And then as if her anger with this one rude young man had suddenly burst a dam within her, Ce’Nedra began to speak. She spoke to them directly, not with the studied phrases she had rehearsed, but with words that came from her heart. The longer she spoke, the more impassioned she became. She pleaded; she cajoled – and finally she commanded. She would never remember exactly what she said, but she would never forget how she felt as she said it. All the passion and fire that had filled the stormy outbursts and tantrums of her girlhood came into full play. She spoke fervently with no thought of herself, but rather with an all-consuming belief in what she said. In the end she won them over.
As the sun fell full upon her, her armor gleamed and her hair seemed to leap into flame. ‘Belgarion, King of Riva and Overlord of the West, calls you to war!’ she declared to them. ‘I am Ce’Nedra, his queen, and I stand before you as a living banner. Who among you will answer Belgarion’s call and follow me?’
It was the young man who had laughed at her whose sword leaped first into his hand. Raising it in salute, he shouted, ‘I will follow!’ As if his declaration were a signal, half a hundred swords flashed in the sunlight as they were raised in salute and pledge, and half a hundred voices echoed his shout. ‘I will follow!’
With a broad sweep of her arm, Ce’Nedra drew her own sword and lifted it. ‘Follow, then!’ she sang to them. ‘We ride to meet the fell hordes of Angarak. Let the world tremble at our coming!’ With three quick steps, she reached her horse and literally threw herself into the saddle. She wheeled her prancing mount and galloped from the ruins, her sword aloft and her flaming hair streaming. The Asturians as one man rushed to their horses to follow.
As she plunged into the forest, the princess glanced back once at the brave, foolish young men galloping behind her, their faces exalted. She had won, but how many of these unthinking Asturians would she lead back when the war was done? How many would die in the wastes of the East? Her eyes suddenly filled with tears; but, dashing those tears away with one hand, the Rivan Queen galloped on, leading the Asturians back to join her army.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The Alorn Kings praised Ce’Nedra extravagantly, and hard-bitten warriors looked at her with open admiration. She lapped up their adulation and purred like a happy kitten. The only thing that kept her triumph from being complete was Polgara’s strange silence. Ce’Nedra was a little hurt by that. The speech had not been perfect, perhaps, but it had won Lelldorin’s friends completely, and surely success made up for any minor flaws.
Then, when Polgara sent for her that evening, Ce’Nedra thought she understood. The sorceress wished to congratulate her in private. Humming happily to herself, the princess went along the beach to Polgara’s tent with the sound of waves on the white sand in her ears.
Polgara sat at her dressing table, alone except for the sleepy child, Errand. The candlelight played softly over her deep blue robe and the perfection of her features as she brushed her long dark hair. ‘Come in, Ce’Nedra,’ she said. ‘Sit down. We have a great deal to discuss.’
‘Were you surprised, Lady Polgara?’ The princess could no longer contain herself. ‘You were, weren’t you? I even surprised myself.’
Polgara looked at her gravely. ‘You mustn’t allow yourself to become so excited, Ce’Nedra. You have to learn to conserve your strength and not squander it by dashing about in hysterical self-congratulation.’
Ce’Nedra stared at her. ‘Don’t you think I did well today?’ she asked, hurt to the quick.
‘It was a very nice speech, Ce’Nedra,’ Polgara told her in a way that took all the fun out of it.
A strange thought occurred to the princess then. ‘You knew, didn’t you?’ she blurted. ‘You knew all along.’
A faint flicker of amusement touched Polgara’s lips. ‘You always seem to forget that I have certain advantages, dear,’ she replied, ‘and one of those is that I have a general idea of how things are going to turn out.’
‘How could you possibly—’
‘Certain events don’t just happen, Ce’Nedra. Some things have been implicit in this world since the moment it was made. What happened today was one of those things.’ She reached over and picked up an age-darkened scroll from the table. ‘Would you like to hear what the Prophecy says about you?’
Ce’Nedra felt a sudden chill.
Polgara ran her eyes down the crackling parchment. ‘Here it is,’ she said, lifting the scroll into the candlelight. ‘“And the voice of the Bride of Light shall be heard in the kingdoms of the world,”’ she read, ‘“and her words shall be as a fire in dry grass, that the multitudes shall rise up to go forth under the blaze of her banner.”’
‘That doesn’t mean anything at all, Lady Polgara,’ Ce’Nedra objected. ‘It’s absolute gibberish.’
‘Does it become any clearer when you find out that Garion is the Child of Light?’
‘What is that?’ Ce’Nedra demanded, staring at the parchment. ‘Where did you get it?’
‘It’s the Mrin Codex, dear. My father copied it for me from the original. It’s a bit obscure because the Mrin prophet was so hopelessly insane that he couldn’t speak coherently. King Dras Bull-neck finally had to keep him chained to a post like a dog.’
‘King Dras? Lady Polgara, that was over three thousand years ago!’
‘About that long, yes,’ Polgara agreed.
Ce’Nedra began to tremble. ‘That’s impossible!’ she blurted.
Polgara smiled. ‘Sometimes, Ce’Nedra, you sound exactly like Garion. I wonder why young people are so fond of that word.’
‘But, Lady Polgara, if it hadn’t been for that young man who was so insulting, I might not have said anything at all.’ The princess bit her lip. She had not meant to confess that.
‘That’s probably why he was so insulting, then. It’s quite possible that insulting you at that particular moment was the only reason he was born in the first place. The Prophecy leaves nothing to chance. Do you think you might need him to help you get started next time? I can arrange to have him get drunk again if you do.’
‘Next time?’
‘Of course. Did you think that one speech to a very small audience was going to be the end of it? Really, Ce’Nedra, you have to learn to pay more attention to what’s going on. You’re going to have to speak in public at least once a day for the next several months.’
The princess stared at her in horror. ‘I can’t!’ she wailed.
‘Yes, you can, Ce’Nedra. Your voice will be heard in the land, and your words shall be as a fire in dry grass, and the multitudes of the West shall rise up to follow your banner. Down through all the centuries, I’ve never known the Mrin Codex to be wrong – not once. The important thing at the moment is for you to get plenty of rest and to eat regularly. I’ll prepare your meals myself.’ She looked rather critically at the tiny girl. ‘It would help if you were a bit more robust, but I guess we’ll have to make do with what we have. Go get your things, Ce’Nedra. From now on, you’ll be staying with me. I think I’m going to want to keep an eye on you.’
In the weeks that followed, they moved down through the moist, green Arendish forest, and word of their coming spread throughout Asturia. Ce’Nedra was dimly aware that Polgara was carefully controlling the size and composition of the audiences to be addressed. Poor Lelldorin was seldom out of his saddle as he and a carefully selected group of his friends ranged ahead of the advancing army to prepare each gathering.
Ce’Nedra, once she had finally accepted her duty, had assumed that speaking in public would grow easier with practice. Unfortunately, she was wrong. Panic still gripped her before each speech, and quite frequently she was physically sick. Although Polgara assured her that her speeches were getting better, Ce’Nedra complained that they were not getting easier. The drain on her physical and emotional reserves became more and more evident. Like most girls her age, Ce’Nedra could and often did talk endlessly, but her orations were not random talk. They required an enormous contr
ol and a tremendous expenditure of emotional energy, and no one could help her.
As the crowds grew larger, however, Polgara did provide some aid in a purely technical matter. ‘Just speak in a normal tone of voice, Ce’Nedra,’ she instructed. ‘Don’t exhaust yourself by trying to shout. I’ll see to it that everybody can hear you.’ Aside from that, however, the princess was on her own, and the strain became more and more visible. She rode listlessly at the head of her growing army, seeming sometimes almost to be in a trance.
Her friends watched her and worried.
‘I’m not sure how much longer she can keep up this pace,’ King Fulrach confided to King Rhodar as they rode directly behind the drooping little queen toward the ruins of Vo Wacune, where she was to address yet another gathering. ‘I think we tend sometimes to forget how small and delicate she is.’
‘Maybe we’d better consult with Polgara,’ King Rhodar agreed. ‘I think the child needs a week’s rest.’
Ce’Nedra, however, knew that she could not stop. There was a momentum to this, a kind of accelerating rhythm that could not be broken. At first, word of her coming had spread slowly, but now it ran ahead of them, and she knew they must run faster and faster to keep up with it. There was a crucial point at which the curiosity about her must be satisfied or the whole thing would collapse and she’d have to begin all over again.
The crowd at Vo Wacune was the largest she had yet addressed. Half-convinced already, they needed only a single spark to ignite them. Once again sick with unreasoning panic, the Rivan Queen gathered her strength and rose to address them and to set them aflame with her call to war.
When it was over and the young nobles had been gathered into the growing ranks of the army, Ce’Nedra sought a few moments of solitude on the outskirts of the camp to compose herself. This had become a kind of necessary ritual for her. Sometimes she was sick after a speech and sometimes she wept. Sometimes she merely wandered listlessly, not even seeing the trees about her. At Polgara’s instruction, Durnik always accompanied her, and Ce’Nedra found the company of this solid, practical man strangely comforting.
They had walked some distance from the ruins. The afternoon was bright and sunny, and birds sang among the trees. Pensively, Ce’Nedra walked, letting the peace of the forest quiet the agitated turmoil within her.
‘It’s all very well for noblemen, Detton,’ she heard someone say somewhere on the other side of a thicket, ‘but what does it have to do with us?’
‘You’re probably right, Lammer,’ a second voice agreed with a regretful sigh. ‘It was very stirring, though, wasn’t it?’
‘The only thing that ought to stir a serf is the sight of something to eat,’ the first man declared bitterly. ‘The little girl can talk all she wants about duty, but my only duty is to my stomach.’ He stopped abruptly. ‘Are the leaves of that plant over there fit to eat?’ he asked.
‘I think they’re poisonous, Lammer,’ Detton replied.
‘But you’re not sure? I’d hate to pass up something I could eat if there was any chance that it wouldn’t kill me.’
Ce’Nedra listened to the two serfs with growing horror. Could anybody be reduced to that level? Impulsively, she stepped around the thicket to confront them. Durnik, as always, stayed close by her side.
The two serfs were dressed in mud-spattered rags. They were both men of middle years, and there was no evidence on their faces that either of them had ever known a happy day. The leaner of the two was closely examining a thick-leafed weed, but the other saw Ce’Nedra approaching and started with obvious fright. ‘Lammer.’ He gasped. ‘It’s her – the one who spoke today.’
Lammer straightened, his gaunt face going pale beneath the dirt that smudged it. ‘Your Ladyship,’ he said, grotesquely trying to bow. ‘We were just on our way back to our villages. We didn’t know this part of the forest was yours. We didn’t take anything.’ He held out his empty hands as if to prove his words.
‘How long has it been since you’ve had anything to eat?’ she demanded of him.
‘I ate some grass this morning, your Ladyship,’ Lammer replied, ‘and I had a couple of turnips yesterday. They were a little wormy, but not too bad.’
Ce’Nedra’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. ‘Who’s done this to you?’ she asked him.
Lammer looked a little confused at her question. Finally he shrugged slightly. ‘The world, I guess, your Ladyship. A certain part of what we raise goes to our lord, and a certain part to his lord. Then there’s the part that has to go to the king and the part that has to go to the royal governor. And we’re still paying for some wars my lord had a few years ago. After all of that’s been paid, there isn’t very much left for us.’
A horrible thought struck her. ‘I’m gathering an army for a campaign in the East,’ she told them.
‘Yes, your Ladyship,’ the other serf, Detton, replied. ‘We heard your speech today.’
‘What will that do to you?’
Detton shrugged. ‘It will mean more taxes, your Ladyship – and some of our sons will be taken for soldiers if our lords decide to join you. Serfs don’t really make very good soldiers, but they can always carry baggage. And when the time comes to storm a castle, the nobility seem to want to have a lot of serfs around to help with the dying.’
‘Then you never feel any patriotism when you go to war?’
‘What could patriotism have to do with serfs, my Lady?’ Lammer asked her. ‘Until a month or so ago I didn’t even know the name of my country. None of it belongs to me. Why should I have any feelings about it?’
Ce’Nedra could not answer that question. Their lives were so bleak, so hopelessly empty, and her call to war meant only greater hardship and more suffering for them. ‘What about your families?’ she asked. ‘If Torak wins, the Grolims will come and slaughter your families on his altars.’
‘I have no family, my Lady,’ Lammer replied in a dead voice. ‘My son died several years ago. My lord was fighting a war somewhere, and when they attacked a castle, the people inside poured boiling pitch down on the serfs who were trying to raise a ladder. My wife starved herself to death after she heard about it. The Grolims can’t hurt either one of them now, and if they want to kill me, they’re welcome to.’
‘Isn’t there anything at all you’d be willing to fight for?’
‘Food, I suppose,’ Lammer said after a moment’s thought. ‘I’m very tired of being hungry.’
Ce’Nedra turned to the other serf. ‘What about you?’ she asked him.
‘I’d walk into fire for somebody who fed me,’ Detton replied fervently.
‘Come with me,’ Ce’Nedra commanded them, and she turned and led the way back to the camp and the large, bulky supply wagons that had transported the vast quantities of food from the storehouses of Sendaria. ‘I want these two men fed,’ she told a startled cook. ‘As much as they can eat.’ Durnik, however, his honest eyes brimming with compassion, had already reached into one of the wagons and taken out a large loaf of bread. He tore it in two and gave half to Lammer and half to Detton.
Lammer stared at the chunk of bread in his hands, trembling violently. ‘I’ll follow you, my Lady,’ he declared in a quavering voice. ‘I’ve eaten my shoes and lived on boiled grass and tree roots.’ His fists closed about the chunk of bread as if he were afraid someone might take it away from him. ‘I’ll follow you to the end of the world and back for this.’ And he began to eat, tearing at the bread with his teeth.
Ce’Nedra stared at him, and then she suddenly fled. By the time she reached her tent she was weeping hysterically. Adara and Taiba tried without success to comfort her, and finally they sent for Polgara.
When the sorceress arrived, she took one brief look and asked Taiba and Adara to leave her alone with the sobbing girl. ‘All right, Ce’Nedra,’ she said calmly, sitting on the bed and gathering the princess in her arms, ‘what’s this all about?’
‘I can’t do it any more, Lady Polgara,’ Ce’Nedra cried. ‘I just can’
t.’
‘It was your idea in the first place,’ Polgara reminded her.
‘I was wrong.’ Ce’Nedra sobbed. ‘Wrong, wrong! I should have stayed in Riva.’
‘No,’ Polgara disagreed. ‘You’ve done something that none of the rest of us could have. You’ve guaranteed us the Arends. I’m not even sure Garion could have done that.’
‘But they’re all going to die!’ Ce’Nedra wailed.
‘Where did you get that idea?’
‘The Angaraks are going to outnumber us at least two to one. They’ll butcher my army.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘I – I listened,’ Ce’Nedra replied, fumbling with the amulet at her throat. ‘I heard what Rhodar, Anheg, and the others said when they heard about the southern Murgos.’
‘I see,’ Polgara said gravely.
‘We’re going to throw away our lives. Nothing can save us. And just now I even found a way to bring the serfs into it. Their lives are so miserable that they’ll follow me just for the chance to eat regularly. And I’ll do it, Lady Polgara. If I think I might need them, I’ll deliberately take them from their homes and lead them to their deaths. I can’t help myself.’
Polgara took a glass from a nearby table and emptied a small glass vial into it. ‘The war isn’t over yet, Ce’Nedra. It hasn’t even begun.’ She swirled the dark amber liquid around in the bottom of the glass. ‘I’ve seen hopeless wars won before. If you give in to despair before you begin, you’ll have no chance at all. Rhodar’s a very clever tactician, you know, and the men in your army are very brave. We won’t commit to any battle until we absolutely have to, and if Garion can reach Torak in time – and if he wins – the Angaraks will fall apart, and we won’t have to fight them at all. Here.’ She held out the glass. ‘Drink this.’
Numbly, Ce’Nedra took the glass and drank. The amber liquid was bitter, and it left a strange, fiery aftertaste in her mouth. ‘It all depends on Garion, then,’ she said.
‘It always has depended on him, dear,’ Polgara told her.
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