"Right. You're Detton, aren't you?"
"I didn't recognize you. How longs it been?" "Four or five years, I suppose," Lammer judged. "How are things going in your village?" Detton asked. "We're hungry. The taxes took all our food."
"Ours too. We've been eating boiled tree roots." "We haven't tried that yet. We're eating our shoes." "How's your wife?" Detton asked politely.
"She died last year," Lammer answered in a flat, unemotional voice. "My lord took our son for a soldier, and he was killed in a battle somewhere. They poured boiling pitch on him. After that my wife stopped eating. It didn't take her long to die."
"I'm sorry," Detton sympathized. "She was very beautiful." "They're both better off," Lammer declared. "They aren't cold or hungry anymore. Which kind of tree roots have you been eating?"
"Birch is the best," Detton told him. "Spruce has too much pitch, and oak's too tough. You boil some grass with the roots to give them a bit of flavor."
"I'll have to try it."
"I've got to get back," Detton said. "My lord's got me clearing trees, and he'll have me flogged if I stay away too long."
"Maybe I'll see you again sometime." "If we both live."
"Good-bye, Detton." "Good-bye, Lammer."
The two voices drifted away. Garion stood quite still for a long time after they were gone, his mind numb with shock and with tears of sympathy standing in his eyes. The worst part of it was the matter-of fact way in which the two had accepted it all. A terrible anger began to burn in his throat. He wanted suddenly to hit somebody.
Then there was another sound off in the fog. Somewhere in the forest nearby someone was singing. The voice was a light, clear tenor, and Garion could hear it quite plainly as it drew closer. The song was filled with ancient wrongs, and the refrain was a call to battle. Irrationally, Garion's anger focused on the unknown singer. His vapid bawling about abstract injustices seemed somehow obscene in the face of the quiet despair of Lammer and Detton. Without thinking, Garion drew his sword and crouched slightly behind the shattered wall.
The song came yet nearer, and Garion could hear the step of a horse's hooves in the wet snow. Carefully he poked his head out from behind the wall as the singer appeared out of the fog no more than twenty paces away. He was a young man dressed in yellow hose and a bright red jerkin. His fur-lined cloak was tossed back, and he had a long, curved bow slung over one shoulder and a well-sheathed sword at his opposite hip. His reddish-gold hair fell smoothly down his back from beneath a pointed cap with a feather rising from it. Although his song was grim and he sang it in a voice throbbing with passion, there was about his youthful face a kind of friendly openness that no amount of scowling could erase. Garion glared at this empty-headed young nobleman, quite certain that the singing fool had never made a meal of tree roots or mourned the passing of a wife who had starved herself to death out of grief. The stranger turned his horse and, still singing, rode directly toward the broken arch of the gateway beside which Garion lurked in ambush.
Garion was not normally a belligerent boy, and under other circumstances he might have approached the situation differently. The gaudy young stranger, however, had presented himself at precisely the wrong time. Garion's quickly devised plan had the advantage of simplicity. Since there was nothing to complicate it, it worked admirably - up to a point. No sooner had the lyric young man passed through the gate than Garion stepped from his hiding place, grasped the back of the rider's cloak and yanked him bodily out of the saddle. With a startled outcry and a wet splat, the stranger landed unceremoniously on his back in the slush at Garion's feet. The second part of Garion's plan, however, fell completely apart. Even as he moved in to take the fallen rider prisoner at sword point, the young man rolled, came to his feet, and drew his own sword, seemingly all in one motion. His eyes were snapping with anger, and his sword weaved threateningly.
Garion was not a fencer, but his reflexes were good and the chores he had performed at Faldor's farm had hardened his muscles. Despite the anger which had moved him to attack in the first place, he had no real desire to hurt this young man. His opponent seemed to be holding his sword lightly, almost negligently, and Garion thought that a smart blow on the blade might very well knock it out of his hand. He swung quickly, but the blade flicked out of the path of his heavy swipe and clashed with a steely ring down on his own sword. Garion jumped back and made another clumsy swing. The swords rang again. Then the air was filled with clash and scrape and bell-like rattle as the two of them banged and parried and feinted with their blades. It took Garion only a moment to realize that his opponent was much better at this than he was but that the young man had ignored several opportunities to strike at him. In spite of himself he began to grin in the excitement of their noisy contest. The stranger's answering grin was open, even friendly.
"All right, that's enough of that!" It was Mister Wolf. The old man was striding toward them with Barak and Silk close on his heels. "Just exactly what do you two think you're doing?"
Garion's opponent, after one startled glance, lowered his sword. "Belgarath-" he began.
"Lelldorin," Wolf's tone was scathing, "have you lost what little sense you had to begin with?"
Several things clicked into place in Garion's mind simultaneously as Wolf turned on him coldly. "Well, Garion, would you like to explain this?"
Garion instantly decided to try guile. "Grandfather," he said, stressing the word and giving the younger stranger a quick warning look, "you didn't think we were really fighting, did you? Lelldorin here was just showing me how you block somebody's sword when he attacks, that's all."
"Really?" Wolf replied skeptically.
"Of course," Garion said, all innocence now. "What possible reason could there be for us to be trying to hurt each other?"
Lelldorin opened his mouth to speak, but Garion deliberately stepped on his foot.
"Lelldorin's really very good," he rushed on, putting his hand in a friendly fashion on the young man's shoulder. "He taught me a lot in just a few minutes."
-Let it stand-Silk's fingers flickered at him in the minute gestures of the Drasnian secret language. Always keep a lie simple.
"The lad is an apt pupil, Belgarath," Lelldorin said lamely, finally understanding.
"He's agile, if nothing else," Mister Wolf replied dryly. "What's the idea behind all the frippery?" He indicated Lelldorin's gaudy clothes. "You look like a maypole."
"The Mimbrates had started detaining honest Asturians for questioning," the young Arend explained, "and I had to pass several of their strongholds. I thought that if I dressed like one of their toadies I wouldn't be bothered."
"Maybe you've got better sense than I thought," Wolf conceded grudgingly. He turned to Silk and Barak. "This is Lelldorin, son of the Baron of Wildantor. He'll be joining us."
"I wanted to talk to you about that, Belgarath," Lelldorin put in quickly. "My father commanded me to come here and I can't disobey him, but I'm pledged in a matter of extremest urgency."
"Every young nobleman in Asturias pledged in at least two or three such matters of urgency," Wolf replied. "I'm sorry, Lelldorin, but the matter we're involved in is much too important to be postponed while you go out to ambush a couple of Mimbrate tax collectors."
Aunt Pol approached them out of the fog then, with Durnik striding protectively at her side. "What are they doing with the swords, father?" she demanded, her eyes flashing.
"Playing," Mister Wolf replied shortly. "Or so they say. This is Lelldorin. I think I've mentioned him to you."
Aunt Pol looked Lelldorin up and down with one raised eyebrow. "A very colorful young man."
"The clothes are a disguise," Wolf explained. "He's not as frivolous as all that - not quite, anyway. He's the best bowman in Asturia, and we might need his skill before we're done with all this."
"I see," she said, somewhat unconvinced.
"There's another reason, of course," Wolf continued, "but I don't think we need to get into that just now, do we?"
"Are you still worried about that passage, father?" she asked with exasperation. "The Mrin Codex is very obscure, and none of the other versions say anything at all about the people it mentions. It could be pure allegory, you know."
"I've seen a few too many allegories turn out to be plain fact to start gambling at this point. Why don't we all go back to the tower?" he suggested. "It's a bit cold and wet out here for lengthy debates on textual variations."
Garion glanced at Silk, baffled by this exchange, but the little man returned his look with blank incomprehension.
"Will you help me catch my horse, Garion?" Lelldorin asked politely, sheathing his sword.
"Of course," Garion replied, also putting away his weapon. "I think he went that way."
Lelldorin picked up his bow, and the two of them followed the horse's tracks off into the ruins.
"I'm sorry I pulled you off your horse," Garion apologized when they were out of sight of the others.
"No matter." Lelldorin laughed easily. "I should have been paying more attention." He looked quizzically at Garion. "Why did you lie to Belgarath?"
"It wasn't exactly a lie," Garion replied. "We weren't really trying to hurt each other, and sometimes it takes hours trying to explain something like that."
Lelldorin laughed again, an infectious sort of laugh. In spite of himself, Garion could not help joining in.
Both laughing, they continued together down an overgrown street between the low mounds of slush-covered rubble.
Chapter Two
LELLDORIN OF WILDANTOR Was eighteen years old, although his ingenuous nature made him seem more boyish. No emotion touched him that did not instantly register in his expression, and sincerity shone in his face like a beacon. He was impulsive, extravagant in his declarations, and probably, Garion reluctantly concluded, not overly bright. It was impossible not to like him, however.
The following morning when Garion pulled on his cloak to go out and continue his watch for Hettar, Lelldorin immediately joined him. The young Arend had changed out of his garish clothing and now wore brown hose, a green tunic, and a dark brown wool cape. He carried his bow and wore a quiver of arrows at his belt; as they walked through the snow toward the broken west wall he amused himself by loosing arrows at targets only half visible ahead of him.
"You're awfully good," Garion said admiringly after one particularly fine shot.
"I'm an Asturian," Lelldorin replied modestly. "We've been bowmen for thousands of years. My father had the limbs of this bow cut on the day I was born, and I could draw it by the time I was eight."
"I imagine you hunt a great deal," Garion said, thinking of the dense forest all around them and the tracks of game he had seen in the snow. "It's our most common pastime." Lelldorin stopped to pull the arrow he had just shot from a tree trunk. "My father prides himself on the fact that beef or mutton are never served at his table."
"I went hunting once, in Cherek." "Deer?" Lelldorin asked.
"No. Wild boars. We didn't use bows though. The Chereks hunt with spears."
"Spears? How can you get close enough to kill anything with a spear?"
Garion laughed a bit ruefully, remembering his bruised ribs and aching head. "Getting close isn't the problem. It's getting away after you've speared him that's the difficult part."
Lelldorin didn't seem to grasp that.
"The huntsmen form a line," Garion explained, "and they crash through the woods, making as much noise as they can. You take your spear and wait where the boars are likely to pass when they try to get away from the noise. Being chased makes them bad-tempered, and when they see you, they charge. That's when you spear them."
"Isn't that dangerous?" Lelldorin's eyes were wide.
Garion nodded. "I almost got all my ribs broken." He was not exactly boasting, but he admitted to himself that he was pleased by Lelldorin's reaction to his story.
"We don't have many dangerous animals in Asturia," Lelldorin said almost wistfully. "A few bears and once in a while a pack of wolves." He seemed to hesitate for a moment, looking closely at Garion. "Some men, though, find more interesting things to shoot at than wild stags." He said it with a kind of secretive sidelong glance.
"Oh?" Garion was not quite sure what he meant.
"Hardly a day goes by that some Mimbrate's horse doesn't come home riderless."
Garion was shocked at that.
"Some men think that there are too many Mimbrates in Asturia," Lelldorin explained with heavy emphasis.
"1 thought that the Arendish civil war was over."
"There are many who don't believe that. There are many who believe that the war will continue until Asturia is free of the Mimbrate crown." Lelldorin's tone left no question as to where he stood in the matter.
"Wasn't the country unified after the Battle of Vo Mimbre?" Garion objected.
"Unified? How could anybody believe that? Asturia is treated like a subject province. The king's court is at Vo Mimbre; every governor, every tax collector, every bailiff, every high sheriff in the kingdom is a Mimbrate. There's not a single Asturian in a position of authority anywhere in Arendia. The Mimbrates even refuse to recognize our titles. My father, whose line extends back a thousand years, is called landowner. A Mimbrate would sooner bite out his tongue than call him Baron." Lelldorin's face had gone white with suppressed indignation.
"I didn't know that," Garion said carefully, not sure how to handle the young man's feelings.
"Asturia's humiliation is almost at an end, however," Lelldorin declared fervently. "There are some men in Asturia for whom patriotism is not dead, and the time is not far off when these men will hunt royal game." He emphasized his statement by snapping an arrow at a distant tree.
That confirmed the worst of Garion's fears. Lelldorin was a bit too familiar with the details not to be involved in this plot.
As if he had realized himself that he had gone too far, Lelldorin stared at Garion with consternation. "I'm a fool," he blurted with a guilty look around him. "I've never learned to control my tongue. Please forget what I just said, Garion. I know you're my friend, and I know you won't betray what I said in a moment of heat."
That was the one thing Garion had feared. With that single statement, Lelldorin had effectively sealed his lips. He knew that Mister Wolf should be warned that some wild scheme was afoot, but Lelldorin's declaration of friendship and trust had made it impossible for him to speak. He wanted to grind his teeth with frustration as he stared full in the face of a major moral dilemma.
They walked on, neither of them speaking and both a little embarrassed, until they reached the bit of wall where Garion had waited in ambush the day before. For a time they stared out into the fog, their strained silence growing more uncomfortable by the moment.
"What's it like in Sendaria?" Lelldorin asked suddenly. "I've never been there."
"There aren't so many trees," Garion answered, looking over the wall at the dark trunks marching off in the fog. "It's an orderly kind of place."
"Where did you live there?"
"At Faldor's farm. It's near Lake Erat." "Is this Faldor a nobleman?"
"Faldor?" Garion laughed. "No, Faldor's as common as old shoes. He's just a farmer - decent, honest, good-hearted. I miss him."
"A commoner, then," Lelldorin said, seeming ready to dismiss Faldor as a man of no consequence.
"Rank doesn't mean very much in Sendaria," Garion told him rather pointedly. "What a man does is more important than what he is." He made a wry face. "I was a scullery boy. It's not very pleasant, but somebody's got to do it, I suppose."
"Not a serf, certainly?" Lelldorin sounded shocked. "There aren't any serfs in Sendaria."
"No serfs?" The young Arend stared at him uncomprehendingly. "No," Garion said firmly. "We've never found it necessary to have serfs."
Lelldorin's expression clearly showed that he was baffled by the notion. Garion remembered the voices that had come to him out of the fog the day before, but he resisted the urge to sa
y something about serfdom. Lelldorin would never understand, and the two of them were very close to friendship. Garion felt that he needed a friend just now and he didn't want to spoil things by saying something that would offend this likeable young man.
"What sort of work does your father do?" Lelldorin asked politely. "He's dead. So's my mother." Garion found that if he said it quickly, it didn't hurt so much.
Lelldorin's eyes filled in sudden, impulsive sympathy. He put his hand consolingly on Garion's shoulder. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice almost breaking. "It must have been a terrible loss."
"I was a baby." Garion shrugged, trying to sound offhand about it. "I don't even remember them." It was still too personal to talk about. "Some pestilence?" Lelldorin asked gently.
"No," Garion answered in the same flat tone. "They were murdered." Lelldorin gasped and his eyes went wide.
"A man crept into their village at night and set fire to their house," Garion continued unemotionally. "My grandfather tried to catch him, but he got away. From what I understand, the man is a very old enemy of my family."
"Surely you're not going to let it stand like that?" Lelldorin demanded.
"No," Garion replied, still looking out into the fog. "As soon as I'm old enough, I'm going to find him and kill him."
"Good lad!" Lelldorin exclaimed, suddenly catching Garion in a rough embrace. "We'll find him and cut him to pieces."
"We?" "I'll be going with you, of course," Lelldorin declared. "No true friend could do any less." He was obviously speaking on impulse, but just as obviously he was totally sincere. He gripped Garion's hand firmly. "I swear to you, Garion, I won't rest until the murderer of your parents lies dead at your feet."
The sudden declaration was so totally predictable that Garion silently berated himself for not keeping his mouth shut. His feelings in the matter were very personal, and he was not really sure he wanted company in his search for his faceless enemy. Another part of his mind, however, rejoiced in Lelldorin's impulsive but unquestioning support. He decided to let the subject drop. He knew Lelldorin well enough by now to realize that the young man undoubtedly made a dozen devout promises a day, quickly offered in absolute sincerity, and just as quickly forgotten.
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