‘I’ll come down to Vo Mandor and lend you a hand.’
‘Oh, you don’t have to do that, Polly.’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact I do. Strange as it may seem, I’m very fond of you, Asrana, and I’m not going to leave you in the hands of strangers.’
‘But –’
‘Hush, Asrana. It’s settled.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ It sounded submissive, but I knew Asrana well enough to know that submission and humility were not part of her nature.
After the council meetings were over, Kathandrion and I rode on back to Vo Wacune. ‘Somehow this all seems very strange,’ Kathandrion mused on the last day of our journey.
‘What does?’
‘Meeting and sitting down with hereditary enemies.’
‘You might as well get used to it, Kathandrion. So long as I’m around – and I’ll be around for a long, long time – this annual get-together’s going to be a fixture in Arendia. Talking with people is far better than fighting with them.’
‘What an unnatural thing to suggest.’
I rolled my eyes upward with a theatrical look of long-suffering resignation. ‘Arends,’ I sighed.
Kathandrion laughed. ‘I just love it when you do that, Polgara,’ he said. ‘It makes everything we do seem so childish.’
‘It is, Kathandrion. Believe me, it is.’
The rest of the summer passed without incident, but the autumn was filled with social events. Evidently that’s an Arendish custom: ‘Rest all summer, and then have parties until the snow flies.’
Killane accompanied me on down to Vo Mandor when I calculated that Asrana’s time was approaching. He didn’t ask; he didn’t suggest; he just did it. ‘I’ll not be after lettin’ y’ travel alone, Lady-O,’ he told me when I protested. ‘Settin aside th’ dangers, yer social standin’ would suffer were it t’ become known that y’ can’t afford a proper escort, don’t y’ know.’
I didn’t make an issue of it, since I rather enjoyed his company, and I was amused at the way servants frequently bully their employers. Killane took what he believed to be his duties quite seriously.
It was snowing when we reached Vo Mandor, a thick, swirling snow that blotted out everything more than a few yards away with a seething cloud of white. Mandorin greeted me very warmly, and he had that worried expression on his face that seems to mark the visage of every expectant father.
I turned the Baron of Vo Mandor over to Killane with instructions to keep him out of my hair and proceeded to tend the grossly expectant baroness. There were narcotic compounds I knew of to moderate her labor pains, and if it came right down to it, I could put her to sleep with a single thought. It didn’t get down to that, though, because Asrana’s delivery of her son was a fairly easy one. Mandorin was so proud that he nearly burst. New fathers are like that, I’ve noticed.
There was nothing really pressing to draw me immediately back to Vo Wacune. My house was in the care of Killane’s capable relatives, and traveling in the winter isn’t very pleasant, so I gave in to the urgings of Mandorin and Asrana to stay over until the bad weather was past.
It was pleasant to spend time with old friends, and then too, I got to play with the baby quite a bit. But spring inevitably arrived, and Killane and I started making preparations for our return to Vo Wacune.
As it turned out, however, another old friend came by on the afternoon of the day before we’d planned to depart. Earl Mangaran, the de facto Duke of Asturia, had been conferring with Corrolin in Vo Mimbre, and, accompanied by his heavily armed troop of bodyguards, he came riding up the long causeway to Vo Mandor.
Mangaran hadn’t noticeably aged since the coup that had elevated him to the throne, but his eyes looked very tired. After all the greetings in the courtyard, Mandorin led us to a secure room high in one of the towers to discuss certain state matters. Given the nature of Vo Mandor, I didn’t really think those precautions were necessary, but this was still Arendia, after all.
‘Well, Mangaran,’ Asrana asked after we’d all seated ourselves, ‘did some emergency send you off to Vo Mimbre, or did you just yearn for Duke Corrolin’s company?’
Mangaran passed a weary hand across his face. ‘I sometimes think I might have been wiser to have left town when you ladies were plotting our little revolution,’ he said. ‘Now I think I know why Oldoran spent all his time up to his eyebrows in drink. There are so many details.’ He sighed mournfully. ‘I went on down to Vo Mimbre to advise Duke Corrolin that there’s serious trouble in Vo Astur. Now I’m on my way to Vo Wacune to talk with Duke Kathandrion about the same matter. I’m advising the both of them that they’d better form a strong alliance. Asturia’s right on the verge of going up in flames.’
‘There’s nothing new about that, Mangaran,’ Asrana noted. ‘Asturia’s been smouldering since I was a little girl. Which particular embers are glowing this time?’
‘I rather suspect that history’s going to call this “the nephew war”,’ Mangaran replied with a gloomy face. ‘I have no living sons, and my claim to the ducal throne is fairly specious. We did depose Oldoran on the flimsiest of legal grounds that day, and the one who should legally have taken his place was his eldest nephew, Nerasin.’
Asrana made a retching sound.
‘My sentiments exactly, Baroness,’ Mangaran said smoothly. Then he went on. ‘Unfortunately, my eldest nephew isn’t much better than Nerasin. He’s a foolish wastrel who’s up to his ears in gambling debts. To put it bluntly, I wouldn’t put him in charge of a pig-pen.’
‘I’ve met him, Polly,’ Asrana told me. ‘His name’s Olburton, and he’s at least as bad as Nerasin is. If either of those two succeeds Mangaran here, Asturia’s going to simply disintegrate into little clusters of warring estates.’ She looked rather coolly at her husband. ‘And there are those in Mimbre who might just decide to take advantage of that, aren’t there, love?’
Mandorin sighed. ‘I do fear me that thou hast spoken truly,’ he admitted.
‘And there are border nobles in Wacune who’ll feel the same way,’ I added. ‘What is it about proximity to a border that brings out the worst in people?’
‘Oh, that’s easy, Polly,’ Asrana said with a cynical laugh. ‘All the world knows that the people on the other side of any border aren’t really human, so whatever they happen to own rightfully belongs to real humans on our side of the line.’
‘That’s a brutal view of life, Asrana,’ I scolded her.
True, though,’ she replied with a saucy toss of her head.
‘I cannot believe this is truly happening,’ Mandorin protested. ‘The hard-won peace which we all struggled so valiantly to wrest from the jaws of unending war is now at the mercy of a pair of Asturian popinjays.’
‘And to make matters worse, there’s not much we can do about it,’ Mangaran mourned. ‘Fortunately, I won’t be around when it happens.’
‘What an odd thing,’ Asrana noted thoughtfully. ‘Peace requires rulers every bit as strong as war does. Mangaran, dear, why don’t you leave a parting gift to poor old Asturia? Put a clause in your will that’ll send both of these incompetent nephews to the headsman’s block. A man with no head doesn’t have much use for a crown, does he?’
‘Asrana!’ Mandorin gasped.
‘I was only joking, love,’ she assured him. Then she frowned slightly. ‘It is a solution, though,’ she mused, ‘but why don’t we do it before Mangaran’s been gathered to the bosom of Chaldan? A little bit of poison in the right places would solve the whole problem, wouldn’t it? Then we could poison our way through the ranks of Asturian nobility until we finally found someone competent enough to rule.’
‘A bit simplistic, Asrana,’ Mangaran chided.
The simple ones are the best, old friend,’ she told him. ‘We’re all Arends, after all, and complications confuse us.’
‘I’ll admit that I’m tempted,’ Mangaran said with a wicked grin.
‘I’d strongly advise against it,’ I told them. ‘The introdu
ction of poison into politics always seems to spur imitation, I’ve noticed, and everybody has to eat now and then.’
‘Poisons are very rare though,’ Asrana said, ‘and very expensive, aren’t they?’
‘Good heavens no, Asrana,’ I told her. ‘I could find deadly poisons growing in flower beds right here in Vo Mandor, if I really needed some. They’re so common that I’m sometimes surprised that half the population doesn’t die off from accidental exposure to them. There are even some ordinary plants that are a part of everybody’s diet that have poisonous leaves on them. If you eat the roots, you’re fine; if you eat the leaves, you’re dead. If you want to kill somebody, use an axe or a knife. Don’t open that door marked “poison”. I’ll keep an eye on things in Asturia, so please don’t all of you rush into exotic solutions.’
‘Spoilsport,’ Asrana pouted.
Since Mangaran was going on to Vo Wacune anyway, Killane and I accompanied him, though my seneschal – if that’s the proper term – was quite uncomfortable in the presence of so many Asturians. Hereditary animosities die hard, I’ve noticed, and peace was still something of a novelty in Arendia.
Mangaran’s ‘Nephew War’ wasn’t too hard to defuse, since the people attracted to either camp were the sort who talked a good fight but tended to fade back into the woodwork when trouble broke out. I had Mangaran track down the more vocal adherents of both Nerasin and Olburton, and after I’d had a few pointed interviews with the more prominent partisans on either side, the whole business cooled down noticeably. One does have a certain reputation, after all, and I was fairly free with some threats that I probably wouldn’t have carried out even if I’d been sure just exactly how to pull them off.
The rulers of the three duchies took that to be some sort of sign from on high, and whether I really wanted the position or not, I became the semi-official presiding officer at the meetings of the Arendish Council each summer.
Things went on in this fashion for some years, and by dint of a mixture of persuasion, threats, and sheer force of will I was able to maintain the shaky peace in Arendia.
Young Alleran grew up during those years, and he was married shortly after his eighteenth birthday. I’d stayed rather close to Alleran during his formative years and had gently led him astray. His parents, Kathandrion and Elisera, had done their very best to raise him as full-bore Arend – all nobility and no brains – but I tampered just enough to keep his strain of common sense intact. Asrana’s observation during the meeting at Vo Mandor was still very apt. A ruler during peacetime must be at least as strong as one who’s presiding over a war, and nothing helps to make a ruler strong quite as much as common sense.
I had an unlikely assistant in my campaign to contaminate Alleran’s pure Arendish understanding. Though Alleran was ostensibly visiting his ‘Aunt Pol’ – that particular title’s been following me around for centuries – I found that more often than not, he spent his time with Killane, and who better to give instruction in practicality than a master builder? Between us, Killane and I turned out a young man eminently qualified to rule. He could ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ with the best of them, but his mind didn’t stop functioning as soon as the first archaic syllable crossed his lips.
No matter what you might choose to believe, I had nothing whatsoever to do with his choice of a bride. That decision was dictated almost entirely by politics. Alliances between equals are almost always cemented by marriages. The bride’s name was Mayasarell – one of those concocted names usually arrived at by mashing the names of several dead relatives together – and she was a lovely, dark-haired girl. She and Alleran were not exactly desperately in love with each other, but they got along fairly well, and that’s a reasonable basis for a good marriage, I suppose.
The years continued their stately, ordered pace, and the annual meetings of ‘the Arendish Council’ at the Great Fair gave me plenty of opportunity to head off assorted idiocies before they got completely out of hand.
I think it was after the council meeting in 2324 that I made one of my periodic surveys of the land of the Arends. It was not so much that I distrusted the information I was receiving, but it’s always a good idea to have a look for yourself in these matters, so Killane and I joined the party of Duke Corrolin of Mimbre and rode on down to the golden city on the banks of the River Arend.
I found nothing particularly alarming in Vo Mimbre, so after a week or so, Killane and I left to go on to Vo Mandor to look in on Mandorin and Asrana.
It was on the morning of our second day out when Killane and I had a conversation that was becoming increasingly necessary.
It wasn’t long after sunrise, and my seneschal and I had ridden up a fairly steep hill, and we stopped at the top to rest our horses in the golden morning sunlight.
‘Meanin’ no offense, Lady-O,’ Killane said a bit hesitantly, ‘but could we be after havin’ a bit of a chat?’
‘Of course. You look troubled, Killane. What’s bothering you?’
‘I’m not th’ cleverest man in all th’ world, me Lady,’ he said, ‘but a man would have t’ be an absolute dunce not t’ see that y’ ain’t exactly ordinary.’
‘Why, thank you, Killane.’ I smiled. ‘Go ahead and say it, my friend. I won’t be the least bit offended.’
‘They call y’ Polgara th’ Sorceress,’ he blurted. ‘Is that a true fact?’
‘The “Sorceress” part of it’s been blown all out of proportion,’ I replied, ‘but, yes, my name is Polgara, and I do have certain abilities that aren’t very common.’
‘An’ yer father’s name is Belgarath?’
I sighed. ‘I’m afraid so, yes.’
‘An’ yer quite a bit older than y’ look?’
‘I certainly hope that the years aren’t showing.’
‘Yer a thousand years old, aren’t y’?’ He blurted that out almost accusingly.
‘No, dear heart,’ I said patiently. Three hundred and twenty-four, actually.’
He swallowed very hard, and his eyes got sort of wild.
‘Does it really matter so much, Killane?’ I asked him. ‘Longevity’s really nothing more than a family trait. Some people live longer than others, that’s all. You’ve seen that yourself, I’m sure.’
‘Well, yes, I suppose so, but three hundred years’.’
‘I’ll say it again. Does it really matter? Our friendship’s what matters, isn’t it? You’re my true and faithful friend. That’s all that matters to me, and that’s all that should really matter to you. Don’t let something as silly as numbers destroy our friendship.’
‘I’d sooner cut off me right hand,’ he declared.
‘Well, stop worrying about it, then.’
‘Kin y’ really an’ truly perform magic?’ His tone was almost boyish, and his expression seemed filled with anticipation.
‘If that’s what you want to call it, yes.’
‘Do somethin’ magical,’ he urged me, his eyes alight.
‘Oh, dear,’ I sighed. ‘All right, Killane, but if I do a few tricks for you, can we drop this silly conversation?’
He nodded eagerly.
I translocated myself to a spot some distance behind him, and he sat on his horse, gaping at my suddenly empty saddle.
‘I’m over here, Killane,’ I advised him calmly.
He turned, his expression almost frightened.
I gestured at a nearby boulder, focusing my Will. Then I released it, and the boulder rose to hover about ten feet in the air.
Killane started visibly when I dropped it with a thud.
‘This has always been my favorite,’ I told him, and I rather slowly blurred into the form of the snowy white owl. I circled about him for a few moments, gently brushing his face with my soft wing-feathers. Then I resumed my own form and climbed back up on to my horse. ‘Satisfied?’ I asked my trembling friend.
‘More than satisfied, me Lady,’ he assured me. ‘ ‘Twas a wondrous thing t’ behold.’
‘I’m glad you liked it. Now, shall
we go on to Vo Mandor? If we hurry right along, we should make it by suppertime.’
Chapter 18
Earl Mangaran died the following spring, and I rushed to Vo Astur to examine his newly entombed body. I wanted to be certain that Asrana’s simple solution to the problem of inconvenient people hadn’t also occurred to others. My examination of my friend’s body, however, revealed that he had died of natural causes.
Olburton, the wastrel who was Mangaran’s heir, had assumed authority in Vo Astur, but most of the rest of Asturia was under the control of Nerasin, Duke Oldoran’s nephew. The legalities of the situation were extremely murky. Oldoran had never actually been stripped of his crown, and Mangaran’s tenure in Vo Astur had been, from a strictly legal point of view, no more than a regency. The choice between Nerasin and Olburton wasn’t really much of a choice, so I kept my nose out of it. My job was to keep the three duchies at peace, and if the Asturians chose to embroil themselves in a generation or so of internal strife, that was their business, not mine.
I took some precautions, though. At my suggestion, Kathandrion and Corrolin met quietly at Vo Mandor to cement an alliance designed to keep the Asturian conflagration from spreading.
‘What is thine advice here, Lady Polgara?’ Kathandrion asked me once we’d all gathered in Mandorin’s blue-carpeted study. ‘Duke Corrolin and I could quite easily move into Asturia, dispose of both nephews and put someone to our liking on the throne in Vo Astur.’
‘That’s a very bad idea, Kathandrion. If the Asturians want to hate each other, that’s their affair. If you and Corrolin take a hand in things, all you’ll succeed in doing is uniting the Asturians, and they’ll come crashing out of their forest to re-ignite the civil war Ctuchik was trying so hard to keep burning. Just close the borders of Asturia and let them fight it out among themselves. Eventually, someone who’s strong enough is going to come along and re-unite them, and then I’ll go to Vo Astur and persuade that fellow that it’s in his best interests to go along with the idea that peace is better than war.’
‘Persuade?’ Asrana asked mildly.
Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress Page 116
