‘A Demon Lord?’ Garion asked him.
‘That’s a very good way to describe him, your Majesty. If the rumors are true, the demon Nahaz has almost unlimited power.’
‘I was afraid you were going to say that.’
Later, when they were back out in the street, Garion looked curiously at Silk. ‘Why didn’t you object when he burned those documents?’ he asked.
‘It’s standard practice.’ The rat-faced man shrugged. ‘We never keep anything in writing. Dolmar has everything committed to memory.’
‘Doesn’t that make it fairly easy for him to steal from you?’
‘Of course, but he keeps his thievery within reasonable limits. If the Bureau of Taxation got its hands on written records, though, it could be a disaster. Do you want to go back to the palace now?’
Garion took out his list. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to take care of this first.’ He looked glumly at the sheet. ‘I wonder how we’re going to carry it all.’
Silk glanced back over his shoulder at the two unobtrusive spies trailing along behind them. ‘Help is only a few paces away.’ He laughed. ‘As I said before, there are many uses for policemen.’
During the next several days, Garion discovered that the imperial palace at Mal Zeth was unlike any court in the West. Since all power rested in Zakath’s hands, the bureaucrats and palace functionaries contested with each other for Emperor’s favor and strove with oftentimes wildly complicated plots to discredit their enemies. The introduction of Silk, Velvet, and Sadi into this murky environment added whole new dimensions to palace intrigue. The trio rather casually pointed out the friendship between Garion and Zakath and let it be generally known that they had the Rivan King’s complete trust. Then they sat back to await developments.
The officials and courtiers in the imperial palace were quick to grasp the significance and the opportunities implicit in this new route to the Emperor’s ear. Perhaps even without formally discussing it, the trio of westerners neatly divided up the possible spheres of activity. Silk concentrated his attention on commercial matters, Velvet dabbled in politics, and Sadi delicately dipped his long-fingered hands into the world of high-level crime. Though each of them subtly let it be known that they were susceptible to bribery, they also expressed a willingness to pass along various requests in exchange for information. Thus, almost by accident, Garion found that he had a very efficient espionage apparatus at his disposal. Silk and Velvet manipulated the fears, ambitions, and open greed of those who contacted them with a musicianlike skill, delicately playing the increasingly nervous officials like well-tuned instruments. Sadi’s methods, derived from this extensive experience in Salmissra’s court, were in some instances even more subtle, but in others, painfully direct. The contents of his red leather case brought premium prices, and several high-ranking criminals, men who literally owned whole platoons of bureaucrats and even generals, quite suddenly died under suspicious circumstances—one of them even toppling over with a blackened face and bulging eyes in the presence of the Emperor himself.
Zakath, who had watched the activities of the three with a certain veiled amusement, drew the line at that point. He spoke quite firmly with Garion about the matter during their customary evening meeting on the following day.
‘I don’t really mind what they’re doing, Garion,’ he said, idly stroking the head of an orange kitten who lay purring in his lap. ‘They’re confusing all the insects who scurry around in the dark corners of the palace, and a confused bug can’t consolidate his position. I like to keep all these petty bootlickers frightened and off balance, since it makes it easier to control them. I really must object to poison, however. It’s far too easy for an unskilled poisoner to make mistakes.’
‘Sadi could poison one specific person at a banquet with a hundred guests,’ Garion assured him.
‘I have every confidence in his ability,’ Zakath agreed, ‘but the trouble is that he’s not doing the actual poisoning himself. He’s selling his concoctions to rank amateurs. There are some people here in the palace that I need. Their identities are general knowledge, and that keeps the daggers out of their entrails. A mistake with some poison, however, could wipe out whole branches of my government. Could you ask him not to sell any more of it here in the palace? I’d speak to him personally, but I don’t want it to seem like an official reprimand.’
‘I’ll have to talk with him,’ Garion promised.
‘I’d appreciate it, Garion.’ The Emperor’s eyes grew sly. ‘Just the poisons, though. I find the effects of some of his other compounds rather amusing. Just yesterday, I saw an eighty-five-year-old general in hot pursuit of a young chambermaid. The old fool hasn’t had that kind of thoughts for a quarter of a century. And the day before that, the Chief of the Bureau of Public Works—a pompous ass who makes me sick just to look at him—tried for a solid half hour in front of dozens of witnesses to walk up the side of a building. I haven’t laughed so hard in years.’
‘Nyissan elixirs do strange things to people.’ Garion smiled. ‘I’ll ask Sadi to confine his dealings to recreational drugs.’
‘Recreational drugs,’ Zakath laughed. ‘I like that description.’
‘I’ve always had a way with words,’ Garion replied modestly.
The orange kitten rose, yawned, and jumped down from the Emperor’s lap. The mackerel-tabby mother cat promptly caught a black and white kitten by the scruff of the neck and deposited it exactly where the orange one had been lying. Then she looked at Zakath’s face and meowed questioningly.
‘Thank you,’ Zakath murmured to her.
Satisfied, the cat jumped down, caught the orange kitten, and began to bathe it, holding it down with one paw.
‘Does she do that all the time?’ Garion asked.
Zakath nodded. ‘She’s busy being a mother, but she doesn’t want me to get lonely.’
‘That’s considerate of her.’
Zakath looked at the black and white kitten in his lap, who had all four paws wrapped around his hand and was gnawing on one of his knuckles in mock ferocity. ‘I think I could learn to survive without it,’ he said, wincing.
CHAPTER NINE
The simplest way to avoid the omnipresent spies infesting the imperial palace was to conduct any significant conversations out in the open, and so Garion frequently found himself strolling around the palace grounds with one or more of his companions. On a beautiful spring morning a few days later he walked with Belgarath and Polgara through the dappled shade of a cherry orchard, listening to Velvet’s latest report on the political intrigues which seethed through the corridors of Zakath’s palace.
‘The surprising thing is that Brador is probably aware of most of what’s going on,’ the blond girl told them. ‘He doesn’t look all that efficient, but his secret police are everywhere.’ Velvet was holding a spray of cherry blossoms in front of her face, rather ostentatiously inhaling their fragrance.
‘At least they can’t hear us out here,’ Garion said.
‘No, but they can see us. If I were you, Belgarion, I still wouldn’t talk too openly—even out of doors. I happened to come across one industrious fellow yesterday who was busily writing down every word of a conversation being conducted in whispers some fifty yards away.’
‘That’s a neat trick,’ Belgarath said. ‘How did he manage it?’
‘He’s stone-deaf,’ she replied. ‘Over the years, he’s learned to understand what people are saying by reading the shape of the words from their lips.’
‘Clever,’ the old man murmured. ‘Is that why you’re so busily sniffing cherry blossoms?’
She nodded with a dimpled smile. ‘That and the fact that they have such a lovely fragrance.’
He scratched at his beard, his hand covering his mouth. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘What I need is some sort of disruption—something to draw Brador’s police off so that we can slip out of Mal Zeth without being followed. Zakath is rock hard on the point of not doing anything until his army gets
back from Cthol Murgos, so it’s obvious that we’re going to have to move without him. Is there anything afoot that might distract all the spies around here?’
‘Not really, Ancient One. The petty kinglet of Pallia and the Prince Regent of Delchin are scheming against each other, but that’s been going on for years. The old King of Voresebo is trying to get imperial aid in wresting his throne back from his son, who deposed him a year or so ago. Baron Vasca, the Chief of the Bureau of Commerce, is trying to assimilate the Bureau of Military Procurement, but the generals have him stalemated. Those are the major things in the air right now. There are a number of minor plots going on as well, but nothing earthshaking enough to divert the spies who are watching us.’
‘Can you stir anything up?’ Polgara asked, her lips scarcely moving.
‘I can try, Lady Polgara,’ Velvet replied, ‘but Brador is right on top of everything that’s happening here in the palace. I’ll talk with Kheldar and Sadi. It’s remotely possible that the three of us can engineer something unexpected enough to give us a chance to slip out of the city.’
‘It’s getting fairly urgent, Liselle,’ Polgara said. ‘If Zandramas finds what she’s looking for at Ashaba, she’ll be off again, and we’ll wind up trailing along behind her in the same way that we were back in Cthol Murgos.’
‘I’ll see what we can come up with, my Lady,’ Velvet promised.
‘Are you going back inside?’ Belgarath asked her.
She nodded.
‘I’ll go with you.’ He looked around distastefully. ‘All this fresh air and exercise is a little too wholesome for my taste.’
‘Walk a bit farther with me, Garion,’ Polgara said.
‘All right.’
As Velvet and Belgarath turned back toward the east wing of the palace, Garion and his aunt strolled on along the neatly trimmed green lawn lying beneath the blossom-covered trees. A wren, standing on the topmost twig of a gnarled, ancient tree, sang as if his heart would burst.
‘What’s he singing about?’ Garion asked, suddenly remembering his aunt’s unusual affinity for birds.
‘He’s trying to attract the attention of a female,’ she replied, smiling gently. ‘It’s that time of year again. He’s being very eloquent and making all sorts of promises—most of which he’ll break before the summer’s over.’
He smiled and affectionately put his arm about her shoulders.
She sighed happily. ‘This is pleasant,’ she said. ‘For some reason when we’re apart, I still think of you as a little boy. It always sort of surprises me to find that you’ve grown so tall.’
There wasn’t too much that he could say to that. ‘How’s Durnik?’ he asked. ‘I almost never see him these days.’
‘He and Toth and Eriond managed to find a well-stocked trout pond on the southern end of the imperial grounds,’ she replied with a slightly comical upward roll of her eyes. ‘They’re catching large numbers of fish, but the kitchen staff is beginning to get a bit surly about the whole thing.’
‘Trust Durnik to find water.’ Garion laughed. ‘Is Eriond actually fishing too? That seems a little out of character for him.’
‘I don’t think he’s very serious about it. He goes along mostly for Durnik’s company, I think—and because he likes to be outside.’ She paused and then looked directly at him. As so many times in the past, he was suddenly struck to the heart by her luminous beauty. ‘How has Ce’Nedra been lately?’ she asked him.
‘She’s managed to locate a number of young ladies to keep her company,’ he replied. ‘No matter where we go, she’s always able to surround herself with companions.’
‘Ladies like to have other ladies about them, dear,’ she said. ‘Men are nice enough, I suppose, but a woman needs other women to talk to. There are so many important things that men just don’t understand.’ Her face grew serious. ‘There hasn’t been any recurrence of what happened in Cthol Murgos, then?’ she asked.
‘Not so far as I can tell. She seems fairly normal to me. About the only unusual thing I’ve noticed is that she never talks about Geran any more.’
‘That could just be her way of protecting herself, Garion. She might not be able to put it into words exactly, but she’s aware of the melancholia that came over her at Prolgu, and I’m sure that she realizes that if she gives in to it, she’ll be incapacitated. She still thinks about Geran, I’m sure—probably most of the time—but she just won’t talk about him.’ She paused again. ‘What about the physical side of your marriage?’ she asked him directly.
Garion blushed furiously and coughed. ‘Uh—there really hasn’t been much opportunity for that sort of thing, Aunt Pol—and I think she has too many other things on her mind.’
She pursed her lips thoughtfully. ‘It’s not a good idea just to ignore that, Garion,’ she told him. ‘After a while, people grow apart if they don’t periodically renew their intimacy.’
He coughed again, still blushing. ‘She doesn’t really seem very interested, Aunt Pol.’
‘That’s your fault, dear. All it takes is a little bit of planning and attention to detail.’
‘You make it sound awfully calculated and cold-blooded.’
‘Spontaneity is very nice, dear, but there’s a great deal of charm to a well-planned seduction, too.’
‘Aunt Pol!’ he gasped, shocked to the core.
‘You’re an adult, Garion dear,’ she reminded him, ‘and that’s one of an adult man’s responsibilities. Think about it. You can be quite resourceful at times. I’m sure you’ll come up with something.’ She looked out over the sun-washed lawns. ‘Shall we go back inside now?’ she suggested. ‘I think it’s almost lunch time.’
That afternoon, Garion once again found himself strolling about the palace grounds, this time accompanied by Silk and Sadi the eunuch. ‘Belgarath needs a diversion,’ he told them seriously. ‘I think he has a plan to get us out of the city, but we’ve got to shake off all the spies who are watching us for long enough for him to put it into motion.’ He was busily scratching at his nose as he spoke, his hand covering his mouth.
‘Hay fever?’ Silk asked him.
‘No. Velvet told us that some of Brador’s spies are deaf, but that they can tell what you’re saying by watching your lips.’
‘What an extraordinary gift,’ Sadi murmured. ‘I wonder if an undeaf man could learn it.’
‘I can think of some times myself when it might have been useful,’ Silk agreed, covering his mouth as he feigned a cough. He looked at Sadi. ‘Can I get an honest answer out of you?’ he asked.
‘That depends on the question, Kheldar.’
‘You’re aware of the secret language?’
‘Of course.’
‘Do you understand it?’
‘I’m afraid not. I’ve never met a Drasnian who trusted me enough to teach me.’
‘I wonder why.’
Sadi flashed him a quick grin.
‘I think we can manage if we cover our mouths when we speak,’ Garion said.
‘Won’t that become a little obvious after a while?’ Sadi objected.
‘What are they going to do? Tell us to stop?’
‘Probably not, but we might want to pass on some disinformation sometimes, and if they know that we know about this way of listening, we won’t be able to do that.’ The eunuch sighed about the lost opportunity, then shrugged. ‘Oh, well,’ he said.
Garion looked at Silk. ‘Do you know of anything that’s going on that we could use to pull the police off our trail?’
‘No, not really,’ the little man replied. ‘At the moment the Melcene consortium seems to be concentrating on keeping this year’s price list a secret and trying to persuade Baron Vasca that Yarblek and I should be restrained to those enclaves on the west coast. We’ve got Vasca pretty much in our pockets, though—as long as he stays bribed. There’s a great deal of secret maneuvering going on, but I don’t think anything is close to coming to a head right now. Even if it did, it probably wouldn’t cause a
big enough stink to make the secret police abandon their assignment to watch us.’
‘Why not go right to the top?’ Sadi suggested. ‘I could talk to Brador and see if he’s susceptible to bribery.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Garion said. ‘He’s having us watched on specific orders from Zakath. I doubt that any amount of money would make him consider risking his head.’
‘There are other ways to bribe people, Belgarion.’ Sadi smiled slyly. ‘I have some things in my case that make people feel very good. The only trouble with them is that after you’ve used them a few times, you have to keep on using them. The pain of stopping is really quite unbearable. I could own Brador within the space of a week and make him do anything I told him to do.’
Garion felt a sudden surge of profound distaste for the entire notion. ‘I’d really rather not do that,’ he said, ‘or only as a last resort.’
‘You Alorns have a peculiar notion of morality,’ the eunuch said, rubbing at his shaved scalp. ‘You chop people in two without turning a hair, but you get queasy at the idea of poisons or drugs.’
‘It’s a cultural thing, Sadi,’ Silk told him.
‘Have you found anything else that might work to our advantage?’ Garion asked.
Sadi considered it. ‘Not by itself, no,’ he replied. ‘A bureaucracy lends itself to endemic corruption, though. There are a number of people in Mallorea who take advantage of that. Caravans have a habit of getting waylaid in the Dalasian Mountains or on the road from Maga Renn. A caravan needs a permit from the Bureau of Commerce, and Vasca has been known on occasion to sell information about departure times and routes to certain robber chiefs. Or, if the price is right, he sells his silence to the merchant barons in Melcene.’ The eunuch chuckled. ‘Once he sold information about one single caravan to three separate robber bands. There was a pitched battle on the plains of Delchin, or so I’m told.’
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