As I poled the boat closer, one of the fen lings we'd noticed swam on ahead, climbed up on the muddy bank of that little island, and loped like an otter up to the door of the cottage, chittering urgently.
Then the door opened, and a woman stood there looking gravely out at us through the drizzling rain.
"Welcome to the house of Vordai," she said to my daughter and me, but there wasn't much welcome in her tone of voice.
"I'm a little surprised to see anyone living in a place like this," I called to her.
"There are reasons," she replied.
"You might as well come inside--at least until the rain lets up."
I've had more gracious invitations in my time, but something seemed to come together in my head, and it told me that I was supposed to accept this one, no matter how ungracious it was.
I poled our boat up to the island, and Pol and I stepped out on the shore.
"So you're Vordai," Polgara said to the woman at the cottage door.
"And you would be Polgara," the woman replied.
"I seem to be missing something here," I told them.
"We know each other by reputation, father," Pol told me.
"Vordai's the one they call the Witch of the Fens. She's an outcast, and this is the only place in all of Drasnia that's safe for her."
"Probably because the firewood here is too wet to make burning people at the stake practical," the owner of the cottage added with a certain bitterness.
"Come in out of the rain, both of you." The Witch of the Fens was a very old woman, but there were still traces of what must have been a luminous beauty in her face--marred, I'll admit, by the bitter twist to her lips. Life hadn't been good to Vordai the witch.
No one who's spent any time in Drasnia hasn't heard of the Witch of the Fens, but I'd always assumed that the stories I'd heard were no more than fairy tales, and most of them probably were. She was most definitely not a hag, for one thing, and I'm fairly sure that she didn't go out of her way to lure unwary travelers into quicksand bogs, for another. Certain events in her past had made her absolutely indifferent to other humans.
The interior of her cottage was scrupulously neat. The ceiling was low and heavily beamed, and the wooden floor had been scrubbed until it was white. There was a pot hanging in her fireplace; there were wildflowers in a vase on her table, and curtains at the window.
Vordai wore a plain brown dress, and she limped slightly. She looked worn and tired.
"So this is the famous Belgarath," she said, taking our wet cloaks and hanging them on pegs near her fire.
"Disappointing, isn't he?" Pol said.
"No," Vordai replied, "not really. He's about what I'd have expected."
She gestured toward her table.
"Seat yourselves. I think there's enough in the pot for us all."
"You knew that we were coming, didn't you, Vordai?" Pol suggested.
"Naturally. I am a witch, after all."
A fen ling came in through the open door and stood up on its short hind legs. It made that peculiar chittering sound that fen lings all make.
"Yes," Vordai said to the little creature,
"I know."
"It's true, then," Pol said cryptically, eyeing the fen ling
"Many unusual things are true, Polgara," Vordai replied.
"You shouldn't really have tampered with them, you know."
"I didn't hurt them, and I've found that tampering with humans can be very dangerous. All in all, I much prefer the company of fen lings to that of my fellow man."
"They're cleaner, if nothing else," Pol agreed.
"That's because they bathe more often. The rain should let up soon, and you and your father will be able to continue your journey. In the meantime, I'll offer breakfast. That's about as far as I'd care to stretch my hospitality."
There were a lot of things going on that I didn't completely understand.
Evidently Polgara's studies had taken her into an examination of witchcraft, an area I'd neglected, and there were things passing back and forth between Pol and the Witch of the Fens that were incomprehensible to me. The one thing that I did perceive, however, was the fact that this lonely old woman had been treated very badly at some time in the past.
All right, Garion, don't beat it into the ground. Yes, as a matter of fact, I did feel sorry for Vordai--almost as sorry as I had felt for Illessa. I'm not a monster, after all. Why do you think I did what I did when you and Silk and I passed through the fens on our way to Cthol Mishrak? It certainly wasn't because I couldn't think of any alternatives.
As Vordai had suggested it might, the sky cleared along about noon, and Pol and I put on our now-dry cloaks and went back to our boat.
Vordai didn't even bother to see us off.
I poled the boat around another bend in that twisting channel we had been following, and as soon as we were out of sight of that lonely cottage there in the middle of that vast swamp, Pol's eyes filled with tears. I didn't really think it would have been appropriate for me to ask her why. When the occasion demands it, Pol can be absolutely ruthless, but she's not inhuman.
We came out of the fens near Aldurford and continued on foot along the eastern border of Sendaria until we reached the rutted track that led to Annath. It was mid-afternoon when we crossed the frontier, and Geran was waiting for us near the stone quarry on the outskirts of town when we finally arrived.
"Thank the Gods!" he said fervently.
"I was afraid you wouldn't make it back in time for the wedding!"
"What wedding?" Pol asked sharply "Mine," Geran replied.
"I'm getting married next week."
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
The wedding of Geran and Ildera took place in the late spring of the year 5348, and the entire village of Annath took the day off work to attend. Not to be outdone, Ildera's leather-clad clansmen also came across the border to participate.
There'd been a certain amount of squabbling about who was going to officiate at the ceremony. Since Ildera was an Algar, the Priest of Belar who attended to the spiritual needs of her clan assumed that he should be the one to conduct the ceremony, but the local Sendarian priest had objected strenuously. Polgara had stepped in at that point and smoothed things over--on the surface, at least--by suggesting the simple expedient of having two ceremonies instead of one. It didn't matter to me one way or the other, so I kept my nose out of it.
Some frictions had arisen between Geran's mother, Alara, and Ildera's mother, Olane. Ildera's father, Grettan, was a Clan-Chief, after all, and that's about as close as you're going to get to nobility in Algar society. Geran, on the other hand, was the son of an ordinary stonecutter, so Olane didn't make any secret of the fact that she felt that her daughter was marrying beneath her. That didn't set at all well with Alara, and Pol had been obliged to speak with her firmly to prevent her from blurting out some things about her son's heritage that others didn't need to know about. These periodic outbreaks of animosity between mothers have caused Pol more concern over the centuries than Chamdar himself, I think.
Country weddings are normally rather informal affairs. The bridegroom usually takes a bath, and most of the time he'll put on a clean shirt, but that's about as far as it goes. Olane's superior attitude in this situation, however, had moved Alara to tear the village of Annath apart in search of finery in which to dress her son. Quite by chance she discovered that the local cobbler had a dust-covered old purple doublet hanging in his attic, and she'd badgered the poor man unmercifully until he'd finally agreed to lend it to Geran. She'd washed it and almost forcibly compelled my grandson to put it on for the happy occasion.
It didn't fit him very well, though, and he kept reaching up under it trying to adjust it.
"Just leave it alone, Geran," his father told him while the three of us were waiting for the ceremony to begin.
"You'll rip it."
"I don't see why I have to wear this silly thing anyway, father," Geran complained.
"I've got
a perfectly good tunic."
"Your mother wants you to look a bit more dressed up in front of the Algars," Darral told him.
"Let's not go out of our way to disappoint her.
She's having a little problem right now, so let's humor her. Do it as a favor to your poor old father, Geran. You might be eating in your own kitchen from now on, but I still have to eat what your mother prepares.
Just wear the doublet, boy. You can endure it for a few hours, and it'll make my life a lot easier."
Geran grumbled a bit and then went back to that nervous pacing that all bridegrooms seem to find entertaining.
Since the weather was fine and there were a lot of guests in attendance, the wedding took place in a pleasant flower-strewn meadow on the outskirts of Annath. When the time came, Darral and I escorted our nervous bridegroom to the altar that'd been erected in the center of the field and where the two priests who were to officiate stood glowering at each other. I could see from their expressions that Pol's suggestion hadn't quite ironed out all the wrinkles.
The immediate families of the bride and groom were seated on benches just in front of the altar while the rest of the guests stood. The Sendars were all dressed in sober, serviceable brown, and they stood on one side. The Algars wore black horsehide and they stood on the other.
There were some hard looks being exchanged, I noticed. The hostility between Olane and Alara had obviously polarized the wedding guests into two opposing camps.
Most of the residents of Annath were stone-cutters by trade, so there weren't any competent musicians among the Sendarian contingent; and Algars are so unmusical that most of them couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. Pol had considered this and had wisely decided to forgo the traditional bridal march. There was enough trouble in the wind already.
Some chance remark by a budding music critic might well have set off the fights even before the ceremony.
Ildera was escorted to the alter by her father, Grettan, whose expression indicated that he was devoutly wishing that this day would end. The bride, dressed all in white and with a garland of spring flowers encircling her pale, blonde head, was radiant. Brides always are--or had you noticed that? Brides are radiant, and bridegrooms are nervous. Does that suggest to you who really runs the world?
Polgara--dressed in blue, naturally--came immediately behind Ildera and Grettan. Though this was supposed to be a happy event, Polgara's face was stern. There was an enormous potential for violence in the air, and Pol wanted everybody to understand that she'd brook no nonsense here.
The double ceremony seemed to go on for hours. I'm fairly sure that Geran felt it did, at any rate. The Algar priest invoked the blessing of Belar at some length, and the Sendarian priest responded by invoking the blessing of each of the other six Gods in turn. I tried not to show any visible signs of amusement when he got to Torak. I was almost positive that even if he'd been awake, Torak wouldn't have responded, since this particular wedding and its ultimate outcome was most definitely not the sort of thing to fill the One-eyed God with rejoicing and goodwill. The Sendars are broadly ecumenical, however, so they habitually include all seven Gods in their religious observances.
At any rate, the ceremony was finally completed, and the bride and groom exchanged a chaste kiss. Then came the wedding banquet, which Pol herself had prepared, and there were many toasts to the bride and groom. Along about sunset, the happy couple was escorted to the front door of the house Geran had built for them by everyone still sober enough to walk.
Then, as a soft and luminous evening settled over Annath, the fights got under way.
All in all, it was a fairly successful wedding.
I spent the night in Darral's house, and the next morning, Pol woke me up just as the sun was rising.
"What was all the shouting and noise last night?" she asked me.
"The wedding guests were celebrating."
"Really? It didn't sound exactly like a celebration to me."
"Weddings are emotional events, Pol, and all sorts of emotions were floating around last evening."
"It sounded like a general brawl, father."
"No wedding's complete without a few fights. They make the occasion memorable."
"Were there many fatalities?"
"None that I know of. That windy Priest of Belar won't be giving any long sermons for a while, though--at least not until his broken jaw heals."
"No cloud's without its silver lining, I suppose. What are your plans?"
"I think I'll go back to the Vale. This wedding's been a kind of EVENT, and it might have shaken a few more things out of the Mrin.
Besides, I'd better get away from Annath. Chamdar's in Tolnedra right now, but I'm sure he's got Grolims out scouting around, and I don't want to attract attention to this place."
"Wise decision. Give my best to the twins."
"I'll do that."
And so I got up and dressed. I ate a rather hasty breakfast and rambled down to the other end of the single street of the village of Annath to pay my respects to the bride and groom. Geran had that somewhat startled look on his face that new husbands always seem to have, and Ildera spent a lot of time blushing, as new wives almost always do. I took that to be a good sign. Then I left Annath and went on back to the Vale.
I didn't really do much when I got home. Something very important was about to happen, and my anticipation made it a little hard for me to concentrate. Despite their best efforts, the twins had been unable to dig anything else significant out of the Mrin. Garion's friend, like the rest of us, seemed to be just biding his time.
Sometimes it seems that I've spent most of my life biding my time.
It was just after Erastide the following winter when Beldin came home. I don't really like to travel in the wintertime myself, but Beldin has always ignored the seasons--one of the results of his peculiar childhood, I'd imagine. Just to pass the time, I'd been rereading an ancient Melcene epic that recounted the probably mythic adventures of one of their national heroes, the half-wit who'd blundered out to sea in a small boat and had discovered the Melcene Islands off the east coast of Mallorea.
"Belgarath!" my distorted brother bellowed up to me from down below.
"Open your stupid door!"
I went to the head of the stairs.
"Open!" I told the flat boulder that kept most of the weather out of the vestibule of my tower. It rolled smoothly off to one side, and Beldin came in.
"Why do you keep that silly thing closed?" he demanded, stamping the snow off his feet.
"Habit, I suppose," I replied.
"Come on up,"
He clumped up the stairs.
"Aren't you ever going to clean this place?" he asked, looking around at clutter I've grown so accustomed to that I didn't even notice it any more.
"I'll get to it--one of these days. What finally persuaded you to come down off the top of that ridge in southern Cthol Murgos?"
"An earthquake, actually. Did something significant happen last spring?"
"Oh, Geran and Ildera got married."
"If the twins are right, that's probably the most significant thing to happen since Vo Mimbre. That explains the earthquake, I guess."
"Did it wake up Torak?"
"Not as far as I could tell. He didn't blow out the side of his cave, anyway. How was the wedding?"
"Not bad. The ceremony itself was tedious, but the fights afterward were fairly exciting."
"Sorry I missed it, then," he said with that short, ugly laugh of his.
"Is Ildera pregnant yet?"
"Not that I've heard."
"What's taking them so long?"
"The Necessity, I'd imagine. The birth of the Godslayer's going to be one of those EVENTS, and time's rather crucial in those. Ildera won't get pregnant until the Necessity decides that it's the proper moment. Has Zedar ever come back to that cave?"
"Not yet. He's probably still wandering around. Have the twins found out what he's looking for?"
"No. At
least they haven't said so to me."
"Are you sure that Geran's going to be the father of the one we've been waiting for?"
"The twins seem to think so. It's going to happen in this century, anyway."
"Well, it's about time!"
"Patience was never one of your strong points, brother mine. What took you so long to get here from Cthol Murgos?"
"I went out and had a look around. There's trouble in Mallorea."
"Oh?"
"Zakath's been crowned emperor, and that terrified Taur Urgas for some reason, so he decided to take steps."
"Why's Taur Urgas so afraid of Zakath?"
"Taur Urgas is crazy, Belgarath, and crazy people don't need reasons for the things they do--or for the way they feel. Zakath's a very ambitious young man, though, and Taur Urgas has agents in Mallorea keeping an eye on him. Mallorea's a big place, but the notion of being Overking of All of Angarak seems to appeal to Zakath for some reason, and word of that's been filtering back to Rak Goska. I guess it's making Taur Urgas very nervous. Mallorea's at least twice the size of Cthol Murgos, and it's got about five times as many people. If Zakath decides that he wants to rule the Angarak world, there wouldn't be very much Taur Urgas could do to prevent it."
"If we're lucky, we might see a repetition of what happened in the Desert of Araga just before Vo Mimbre."
"I wouldn't get my hopes up, Belgarath. Torak's going to wake up before too much longer, and Old Burnt-face is at least as crazy as Taur Urgas is, but he does have a long memory. He's not going to permit Taur Urgas and Zakath to repeat what Ctuchik and Urvon did to disrupt his plans last time."
"You said that Taur Urgas was taking steps. What did he do?"
"I think I told you that Zakath went to Melcena to study at the university. He was very impressed with Melcena. When you get right down to it, Mal Zeth's not much more than an army camp, but Melcena's very civilized and sophisticated. Zakath was the crown prince of Mallorea, so he was customarily invited into the best homes in town. He was introduced to a high-ranking Melcena girl of his own age, and she absolutely took his breath away." He sighed.
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