

‘You’re going to invade northern Tolnedra?’ He said it with a certain enthusiasm.

‘No, Ran Borune,’ I replied. ‘I won’t violate your borders. I’m going to close mine instead. The dukes of Arendia will do exactly as I tell them to do, so I’m going to close all our borders to Tolnedrans for a while.’

His face went dead white at that.

‘Only for a year or so, your Majesty,’ I assured him – ‘just long enough to get my point across to the Honeths, Horbites, and Vorduvians. It won’t
quite
bankrupt them, but it’ll come close. It won’t have much effect on the Borunes, the Anadiles, or the Ranites, since you’re all in southern Tolnedra, but it’ll definitely have an impact on the northern Tolnedrans. I’m going to keep them from tampering with the peace agreements in Arendia, and this is the best way I can think of to get their attention. I want them to bang their heads against those closed borders for a while and to try living without the profits they’re bleeding out of Arendia. I think they’ll come around after a while, don’t you?’