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 Drasnian 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.
Not too many days later, Brand, the tall, aging Rivan Warder, requested a private audience with Garion. It was raining gustily outside, and sheets of water intermittently clawed at the windows of Garion's study as the two men sat down in comfortable chairs across the table from each other. "May I speak frankly, Belgarion?" the big, sad-eyed man asked.
"You know you don't have to ask that."
"The matter at hand is a personal one. I don't want you to be offended."
"Say what you think needs to be said. I promise not to be offended."
Brand glanced out the window at the gray sky and the wind-driven rain. "Belgarion, it's been almost eight years now since you married Princess Ce'Nedra."
Garion nodded.
"I'm not trying to intrude on your privacy, but the fact that your wife has not yet produced an heir to the throne is, after all, a state matter."
Garion pursed his lips. "I know that you and Anheg and the others are very concerned. I think your concern is premature, though."
"Eight years is a long time, Belgarion. We all know how much you love your wife. We're all fond of her." Brand smiled briefly. "Even though she's a little difficult at times."
"You've noticed."
"We followed her willingly to the battlefield at Thull Mardu -and probably would again if she asked us to- but I think we'd better face the possibility that she may be barren."
"I'm positive that she's not," Garion said firmly.
"Then why isn't she having children?"
Garion couldn't answer that.
"Belgarion, the fate of this kingdom -and of all Aloria- hangs on your weakest breath. There's virtually no other topic of conversation in all the northern kingdoms."
"I didn't know that," Garion admitted.
"Grodeg and his henchmen were virtually wiped out at Thull Mardu, but there's been a resurgence of the Bear-cult in remote parts of Cherek, Drasnia, and Algaria. You knew that, didn't you?"
Garion nodded.
" And even in the cities there are those elements that sympathize with the cult's aims and beliefs. Those people were not happy that you chose a Tolnedran princess for your wife. Rumors are already abroad that Ce'Nedra's inability to have children is a sign of Belar's disapproval of your marriage to her."
"That's superstitious nonsense," Garion scoffed.
"Of course it is, but if that kind of thinking begins to take hold, it's ultimately going to have some unpleasant effects. Other elements in Alorn society -friendly to you- are very concerned about it. To put it bluntly, there's a rather widely held opinion that the time has come for you to divorce Ce'Nedra."
"What?"
"You do have that power, you know. The way they all see it, the best solution might be for you to put aside your barren Tolnedran queen and take some nice, fertile Alorn girl, who'll present you with babies by the dozen."
"That's absolutely out of th
e question," Garion said hotly. "I won't do it. Didn't those idiots ever hear about the Accords of Vo Mimbre? Even if I wanted to divorce Ce'Nedra, I couldn't. Our marriage was agreed upon five hundred years ago."
"The Bear-cult feels that the arrangement was forced on the Alorns by Belgarath and Polgara," Brand replied. "Since those two are loyal to Aldur, the cult feels that it might have been done without Belar's approval."
"Nonsense," Garion snapped.
"There's a lot of nonsense in any religion, Belgarion. The point remains, however, that Ce'Nedra has few friends in any part of Alorn society. Even those who are friendly to you aren't very fond of her. Both your enemies and your friends would like to see you divorce her. They all know how fond of her you are, so they'll probably never approach you with the idea. They're likely to take more direct action instead."
"Such as?"
"Since they know that you can't be persuaded to divorce her, someone may try to remove her permanently."
"They wouldn't dare!"
"Alorns are almost as emotional as Arends are, Belgarion -and sometimes almost as thick-headed. We're all aware of it. Anheg and Cho-Hag both urged me to warn you about this possibility, and Porenn has put whole platoons of her spies to work on it so that we'll at least have some advance warning if someone starts plotting against the queen."
"And just where do you stand in this, Brand?" Garion asked quietly.
"Belgarion," the big man said firmly, "I love you as if you were my own son, and Ce'Nedra is as dear to me as the daughter I never had. Nothing in this world would make me happier than to see the floor of that nursery next to your bedroom absolutely littered with children. But it's been eight years. Things have reached the point where we must do something -if for no other reason, then to protect that tiny, brave girl we both love."
"What can we do?" Garion asked helplessly.
"You and I are only men, Garion. How can we know why a woman does or does not have children? And that's the crux of the whole situation. I implore you, Garion -I beg you- send for Polgara. We need her advice and help -and we need it now."
After the Warder had quietly left, Garion sat for a long while staring out at the rain. All in all, he decided that it might be wiser not to tell Ce'Nedra about the conversation. He did not want to frighten her with talk of assassins lurking in the dim corridors, and any hint that political expediency might compel consideration of divorce would not be well received. After careful thought, he concluded that the best course would be just to keep his mouth shut and send for Aunt Pol. Unfortunately, he had forgotten something rather important. When he entered the cheery, candlelit royal apartment that evening, he wore a carefully assumed smile designed to indicate that nothing untoward had happened during the day.
The frosty silence which greeted him should have warned him; even had he missed that danger sign, he certainly should have noticed the scars on the door casing and the broken shards of several vases and assorted porcelain figurines that lay in the corners where they had been missed in the hasty clean-up following an explosion of some sort. The Rivan King, however, sometimes tended to be slightly unobservant. "Good evening, dear"' he greeted his icy little wife in a cheerful voice.
"Really?"
"How did your day go?"
She turned to regard him with a look filled with daggers. "How can you possibly have the nerve to ask that?"
Garion blinked.
"Tell me," she said, "just when is it that I am to be put aside so that my Lord can marry the blonde-headed brood sow who's going to replace me in my Lord's bed and fill the entire Citadel with litters of runny-nosed Alorn brats?"
"How-?"
"My Lord appears to have forgotten the gift he chained about my neck when we were betrothed," she said. "My Lord also appears to have forgotten just exactly what Beldaran's amulet can do."
"Oh," Garion said, suddenly remembering. "Oh, my."
"Unfortunately, the amulet won't come off," Ce'Nedra told him bitingly. "You won't be able to give it to your next wife -unless you plan to have my head cut off so that you can reclaim it."
"Will you stop that?"
"As my Lord commands me. Did you plan to ship me back to Tolnedra -or am I just to be shoved out the front gate into the rain and left to fend for myself?"
"You heard the discussion I had with Brand, then, I take it."
"Obviously."
"If you heard part of it, then I'm sure you heard it all. Brand was only reporting a danger to you caused by the absurd notions of a group of frothing fanatics."
"You should not have even listened to him."
"When he's trying to warn me that somebody might attempt to kill you? Ce'Nedra, be serious."
"The thought is there now, Garion," she said accusingly. "Now you know that you can get rid of me any time you want. I've seen you ogling those empty-headed Alorn girls with their long blonde braids and their overdeveloped bosoms. Now's your chance, Garion. Which one will you choose?"
"Are you about finished with all of this?"
Her eyes narrowed. "I see," she said. "Now I'm not merely barren, I'm also hysterical."
"No, you're just a little silly now and then, that's all."
"Silly?"
"Everybody's silly once in a while," he added quite calmly. "It's part of being human. I'm actually a little surprised that you aren't throwing things."
She threw a quick, guilty glance in the direction of some of the broken fragments in the corner.
"Oh," he said, catching the glance. "You did that earlier, I see. I'm glad I missed that part. It's hard to try to reason with somebody when you're dodging flying crockery and the other person is shrieking curses."
Ce'Nedra blushed slightly.
"You did that too?" he asked mildly. "Sometimes I wonder where you managed to pick up all those words. How did you ever find out what they mean?"
"You swear all the time," she accused.
"I know," he admitted. "It's terribly unfair. I'm allowed to, but you're not."
"I'd like to know who made up that rule," she started, and then her eyes narrowed. "You're trying to change the subject," she accused him.
"No, Ce'Nedra, I already did. We weren't getting anywhere with the other topic. You are not barren, and I am not going to divorce you, no matter how long somebody else's braids are, or how -well, never mind."
She looked at him. "Oh, Garion, what if I am?" she said in a small voice. "Barren, I mean?"
"That's absurd, Ce'Nedra. We won't even discuss that."
The lingering doubt in the eyes of the Rivan Queen, however, said quite clearly that, even if they did not discuss it, she would continue to worry about it.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The season made the Sea of the Winds extremely hazardous, and Garion was forced to wait for a full month before he could dispatch a messenger to the Vale of Aldur. By then the late autumn snowstorms had clogged the passes in the mountains of eastern Sendaria, and the royal messenger was obliged literally to wade his way across the plains of Algaria.
With all these delays, it was very nearly Erastide by the time Aunt Pol, Durnik, and Errand arrived at the snowy quay in the harbor at Riva. Durnik admitted to Garion that it had only been a chance meeting with the wayward Captain Greldik, who feared no storm that any sea could hurl at him, that had made the trip possible at all. Polgara spoke briefly with the vagabond seaman before they began the long climb up to the Citadel, and Garion noted with some surprise that Greldik slipped his hawsers immediately and sailed back out to sea.
Polgara seemed quite unconcerned about the gravity of the problem that had impelled Garion to send for her. She spoke with him only a couple of times about it, asking a few rather direct questions that set his ears to flaming. Her discussions with Ce'Nedra were a bit more lengthy, but only slightly so.
Garion received the distinct impression that she was waiting for someone or something before proceeding.
The Erastide celebration at Riva that year was somewhat subdued. Although
it was very pleasant to have Polgara, Durnik, and Errand with them to join in the festivities, Garion's concern over the problem Brand had raised dampened his enjoyment of the holiday.
Several weeks afterward, Garion entered the royal apartment one snowy midafternoon to find Polgara and Ce'Nedra seated by a cozy fire sipping tea and chatting together quietly. The curiosity which had been growing in him since the arrival of his visitors finally boiled to a head.
"Aunt Pol," he began.
"Yes dear?"
"You've been here for almost a month now."
"Has it been that long? The time certainly passes quickly when you're with people you love."
"There's still this little problem, you know," he reminded her.
"Yes, Garion," she replied patiently. "I'm aware of that."
"Are we doing anything about it?"
"No," she said placidly, "not yet, anyhow."
"It's sort of important, Aunt Pol. I don't want to seem to be trying to rush you or anything, but- " He broke off helplessly.
Polgara rose from her chair, went to the window, and looked out at the small private garden just outside. The garden was clogged with snow, and the pair of intertwined oak trees Ce'Nedra had planted there at the time of her betrothal to Garion were bowed slightly beneath the weight on their limbs. "One of the things you'll learn as you grow older, Garion," she said to him, gravely looking out at the snowy garden, "is patience. Everything has its proper season. The solution to your problem isn't all that complicated, but it's just not the proper time to come to grips with it yet."
"I don't understand at all, Aunt Pol."
"Then you'll just have to trust me, won't you?"
"Of course I trust you, Aunt Pol. It's just- "
"Just what, dear?"
"Nothing."
It was late winter before Captain Greldik returned from the south. A storm had sprung one of the seams of his ship, and she was taking water as she wallowed heavily around the headland and made for the quay.
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