Ce’Nedra nervously paced the deck near the prow, her blue cloak tossing in the wind and her armor gleaming. Despite the dreadful knowledge concealed in her heart, there was an excitement to all of this. The gathering of men, swords, and ships, the running before the wind, the sense of a unified purpose, all combined to make her blood race and to fill her with an exhilaration she had never felt before.
The coast ahead loomed larger – a white sand beach backed by the dark green of the Arendish forest. As they neared the shoreline, an armored knight on a huge roan stallion emerged from the trees and rode down the beach to the edge of the water where foamy breakers crashed on the damp sand. The princess shaded her eyes with one hand and peered intently at the gleaming knight. Then, as he turned with a broad sweep of his arm which told them to continue up the coast, she saw the crest on his shield. Her heart suddenly soared. ‘Mandorallen!’ she cried out in a vibrant trumpet note as she clung to the ropes in the very prow of Barak’s ship, with the wind whipping at her hair.
The great knight waved a salute and, spurring his charger, galloped through the seething foam at the edge of the beach, the silver and blue pennon at the tip of his lance snapping and streaming over his head. Their ship heeled over as Barak swung the tiller, and, separated by a hundred yards or so of foaming surf, the ship and the rider on the beach kept abreast of each other.
It was a moment Ce’Nedra would remember for all her life – a single image so perfect that it seemed forever frozen in her memory. The great ship flew before the wind, cutting the sparkling blue water, with her white sails booming; the mighty warhorse on the beach plunged through the gleaming foam at the edge of the sand with spray flying out from beneath his great hooves. Locked together in that endless moment, ship and rider raced along in the warm spring sunshine toward a wooded promontory a mile ahead, with Ce’Nedra exulting in the ship’s prow and her flaming hair streaming like a banner.
Beyond the promontory lay a sheltered cove, and drawn up on the beach stood the camp of the Sendarian army, row upon orderly row of dun-colored tents. Barak swung his tiller over, and his sails flapped as the ship coasted into the cove with the Cherek fleet close behind.
‘Ho, Mandorallen!’ Barak bellowed as the anchor ropes sang and great iron anchors plunged down through crystal water toward the sandy bottom.
‘My Lord Barak,’ Mandorallen shouted his reply, ‘welcome to Arendia. Lord Brendig hath devised a means to speed thy disembarking.’ He pointed to where a hundred or so Sendarian soldiers were busily poling a series of large rafts into position, lashing them together to form a long floating wharf extending out into the waters of the cove.
Barak laughed. ‘Trust a Sendar to come up with something practical.’
‘Can we go ashore now?’ King Rhodar asked plaintively as he emerged from the cabin. The king was not a good sailor, and his broad, round face had a pale greenish cast to it. He looked oddly comical in his mail shirt and helmet, and the ravages of seasickness on his face added little to his dignity. Despite his unwarlike exterior, however, the other kings had already begun to defer to his wisdom. Beneath his vast rotundity, Rhodar concealed a genius for tactics and a grasp of overall strategy that made the others turn to him almost automatically and accept his unspoken leadership.
A small fishing boat that had been pressed into service as a ferry drew alongside Barak’s ship, almost before the anchors had settled, and the kings and their generals and advisers were transferred to the beach in less than half an hour.
‘I think I’m hungry,’ Rhodar announced the moment he stepped onto solid ground.
Anheg laughed. ‘I think you were born hungry.’ The king wore a mail shirt and had a broad swordbelt about his waist. His coarse features seemed less out of place somehow, now that he was armed.
‘I haven’t been able to eat for two days, Anheg.’ Rhodar groaned. ‘My poor stomach’s beginning to think I’ve abandoned it.’
‘Food hath been prepared, your Majesty,’ Mandorallen assured him. ‘Our Asturian brothers have provided goodly numbers of the king’s deer – doubtless obtained lawfully – though I chose not to investigate that too closely.’
Someone standing in the group behind Mandorallen laughed, and Ce’Nedra looked at the handsome young man with reddish-gold hair and the longbow slung over the shoulder of his green doublet. Ce’Nedra had not had much opportunity to become acquainted with Lelldorin of Wildantor while they had been at Riva. She knew him to be Garion’s closest friend, however, and she realized the importance of gaining his confidence. It should not be too hard, she decided as she looked at his open, almost innocent face. The gaze he returned was very direct, and one glance into those eyes told the princess that there was a vast sincerity and very little intelligence behind them.
‘We’ve heard from Belgarath,’ Barak advised Mandorallen and the young Asturian.
‘Where are they?’ Lelldorin demanded eagerly.
‘They were in Boktor,’ King Rhodar replied, his face still a trifle green from his bout of seasickness. ‘For reasons of her own, my wife let them pass through. I imagine they’re somewhere in Gar og Nadrak by now.’
Lelldorin’s eyes flashed. ‘Maybe if I hurry, I can catch up with them,’ he said eagerly, already starting to look around for his horse.
‘It’s fifteen hundred leagues, Lelldorin,’ Barak pointed out politely.
‘Oh—’ Lelldorin seemed a bit crestfallen. ‘I suppose you’re right. It would be a little difficult to catch them now, wouldn’t it?’
Barak nodded gravely.
And then the blond Mimbrate girl, Ariana, stepped forward, her heart in her eyes. ‘My Lord,’ she said to Lelldorin, and Ce’Nedra remembered with a start that the two were married – technically at least. ‘Thine absence hath given me great pain.’
Lelldorin’s eyes were immediately stricken. ‘My Ariana.’ He almost choked. ‘I swear that I’ll never leave you again.’ He took both her hands in his and gazed adoringly into her eyes. The gaze she returned was just as full of love and just as empty of thought. Ce’Nedra shuddered inwardly at the potential for disaster implicit in the look the two exchanged.
‘Does anyone care that I’m starving to death right here on the spot?’ Rhodar asked.
The banquet was laid on a long table set up beneath a gaily striped pavilion on the beach not far from the edge of the forest. The table quite literally groaned under its weight of roasted game, and there was enough to eat to satisfy even the enormous appetite of King Rhodar. When they had finished eating, they lingered at the table in conversation.
‘Thy son, Lord Hettar, hath advised us that the Algar clans are gathering at the Stronghold, your Majesty,’ Mandorallen reported to King Cho-Hag.
Cho-Hag nodded.
‘And we’ve had word from the Ulgo – Relg,’ Colonel Brendig added. ‘He’s gathered a small army of warriors from the caves. They’ll wait for us on the Algarian side of the mountains. He said you’d know the place.’
Barak grunted. ‘The Ulgos can be troublesome,’ he said. ‘They’re afraid of open places, and daylight hurts their eyes, but they can see in the dark like cats. That could be very useful at some point.’
‘Did Relg send any – personal messages?’ Taiba asked Brendig with a little catch in her voice.
Gravely, the Sendar took a folded parchment from inside his tunic and handed it to her. She took it with a rather helpless expression and opened it, turning it this way and that.
‘What’s the matter, Taiba?’ Adara asked quietly.
‘He knows I can’t read,’ Taiba protested, holding the note tightly pressed against her.
‘I’ll read it to you,’ Adara offered.
‘But maybe it’s – well – personal,’ Taiba objected.
‘I promise I won’t listen,’ Adara told her without the trace of a smile.
Ce’Nedra covered her own smile with her hand. Adara’s penetrating and absolutely straight-faced wit was one of the qualities that most endeared her to the
princess. Even as she smiled, however, Ce’Nedra could feel eyes on her, and she knew that she was being examined with great curiosity by the Arends – both Asturian and Mimbrate – who had joined them. Lelldorin in particular seemed unable to take his eyes from her. The handsome young man sat close beside the blond Mimbrate girl, Ariana, and stared openly at Ce’Nedra even while, unconsciously perhaps, he held Ariana’s hand. Ce’Nedra endured his scrutiny with a certain nervousness. To her surprise, she found that she wanted this rather foolish young man’s approval.
‘Tell me,’ she said directly to him, ‘what are the sentiments here in Asturia – concerning our campaign, I mean?’
Lelldorin’s eyes clouded. ‘Unenthusiastic for the most part, your Majesty,’ he replied. ‘I’m afraid there’s suspicion that this might all be some Mimbrate plot.’
‘That’s absurd,’ Ce’Nedra declared.
Lelldorin shrugged. ‘It’s the way my countrymen think. And those who don’t think it’s a plot are looking at the idea that all the Mimbrate knights might join a crusade against the East. That raises certain hopes in some quarters.’
Mandorallen sighed. ‘The same sentiments exist in some parts of Mimbre,’ he said. ‘We are a woefully divided kingdom, and old hatreds and suspicions die hard.’
Ce’Nedra felt a sudden wave of consternation. She had not counted on this. King Rhodar had made it plain that he absolutely had to have the Arends, and now the idiotic hatred and suspicion between Mimbre and Asturia seemed about to bring the entire plan crashing down around her ears. Helplessly she turned to Polgara.
The sorceress, however, seemed undisturbed by the news that the Arends were reluctant to join the campaign. ‘Tell me, Lelldorin,’ she said calmly, ‘could you gather some of your less suspicious friends in one place – some secure place where they won’t be afraid we might want to ambush them?’
‘What have you got in mind, Polgara?’ King Rhodar asked, his eyes puzzled.
‘Someone’s going to have to talk to them,’ Polgara replied. ‘Someone rather special, I think.’ She turned back to Lelldorin. ‘I don’t think we’ll want a large crowd – not at first, anyway. Forty or fifty ought to be enough – and no one too violently opposed to our cause.’
‘I’ll gather them at once, Lady Polgara,’ Lelldorin declared, impulsively leaping to his feet.
‘It’s rather late, Lelldorin,’ she pointed out, glancing at the sun hovering low over the horizon.
‘The sooner I start, the sooner I can gather them,’ Lelldorin said fervently. ‘If friendship and the ties of blood have any sway at all, I will not fail.’ He bowed deeply to Ce’Nedra. ‘Your Majesty,’ he said by way of farewell and ran to where his horse was tethered.
Ariana sighed as she looked after the departing young enthusiast.
‘Is he always like that?’ Ce’Nedra asked her curiously.
The Mimbrate girl nodded. ‘Always,’ she admitted. ‘Thought and deed are simultaneous with him. He hath no understanding of the meaning of the word reflection, I fear. It doth add to his charm, but it is sometimes disconcerting, I must admit.’
‘I can imagine,’ Ce’Nedra agreed.
Later, when the princess and Polgara were alone in their tent, Ce’Nedra turned a puzzled look upon Garion’s Aunt. ‘What are we going to do?’ she asked.
‘Not we, Ce’Nedra – you. You’re going to have to talk to them.’
‘I’m not very good at speaking in public, Lady Polgara,’ Ce’Nedra confessed, her mouth going dry. ‘Crowds frighten me, and I get all tongue-tied.’
‘You’ll get over it, dear,’ Polgara assured her. She looked at the princess with a slightly amused expression. ‘You’re the one who wanted to lead an army, remember? Did you really think that all you were going to have to do was put on your armor, jump into the saddle and shout “follow me” and then the whole world would fall in behind you?’
‘Well—’
‘You spent all that time studying history and missed the one thing all great leaders have had in common? You must have been very inattentive, Ce’Nedra.’
Ce’Nedra stared at her with slowly dawning horror.
‘It doesn’t take that much to raise an army, dear. You don’t have to be brilliant; you don’t have to be a warrior; your cause doesn’t even have to be great and noble. All you have to do is be eloquent.’
‘I can’t do that, Lady Polgara.’
‘You should have thought of that before, Ce’Nedra. It’s too late to go back now. Rhodar will command the army and see to it that all the details are taken care of, but you’re the one who’ll have to make them want to follow you.’
‘I wouldn’t have the faintest idea what to say to them,’ Ce’Nedra protested.
‘It’ll come to you, dear. You do believe in what we’re doing, don’t you?’
‘Of course, but—’
‘You decided to do this, Ce’Nedra. You decided it all by yourself. And as long as you’ve come this far, you might as well go all the way.’
‘Please, Lady Polgara,’ Ce’Nedra begged. ‘Speaking in public makes me sick at my stomach. I’ll throw up.’
‘That happens now and then,’ Polgara observed calmly. ‘Just try not to do it in front of everybody.’
Three days later, the princess, Polgara, and the Alorn Kings journeyed to the ruined city of Vo Astur deep in the silences of the Arendish forest. Ce’Nedra rode through the sunny woods in a state hovering on the verge of panic. In spite of all her arguments, Polgara had remained adamant. Tears had not budged her; even hysterics had failed. The princess was morbidly convinced that, even if she were to die, Polgara would prop her up in front of the waiting throng and make her go through the agony of addressing them. Feeling absolutely helpless, she rode to meet her fate.
Like Vo Wacune, Vo Astur had been laid waste during the dark centuries of the Arendish civil war. Its tumbled stones were green with moss and they lay in the shade of vast trees that seemed to mourn the honor, pride, and sorrow of Asturia. Lelldorin was waiting, and with him were perhaps fifty richly dressed young noblemen, their eyes filled with curiosity faintly tinged with suspicion.
‘It’s as many as I could bring together in a short time, Lady Polgara,’ Lelldorin apologized after they had dismounted. ‘There are others in the region, but they’re convinced that our campaign is some kind of Mimbrate treachery.’
‘These will do nicely, Lelldorin,’ Polgara replied. ‘They’ll spread the word about what happens here.’ She looked around at the mossy, sun-dappled ruins. ‘I think that spot over there will be fine.’ She pointed at a broken bit of one of the walls. ‘Come with me, Ce’Nedra.’
The princess, dressed in her armor, hung her helmet and shield on the saddle of the white horse King Cho-Hag had brought for her from Algaria and led the patient animal as she tremblingly followed the sorceress.
‘We want them to be able to see you as well as hear you,’ Polgara instructed, ‘so climb up on that piece of wall and speak from there. The spot where you’ll be standing is in the shade now, but the sun’s moving around so that it will be fully on you as you finish your speech. I think that will be a nice touch.’
Ce’Nedra quailed as she saw how far the sun had to go. ‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ she said in a quivering little voice.
‘Maybe later, Ce’Nedra. You don’t have time just now.’ Polgara turned to Lelldorin. ‘I think you can introduce her Majesty now,’ she told him.
Lelldorin stepped up onto the wall and held up his hand for silence. ‘Countrymen,’ he announced in a loud voice, ‘last Erastide an event took place which shook our world to its foundations. For a thousand years and more we have awaited that moment. My countrymen, the Rivan King has returned!’
The throng stirred at his announcement, and an excited buzz rippled through it.
Lelldorin, always extravagant, warmed to his subject. He told them of the flaming sword that had announced Garion’s true identity and of the oaths of fealty sworn to Belgarion of Riva by
the Alorn Kings. Ce’Nedra, almost fainting with nervousness, scarcely heard him. She tried to run over her speech in her mind, but it all kept getting jumbled. Then, in near panic, she heard him say, ‘Countrymen, I present to you her Imperial Highness, Princess Ce’Nedra – the Rivan Queen.’ And all eyes turned expectantly to her.
Trembling in every limb, she mounted the broken wall and looked at the faces before her. All her preparations, all the rehearsed phrases, evaporated from her mind, and she stood, white-faced and shaking, without the faintest idea of how to begin. The silence was dreadful.
As chance had it, one of the young Asturians in the very front had tasted perhaps more wine that morning than was good for him. ‘I think her Majesty has forgotten her speech,’ he snickered loudly to one of his companions.
Ce’Nedra’s reaction was instantaneous. ‘And I think the gentleman has forgotten his manners,’ she flared, not even stopping to think. Incivility infuriated her.
‘I don’t think I’m going to listen to this,’ the tipsy young man declared in a tone filled with exaggerated boredom. ‘It’s just a waste of time. I’m not a Rivan and neither are any of the rest of you. What could a foreign queen possibly say that would be of any interest to Asturian patriots?’ And he started to turn away.
‘Is the patriotic Asturian gentleman so wine-soaked that he’s forgotten that there’s more to the world than this forest?’ Ce’Nedra retorted hotly. ‘Or perhaps he’s so unschooled that he doesn’t know what’s happening out there.’ She leveled a threatening finger at him. ‘Hear me, patriot,’ she said in a ringing voice. ‘You may think that I’m just here to make some pretty little speech, but what I’ve come to say to you is the most important thing you’ll ever hear. You can listen, or you can turn your back and walk away – and a year from now when there is no Asturia and when your homes are smoking in ruins and the Grolims are herding your families to the altar of Torak with its fire and its bloody knives, you can look back on this day and curse yourself for not listening.’
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