Polgara's eyes came alight when Brador opened the door to the suite of rooms she was to share with Durnik.
Just beyond an arched doorway leading from the main sitting room was a large marble tub sunk into the floor with little tendrils of steam rising from it. "Oh, my," she sighed. "Civilization ‑at last."
"Just try not to get waterlogged, Pol," Belgarath said.
"Of course not, Other," she agreed absently, still eyeing the steaming tub with undisguised longing.
"Is it really all that important, Pol?" he asked her.
"Yes, father," she replied. "It really is."
"It's an irrational prejudice against dirt." He grinned at the rest of them. "I've always been sort of fond of dirt myself"
"Quite obviously," she said. Then she stopped. "Incidentally, Old Wolf," she said critically as they all began to file out, "if your room happens to be similarly equipped, you should make use of the facilities yourself."
"Me?"
"You smell, father."
"No, Pol," he corrected. "I stink. You smell."
"Whatever. Go wash, father." She was already absently removing her shoes.
"I've gone as much as ten years at a time without a bath," he declared.
"Yes, father," she said. "I know ‑only the Gods know how well I know. Now," she said in a very businesslike tone, "if you'll all excuse me . . ." She very deliberately began to unbutton the front of her dress.
The suite of rooms to which Garion and Ce'Nedra were led was, if anything, even more opulent than that shared by Durnik and Polgara. As Garion moved about the several large chambers, examining the furnishings, Ce'Nedra went directly toward the bath, her eyes dreamy and her clothes falling to the floor behind her as she went. His wife's tendency toward casual nudity had occasionally shocked Garion in the past. He did not personally object to Ce'Nedra's skin. What disturbed him had been that she had seemed oblivious to the fact that sometimes her unclad state was highly inappropriate. He recalled with a shudder the time when he and the Sendarian ambassador had entered the royal apartment at Riva just as Ce'Nedra was in the process of trying on several new undergarments she had received from her dressmaker that very morning. Quite calmly, she had asked the ambassador's opinion of various of the frilly little things, modeling each in turn for him. The ambassador, a staid and proper Sendarian gentleman in his seventies, received more shocks in that ten minutes than he had encountered in the previous half century, and his next dispatch to King Fulrach had plaintively requested that he be relieved of his post.
"Ce'Nedra, aren't you at least going to close the door?" Garion asked her as she tested the water's temperature with a tentative toe.
"That makes it very hard for us to talk, Garion," she replied reasonably as she stepped down into the tub. "I hate to have to shout."
"Oh?" he said. "I hadn't noticed that."
"Be nice," she told him, sinking into the water with a contented sigh. Curiously she began to unstopper and sniff the crystal decanters lined along one side of the tub
which contained, Garion assumed, the assorted condiments with which ladies seasoned their bath water. Some of these she restoppered disapprovingly. Others she liberally sprinkled into her bath. One or two of them she rubbed on herself in various places.
"What if somebody comes in?" Garion asked her pointedly. "Some official or messenger or servant or something?"
"Well, what if they do?"
He stared at her.
"Garion, darling," she said in that same infuriatingly reasonable tone, "if they hadn't intended for the bath to be used, they wouldn't have prepared it, would they?"
Try as he might, he could not find an answer to that question.
She laid her head back in the water, letting her hair fan out around her face. Then she sat up. "Would you like to wash my back for me?" she asked him.
An hour or so later, after an excellent lunch served by efficient servants, Silk stopped by. The little thief had also bathed and changed clothes once again. His pearl-gray doublet was formally elegant, and he once again dripped jewels. His short, scraggly beard had been neatly trimmed, and there was a faint air of exotic perfume lingering about him. "Appearances," he responded to Garion's quizzical look. "One always wants to put one's best foot forward in a new situation."
"Of course," Garion said dryly.
"Belgarath asked me to stop by," the little man continued. "There's a large room upstairs. We're gathering there for a council of war."
"War?"
"Metaphorically speaking, of course."
"Oh. Of course."
The room at the top of a flight of marble stairs to which Silk led Garion and Ce'Nedra was quite large, and there was a throne-like chair on a dais against the back wall.
Garion looked about at the lush furnishings and heavy crimson drapes. "This isn't the throne room, is it?" he asked.
"No," Silk replied. " At least not Kal Zakath's official one. It's here to make visiting royalty feel at home. Some kings get nervous when they don't have official‑looking surroundings to play in."
"Oh."
Belgarath sat with his mismatched boots up on a polished table. His hair and beard were slightly damp, evidence that, despite his pretended indifference to bathing, he had in fact followed Polgara's instructions. Polgara and Durnik were talking quietly at one side, and Eriond and Toth were nearby. Velvet and Sadi stood looking out the window at the formal garden lying to the east of Zakath's sprawling palace.
"All right," the old sorcerer said, "I guess we're all here now. I think we need to talk."
‑I wouldn't say anything too specific‑ Silk's fingers said in the gestures of the Drasnian secret language. ‑It's almost certain that there are a few spies about-
Belgarath looked at the far wall, his eyes narrowed as he searched it inch by inch for hidden peepholes. He grunted and looked at Polgara.
"I'll look into it, father," she murmured. Her eyes grew distant, and Garion felt the familiar surge. After a moment she nodded and held up three fingers. She concentrated for a moment, and the quality of the surge changed, seeming somehow languorous. Then she straightened and relaxed her will. "It's all right now," she told them calmly. "They fell asleep."
"That was very smooth, Pol," Durnik said admiringly.
"Why, thank you, dear," she smiled, laying her hand on his.
Belgarath put his feet on the floor and leaned forward.
"That's one more thing for us all to keep in mind," he said seriously. "We're likely to be watched all the time that we're here in Mal Zeth, so be careful. Zakath's a skeptic, so we can't really be sure just how much of what we've told him he believes. It's altogether possible that he has other things in mind for us. Right now he needs our help in dealing with Mengha, but he still hasn't entirely abandoned his campaign in Cthol Murgos, and he might want to use us to bring the Alorns and the others into that war on his side. He's also got problems with Urvon and Zandramas. We don't have the time to get caught up in internal Mallorean politics. At the moment, though, we're more or less in his power, so let's be careful."
"We can leave any time we need to, Belgarath," Durnik said confidently.
"I'd rather not do it that way unless we have absolutely no other choice," the old man replied. "Zakath's the kind of man who's very likely to grow testy if he's thwarted, and I don't want to have to creep around dodging his soldiers. It takes too much time and it's dangerous. I'll be a lot happier if we can leave Mal Zeth with his blessing ‑or at least with his consent."
"I want to get to Ashaba before Zandramas has time to escape again," Garion insisted.
"So do I, Garion," his grandfather said, "but we don't know what she's doing there, so we don't know how long she's likely to stay."
"She's been looking for something, father," Polgara told the old man. "I saw that in her mind when I trapped her back in Rak Hagga."
He looked at her thoughtfully. "Could you get any idea of what it was, Pol?"
She shook her head. "Not spec
ifically," she replied. "I think it's information of some kind. She can't go any further until she finds it. I was able to pick that much out of her thoughts."
"Whatever it is, has to be well hidden," he said. "Beldin and I took Ashaba apart after the Battle of Vo Mimbre and we didn't find anything out of the ordinary ‑if you can accept the idea that Torak's house was in any way ordinary."
"Can we be sure that she's still there with my baby?" Ce'Nedra asked intently.
"No, dear," Polgara told her. "She's taken steps to hide her mind from me. She's rather good, actually."
"Even if she's left Ashaba, the Orb can pick up her trail again," Belgarath said. "The chances are pretty good that she hasn't found what she's looking for, and that effectively nails her down at Ashaba. If she has found it, she won't be hard to follow."
"We're going on to Ashaba, then?" Sadi asked. "What I'm getting at is that our concern about Mengha was just a ruse to get us to Mallorea, wasn't it?"
"I think I'm going to need more information before I make any decisions about that. The situation in northern Karanda is serious, certainly, but let's not lose sight of the fact that our primary goal is Zandramas, and she's at Ashaba. Before I can decide anything, though, I need to know more about what's going on here in Mallorea."
"My department," Silk volunteered.
"And mine," Velvet added.
"I might be able to help a bit as well," Sadi noted with a faint smile. He frowned then. "Seriously though, Belgarath," he continued, "you and your family here represent power. I don't think we're going to have much luck at persuading Kal Zakath to let you go willingly -no matter how cordial he may appear on the surface."
The old man nodded glumly. "It might turn out that way after all," he agreed. Then he looked at Silk, Velvet, and Sadi. "Be careful," he cautioned them, "Don't let your instincts run away with you. I need information, but don't stir up any hornets' nests getting it for me." He looked pointedly at Silk. "I hope I've made myself clear about this," he said. "Don't complicate things just for the fun of it."
"Trust me, Belgarath," Silk replied with a bland smile.
"Of course he trusts you, Kheldar," Velvet assured the little man.
Belgarath looked at his impromptu spy network and shook his head. "Why do I get the feeling that I'm going to regret this?" he muttered.
"I'll keep an eye on them, Belgarath," Sadi promised.
"Of course, but who's going to keep an eye on you?"
CHAPTER SEVEN
That evening they were escorted with some ceremony through the echoing halls of Zakath's palace to a banquet hall that appeared to be only slightly smaller than a parade ground. The hall was approached by way of a broad, curved stairway lined on either side with branched candelabra and liveried trumpeteers. The stairway was obviously designed to facilitate grand entrances. Each new arrival was announced by a stirring fanfare and the booming voice of a gray‑haired herald so thin that it almost appeared that a lifetime of shouting had worn him down to a shadow.
Garion and his friends waited in a small antechamber while the last of the local dignitaries were announced.
The fussy chief of protocol, a small Melcene with an elaborately trimmed brown beard, wanted them to line up in ascending order of rank, but the difficulties involved in assigning precise rank to the members of this strange group baffled him. He struggled with it, manfully trying to decide if Sorcerer outranked King or Imperial Princess until Garion solved his problem for him by leading Ce'Nedra out onto the landing at the top of the stairs.
"Their Royal Majesties, King Belgarion and Queen Ce'Nedra of Riva," the herald declaimed grandly, and the trumpets blared.
Garion, dressed all in blue and with his ivory‑gowned Queen on his arm, paused on the marble landing at the top of the stairs to allow the brightly clad throng below the time to gawk at him. The somewhat dramatic pause was not entirely his idea. Ce'Nedra had dug her fingernails into his arm with a grip of steel and hissed, "Stand still! "
It appeared that Zakath also had some leaning toward the theatrical, since the stunned silence which followed the herald's announcement clearly indicated that the Emperor had given orders that the identity of his guests remain strictly confidential until this very moment. Garion was honest enough with himself to admit that the startled buzz which ran through the crowd below was moderately gratifying.
He began down the stairway, but found himself reined in like a restive horse. "Don't run!" Ce'Nedra commanded under her breath.
"Run?" he objected. "I'm barely moving."
"Do it slower, Garion."
He discovered then that his wife had a truly amazing talent. She could speak without moving her lips! Her smile was gracious, though somewhat lofty, but a steady stream of low‑voiced commands issued from that smile.
The buzzing murmur that had filled the banquet hall when they had been announced died into a respectful silence when they reached the foot of the stair, and a vast wave of bows and curtsies rippled through the crowd as they moved along the carpeted promenade leading to the slightly elevated platform upon which sat the table reserved for the Emperor and his special guests, domestic and foreign.
Zakath himself, still in his customary white, but wearing a gold circlet artfully hammered into the form of a wreath woven of leaves as a concession to the formality of the occasion, rose from his seat and came to meet them, thereby avoiding that awkward moment when two men of equal rank meet in public. "So good of you to come, my dear," he said, taking Ce'Nedra's hand and kissing it. He sounded for all the world like a country squire or minor nobleman greeting friends from the neighborhood.
"So good of you to invite us," she replied with a whimsical smile.
"You're looking well, Garion," the Mallorean said, extending his hand and still speaking in that offhand and informal manner.
"Tolerable, Zakath," Garion responded, taking his cue from his host. If Zakath wanted to play, Garion felt that he should show him that he could play, too.
"Would you care to join me at the table?" Zakath asked. "We can chat while we wait for the others to arrive."
"Of course," Garion agreed in a deliberately commonplace tone of voice.
When they reached their chairs, however, his curiosity finally got the better of him. "Why are we playing 'just plain folks'?" he asked Zakath as he held Ce'Nedra's chair for her. "This affair's a trifle formal for talking about the weather and asking after each other's health, wouldn't you say?"
"It's baffling the nobility," Zakath replied with aplomb. "Never do the expected, Garion. The hint that we're old, old friends will set them afire with curiosity and make people who thought that they knew everything just a little less sure of themselves." He smiled at Ce'Nedra. "You're positively ravishing tonight, my dear," he told her.
Ce'Nedra glowed then looked archly at Garion. "Why don't you take a few notes, dear?" she suggested. "You could learn a great deal from his Majesty here." She turned back to Zakath. "You're so very kind to say it," she told him, "but my hair is an absolute disaster." Her expression was faintly tragic as she lightly touched her curls with her fingertips. Actually, her hair was stupendous, with a coronet of braids interwoven with strings of pearls and with a cascade of coppery ringlets spilling down across the front of her left shoulder.
During this polite exchange, the others in their party were being introduced. Silk and Velvet caused quite a stir, he in his jewel‑encrusted doublet and she in a gown of lavender brocade.
Ce'Nedra sighed enviously. "I wish I could wear that color," she murmured.
"You can wear any color you want to, Ce'Nedra," Garion told her.
"Are you color‑blind, Garion?" she retorted. "A girl with red hair can not wear lavender."
"If that's all that's bothering you, I can change the color of your hair anytime you want."
"Don't you dare!" she gasped, her hands going protectively to the cascade of auburn curls at her shoulder.
"Just a suggestion, dear."
The herald at t
he top of the stairs announced Sadi, Eriond, and Toth as a group, obviously having some difficulty with the fact that the boy and the giant had no rank that he could discern. The next presentation, however, filled his voice with awe and his bony limbs with trembling. "Her Grace, the Duchess of Erat," he declaimed, "Lady Polgara the Sorceress." The silence following that announcement was stunned. "And Goodman Durnik of Sendaria," the herald added, 'the man with two lives.'"
Polgara and the smith descended the stairs to the accompaniment of a profound silence.
The bows and curtsies which acknowledged the legendary couple were so deep as to resemble genuflections before an altar. Polgara, dressed in her customary silver-trimmed blue, swept through the hall with all the regal bearing of an Empress. She wore a mysterious smile, and the fabled white lock at her brow glowed in the candlelight as she and Durnik approached the platform.
Meanwhile, at the top of the stairs, the herald had shrunk back from the next guest, his eyes wide and his face gone quite pale.
"Just say it," Garion heard his grandfather tell the frightened man. "I'm fairly sure that they'll all recognize the name."
The herald stepped to the marble railing at the front of the landing. "Your Majesty," he said falteringly, "My lords and ladies, I have the unexpected honor to present Belgarath the Sorcerer."
A gasp ran through the hall as the old man, dressed in a cowled robe of soft gray wool, stumped down the stairs with no attempt at grace or dignity. The assembled Mallorean notables pulled back from him as he walked toward the table where the others had already joined Zakath.
About halfway to the imperial platform, however, a blond Melcene girl in a low‑cut gown caught his eye. She stood stricken with awe, unable to curtsy or even to move as the most famous man in all the world approached her.
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