The Malloreon: Book 02 - King of the Murgos

by David Eddings

  ‘And then Jaharb picked you up,’ Urgit guessed. ‘Poor old Sadi, no matter where you go, you always seem to get mixed up in politics—even when you don’t want to.’

  ‘It’s a curse,’ Sadi told him mournfully. ‘It’s been following me for all my life.’

  They rounded a corner and approached a vast, sprawling building surrounded by a high wall. Its domes and towers rose in barbaric, torchlit profusion, and, unlike the rest of Rak Urga, it was garishly painted in a half-dozen conflicting colors. ‘Behold the Drojim Palace,’ King Urgit said extravagantly to Sadi, ‘the hereditary home of the House of Urga.’

  ‘A most unusual structure, your Majesty,’ Sadi murmured.

  ‘That’s a diplomatic way to put it.’ Urgit looked critically at his palace. ‘It’s gaudy, ugly, and in terribly bad taste. It does, however, suit my personality almost perfectly.’ He turned to one of his guards. ‘Be a good fellow and ride on ahead,’ he instructed. ‘Tell the gatekeepers that the High King approaches and that if I have to wait while they open the gate for me, I’ll have their ears cut off.’

  ‘At once, your Majesty.’

  Urgit grinned at Sadi. ‘One of my few amusements,’ he explained. ‘The only people I’m allowed to bully are servants and common soldiers, and all Murgos have a deep-seated need to bully somebody.’

  They rode on through the hastily opened gate and dismounted in a ruddily torchlit courtyard. Urgit looked around at the garishly painted walls of the house. ‘Ghastly, isn’t it?’ He shuddered. ‘Let’s go inside.’

  There was a large door at the top of a flight of stone stairs, and Urgit led them inside and down a long, vaulted corridor. He stopped before a pair of polished double doors guarded by two scar-faced soldiers. ‘Well?’ he said to them.

  ‘Yes, your Majesty?’ one replied.

  ‘Do you suppose that I could prevail upon you to open the door?’ Urgit asked him. ‘Or would you prefer an immediate transfer to the war zone?’

  ‘At once, your Majesty,’ the soldier replied, quickly yanking the door open.

  ‘Excellently done, my dear fellow. Just try not to jerk it off its hinges next time.’ The king strolled through the door and into the room beyond. ‘My throne room,’ he said grandiosely. ‘The product of whole generations of diseased imaginations.’

  The room was larger than the Hall of the Rivan King in Garion’s Citadel. The ceiling was a maze of intersecting vaults, all covered with sheets of the beaten red gold from the mines of Cthol Murgos. The walls and columns were ablaze with inset jewels, and the chairs lined up at the sides of the room were inlaid with more Angarak gold. At the far end of the room stood a bejeweled throne, backed by blood-red drapes. Seated in a simple chair beside that throne was a silver-haired lady, calmly embroidering.

  ‘Hideous, isn’t it?’ Urgit said. ‘The Urgas have been pillaging the treasury at Rak Goska for centuries to decorate the Drojim Palace, but would you believe that the roof still leaks?’ He sauntered to the far end of the room and stopped before the black-gowned lady, who was still busy at her needlework. ‘Mother,’ he greeted her with a slightly mocking bow, ‘you’re up late, aren’t you?’

  ‘I don’t need as much sleep as I did when I was younger, Urgit.’ She set her sewing aside. ‘Besides,’ she added, ‘we usually talk over the day’s events before you retire for the night.’

  ‘It’s the high point of my day, mother,’ he replied with a faint smile tugging at his lips.

  She returned his smile with good-humored affection. She was, Garion saw as that smile lighted her face, a remarkably attractive woman. Despite the silvery hair and the few lines at the corners of her eyes, her face still bore the signs of what had once been an extraordinary beauty. A faint movement caught his eye, and he saw Silk shrinking behind Toth’s broad back and drawing up the hood of his green robe to conceal his face.

  ‘Who are your friends, Urgit?’ the silver-haired lady asked her son.

  ‘Ah, forgive me, mother. My manners must be slipping. Allow me to present Sadi, Chief Eunuch to Queen Salmissra of the land of the snake-people.’

  ‘Formerly Chief Eunuch, I’m afraid,’ Sadi corrected. He bowed deeply. ‘I’m honored to meet the Queen Mother of the Kingdom of the Murgos.’

  ‘Oh,’ Urgit said, mounting the dais and sprawling on the throne with one leg cocked up over one of its jeweled arms, ‘I keep forgetting the amenities. Sadi, this is my royal mother, the Lady Tamazin, jewel of the House of Hagga and grieving widow of my royal father, Taur Urgas the Deranged—may blessings rain down on the hand that sent him to the bosom of Torak.’

  ‘Can’t you ever be serious about anything, Urgit?’ his mother chided him.

  ‘But you do grieve, don’t you mother? I know that in your heart you miss all those wonderful moments you spent with my father—watching him gnaw on the furniture, listening to his insane gibbering, and enjoying all those playful blows to the stomach and kicks to the head with which he demonstrated his affection for his wives.’

  ‘That will do, Urgit,’ she said firmly.

  ‘Yes, mother.’

  ‘Welcome to the Drojim, Sadi,’ Lady Tamazin greeted the eunuch formally. She looked inquiringly at the others.

  ‘My servants, Lady Tamazin,’ Sadi said quickly. ‘Alorns for the most part.’

  ‘A most unusual turn of circumstances,’ she murmured. ‘The age-old war between Murgo and Alorn has denied me the opportunity to meet very many of that race.’ She looked directly then at Polgara. ‘Surely this lady is no servant,’ she said sceptically.

  ‘A temporary arrangement, my Lady Tamazin,’ Polgara replied with a profoundly graceful curtsy. ‘I needed some time in another place to avoid some unpleasantness at home.’

  The Queen Mother smiled. ‘I do understand,’ she said. ‘Men play at politics, and women must pay the price for their folly.’ She turned back to her son. ‘And how did your interview with the Hierarch go?’ she asked him.

  ‘Not bad.’ He shrugged. ‘I groveled enough to keep him happy.’

  ‘That’s enough, Urgit.’ Her voice was sharp. ‘Agachak’s in a position to do you a great service, so show him the proper respect.’

  Urgit flinched slightly at her tone. ‘Yes, mother,’ he replied meekly. ‘Oh, I almost forgot,’ he went on. ‘The priestess Chabat had a bit of a setback.’

  The Queen Mother’s expression became one of disgust. ‘Her behavior is a public scandal,’ she declared. ‘I can’t understand why Agachak tolerates her.’

  ‘I think he finds her amusing, mother. Grolims have a peculiar sense of humor. Anyway, she had this friend—a very close friend—who had a bit of an accident. She’ll need to find another playmate before she can scandalize the good people of Rak Urga any more.’

  ‘Why do you persist in being so frivolous, Urgit?’

  ‘Why don’t we just call it a symptom of my incipient madness?’

  ‘You’re not going to go mad,’ she said firmly.

  ‘Of course I’m going to go mad, mother. I’m rather looking forward to it.’

  ‘You’re impossible to talk with when you’re like this,’ she chided him. ‘Are you going to stay up much longer?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Sadi and I have a few things to discuss, but they can wait until tomorrow.’

  The Queen Mother turned back to Polgara. ‘My quarters are most spacious, Lady,’ she said. ‘Would you and your attendants care to share them with me during your stay here in the Drojim?’

  ‘We would be honored, my Lady,’ Polgara said.

  ‘Very well, then,’ Urgit’s mother said. ‘Prala,’ she called.

  The girl who stepped from the shadows behind the throne was slender and perhaps sixteen years old. She wore a black gown and had long, lustrous black hair. The dark, angular eyes that made most Murgo men look so alien were in her case very large and delicately almond-shaped, giving her features an exotic beauty. Her expression, however, was filled with a resolve uncommon in one so young. She stepped to Lady Ta
mazin’s chair and helped her to her feet.

  Urgit’s face darkened, and his eyes grew flinty as he watched his mother limp down from the dais, leaning heavily on the girl’s shoulder. ‘A little gift from the inestimable Taur Urgas,’ he said to Sadi. ‘One evening when he was feeling playful, he knocked my mother down a flight of stairs and broke her hip. She’s had that limp ever since.’

  ‘I don’t even notice it any more, Urgit.’

  ‘It’s amazing how all of our minor aches and pains got better right after King Cho-Hag’s saber slid through my father’s guts.’ Urgit paused. ‘I wonder if it’s too late to send Cho-Hag some small token of appreciation,’ he added.

  ‘Oh,’ the Queen Mother said to Polgara, ‘this is Lady Prala, a princess of the House of Cthan.’

  ‘Princess,’ Polgara greeted the slender girl supporting Lady Tamazin.

  ‘My Lady,’ Prala responded in a clear voice.

  Lady Tamazin, leaning on Prala’s shoulder, slowly limped from the room with Polgara, Ce’Nedra, and Velvet close behind her.

  ‘That girl makes me very nervous for some reason,’ Urgit muttered to Sadi. ‘My mother dotes on her, but she has something else on her mind. She never takes her eyes off me.’ He shook his head as if to dismiss an unwelcome thought. ‘You and your people have had a very busy day, Sadi. We can talk further tomorrow after we’ve both had a good night’s sleep.’ He reached out and tugged at a silken bellpull, and there was the heavy note of a large gong somewhere outside the throne room. Urgit rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. ‘Why does it always have to be those great bongs and clangs?’ he complained. ‘Someday, I’d like to tug on a bellpull and hear a tiny little tinkle.’

  The door at the far end of the throne room opened, and a heavy-shouldered Murgo of late middle age entered. His hair was gray, and his scarred face was heavily lined. There was no hint that a smile had ever touched that grim face. ‘Your Majesty rang?’ he said in a rasping voice.

  ‘Yes, Oskatat,’ Urgit replied in an oddly respectful tone. ‘Do you suppose that you could escort my good friend Sadi and his servants to suitable quarters?’ He turned back to Sadi. ‘Oskatat is Lord High Seneschal here,’ he said. ‘He served my father in the same capacity at Rak Goska.’ There was no hint of his usual mockery as he spoke. ‘My mother and I were not popular in my father’s house, and Oskatat was the closest thing to a friend either of us had there.’

  ‘My Lord,’ Sadi said to the big, gray-haired man with a deep bow.

  The seneschal nodded a curt response, then returned his bleak gaze to the king. ‘Has my Lady Tamazin retired for the night?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, Oskatat.’

  ‘Then you should also seek your bed. The hour is late.’

  ‘I was just on my way,’ Urgit answered, getting quickly to his feet. Then he stopped. ‘Oskatat,’ he said plaintively, ‘I’m not a sickly little boy any more. I don’t really need to spend twelve hours in bed every night the way I used to.’

  ‘The burdens of the crown are many,’ the seneschal said shortly. ‘You need your rest.’ He turned back to Sadi. ‘Follow me,’ he said, starting toward the door.

  ‘Until tomorrow then, Sadi,’ Urgit said. ‘Sleep well.’

  ‘My thanks, your Majesty.’

  The rooms to which the bleak-faced Oskatat took them were as garish as the rest of the Drojim Palace. The walls were painted an unwholesome mustard yellow and hung with splotchy tapestries. The furnishings were carved from rare, priceless woods, and the blue Mallorean carpet was as deep as the wool on the back of a sheep. Once he had opened the door for them, Oskatat jerked his head in the briefest of nods, then turned and left them alone.

  ‘Charming fellow there,’ Sadi murmured.

  Garion had been looking curiously at Silk, who still had his face covered by his hood. ‘Why are you trying so hard to hide?’ he asked.

  The little man pulled back his hood with a rueful expression. ‘One of the disadvantages of being a world traveler is that one keeps running into old friends.’

  ‘I’m not sure I follow you.’

  ‘Do you remember that time when we were on our way to Rak Cthol and Taur Urgas caught me and stuck me in that pit?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And do you remember why he did that—and why he planned to peel off my skin inch by inch the next day?’

  ‘You said that you’d been in Rak Goska once and accidentally killed his eldest son.’

  ‘Right. You have an excellent memory, Garion. Well, as it happened, I’d been engaged in some negotiations with Taur Urgas himself before that unfortunate incident. I visited the palace in Rak Goska frequently and met the Lady Tamazin several times. She’s almost certain to remember me—particularly in view of the fact that she said that she knew my father.’

  ‘That could cause some problems,’ Belgarath said.

  ‘Not if I avoid her.’ Silk shrugged. ‘Murgo women seldom socialize with men—particularly with strangers—so I don’t imagine we’ll be bumping into each other very often in the next few days. Oskatat could be a different matter, though. I also met him while I was there.’

  ‘I think that, if it’s at all possible, you ought to stay here in our rooms,’ the old man suggested. ‘It might even keep you out of trouble for a change.’

  ‘Why, Belgarath,’ Silk said mildly, ‘what a thing to say.’

  ‘Has King Urgit always been like this?’ Durnik asked Sadi. ‘He seems awfully—well—humorous, I guess the word is. I didn’t think that Murgos even knew how to smile.’

  ‘He’s a very complex fellow,’ Sadi replied.

  ‘Have you known him long?’

  ‘He frequently visited Sthiss Tor when he was younger—usually on missions for his father. I think he jumped at any excuse to get out of Rak Goska. He and Salmissra got on rather well together. Of course, that was before Lady Polgara changed her into a snake.’ The eunuch rubbed his hand absently over his scalp. ‘He’s not a very strong king,’ he noted. ‘His childhood in the palace of Taur Urgas made him timid, and he backs away from any sort of confrontation. He’s a survivor, though. He’s spent his entire life just trying to stay alive, and that tends to make a man very alert.’

  ‘You’ll be talking with him again tomorrow,’ Belgarath said. ‘See if you can get him to give you some definite information about this ship they plan to give us. I want to get to the Isle of Verkat before the onset of winter, and various people in our party have been doing things that might attract attention, if we have to stay here too long.’ He gave Eriond a reproving look.

  ‘It wasn’t really my fault, Belgarath,’ the young man protested mildly. ‘I didn’t like the fires in the Sanctum, that’s all.’

  ‘Try to keep a grip on your prejudices, Eriond,’ the old man said in a faintly sarcastic voice. ‘Let’s not get sidetracked on these moral crusades just now.’

  ‘I’ll try, Belgarath.’

  ‘I’d appreciate it.’

  The next morning, the seneschal, Oskatat, summoned them all to another audience with the Murgo King in a brightly candlelit chamber that was smaller and less garish than the vast throne room. Garion noticed that Silk remained carefully hooded until the gray-haired functionary had left the room. Urgit and Sadi spoke quietly together while the rest of them sat unobtrusively in the chairs lining the wall.

  ‘It was probably the first hint that anyone really had that my father’s brains were starting to come off their hinges,’ the Murgo King was saying. He was dressed again in his purple doublet and hose and was sprawled in a chair with his feet thrust out in front of him. ‘He was suddenly seized with the wild ambition to make himself Overking of Angarak. Personally, I think that Ctuchik planted the notion in his head as a means of irritating Urvon. Anyway,’ he continued, twisting the heavy gold ring on one of his fingers, ‘it took the combined efforts of all his generals to convince my manic father that Zakath’s army was about five times the size of ours and that Zakath could squash him like a bug any time he chose.
Once that notion had finally seeped into his head, he went absolutely wild.’

  ‘Oh?’ Sadi said.

  Urgit grinned. ‘Threw himself on the floor and started chewing on the carpet. After he calmed down, he decided to try subversion instead. He inundated Mallorea with Murgo agents—and Murgos are probably the clumsiest spies in the world. To keep it short—Zakath was about nineteen at the time and desperately in love with a Melcene girl. Her family was deeply in debt, so my father’s agents bought up all their obligations and started putting pressure on them. The brilliant plan that emerged from my father’s diseased wits was that the girl should encourage the love-struck young Zakath, marry him, and then slip a knife between the imperial ribs at her earliest opportunity. One of the Melcenes these highly intelligent Murgo spies had bought to help them in their scheme ran to Zakath with the whole sordid story, and the girl and her entire family were immediately put to death.’

  ‘What a tragic story,’ Sadi murmured.

  ‘You haven’t heard the best part yet. Several of the Murgo spies were persuaded to reveal the whole story—Malloreans tend to be very good persuaders—and Zakath discovered to his horror that the girl had known absolutely nothing about my father’s plan. He locked himself in his room in the palace at Mal Zeth for an entire month. When he went in, he was a pleasant, open young man who showed much promise of becoming one of Mallorea’s greatest emperors. Whe he came out, he was the cold-blooded monster we all know and love. He rounded up every Murgo in Mallorea—including a fair number of my father’s relatives—and he used to amuse himself by sending bits and pieces of them in ornate containers to Rak Goska, accompanied by highly insulting notes.’

  ‘But didn’t the two of them join forces at the battle of Thull Mardu?’

  Urgit laughed. ‘That may be the popular perception, Sadi, but in point of fact, the Imperial Princess Ce’Nedra’s army was just unlucky enough to get between two opposing Angarak monarchs. They didn’t care a thing about her or about that dungheap people call Mishrak ac Thull. All they were trying to do was kill each other. Then my addled father made the mistake of challenging King Cho-Hag of Algaria to single combat, and Cho-Hag gave him a very pointed lesson in swordsmanship.’ He looked thoughtfully into the fire. ‘I still think I ought to send Cho-Hag some token of appreciation,’ he mused.