‘Hail Ran Borune!’ the legions thundered. ‘Hail Emperor of Tolnedra!’
And that was that.
That evening as Garion, Ce’Nedra, and the newly crowned Emperor sat together in a crimson-draped private chamber filled with the golden glow of dozens of candles, Varana explained. ‘Surprise is as important in politics as it is in military tactics, Belgarion. If your opponent doesn’t know what you’re going to do, there’s no way he can prepare countermeasures.’ The general now openly wore the gold mantle of the Emperor.
‘That makes sense,’ Garion replied, sipping at a goblet of Tolnedran wine. ‘Wearing your breastplate instead of the Imperial Mantle kept them guessing right up until the last minute.’
‘That was for a much more practical reason.’ Varana laughed. ‘Many of those young nobles have had military training, and we teach our legionnaires how to throw daggers. Since my back was going to be toward them, I wanted a good, solid layer of steel covering the area between my shoulder blades.’
‘Tolnedran politics are very nervous, aren’t they?’
Varana nodded his agreement. ‘Fun, though,’ he added.
‘You have a peculiar notion of fun. I’ve had a few daggers thrown at me and I didn’t find it all that amusing.’
‘We Anadiles have always had a peculiar sense of humor.’
‘Borune, uncle,’ Ce’Nedra corrected primly.
‘What was that, dear?’
‘You’re a Borune now, not an Anadile—and you should start acting like one.’
‘Bad-tempered, you mean? That’s not really in my nature.’
‘Ce’Nedra could give you lessons, if you like,’ Garion offered, grinning fondly at his wife.
‘What?’ Ce’Nedra exclaimed indignantly, her voice going up an octave or so.
‘I suppose she could at that,’ Varana agreed blandly. ‘She’s always been very good at it.’
Ce’Nedra sighed mournfully, eyeing the pair of grinning monarchs. Then her expression became artfully tragic. ‘What’s a poor little girl to do?’ she asked in a trembling voice. ‘Here I am, maltreated and abused by both my husband and my brother.’
Varana blinked. ‘You know, I hadn’t even thought of that. You are my sister now, aren’t you?’
‘Perhaps you aren’t quite as clever as I thought, brother dear,’ she purred at him. ‘I know that Garion’s not quite bright, but I thought better of you.’
Garion and Varana exchanged rueful glances.
‘Would you gentlemen like to play some more?’ Ce’Nedra asked them, her eyes twinkling and a smug smile hovering about her lips.
There was a light tap on the door.
‘Yes?’ Varana said.
‘Lord Morin to see you, your Majesty,’ the guard outside the door announced.
‘Send him in, please.’
The Imperial Chamberlain entered quietly. His face was marked by the sorrow he felt at the passing of the man he had served so long and faithfully, but he still performed his duties with the quiet efficiency that had always been his outstanding characteristic.
‘Yes, Morin?’ Varana said.
‘Ther’s someone waiting outside, your Majesty. She’s rather notorious, so I thought I should speak to you privately before I presented her to you.’
‘Notorious?’
‘It’s the courtesan Bethra, your Majesty,’ Morin said with a faintly embarrassed look at Ce’Nedra. ‘She’s been—ah—shall we say, useful to the crown in the past. She has access to a great deal of information as a result of her professional activities and she was a longtime friend of Ran Borune’s. From time to time she kept him advised of the activities of certain unfriendly nobles. He made arrangements for there to be a way by which she could enter the palace unnoticed so that they could—ah—talk, among other things.’
‘Why, that sly old fox.’
‘I have never known her information to be inaccurate, your Majesty,’ Morin continued. ‘She says that she has something very important to tell you.’
‘You’d better bring her in, then, Morin,’ Varana said, ‘With you permission, of course, dear sister,’ he added to Ce’Nedra.
‘Certainly,’ Ce’Nedra agreed, her eyes afire with curiosity.
When Morin brought the woman in, she was wearing a light, hooded cloak, but when, with one smooth, round arm, she reached up and pushed the hood back, Garion started slightly. He knew her. He recalled that when he and Aunt Pol and the others had been passing through Tol Honeth during their pursuit of Zedar the Apostate and the stolen Orb, this same woman had accosted Silk for a bantering exchange. As she unfastened the neck of her cloak and let it slide almost sensuously from her creamy shoulders, he saw that she had not changed in the nearly ten years since he had last seen her. Her lustrous, blue-black hair was untouched by any hint of gray. Her startlingly beautiful face was still as smooth as a girl’s, and her heavy-lidded eyes were still filled with a sultry wickedness. Her gown was of palest lavender and cut in such a way as to enhance rather than conceal the lush, almost overripe body it enclosed. It was the kind of body that was a direct challenge to every man she met. Garion stared openly at her until he caught Ce’Nedra’s green eyes, agate-hard, boring into him, and he quickly looked away.
‘Your Majesty,’ Bethra said in a throaty contralto as she curtsied gracefully to the new Emperor, ‘I would have waited a time before introducing myself, but I’ve heard a few things I thought you should know immediately.’
‘I appreciate your friendship, Lady Bethra,’ Varana replied with exquisite courtesy.
She laughed a warm, wicked laugh. ‘I’m not a lady, your Majesty,’ she corrected him. ‘Most definitely not a lady.’ She made a small curtsy to Ce’Nedra. ‘Princess,’ she murmured.
‘Madame,’ Ce’Nedra responded with a faint chill in her voice and a very slight inclination of her head.
‘Ah,’ Bethra said almost sadly. Then she turned back to Varana. ‘Late this afternoon I was entertaining Count Ergon and the Baron Kelbor at my establishment.’
‘A pair of powerful Honethite nobles,’ Varana explained to Garion.
‘The gentlemen from the house of Honeth are less than pleased with your Majesty’s choice of an official name,’ Bethra continued. ‘They spoke hastily and in some heat, but I think that you might want to take what they said seriously. Ergon is an unmitigated ass, all bluster and pomposity, but Baron Kelbor is not the sort to be taken lightly. At any rate, they concluded that, with the legions all around the palace, it would be unlikely that an assassin could reach you; but then Kelbor said, “If you want to kill a snake, you cut off its tail—just behind the head. We can’t reach Varana, but we can reach his son. Without an heir, Varana’s line dies with him.”’
‘My son?’ Varana said sharply.
‘His life is in danger, your Majesty. I thought you should know.’
‘Thank you, Bethra,’ Varana replied gravely. Then he turned to Morin. ‘Send a detachment of the third legion to my son’s house,’ he said. ‘No one is to go in or out until I’ve had time to make other arrangements.’
‘At once, your Majesty.’
‘I would also like to speak with the two gentlemen from the House of Honeth. Send some troops to invite them to the palace. Have them wait in that little room adjoining the torture chamber down in the dungeons until I have the time to discuss this with them.’
‘You wouldn’t,’ Ce’Nedra gasped.
‘Probably not,’ Varana admitted, ‘but they don’t have to know that, do they? Let’s give them a nervous hour or two.’
‘I’ll see to it immediately, your Majesty,’ Morin said. He bowed and quietly left the room.
‘I’m told that you knew my father,’ Ce’Nedra said to the lushly curved woman standing in the center of the room.
‘Yes, Princess,’ Bethra responded. ‘Quite well, actually. We were friends for years.’
Ce’Nedra’s eyes narrowed.
‘Your father was a vigorous man, Princess,’ Bethra told
her calmly. ‘I’m told that many people prefer not to believe that kind of thing about their parents, but it does happen now and again. I was quite fond of him and I’ll miss him very much, I think.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ Ce’Nedra said bluntly.
‘That’s up to you, of course.’
‘My father would not have done that.’
‘Whatever you say, Princess,’ Bethra said with a faint smile.
‘You’re lying!’ Ce’Nedra snapped.
A momentary glint came into Bethra’s eyes. ‘No, Princess. I don’t lie. I might conceal the truth at times, but I never lie. Lies are too easily found out. Ran Borune and I were intimate friends and we enjoyed each other’s company in many ways.’ Her look became faintly amused. ‘Your upbringing has sheltered you from certain facts, Princess Ce’Nedra. Tol Honeth is an extremely corrupt city, and I am fully at home here. Let’s face a certain blunt truth. I’m a harlot and I make no apology for that fact. The work is easy—even pleasant at times—and the pay is very good. I’m on the best of terms with some of the richest and most powerful men in the world. We talk, and they value my conversation, but when they come to my house, it’s not the talk they’re interested in. The talk comes later. It was much the same when I visited your father. We did talk, Princess, but it was usually later.’
Ce’Nedra’s face was flaming, and her eyes were wide with shock. ‘No one has ever talked to me that way before,’ she gasped.
‘Then it was probably overdue,’ Bethra said calmly. ‘You’re much wiser now—not happier, perhaps, but wiser. Now, if you’ll all excuse me, I should probably leave. The Honeths have spies everywhere, and I think it might not be a good idea for them to find out about this visit.’
‘I want to thank you for the information you’ve just brought me, Bethra,’ Varana said to her. ‘Let me give you something for your trouble.’
‘That has never been necessary, your Majesty,’ she replied with an arch little smile. ‘Information is not what I sell. I’ll go now—unless you want to talk business, of course.’ She paused in the act of putting her cloak back on and gave him a very direct look.
‘Ah—this might not really be the best time, Bethra,’ Varana said with a faintly regretful note in his voice and a quick sidelong glance at Ce’Nedra.
‘Some other time then, perhaps.’ She curtsied again and quietly left the room, the musky fragrance of the scent she wore lingering in the air behind her.
Ce’Nedra was still blushing furiously, and her eyes were outraged. She spun to face Garion and Varana. ‘Don’t either of you dare say anything,’ she commanded. ‘Not one single word.’
The sad visit to Tol Honeth ended a few days later, and Garion and Ce’Nedra took ship again for the voyage back to the Isle of the Winds. Though Ce’Nedra seldom gave any outward hints of her grief, Garion knew her well enough to understand that her father’s death had hurt her deeply. Because he loved her and was sensitive to her emotions, he treated her with a certain extra tenderness and consideration for the next several months.
In midautumn that year, the Alorn Kings and Queen Porenn, Regent of Drasnia, arrived at Riva for the traditional meeting of the Alorn Council. The meeting had none of the urgency which had marked those meetings previously. Torak was dead, the Angaraks were convulsed by war, and a king sat upon the Rivan throne. The entire affair was almost purely social, though the kings did make some pretense at holding business sessions in the blue-draped council chamber high in the south tower of the Citadel. They gravely talked about the stalemated war in southern Cthol Murgos and about the troubles Varana was having with the Vordue family of northern Tolnedra.
Warned perhaps by the failure of the Honeths in their attempts at assassination, the Vordues decided to try secession. Shortly after Varana’s coronation as Ran Borune XXIV, the Vordue family declared that their Grand Duchy was no longer a part of Tolnedra but rather was a separate, independent kingdom—although they had not yet decided which of their number was to ascend the throne.
‘Varana’s going to have to move the legions against them,’ King Anheg declared, wiping the ale foam from his mouth with his sleeve. ‘Otherwise, the other families will seceed too, and Tolnedra will fly apart like a broken spring.’
‘It’s not really that simple, Anheg,’ Queen Porenn told him smoothly, turning back from the window out of which she had been watching the activity in the harbor far below. The Queen of Drasnia still wore deep mourning, and her black gown seemed to enhance her blonde loveliness. ‘The legions will gladly fight any foreign enemy, but Varana can’t ask them to attack their own people.’
Anheg shrugged. ‘He could bring up legions from the south. They’re all Borunes or Anadiles or Ranites. They wouldn’t mind trampling over the Vordues.’
‘But then the northern legions would step in to stop them. Once the legions start fighting each other, the Empire will really disintegrate.’
‘I guess I really hadn’t thought of it that way,’ Anheg admitted. ‘You know, Porenn, you’re extremely intelligent—for a woman.’
‘And you’re extremely perceptive—for a man,’ she replied with a sweet smile.
‘That’s one for her side,’ King Cho-Hag said quietly.
‘Were we keeping score?’ Garion asked mildly.
‘It helps us to keep track, sort of,’ the Chief of the Clan-Chiefs of Algaria answered with a straight face.
It was not until several days later that word reached Riva concerning Varana’s rather novel approach to his problem with the Vordues. A Drasnian ship sailed into the harbor one morning, and an agent of the Drasnia Intelligence Service brought a sheaf of dispatches to Queen Porenn. After she read them, she entered the council chamber with a smug little smile. ‘I believe we can set our minds at rest about Varana’s abilities, gentlemen,’ she told the Alorn Kings. ‘He appears to have found a solution to the Vordue question.’
‘Oh?’ Brand rumbled. ‘What is it?’
‘My informants advise me that he has made a secret arrangement with King Korodullin of Arendia. This so-called Kingdom of Vordue has suddenly become absolutely infested with Arendish bandits—most of them in full armor, oddly enough.’
‘Wait a minute, Porenn,’ Anheg interrupted. ‘If it’s a secret arrangement, how is it that you know about it?’
The little blonde Queen of Drasnia lowered her eyelids demurely. ‘Why, Anheg, dear, weren’t you aware of the fact that I know everything?’
‘Another one for her side,’ King Cho-Hag said to Garion.
‘I’d say so, yes,’ Garion agreed.
‘At any rate,’ the Drasnian Queen continued, ‘there are now whole battalions of brainless young Mimbrate knights in Vordue, all posing as bandits and plundering and burning at will. The Vordues don’t have what you could call an army, so they’ve been screaming for aid from the legions. My people managed to get their hands on a copy of Varana’s reply.’ She unfolded a document. ‘“To the government of the Kingdom of Vordue,”’ she read, ‘“Greetings: Your recent appeal for help came as a great surprise to me. Surely the esteemed gentlemen in Tol Vordue would not want me to violate the sovereignty of their newly established kingdom by sending Tolnedran legions across their borders to deal with a few Arendish brigands. The maintenance of public order is the paramount responsibility of any government, and I would not dream of intruding my forces into so fundamental an area: To do so would raise grave doubts in the minds of reasonable men the world over as to the viability of your new state. I do, however, send you my best wishes in your efforts to deal with what is, after all, a strictly internal matter.”’
Anheg began to laugh, pounding his heavy fist on the table in his glee. ‘I think that calls for a drink,’ he chortled.
‘I think it might call for several,’ Garion agreed. ‘We can toast the efforts of the Vordues to maintain order.’
‘I trust you gentlemen will excuse me then,’ Queen Porenn said. ‘No mere woman could ever hope to compete with the Kings of Aloria
when it comes to really serious drinking.’
‘Of course, Porenn,’ Anheg agreed magnanimously. ‘We’ll even drink your share for you.’
‘You’re too kind,’ she murmured and withdrew.
Much of the evening that followed was lost in a hazy fog of ale fumes for Garion. He seemed to remember weaving down a corridor with Anheg on one side and Brand on the other. The three of them had their arms about one anothers’ shoulders, and they staggered in a peculiar kind of unison. He also seemed to remember that they were singing. When he was sober, Garion never sang. That night, however, it seemed like the most natural and enjoyable thing in the world.
He had not been drunk before. Aunt Pol had always disapproved of drinking, and, as he did in most things, he had deferred to her opinions about the matter. Thus, he was totally unprepared for the way he felt the next morning.
Ce’Nedra was unsympathetic, to say the very least. Like every woman who had ever lived since the beginning of time, she smugly enjoyed her husband’s suffering. ‘I told you that you were drinking too much,’ she reminded him.
‘Please don’t,’ he said, holding his head between his hands.
‘It’s your own fault,’ she smirked.
‘Just leave me alone,’ he begged. ‘I’m trying to die.’
‘Oh, I don’t think you’ll die, Garion. You might wish you could, but you won’t.’
‘Do you have to talk so loud?’
‘We all just loved your singing,’ she congratulated him brightly. ‘I actually think you invented notes that didn’t even exist before.’
Garion groaned and once more buried his face between his trembling hands.
The Alorn Council lasted for perhaps another week. It might have continued longer had not a savage autumn storm announced with a howling gale that it was time for the assembled guests to return to the mainland while the Sea of the Winds was still navigable.
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