Polgara the Sorceress (44 page)

‘He’s my champion, father. He rights wrongs for me, and he chastises anybody who insults me. You’d be amazed at how polite people are to me when he’s around.’ Then I decided to stop beating about the bush. ‘Oh, incidentally, he’s
also
the man I’m going to marry – just as soon as he gets up the nerve to ask me.’

Father’s face grew wary at that point. He knew me well enough not to come down on the wrong side of me. ‘Interesting idea, Pol,’ he said blandly. ‘Why don’t you
send him around so that he and I can get to know each other?’

‘You don’t approve,’ I accused.

‘I didn’t say that, Pol. I just said that I don’t know him. If you’re serious about this, he and I ought to have at least a nodding acquaintance with each other. Have you thought your way completely through this, though? There could be some fairly serious drawbacks, you know.’

‘Such as what?’

‘I’d imagine that there’s quite a difference in your ages, for one thing. How old would you say he is?’

‘He’s grown up, father. He’s over thirty.’

‘That’s nice, but you’re about nine hundred and fifty, aren’t you?’

‘Nine hundred and forty, actually. So what?’

He sighed. ‘You’ll outlive him, Pol. He’ll be old before you’ve turned around twice.’

‘But I’ll be happy, father – or aren’t I supposed to have any happiness?’

‘I was just pointing it out, that’s all. Were you planning to have any children?’

‘Of course.’

‘That’s not really a very good idea, you know. Your children will grow up, get old, and die. You won’t. You’ll go through the same thing you went through when Beldaran died, and that very nearly killed you, as I recall.’

‘Maybe when I get married, my life will become normal. Maybe I’ll grow old, too.’

‘I wouldn’t count on it, Pol. The Mrin Codex has a lot to say about you and what you’ll be doing on down the road.’

‘I’m not going to base my life on the ravings of an idiot, father. Besides, you got married, didn’t you? If it was all right for you, it’s certainly all right for me.’ I deliberately glossed over mother’s peculiarities. ‘Besides, if Ontrose marries me, his life-span might be extended as well.’

‘Why should it? He’s ordinary, and you’re not. His life might
seem
longer, though. You’re not the easiest person in the world to get along with. Unless this Ontrose fellow’s a saint, he’s probably going to have more than his share of bad days.’

‘Why don’t you just keep your nose out of my affairs, Old Man?’

‘Please, Pol. Don’t throw the word “affair” around like that. In this particular case it makes me very nervous.’

‘You know where the gate is, father. Use it – now.’

And that more or less ended the conversation.

The Privy Council of Duke Andrion of Wacune met in an airy room high in one of the towers of the palace one glowing afternoon. Our conference-room was carpeted and draped in a deep maroon, which contrasted nicely with the marble walls, and the massive furniture added that touch of permanence. ‘Our alternatives, it seemeth to me, do grow more scant with the passage of time,’ Duke Andrion said glumly to the rest of us. Duke Andrion was a dark-haired man in his mid-thirties, and he’d only recently ascended to the seat of power in Wacune.
My
presence at a Privy Council meeting in Vo Wacune might seem a bit odd, but I’d seen to it years ago that I was a member of all four Privy Councils in Arendia. I wanted to make sure that no Arendish duke did anything significant without my permission.

‘Truly, your Grace,’ Ontrose agreed with his duke. The Oriman family hath been bent on our destruction for years. I do fear me that war is inevitable.’

‘There
are
alternatives, my Lords,’ I told them quite firmly. ‘Nerasin was at least as great a scoundrel as this endless succession of Garteons, and we managed to bring
him
to his senses.’

‘The Oriman family hath no more sense than honor, Lady Polgara,’ Baron Lathan asserted. Lathan appeared to have recovered from his defeat at the hands of Ontrose during the tournament, and they were friends again. ‘It seemeth to me that Asturia must once again be subdued if the peace is to be kept.’

‘Let’s avoid that if possible, my Lord Lathan,’ I suggested. ‘Let me go talk with Garteon before we start mobilizing armies. Wars are
very
hard on the budget.’

‘Oh, yes!’ Andrion agreed fervently.

Then I looked quickly at Ontrose. ‘No,’ I said firmly.

‘I fail to grasp thy meaning, your Grace,’ he confessed.

‘You can’t go along, Ontrose. I’m going to say some things to Garteon in language I’d rather you didn’t hear.’

‘I cannot permit thee to go unescorted, my Lady.’

‘Permit?’ I asked him ominously.

‘Poor choice of words there, perhaps,’ he admitted.

‘Very poor, Ontrose. You’re a poet, so you shouldn’t stumble over language that way.’ I laid a fond hand on his. ‘I’m only teasing, Ontrose.’ Then I looked at Duke Andrion. ‘Let me talk with Garteon before you start mobilizing, your Grace. His grandfather came around after I spoke with him. Perhaps that tiny bit of good sense runs in the family.’

Baron Lathan looked as if he were about to protest.

‘We can always mobilize the army if I fail, Baron,’ I told him. ‘When we get right down to the bottom of it, the Oriman family’s animosity is directed at
me,
not Wacune. I’ve been disrupting Asturian scheming for a long time, and I intend to continue. Wacune and Erat are like brother and sister, so Garteon knows that if he attacks Wacune, I’ll attack him. Luring me into war is probably his main goal. Since this is really a squabble between Garteon and me, it’s best if he and I settle it with a private little chat.’

‘We shall be guided by thee, your Grace,’ Andrion said.

‘Excellent decision, your Grace,’ I complimented him.

I went to Asturia in the usual way and snooped around Vo Astur for almost a week, but I couldn’t find so much as a trace of Garteon. I loitered unobserved in the grey hallways, hoping to catch some hints about his location, but the Asturian nobility seemed totally uninformed as to his whereabouts. I flew on to look around at the estates of the members of the Oriman family, but he wasn’t at any of them. I even went so far as to snoop around in several outlaw encampments back in the forest. Still no Garteon. Quite clearly, the Duke of Asturia had gone down a hole somewhere. Surely there was
someone
in Asturia who knew where he was, but whoever that someone was, he wasn’t talking about it. Since Arends are constitutionally incapable of keeping a secret for more than a few hours I began to catch a strong odor of Grolim in the whole business.

I wasn’t in a very good humor when I finally threw up my hands in defeat and flew back to Vo Wacune to report
my failure to my friends in the palace. After some discussion, I glumly agreed that mobilization for war was the only course of action open to us at this point. ‘I’ll keep trying, though, gentlemen,’ I assured the little gathering. ‘Sooner or later, Garteon’s going to have to come out of hiding. He’s made me a bit peevish, and I’d like to talk with him about that – at length.’

Then Ontrose escorted me back to my town house, and we had a quiet supper. About the only good thing about my failure in Vo Astur was the fact that it persuaded my handsome champion that I was
not
omnipotent.

After supper, we adjourned to my rose-garden. I needed the peace of that lovely spot to calm my nerves.

‘I do sense thy discontent, my Lady,’ Ontrose sympathized.

‘It’s a bit more than discontent, dear friend,’ I said wryly. ‘Evidently, I’ve had too many years of easy successes, and failure upsets my opinion of myself.’

He smiled faintly, but then he sighed. ‘On the morrow I fear me that, with thy permission, I must go north into thy domain. If Wacune doth mobilize, then Erat must needs follow. Given two armies, I have a few fears as to the outcome of the current unpleasantness.’

I nodded. ‘I’ll draw up a warrant for you to take to Malon Killaneson, my seneschal up in Erat. He’ll open my treasury for you. Please treat my people kindly, dear Ontrose. Feed them well and train them to defend themselves.’

‘Thou art ever the mother, dear Lady.’

I shrugged. ‘It seems that way,’ I agreed. ‘It must have something to do with my own mother’s side of the family – but we don’t really need to go into that.’

Then I saw something familiar in the night sky. ‘You’re late,’ I said.

‘I?’ Ontrose said in puzzlement.

‘No, Ontrose, not you. I was talking to my old friend up there.’ I pointed out the smeary light of the comet pasted against the stars on the velvet throat of night. ‘He usually appears in the late winter, but it’s almost summer now.’

“Thou hast seen this marvel before?’ he asked.

‘Many times, Ontrose, many times.’ I made a quick
mental computation. ‘Thirteen times actually. I was fourteen the first time I saw him. He comes by for a visit every seventy-one years.’

Ontrose also made some calculations, and his eyes went very wide.

‘Don’t let it upset you, dear Ontrose,’ I told him. ‘People in my family tend to live for a long time, that’s all. It’s just a trait – like dark hair or a long nose.’

‘It seemeth to me that the casual dismissal of nine centuries of life as a mere family peculiarity doth stretch the boundaries of the meaning of that term, Lady Polgara.’

‘The secret to longevity lies in keeping busy, Ontrose – and avoiding fights with people who’re bigger than you are, of course.’ I thought back. ‘I think my fourteenth summer came in one of those years I spent in my Tree,’ I reminisced. ‘My sister and I were having an argument about my father, and I was feeling sulky. I lived in my Tree for a couple of years to punish her.’ I laughed. ‘Children can be so ridiculous at times.’

‘Thou hast a sister? I had not heard of that.’

‘She died – many, many years ago. Her name was Beldaran, and we were twins. She was much prettier than I am.’

‘Say not so, my dear Lady,’ he protested. ‘Thou art the paramount beauty in all this world, and I shall prove the fact upon the body of any foolish enough to gainsay my words.’

‘Flatterer,’ I said, touching his cheek fondly.

‘To speak the truth is not flattery, my Lady.’

‘To exaggerate
is
, though. I certainly wasn’t all that pretty the first time my friend up there paid me a visit. My sister was so beautiful that I just gave up and let myself go to seed, so to speak. I was awkward and gangly and not really very clean – unless a passing rain-storm had just washed off most of the dirt. After my sister’s betrothal, I cleaned myself up. We were sixteen then, so after I scrubbed off the dirt and combed my hair, I was moderately presentable. My sister was betrothed to Riva Iron-grip, King of the Isle of the Winds, and after we sailed to his realm, I entertained myself by breaking hearts for a while.’

‘I must admit that I do not follow thee, dear Lady,’ he confessed.

‘Oh, dear,’ I laughed. ‘You
are
an innocent, aren’t you, Ontrose? That’s what young girls do, didn’t you know that? We wear our prettiest dresses and ribbons, put on our most winsome expressions, and then go forth to do war. Our enemies are all the other pretty girls in the vicinity, and our battleground is the collective hearts of all the young men within reach.’ I gave him an arch look. ‘Be very careful around me, dear boy,’ I warned him. ‘I could break your heart with a single flutter of my eyelashes.’

‘Why wouldst thou wish to shatter that which is already wholly thine, dear Lady?’ he asked, and I sensed a certain subterfuge in his carefully phrased question. Ontrose was obviously not
quite
as innocent as he seemed to be. This was moving along even better than I’d hoped. Ontrose obviously no longer looked at me as an institution. We were definitely making progress now.

‘Be warned, my champion,’ I bantered. ‘Methinks I shall unlimber mine entire arsenal upon thine unprotected heart. Defend thyself as best thou canst.’

I think my lapse into formality startled him just a bit. ‘Thou wouldst take so unfair an advantage of me, Lady Polgara?’ he chided lightly. ‘Fie! For shame! Must I now defend thy realm ‘gainst the Asturians and mine own heart ‘gainst thine unspeakable charm simultaneous? I have no fears concerning the Asturians. Mine heart’s fortress, however, doth already crumble before thine onslaughts, and I do fear me that I must inevitably capitulate and submit to this gentle enslavement which thou dost propose.’

I laid my hand on his arm. ‘Well put, my Lord,’ I complimented him. ‘Very well put indeed. We shall talk about this more anon.’ And then he took my hand and gently kissed it.

It was a bit flowery, but it was a start. The ladies who read this will understand, of course, but I don’t think the men will. That’s all right, though – as long as
somebody
understands.

The peace I’d imposed on Arendia had been based on the brutal fact that as soon as one of the duchies began to show signs of restiveness, the other three would lock into an alliance to counter its waywardness. The core of the problem
this
time was the senility of Duke Moratham of Mimbre. By now, he’d been placed in the care of a nurse who babied him like the child he’d become. The governance of the duchy was in the hands of a cluster of nobles who were far more interested in out-maneuvering each other than they were in the good of Arendia as a whole. I made several attempts to explain the realities of Arendish politics and the benefits to all of the ongoing peace to them, but they were too short-sighted and too caught up in their own chicanery to understand. I think that if their capital had been located in central Mimbre, they might have come around, but, since Vo Mimbre stands on the extreme southern border of Arendia, events in the three northern duchies might as well have been happening on the far side of the moon. Despite my best efforts, Mimbre distanced itself from the rest of us and took up a stance of strict neutrality.

I had some suspicions about the source of this Mimbrate policy. Over the centuries, many in the kingdoms of the west have viewed my family’s conviction that the Angaraks were behind most of the disruptions on our side of the Eastern Escarpment as an obsession. Perhaps we
are
a bit too quick to lay blame at Angarak doors, but when we’re talking about Arendia, our suspicions are fully justified. Arendia has always been the key to the Angarak design to disrupt the west. Ctuchik was absolutely convinced that if he set fire to Arendia, the entire west would soon go up in flames. Unfortunately, Arendia’s always been a tinder-box that’ll take fire if you so much as look at it.

Ontrose went north into my realm to oversee the mobilization of my people. Though I certainly realized the necessity for that, I sorely missed him. I dreamt about him every night and thought about him just about every moment while I was awake. I made frequent trips to my duchy – more than were necessary, actually – but I
was
the Duchess of Erat, after all. Wasn’t it my duty to keep an eye on things?

The armies of Wacune and Erat were not really separate, since the two duchies were so closely linked. Baron Lathan commanded Andrion’s forces, and Ontrose commanded mine, but all our major strategic decisions grew out of extended conferences in either Andrion’s palace or my manor house on Lake Erat. We were all very close anyway, so we moved as a unit.

By the summer of 2942, everything was in place. Our combined armies significantly outnumbered anything Garteon III could muster, and if he so much as stepped across either of our borders, we could easily crush him like an irritating bug.

‘All is now in readiness,’ Ontrose reported to Andrion and me when he made one of his all too infrequent journeys to Vo Wacune in the late summer of that year. The army of Erat doth stand poised on the north bank of the River Camaar within striking distance of Vo Astur itself. Should Garteon move his forces across the Wacite border, I will surely smash his capital. Barring the unforeseen, events have reached a stalemate. Methinks we and the Asturians will glare at each other across the various borders for some several seasons, and then we may confidently expect peace overtures from Vo Astur. The Oriman family is not wellliked by the other noble houses of Asturia, and I should not be at all surprised should Garteon III e’en as his grandfather, find his way to some high window in his palace and take flight from that vantage-point to the courtyard beneath.’

‘Nicely put, my Lord Ontrose,’ Andrion complimented him.

‘I
am
a poet after all, your Grace,’ Ontrose replied modestly. ‘Facility with language hath ever been a part of my nature.’

Following our conference with Andrion, my champion and I returned to my town house. At supper we discussed some rather obscure and difficult points of philosophy, and I was once again struck by the depth of this remarkable man’s understanding. I’d have very much liked to have introduced him to uncle Beldin and then sat back to watch the sparks fly. I knew that if my plans worked out, that
day would eventually come, and the prospect of introducing this paragon to my family was pleasing. My father and my uncles all lack a certain polish, and Ontrose, poet, philosopher, courtly gentleman, and the mightiest knight alive, was so polished that he almost glowed in the dark. Of all our Master’s original disciples, only Belmakor could have matched his urbane civility – or so my father tells me.